The Curious Mind of Thomas Nuttall Posted August 22, 2022 “To converse, as it were, with nature, to admire the wisdom and beauty of creation, has ever been, and I hope ever will be, to me a favourite pursuit.” Thomas Nuttall (1821) On August 12, 1810, Thomas Nuttall stepped ashore on Mackinac Island, becoming the first trained botanist to explore northern Michigan. A native of Yorkshire, England, Nuttall arrived in America in 1808, intent on learning as much as possible about living things in the New World, whether they had leaves, petals, scales, fur, or feathers. Like many of his European counterparts, Nuttall was interested in Native American culture, North American geology, and the continent’s winding waterways. His wide-ranging travels led him from gardens of America’s leading scientists, through the Great Lakes, along the continent’s greatest rivers, over mountains, and all the way to California, Hawaii, and South America.Thomas Nuttall (1786–1859) This extraordinary explorer kept journals of his adventures (unfortunately omitting his journey from Detroit to Green Bay), and published several books which detailed his scientific discoveries. At Detroit, he recorded the start of his journey to Mackinac, writing, “On July 29th, I left Detroit for Michilimakinak in a birch bark canoe accompanied by the surveyor of the territory.” The surveyor was Aaron Greeley, headed to measure private land claims at the straits, including those of John Campbell at Mill Creek, and Michael Dousman on Mackinac Island. Nuttall botanized at the Straits for several days before hitching a ride with a group of traders bound for John Jacob Astor’s ill-fated fur trading post, Astoria, located in modern-day Oregon. In his book Astoria, author Washington Irving described the enthusiastic 25-year-old botanist as he appeared in March 1811, while his group ascended the Missouri river. Depicted just seven months after leaving Mackinac Island, one can easily imagine Nuttall shared similar experiences with Aaron Greeley along the Lake Huron coastline. “Mr. Nuttall seems to have been exclusively devoted to his scientific pursuits. He was a zealous botanist, and all his enthusiasm was awakened at beholding a new world… Whenever the boats landed at meal times, or for any temporary purpose, he would spring on shore and set out on a hunt for new specimens. Every plant or flower of a rare or unknown species was eagerly seized as a prize. Delighted with the treasures spreading themselves out before him, he went groping and stumbling along among a wilderness of sweets, forgetful of every thing but his immediate pursuit, and had often to be sought after when the boats were about to resume their course.” Listed as #13 in his lengthy list of “brambles,” Thomas Nuttall described the thimbleberry, growing “shrubby and unarmed… on the island of Michilimackinak, lake Huron.” Nuttall retreated to England to avoid the War of 1812, then returned to Philadelphia in 1815. After three years collecting more specimens and organizing his collections, he published, The Genera of North American Plants, and a Catalogue of the Species, to the Year 1817. This important two-volume work included 60 species of plants from the Great Lakes region, about a third of which were new to science. Those from the Straits of Mackinac included thimbleberry, dwarf lake iris, twinflower, beach pea, and birdseye primrose. In March 1823, Thomas Nuttall accepted a position as Curator of the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the course of his residence, he was encouraged to write about birds, which he had studied since his arrival in America. The result was A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada. Published in two volumes, The Land Birds (1832) and The Water Birds (1834) were affordable and popular, featuring simple woodcut illustrations, which the author lamented were “not sufficiently numerous, in consequence of their cost.” In 1832, Ralph Waldo Emerson recommended the work to a friend, writing, “there is a beautiful book on American birds by Mr. Nuttall that every one who lives in the country ought to read.”Woodcut from Nuttall’s Ornithology (1834). Nuttall saw Wood Ducks near Detroit before his trip to Mackinac Island in 1810. The intrepid botanist endured numerous collecting trips over the next decade, often at severe cost to his personal health and safety, as he crisscrossed North America and beyond. In 1841, he sailed back to England to live on an estate, “Nutgrove,” inherited from his uncle. There, he spent the last 17 years of his life before succumbing to illness on September 10, 1859, at the age of 73. The complete accomplishments of Thomas Nuttall greatly eclipse his brief visit to the Straits of Mackinac in 1810. More than 200 years later, perhaps the most lasting legacy of this humble, hard-working botanist is his self-described “fervid curiosity” and intense love of nature which continues to inspire curious wanderers in the 21st century.
The Untold Story of the Mill Creek Quarry Posted May 20, 2022 Originally established by Robert Campbell about 1790, the sawmill, gristmill and farming activities at Mill Creek remained active for about half a century. Known as Private Claim #334, the site was bought by wealthy Mackinac Island merchant Michael Dousman in 1819. Sawmill operations ran until about 1839, and after Dousman died in 1854, his heirs sold the property for just $400. When the township was resurveyed in 1856, updated maps showed no trace of buildings on Campbell’s original 640-acre claim. Local lore states that William Myers removed gristmill stones from the abandoned site about 1860 to use at his mills near Cheboygan.Lime Kiln ruins on Mackinac Island, 1917 About 1864, a new resource was tapped for the first time along the rocky bluffs of Mill Creek – limestone. People have quarried and processed limestone at the Straits of Mackinac since the construction of Fort Mackinac from 1779-1781. For many years, the old lime kiln on Mackinac Island was a tourist destination, and Lime Kiln Trail can still be enjoyed by visitors today. By the summer of 1827, a kiln was also in operation near the northwest shore of nearby Bois Blanc Island. Limestone in Michigan was formed millions of years ago, being composed of sediments at the bottom of ancient salty seas, filled with billions of fragments of corals and shelled creatures. Limestone is high in calcium carbonate, and when burned in a kiln, crushed, or pulverized, is valuable for making cement, concrete, mortar, and many other uses. Larger pieces of quarried stone were used to make roads, the stone walls of Fort Mackinac, its blockhouses, and officer’s stone quarters. Lime was first processed at Mill Creek about 1864 by a man with the last name of Young who stayed for a couple of years. The next record of limestone quarrying at the site can be found in a Cheboygan Democrat article, dated April 12, 1883. It reads, “Parties have begun to work preparatory to burning lime extensively at Mill Creek. They say that have orders for forty bushels per day during the season.” This record corresponds closely with the Michigan Central Railroad running tracks through the site in November 1881, making it easy to ship finished products to market. The first and only large quarrying operation at Mill Creek was operated by Willis G. Durrell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1914-1923. Before organizing his company, Mr. Durrell began taking summer vacations in the vicinity of Burt Lake, Michigan. While there he learned of the Mill Creek site, which a local paper noted, “most of the county people know as a vast deposit of very pure lime rock, and which efforts have been made in the past to get capital to develop.” As his Cheboygan Limestone Products Company was being organized in 1913, an article in the Chicago publication Rock Products, detailed Mr. Durrell’s plans and described the site, noting, “It is known as the ‘Old Dausman tract.’” Mr. Durrell, assisted by his son Lawrence, was busy throughout 1914, hiring workers, purchasing and installing equipment, constructing kilns, and adding a railroad spur off the main line for easy hauling of finished products. Products included three grades of stone for road construction and “agricultural limestone” which was sold throughout lower Michigan.Rock bluffs at the Durrell/Mill Creek Quarry c.1915The November 13, 1914 issue of the Cheboygan Democrat described the growing operation as follows:Willis G. Durrell, 1856-1942“Mr. Durrell, president of the Cheboygan Limestone Products Co., located near Mackinaw City was in the city Monday and he informs the Democrat that they are installing at the plant new machinery for pulverizing limestone rock for agricultural purposes and as soon as it is in shape they will turn out two car loads of this product a day. It is taking the place of land plaster and vast quantities of it is new being used by farmers. It is especially needed in southern Michigan where they have vast tracts of sour lands and pulverized limestone is being used to bring the land value back… The pulverized limestone will be sold at the quarry at $1.25 per ton, which is reasonable, and already many farmers of this county are preparing to make a test of it on their lands. The company is also engaged in crushing rock for roads and other purposes. They have fifteen men at work now and will gradually increase their force.” To maximize production, Durrell purchased a Jeffrey Swing Hammer Pulverizer for use at the quarry. Installed in late 1914, this new technology crushed limestone to a fine powder, eliminating the need for burning lime in kilns. It also produced material for other uses such as top-dressing roads, fluxing stone for glass factories and steel plants, and concrete for cement walks. The Durrell, or Mill Creek Quarry, boasted an exceptionally pure product, being 98.71 percent calcium carbonate. Their advertisements in southern Michigan newspapers asked readers, “Why use low grade when pure stuff costs no more?” To verify its composition, 40 samples of Mill Creek limestone were taken in 1915 and examined by scientists at nine laboratories, including the Michigan Geological Survey, University of Michigan, and Emery Institute of Cincinnati.Advertisements from various Michigan newspapers, 1914-1915 Eclipsed by larger operations at Afton (near Indian River) and Rogers City, the Mill Creek Quarry ended operations after the 1923 season. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the abandoned quarry pits were featured stops for students to examine limestone strata during field excursions of the Michigan Academy of Science Arts and Letters and the Michigan Basin Geological Society. During this time, the greater portion of Private Claim #334 reverted to State ownership and was incorporated into the Hardwood State Forest, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Natural Resources. Located near today’s grassy picnic area, west of the mill pond, the old quarry pits were filled in before Historic Mill Creek opened in 1984. Archaeologists speculate that footings of the original sawmill may have been obliterated by quarry operations along the stream bed. The fact that other historic remains, including footings of the dam itself, were not destroyed is a fortunate footnote of history. Today, only a pile of rocky rubble remains along the Mill Pond Trail as evidence of a once thriving operation which remains an important part of the Mill Creek story.
Early Lumbering at the Straits of Mackinac Posted February 11, 2022 Robert Campbell constructed a water-powered sawmill at Mill Creek about 1790, being the first of its kind in northern Michigan. Prior to the mill, trees were turned into lumber entirely with hand tools for more than 100 years at the Straits of Mackinac.Felling a tree with an axeTraite de l’art du Charpentier (1804) British troops constructed Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island from 1779-1781. Some buildings were dismantled at Fort Michilimackinac on the mainland and transported to the island for reconstruction. Without a sawmill nearby, new construction relied on chopping down trees, sawing them into logs, squaring them with axes, and hauling them to a sawpit where boards were produced. A glimpse of this work can be found in the Log Book of His Majesty’s Armed Sloop – Welcome, kept by Captain Alexander Harrow. Beginning in 1779, the Welcome sailed between the lower peninsula mainland and Mackinac Island, hauling buildings, supplies, and timber. On November 19, 1780, Captain Harrow wrote, “This morning blowing hard. Discharged our timber and hauled it up along side of the sawpit. This day snowing very hard… All this day snowing very hard.” The Welcome remained tied to a wharf on Mackinac Island throughout the winter of 1780-1781. The crew lived on board and worked each day hauling firewood, sawing planks, repairing the ship, and constructing a blockhouse at the fort.Hewing a log (1804) Turning a tree into lumber by hand is demonstrated each summer at Historic Mill Creek. After a log is fixed in place, one rounded side is hewed with a felling axe, then flattened with a broad axe. After these actions are repeated on each side, a round log is transformed into square timber. If desired, timbers could be flattened further with an adze to produce a finer surface.Flattening with a broad axe (1804) To fashion planks and boards, a squared timber is either placed over an open sawpit dug into the ground or hoisted overhead on large sawhorses. To cut boards, a pit sawyer climbs into the hole to pull down on a large saw, while a top sawyer balances above, pulling up on the blade and guiding a straight cut. Despite the unforgiving rocky terrain, several saw pits were dug on Mackinac Island during the construction of Fort Mackinac.Sawyers using a pitsawEnglish Book of Trades (1824) Captain Harrow noted his men were at work sawing boards on Mackinac Island more than 50 days from November 1780 – April 1781. He specifically mentioned saw pits many times, including,“… put a log on the pit to saw” (Nov. 29)“…hauling logs to the saw pit” (Dec. 27)“…hauling plank from the saw pit to the blockhouse” (Dec. 29)“…making a saw pit in the woods and getting an oak log on it” (Jan. 16)“…digging and making a new saw pit” (Feb. 20) Warm spring weather finally released the icebound sloop and the Welcome set sail on April 24, 1781. One of the crew’s tasks was making trips to “The Pinery,” a camp located about 15 miles north of Saint Ignace, near the mouth of the Pine River. There, a team of men cut logs then rafted them together on Lake Huron. These rafts were towed behind the Welcome to Mackinac Island, where they were broken up, individual logs hauled to sawpits, and sawn into boards.Water-powered sawmill reconstruction at Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park A decade after Fort Mackinac was constructed, sawing boards by hand could not keep pace with local demand for lumber. About 1790, Robert Campbell was granted a 640-acre land claim at Mill Creek, the only stream at the Straits powerful enough to operate a water-powered sawmill. Later owned by Michael Dousman, the sawmill at Mill Creek operated for nearly 50 years before closing in 1839. When the sawmill at Mill Creek was abandoned, large trees throughout the Straits region had been harvested for nearly 150 years. As young trees grew in their place, they too were eventually cut in subsequent periods of logging. In 1860, William Johnston wrote, “the trees now seen [on Mackinac Island] are the second and third growth.” In a History of Northern Michigan and its People (1912), author Perry Powers detailed extreme clearcutting from the 1860s–1900s in an aptly named section, “Melting of the Pine Forests.” After pine was cut, hardwood harvest followed, with old growth maples and oaks falling under axe and saw. Commercial logging operations took place at Mill Creek through 1923, with the Cadillac Veneer Co. running a portable sawmill to process hardwood logs, pulpwood, cedar, and stove wood.Reminders of early logging remain in the forest at Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park Careful observers can still find centuries’ old stumps scattered through many Michigan forests. While methods and management techniques have changed, lumbering remains an important industry in the state, which is about 54% forested today. After a century of responsible management, replanting, and growth, the Great Lakes State now boasts more than 20 million forested acres which provide homes for wildlife, opportunities for outdoor recreation, and renewable natural resources. You’re invited to explore early Michigan lumbering at Historic Mill Creek. Experience the thrill of a water-powered sawmill, make sawdust fly with a pitsaw, and explore a vibrant Michigan forest along three miles of woodland trails. For information, visit www.mackinacparks.com.
Autumn Berries of the North Woods Posted September 24, 2021 “On the 20th of September [1835] the snow fell one inch, with quite a severe frost. The bushes were still loaded with whortleberries.” – Benjamin O. Williams In late September 1835, Lieutenant Benjamin Poole was completing an arduous months-long survey for the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. His crew’s mission was to survey a proposed military road from Saginaw to Mackinac, with a terminus at Dousman’s Saw Mill (now Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park). Lowbush Blueberry Poole’s survey crew was guided by brothers Benjamin O. and Alpheus F. Williams on a route “through a trackless wilderness nearly two hundred miles in extent, about which nothing was known, but that it presented obstacles of an unusually formidable character.” In short, the crew encountered long stretches of cedar swamps, shaking bogs, and alder thickets, ran out of provisions, and nearly starved. In his official report, written at Detroit on September 30, 1835, Poole admitted, “The assistants were frequently employed for days, and even weeks, in creeping through thickets and windfalls, where walking was quite out of the question.” Much of what isn’t included in the official report was later recalled by B.O. Williams in a vivid account read before the Michigan Pioneer Society in February 1878. He wrote, “The density of some portions of the spruce, fir, and cedar lands exceeded any tropical forest I have ever seen…” His account follows their crew as they trek through the wilderness in moccasined feet, enduring swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, suffering illness and injury, and were saved from near starvation after stumbling upon “whortleberries [bilberries or blueberries] in great abundance.” Thankfully, shaking bogs and cedar swamps are excellent places to find many species of wild berries. Yet too much of a good thing caused a different digestive dilemma, as Williams noted, “eating whortleberries had affected some of the men unfavorably.” As flowering plants bear fruit in early autumn, many species of wild berries ripen, each containing seeds to perpetuate a new generation of plants. While some berries are edible by people, others are inedible or even toxic to humans. Instead, most are best enjoyed with a photograph and left to the birds, squirrels, and other creatures of the north woods as they prepare to migrate south or endure the long, cold months of winter. The berries that follow were all photographed along the trails at Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park. Common Chokecherry Bluebead Lily Western Poison Ivy Starry False Solomon’s Seal Hawthorn Staghorn Sumac Jack-in-the-Pulpit Riverbank Grape Wild Rose Common False Solomon’s Seal Canada Mayflower White Baneberry (Doll’s Eyes)
Agriculture at Mill Creek Posted July 10, 2020 Watching the sawmill operate is one of the highlights of a visit to Historic Mill Creek. Seeing the original grist mill stones reunited in the American Millwright’s House is the result of good historical detective work. However, milling was the not the only enterprise at Mill Creek. According to the original land claim by Robert Campbell’s heirs, the property was “commonly known by the name of Campbell’s farm.” Among the improvements listed on Private Claim 334 were a house, a grist and sawmill, at least 40 cultivated acres, a large orchard and valuable buildings. Michael Dousman purchased the property in 1819. He was a large landowner, with additional property on Mackinac and Bois Blanc islands. He held lucrative contracts to supply Fort Mackinac with beef and hay, which he supplied from these farms. The gristmill closed by 1839, and the sawmill was moved to Cheboygan in the mid-1840s.Historic Mill Creek Archaeology Map After Dousman’s death in 1854, Jacob A.T. Wendell of Mackinac Island bought the property. In 1867 Putman’s Magazine published a story about an unsuccessful trout fishing expedition to Mill Creek. It stated, “there had formerly been a cleared spot of land about the mill, but it was fast growing up again.” Also shortly after the Civil War, a man named Young, a tenant of Wendell, built a house at the foot of the Mill Creek bluff and engaged in the manufacture of lime. After two years he moved on to other pursuits. At that point Wendell arranged with Charles Bennett to move into the house and see that no one trespassed on the private claim. In 1916 Angeline Bennett, Charles’s widow, testified in an affidavit that they had “lived upon and occupied said property for upwards of fifty years.” One of their descendants visited Historic Mill Creek in 1993 and remembered a farm on the bluff and apple trees. The Wendell family sold the property to the Petoskey Mackinaw Lime Company in about 1902, but apparently the Bennetts continued living there until the house, which Angeline described as “at the foot of the bluff where the quarry is now located,” burned down in 1911. The Petoskey Mackinaw Lime Company mined limestone and clay for road building into the 1920s before letting the land tax revert to the State of Michigan.Barn Area at Mill Creek. Is there any evidence of this agricultural activity visible at Historic Mill Creek today? Old apple trees are still scattered among the reconstructed buildings near the creek. Faint traces of two structures are visible across the path from the sawpit at the foot of the hill. They are most visible in the spring before the foliage comes out and in late fall when everything has died back again. Mapping and limited archaeological testing was carried out in 1988. The first foundation is a large rectangle, seventy-one feet long by twenty feet wide, with twenty-foot door gaps in the long north and south walls. This would seem most likely to be a barn. Nineteenth- century artifacts, including red transfer-printed ceramic sherds and a metal plate from an instrument case dated 1873, were found here.Silo area. The second ruin is circular, and so has been interpreted as a silo. It is about thirteen feet in diameter. It did not contain as many artifacts, only some late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century bottles and tin cans. There was evidence for a thin wood floor about two feet below the ground surface. Larger scale excavation at both structures in the future may reveal more about this interesting facet of life at Mill Creek.
Mill Creek – What Happened Next? Posted December 13, 2018 The earliest known photograph of the Mill Creek site, taken in about 1915. The bridge carries the state highway across the stream and the lake would be to the back of the photographer. The “MC” markings are noting the location of the Michigan Central railroad. The bluff at left center is where today’s overlook is. Visitors to Historic Mill Creek learn about the Campbell and Dousman families and their employees operating the saw and grist mills and farm at the site. What happened next? (more…)
Campbell’s Will Helps Outline History at Mill Creek Posted August 6, 2015 Archaeological work at Historic Mill Creek began in 1972, allowing historians, naturalists, and visitors to understand what life was like at the site of Michigan’s first water-powered saw mill. While archaeological discoveries like structural remains, military items, and mechanical parts help uncover what daily life may have been like, documentary evidence shows the importance of the saw mill as both a family business and a valuable part of the Michilmackinac community. One such document is the will of Robert Campbell, original owner of the mill. (more…)
