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This town has had some queer experiences with railways, irregular methods of financing and as irregular in service. The second one to come was a part of the present Pere Marquette system. It was a line from here to Muskegon and was called the Allegan and Muskegon. Its design was to get a share of the vast Muskegon lumber cut and it was successful in getting some of this but not so much as was hoped. Lumber was brought here and consigned to the Lake Shore. the line made a more direct route to Cleveland and eastward than was afforded by any other line. The Pere Marquette line from Chicago to Grand Rapids was at first known as Chicago and West Michigan. Allegan was headquarters for the Muskegon line with Col. Fred May in charge. This was in time absorbed into the Pere Marquette along with the Chicago and West Michgan line. Others were added until now the Pere Marquestte is a large system, extensive in Michigan and having eastern connections. There were many yearswhen it was in financial struggles and without so much business as was necessary to its success. there were some reorganizations before all this was accomplished. It gave Allegan excellent service to Chicago and even to Grand Rapids. Though its line was twice as long between Allegan and Grand Rapids the fare was the same. Allegan long had felt its handicap in having no railway line into its business section or nearer to it than a mile. So we entered into negotiations with the Pere Marquette and succeeded in getting a track to the business section and the mill district. For this we paid the company several thousand dollars. We raised this (bonds for such purpose could not be legally issued) by buying an eighty acre tract out on Dumont road, surveying it into lots and selling these these at $75 each, distribution among purchasers being secured by a drawing. Not all the tract was sold but enough was to provide the needed funds. For some time the Pere Marquette's business here was a large one but it has dwindled into freight business only; but even so it is a great advantage to the town. The line from Grand Rapids to Chicago still does a large business in all ways. Few people in Allegan can recall anything about construction by the G.'R. & I. railway of a short line from here to Montieth. Since cessation of the interurban line it has ceased wholly to exist; but for some time regular service was provided between Allegan and Kalamazoo with mail trains included. Then it went into destitude until it was purchased by the interurban and then was wholly extinguished. It was built under contract with Joseph Fisk of Allegan. So one of its stations was named Fisk, another Kellogg in recognition of the late John R. Kellogg, an intimate friend of Mr. Fisk. Its station here was "away up in the air" as we used to speak of the other stations -- a mile away from town. After some years this line was a part of a road from Allegan to Toledo. I rode on the first train between Allegan and Marshall. This also was a mail route with two passenger trains per day each wasy; but it never paid its way and was abandoned except from Marshall southwest. It is continued from Marshall to the Gun lake onion fields for sake of the large traffic a short time in that vegetable. The queerest railway scheme was born in the mind of a Mr. Faurot, a banker in an Ohio town. It was an ambitious idea to reach Lake Michigan, at either Muskegon or Saugatuck, as the latter town fondly hoped, with a connecting line of boats to Milwaukee or some other port. It was represented that Mr. Faurot had abundant means, but Allegan, by subscription, provided quite a sum of money for it which, however, never had to be paid. Mr. John H. Padgham was the road's Allegan attorney. We were constantly excited over rumors of immediate contrauction. Specially this was to begin "when Padgham gets back" from his frequent trips for sonsultation with Mr. Faurot. I remember seeing in the Montgomery road, close to the Pere Marquette station, a huge pile of rails, plates, bolts, etc., placed there for the new road, but after a short time they were removed. The scheme exploded and Mr Faurot went into bankruptcy. It operated, however, independent of Mr. Faurot, the line from Allegan eastward some distance, as the C. J. & M. Its employees had little respect for it and in derision called it the Clara, Jane & Martha. It is quite possible that the line would have proved profitable if built. This was the last of the several efforts to get more or better railway service for Allegan. One of the stations (a flag one) on the Pere Marquette was known as Gilchrist because two brothers of that name had a large sawmill there, long ago extinct. It was near Dunningville. Do you know how this hamlet got its name ? It was from a member of the lumber operations of a Mr. Dunning with a partner named Sawyer. Their mill was a few miles northeast from Dunningville (Sawyerville) and did quite a large business, using a railway with wooden rails for transportation of its lumber to the railway track. The firm's business was extinguished in the great fire of 1872 when Holland was wholly destroyed and much standing pine about Dunningville was ruined -- nothing left of it except hundreds of blackened stubs, and escape of the Dunning & Sawyer mill was narrow. Back in those days there was a bridge across Kalamazoo river near the John Mann place and a landing for steamers that carried (or towed) lumber down to Saugatuck and the railway at New Richmond. The bridge long ago disappeared. There was no local use for it. Allegan county's pine was the second lumber region in the state, that of Saginaw being the first and Muskegon following. There were sawmills all over the tract, little ones, and only two concerns had money left when lumber operations ceased. These were the late Horace D. Moore of Allegan and the firm of Stockbridge & Johnson of Saugatuck. When our pine was gone this latter firm removed to Wisconsin and Mr. Frank B. Stockbridge became a United States senator from Michigan. Mr. Stockbridge was one of my best friends. When I started the Gazette, he sent me $50 saying he "did not want any change back". Well, I had helped him much when he sought the Republican nomination for governeor and later in his senatorship campaign. At one time, like almost all the other lumberman, Mr. Stockbridge became bankrupt; but later he paid every obligation that stood against him -- a most unusual proceeding. |
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By Lynn Matt