How the Lumbering Era Affected the McHugh and Foegen Families
The characters involved in this story are as follows...... (Click on each name to see their pages.)
Story of Muskegon and its Lumbering Era
Muskegon, Michigan was the Lumber Queen during the years
1882-1892 approximately. It was a time when horses drew streetcars;
men rode high bicycles and carbon cylinders were used in electric
lights. Just 50 years after the first mill was built, the city of
Muskegon won the right to the title “Lumber Queen of the World.” In
1887, area mills made a record cut of 660,568,834 feet of lumber and
521,000,000 shingles! At least 5000 men were employed and goods
worth $6,000,000 were produced annually. Today, the price would be
greatly increased.
River men with calked boots and pike poles guided logs down the
river. Logs jammed at sharp turns and snags. Braking the jams was
hazardous.
Downtown Muskegon in 1850. Courtesy of the Muskegon County Museum.
The command log drivers down the rivers made it necessary to mark
each log so that a separation by ownership could be made later at
the sorting grounds.
Individual companies designed log-marking hammers and the marks were
recorded in each county the logs moved through.
The sorting grounds were the place where logs from the drive were
sorted and made into rafts according to ownership shown by the
marks. Then they were towed by tugboats hauling the log booms to a
mill.
In the winter, they would sprinkle the roads at night with water
obtained from a nearby spring or creek. This allowed their loaded
sleighs of lumber to slide over the trails. Sometimes they would be
stacked in banks along the river and then moved in the spring.
The camp cook was an important man. Usually, he had to cook and feed
at least 100 men! Early provisions consisted of salt pork and beef,
beans, bread, crackers, molasses, coffee, tea and dried apples. As
the years passed, food improved with more variety.
The Characters
Each person's name links to a page about them.