Tag Archives: port huron history

“Wooden Nickels” Centennial Celebration currency

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Here are scans of six flat wood celebration currencies we recently ran across, quaintly referred to as “wooden nickels.”  The first group is from Crosswell’s centennial celebration, 1947, and the others are from Port Huron’s 1949 event.  These were manufactured by the John B. Rogers Producing C., Fostoria, Ohio.

“One Wooden Nickel” from Crosswell’s July, 1947, centennial, front. PHAHPA scan.

“One Wooden Nickel,” “Crosswell’s 100 Years of Progress,” back. PHAHPA scan.

“Two Wooden Nickels” from Croswells Centennial Celebration, July 1947.   PHAHPA scan.

“Crosswell’s 100 Years of Progress.” Used like cash. PHAHPA scan.

“Five Wooden Nickels” from Crosswell’s Centennial Celebration, July 1947. PHAHPA scan.

“Crosswell’s 100 Years of Progress.” Same as cash. PHAHPA scan.

“One Wooden Nickel” from Port Huron’s Centennial Celebration, July 1949. PHAHPA scan.

“This Wooden Souvenir” is, to paraphrase, the same as cash in Port Huron during the celebration. PHAHPA scan.

“Two Wooden Nickels,” Port Huron centennial, July 1949, front. PHAHPA scan.

“Wooden Souvenir,” same as cash in Port Huron, back. PHAHPA scan.

“Five Wooden Nickels,” Port Huron centennial, July 1949, front. PHAHPA scan.

“Wooden Souvenir,” same as cash in Port Huron, back. PHAHPA scan.

1888 St. Clair County Histories: county, cities, towns

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The following histories are taken directly from L.A. Sherman & Co.s county and city directory of 1888.  PHAHPA is not attesting to the accuracy of the histories, but is providing them for reference.  While a typo or two might have gone unnoticed, the passages were typed as-is, archaic grammatical differences and all.  None of the images are from the historic directory.

COUNTY OF ST. CLAIR.  HISTORICAL SKETCH. [pages 9-12]

The Lower Peninsula of the state of Michigan, as it now exists, with the exception of some changes in its southern boundary, was detached from the territory of Indiana and given a separate territoria existence in 1805, William Hull being the first governor, with the seat of government at Detroit.  Up to the year 1818 the territory now comprised within St. Clair county formed the township of St. Clair, and was a part of the county of Wayne.  In that year the county of Macomb was organized, St. Clair constituting a portion  of it.

St. Clair county, including the territory now constituting Sanila county, was organized by proclamation of Gov. Cass, may 8, 1821, its area being about 1,500 square miles, and its population some 80 families, settled almost entirely along St. Clair river.  The county seat was located at St. Clair, where there were half a dozen houses at that time.  james Fulton and William Thorn agreed to build a court house, but failed to do so, and for several years court was held in Mr. Fulton’s house.  Mr. Fulton built a jail for the county in 1821, for which the contract price was $35, the hinges and bolts, furnished by Andrew Westbrook, costing $6.62 extra.

The location of the county seat was not satisfactory to the residents of either the northern or southern sections of the county, and a movement for its removal to Newport (now Marine City), began almost immediately.  Commissioners appointed for the purpose investigated the matter, and reported to the legislative council of the territory, january 19, 1825, in favor of the retention of the county seat at St. Clair.  Subscriptions amounting to $637.50 were made for the erection of buildings at Newport, if the county seat should be located there, but this movement also failed.  Previous to the action of the legislative council retaining the seat of justice at St. Clair, Thomas Palmer and David C. McKinstry had pledged themselves to built a jail and court house  which they did, the building being of hewn [page 10] logs, about 24×34 feet in size, with living rooms for the jailer and cells for prisoners on the ground floor, and a court room on the second floor.  It was accepted by the board of supervisors September 3, 1827, although no constructed according to contract.  This building was used until 1853, when it was destroyed by fire.  The brick building erected in its place was used for county purposes until the removal of the county seat to Port Huron, in 1871, and the fail continued to be occupied for keeping prisoners until the completion of the new jail, 1884.

Continue reading →

Picture history of Port Huron by Joseph Miskell, published 1937

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by Vicki Priest (c) 2019

Upon perusing files at the St. Clair Library earlier this year, I was totally delighted after stumbling upon some original art boards by Joseph T. Miskell (Michigan Room, Picture Files, “P-R” drawer).  They looked like they were made for a children’s picture history of Port Huron.  I found instead that they were published in The Port Huron Times Herald in 1937 as part of the centennial; the artwork looks quite different in the paper.  The beautiful pencil sketching is much less clear, and the square originals were re-sized into rectangles.

Two originals are missing, pages 7 and 13, and in the paper, page 11 is missing (page 10 was printed twice and no correction has been found so far).  Not everything in this history is necessarily accurate, but inaccuracies like that can be amended.  If only pages 7 and 13 could be found, what a neat children’s picture book this would make!  However, since those pages are reproduced in the newspaper, a re-creation of them could be made by the right person.

Joseph Miskell, 1904-1981, was an employee of Mueller Brass for 34 years, first in Port Huron and then in San Francisco, California (The Times Herald, November 24th 1981, page 13).

The boards are very large. The images immediately below are just a couple of examples of portions of pages.  Below them are the pages from The Port Huron Times Herald, screen captured from the digitized paper.

Page 6 story board portion, 1854 fire, by Joseph Miskell (Michigan Room, St. Clair Public Library).

Continue reading →

1949 Port Huron Centennial Booklet

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We were happy to be allowed to scan a booklet in the collection of Lisa Kraus-Purcell, Port Huron’s 1949 Centennial Souvenir booklet.  Currently, a couple of central pages, which covered part of the schedule of events, are missing; this will be corrected when possible.  Links to the viewable PDFs are here:  https://phahpa.org/research-sources/phahpa-scanned-booklets/ .  We also scanned some of the images into photo files, some of which are included below (the booklet does not have page numbers, so such numbers are not provided here).  Feel free to use any source that we share, but make sure to cite us/give credit for this source that we provide.  (If you like our work and want to see more, please consider a donation of any amount!  We would be very grateful indeed.  Mail check to PHAHPA, PO Box 611380, Port Huron, MI 48061-1380 – Thank you!)  Copyright note:  We provide this for research purposes only, as the booklet may still be under copyright protection.

Horse Drawn Car

Spanish American War VeteransDunford-Alverson DrydockBird's Eye View west along Black River, 7th St BridgeVery early view of Military Street

Mueller Brass, no date

Mueller Brass, no date.

 

Pere Marquette Railroad Bridge, Guest Editorial

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Railroad Bridge over Black River, just west of the St. Clair River, Port Huron. V. Priest, 2017.

Below is an editorial by William Collins, Executive Director of the Thumb Land Conservancy.  It was submitted to The Times Herald, but not published.  A very short version can be found at the online paper, however.

The City of Port Huron seems content to sit on its hands while the Port Huron Yacht Club seeks to demolish the historic Pere Marquette Railroad bascule lift bridge over the Black River. Meanwhile, the City of Ashtabula, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie has just approved construction of a new hotel designed specifically for views of Ashtabula Harbor and their historic bascule lift bridge over the Ashtabula River. Ashtabula is actually capitalizing on their “ugly” old steel, which is 6 years older than Port Huron’s and still in use. The developer of the new River Bend Hotel says, “We think that it’s going to be quite a unique concept, unrivaled in the region. It’s going to be an incredibly beautiful scene.” (River Bend Hotel planned for Ashtabula’s harbor district is town’s first new hotel in 100 years) Continue reading →

“A Brief Historical Review of the City of Port Huron,” 1915, by Wm. Jenks

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William Lee Jenks (1856-1936). The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (Vol. XVII. 1920), page 189 (filtered).

The following article is from The Port Huron Times-Herald, February 20, 1915, pages 18 and 22.  Two words had typos and it was decided to correct the spelling, but the temptation to add commas was successfully avoided.  If you are unaware of Jenks, he was the author of the 1912 St. Clair County, Michigan, Its History and Its People (two volumes), and was a member of the Michigan Historical Commission, among other things.  In one place below  a corrected date is shown.  This had to have been an editorial typo since Jenks and everyone else who knew the history of Port Huron knew the year; it was at least somewhat common knowledge.

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The great success of the recent campaign to bring back the Grand Trunk shops to Port Huron, and the result it has had in unifying and bringing together in concerted action all sections of the city, seems to make this an appropriate time to look backward for a moment, and trace the general course of our city from its beginning. Continue reading →

Wm. Soutar Collection, Letters from Wife 1880, 1881, & 1915 Note

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The William Soutar (1842-1918) Collection is discussed briefly in two previous posts, one presenting letters from his employer Wm. Jenkinson, and the other, letters from his friends.  Below are scans of letters–written in pencil–from his wife Agnes (an obituary refers to her as Ann Bell; The Times Herald March 25, 1918, page 5).  They are from Rattle Run, Michigan, where Agnes lived on a farm during a period when her husband made income while being employed elsewhere.  Agnes’ writings give a little glimpse into rural life as well as what was, apparently, customary social exchange between husband and wife.  A baby was born during this time, and in her excitement (probably coupled with exhaustion) Agnes forgets to date the letter. Continue reading →

Port Huron and other St. Clair County High School Yearbooks

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Great for genealogical and other types of research, the St. Clair County (Michigan) Library system digitized a number of the county’s high school yearbooks.  Some other student publications are included as well.  Here is the link to these resources:  http://www.sccl.lib.mi.us/Yearbooks.aspx.

While looking through one the other day I read about the “The Bluffers Club Ltd.,” and went through the “funnies” that followed.  Many of these are found within the sponsor’s ads that follow the main body of this Student Christmas 1916 (Port Huron High School; no page numbers).  The following excerpts were also posted at our Facebook page, and the image was created by PHAHPA for these posts. Continue reading →

Why Oscar Mueller, an invested “man among men,” left Port Huron

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The following article was first published at Blue Water Healthy Living on June 27, 2018, under a slightly different title.  All rights belong to the author, Vicki Priest, however, and republished here by permission.

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Oscar Mueller. Undated photo from muellerfamilytree.com.

It was a happy day in Port Huron when Oscar Mueller announced that his family agreed to open a metal working plant here, and a sad one when he decided to sell his interests in what became Mueller Brass, and leave. He did so much to make a wonderful home for he and his wife, too—establishing a large recreational park for his employees along the Black River, and on his estate next door, planting a large orchard that he thoroughly enjoyed—that one would wonder why he left that all behind. But for those living here at the time, in 1935-1936, no doubt it was not a surprise at all.

Oscar was one of Hieronymus Mueller’s seven children to carry on with the family’s various factories (which primarily produced plumbing-related parts and fixtures), centered in Decatur, Illinois. His father was mechanically gifted and filed several patents, some of which, like the Mueller Water Tapper and various auto-engine features, are still being used today; he and his sons filed 501 patents. His sons, like their father, were gifted in business as well as mechanics and engineering. And as Mueller craftsmanship and products became recognized as the best, the family business grew, with their metal working factories springing up here and there. For his part, Oscar graduated from the University of Illinois, got married to Beatrice Wetzel in 1895, and together they had their first child, Bernhardt Frederic, in 1901. Continue reading →

Wm. Soutar Collection, from Friends, 1871 – 1878, 1887

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As briefly written of in a previous post, William Soutar was lumberman Wm. Jenkinson’s private secretary in Port Huron for many years (City Directories, 1893-94, page 226, and 1899-1900, page 297). Although Soutar was connected to Jenkinson in some way by 1879, when he first appears in Port Huron a couple of years later he is a bookkeeper for Brooks & Joslyn (1883 City Directory, page 134; he is not listed in the previous 1881 directory, but that doesn’t tell us or not if he had actually moved here by then).  Previous to living in Port Huron, Soutar worked and lived in Saginaw, although his actual home was in Rattle Run, St. Clair County, where his wife and other family members lived. Continue reading →

Wm. Jenkinson Letters to Wm. R. Soutar, 1879-1892

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Portrait of William Jenkinson (in Andreas 1883, page 576.5).

Below are some letters and other items from the William Robert Soutar collection (used by permission from Lynne Secory).  All are either written by William Jenkinson (1834-1896), or pertain to him and his family.  A brief but very telling biography of Jenkinson is included below.

William Soutar was Jenkinson’s private secretary for many years, and even served as the estate’s secretary after his employer and friend’s death (City Directories, 1893-94, page 226, and 1899-1900, page 297). Although Soutar was connected to Jenkinson in some way by 1879, as evidenced by one of the letters here, when he first appears a couple of years later in Port Huron he is a bookkeeper for Brooks & Joslyn (1883 City Directory, page 134; he is not listed in the previous 1881 directory, but that doesn’t tell us or not if he had actually moved here by then).  From the other letters in the collection, we know that Soutar was from Newport on Tay, Fife (or thereabouts), Scotland.  In a letter from his parents, dated January 31, 1880 (#2.0207), the writer answers his inquiry about the Tay Bridge Disaster (1879) and tells him that none of his friends were on the train. Continue reading →

History of Port Huron from an 1876 Atlas

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For reference purposes, the following word-for-word history of Port Huron (city) is provided here.  From the Combination Atlas Map of St. Clair County Michigan . . .  by Everts & Stewart, Philadelphia, 1876, page XVIII.

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In the year 1819, when the Hon. D. B. Harrington came to this place to make it his abiding place, nothing but a vast wilderness met the eye on every side.  The Chippewa tribe of Indians were the occupants of this region; and during the fishing and hunting season they congregated at the mouth of the Black River in large numbers; and their huts and wigwams dotted the shores for a long distance north and south.  There were at this time a few French families scattered around, whose names are mentioned in the early history of the County, and who at times were seriously annoyed by the Indians.  The propensity to steal was largely developed among them. Continue reading →

Petit Family Child Abducted by Indians Finds Family as Adult

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By Vicki Priest (c) (All Rights Reserved)

This is an amazing tale of Edward Petit’s firstborn son,* which so far as I have seen from genealogies is unknown, and of crazy “coincidence.” It’s also an example for remembering that when, historically, folks report how many children they have or had, they usually only give the number that have survived past infancy or early childhood. In Edward’s case, Victoria Louise is said to be his oldest child and the child that is the subject of the article below was not in his will, for whatever reason. To me, anyway, there’s no reason to doubt the story. The only oddity I’ve noticed so far is that it took so long for the son to meet the father (the mother, Henriette Victoria Stevens, died in 1873, and the Civil War ended in 1865; Edward died in 1875, so the meeting must have occurred very shortly before Edward died). The article is reproduced as it was posted in The Times Herald, May 16, 1891 (page 6), and includes historically important information beyond the story of Henry.

None of these men is Henry, but his brother Marshal is shown standing on the right. From George Smith’s book “A History of Port Huron in Pictures” (1971, page 30). An 1890 date is given to the photo. The other fellows are (L to R) Lewis Atkins, William Bottomby, and Jacob Jacobi.

Continue reading →

Beloved Community Leader, Stanley McFarland

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After spending some time researching people from the past, it would be hard not to notice how some people are remembered fondly at passing, and others not so much. Some well-known people in the community get their obligatory obituaries, tersely written, while others get a long and detailed one, splashed with kind words and compliments; and, memorials besides the obituary are found.*

Stanley McFarland (The Times Herald, February 24, 1940, page one).

A case in point is that of Stanley McFarland, 1879-1940. One could say he was a beautiful man who led a beautiful life; I say that he appears to have been a rare, super-fine human being. The following information is from his obituary in The Times Herald (February 24, 1940, pages 1 and 5). Following that, two memorials that anyone would be proud of are quoted in full; please read them to learn more about this example of a man.

Stanley was 60 when he died, having been laid low by a virulent infection that had started in his ear; apparently surgery made it worse. He had come to live in old Fort Gratiot as a boy when his parents, John and Catherine McFarland, moved here from Ontario (Port Hope), Canada. He grew to be 6’4” and was an “outstanding” athlete, being “an exceptionally good tennis player.” He was a director of the YMCA for some years. Stanley was known for an extraordinary mathematical ability, where “he could add large columns of figures in his head more rapidly than other clerks could do by using the adding machines. His answers to mathematical problems were always found to be accurate.” But he wasn’t just brilliant at adding numbers. He was highly regarded for his ability to analyze whole and difficult financial reports and regurgitating them in an easily understood way to others. He seemed pretty brilliant and inquisitive in general, as he traveled by car throughout the country, delighting in learning all about different areas. Continue reading →

New Pages: I Love Your Rear and Wish List

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Hello wonderful supporters and readers.  As you hopefully know already, we’ve been incorporated as a nonprofit in Michigan and are working toward 501(c)3 status (currently, we’d like at least one more board member to file our forms, and more on that if you want to message us).  So, we’re a fledgling organization with very little funds and need all the free promotions we can get.  That includes sharing our posts from here or from our Facebook page. If you love Port Huron history and the historic built environment, please share our information with others!  It’s discouraging (and odd) how very few people do in fact share about us (as a newer person that has come to this area and experiencing this disconnect, it is not surprising at all that so much has been demolished already).  We will be conducting studies, of course, nominating buildings and districts to registers, publishing a journal (hopefully!) for authors covering the history and built environment of the Thumb area, and more.  To do that takes support.

In any case, one of our new pages is called “I Love Your Rear,” where we’ll post the backs of buildings and then compare them to the fronts.

What does the front of this building look like?

Rear view of the St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store on 24th St (1335), Port Huron.

The second page, Our Wish List (a subpage of About Us), will have–what else?–things the organization needs.  All donations will be tax-deductible retroactively (for example, donations made this year will still be tax-deductible even if we don’t obtain 501(c)3 status until 2018, although we have no intention to wait that long).

Thanks so much for reading this far, and for any support you can give or do!