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HISTORY OF ALPENA COUNTY BY WILLIAM BOULTON IN 1876
One of the mills was for Lockwood & Minor, and the other for Geo. N. Fletcher. The timber was got out and framed, but the mill of Lockwood & Minor was not put up until several years afterwards, while the timber for Mr. Fletcher's mill was burned in one of the fires that afflicted Alpena.
During the winter of 1858-59, the first lumbering commenced in Alpena, Messrs. Archibald & Murray having a contract to put in the river one million feet, more or less, of logs for Lockwood & Minor. The logs were taken from T. 31 N.. R. 6 E., and the contract price was about $2 per thousand feet. Men's wages were from $14 to $16 per month, they agreeing to stay until the drive was down. Mr. E. K. Potter's business was to scale and mark the logs at the landing, and he thus had the honor of scaling the first log, as well as that of measuring the first cargo of lumber that left Alpena, which was in the latter part of the summer of 1859. The honor of cutting the first log
belongs to Mr. Samuel Boggs, while that of drawing it is claimed by three different parties, —William Stevens. Albert Merrill, and W. Steples. Henry Doyle had a hand in sawing the first log. The schooner Meridian, Captain Flood, carried the first cargo of lumber from Alpena.
In the spring of 1859, Messrs. Smith & Chamberlain commenced the-erection of the first steam saw-mill in Alpena, and by the latter part of August, in the same year, the mill was in operation, and the business of sawing lumber first commenced. The mill of Smith & Chamberlain' stood on the site now occupied by Folkerts & Butterfield's saw-mill. The mill was burned down in the spring of 1864, and the present mill erected in its place during the same year.
Michigan
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