Building materials of great variety and in abundance are at hand. Lumber can be had for the mere cost of preparation, and the soil, at no distant point, is suitable for making bricks; while for immediate use, Milwaukee can furnish the articles of the best kind in any quantities. The shores of Lake Superior abound with exhaustless quantities of granite, sandstone and marble; the limestone and sand are on the spot.
Three fine harbors adjoin Mackinaw; the one on the east being the most spacious, and the best protected. The new United States charts show the depth of water sufficient for vessels of the largest size navigating the lakes. As many as thirty vessels have been at anchor in this harbor. The country in the rear of Mackinaw rises gradually until, at the distance of a mile or two, it rises into an elevation of high table land, from points of which there is a fine view of the straits and surrounding islands. A mountainous ridge extends up to within two miles of Mackinaw, covered with a dense forest of hard wood. The southern extremity of this range reaches to the head waters of the Grand and Saginaw rivers. From two to ten miles south of Mackinaw are several beautiful lakes, surrounded by a rich, warm soil of great fertility and covered with a heavy forest of hard wood, some of which has attained a gigantic growth. These lakes abound with fish of different varieties. Turtles have been taken from them, measuring from one and a half to two feet in diameter. Almost every kind of game can be found in the woods bordering upon these lakes, such as the black bear, raccoon, martin, fox, lynx, rabbit, ducks, partridges and pigeons.[(Back to Content)]
CHAPTER XI.
The entrepot of a vast commerce — Surface drained — Superiority of Mackinaw over Chicago as a commercial point — Exports and imports — Michigan the greatest lumber-growing region in the world — Interminable forests of the choicest pine — Facilities for market — Annual product of the pineries — Lumbering, mining and fishing interests — Independent of financial crises — Mackinaw, the centre of a great railroad system — Lines terminating at this point — North and South National Line — Canada grants — Growth of northwestern cities — Future growth and prosperity of Mackinaw — Chicago — Legislative provisions for opening roads in Michigan — The Forty Acre Homestead Bill — Its provisions.
The physical resources of this region are of such a nature and variety as to make Mackinaw city the entrepot of a vast commerce. This will appear, if we consider that it is the nearest point of that extensive district, including the entire north of the lakes inaccessible to Chicago. When all the lines of internal communication are completed, and the different points on the lakes settled down upon, then the real limits of Mackinaw will drain a geographical surface of three hundred thousand square miles; deducting the surface of the lakes from which, there will remain two hundred and eighty thousand square miles of country, with all the resources of agriculture and mining in the most extraordinary degree. It will be nearly three-fold that which can be drained by Chicago, and in point of territory, whether of quantity or quality, Mackinaw is vastly superior, as a commercial point. With the exception of a small portion of the mineral region, the agricultural advantages of Michigan, Upper Wisconsin, Minnesota, Canada West, and the Superior country, are at least equal, at the present time, to the district shipping at Chicago, while it is more extensive, and will have a large home market in a country affording diversity of employment. Nothing can be more obvious, than the superior advantages of Mackinaw, as a manufacturing point, over any other on the lake coast.
The value of exports and imports which flow through the Straits of Mackinaw and the Saut St. Mary was estimated a year or two since at over one hundred millions of dollars. But, who can estimate a commerce which every year increases in many fold? In 1856, there were sent through the St. Mary Canal 11,000 tons of raw iron, 1,040 tons of blooms, and 10,452,000 lbs. of copper; and the commercial value of what passed through the canal amounted to upward $5,000,000. But perhaps the most correct idea of the rapid increase of commerce in Lake Superior may be taken from the arrivals at Superior City for the last three years, taken from the Superior Chronicle of January, 1857.
In 1854 there were two steamboats and five sail vessels. In 1855 there were twenty-three steamers, and ten sail vessels; and in 1856 forty steamers and sixteen sail vessels.
We thus see that in three years the increase was seven-fold. It is scarcely possible to imagine the limits of northwestern commerce on the lake, when a few years shall have filled up with inhabitants the surrounding territories.
According to the testimony of Senator Hatch, made on the floor of Congress on the 25th of February, 1859, there were over one thousand six hundred vessels navigating the northwestern lakes, of which the aggregate burden was over four hundred thousand tons. They were manned by over thirteen thousand seamen, navigating over five thousand miles of lake and river coast, and transporting over six hundred millions of exports and imports, being greater than the exports and imports of the United States.
The State of Michigan is the greatest lumber-growing region in the world, not only on account of its interminable forests of the choicest pine, but in the remarkable facilities for getting it to market. With a lake coast, on the lower peninsula alone, of over one thousand miles—with numberless watercourses debouching at convenient distances into her vast inland seas—she enjoys advantages which mighty empires might envy. Her white-winged carriers are sent to almost every point of the compass with the product of her forests, which, wherever it may go, is the sign of improvement and progress, while by the large expenditures involved in the manufacture, and the employment of thousands of hardy laborers, the general prosperity is materially enhanced, and a market opened within her own borders for a considerable share of the surplus production of her own soil.