In 1923, Stanley Newton published “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part twenty-four of a continuing series about the history of Sault Ste. Marie and the area in its early years. I have left punctuation and grammar intact. – Laurie Davis
Fined “For Not Killing the Cuss”
A case involving the misrepresentation of some good came up in the village justice court. The buyer had winged the seller with a pistol in the endeavor to get restitution. The latter brought action for assault. The justice heard the case with great gravity and found the defendant not guilty, but he fined him five dollars anyway “for not killing the cuss.”
In 1879, Mr. Thomas Ryan, who owned several hundred acres of land on and in the vicinity of old Butte de Terre, afterwards known as Chandler Heights, sold one hundred and fifty acres of land to Mr. Robert N. Adams. Mr. Adams, who came here from Huron County, Ontario, in that year, cleared the land, and as the community grew, he subdivided the property into city lots. Now practically all of it is within the corporate limits of Sault Ste. Marie.
Mr. Adams has seen the little village of his adoption grow into a thriving city. From his office on the sixth floor of the Adams Building, erected in 1903 and one of the finest in the Upper Peninsula, he can look out over his former farm, since become one of the most attractive sections of the city. The community and the district have honored him with many public offices, and it is likely that no one has contributed more to its civic and material development.
A Trip of Inspection
In the year of Mr. Adams’ coming to the Sault, he made a journey of inspection southward through the Peninsula as far as Stirlingville. The first day he was able to get as far as the William Welsh homestead on the Mackinaw Road, there being barely a path through the woods on the Pickford Meridian at that time. The next day, he proceeded out the Mackinaw Road a distance of eighteen miles from the Soo, turned on a trail to the left, and by hard work, he managed to get through the woods and swamps that night to Stirlingville, four miles from the present village of Pickford. He came home by boat.
The principal stores in Sault Ste. Marie, at the time of Mr. Adams’ arrival, were all on Water Street and were owned by Mr. William Given, Mr. L.P. Trempe, Prenzlauer Brothers, and Mr. M. W. Scranton. Mr. Scranton was postmaster, and the post office occupied a corner of his hardware store. The churches had increased to three, the Rev. Father Chartier being pastor of the Roman Catholic church, the Reverend Mr. Brown of the Methodist, and the Reverend Mr. Easterday of the Presbyterian. Mr. Henry Seymour operated a sawmill near the present location of the ferry dock, and lived in Mrs. George Kemp’s present home, which was then on Portage Avenue.
Road to Sault Was Only a Path
When Mr. Neil McInnis came north from Canada in 1882 with Mrs. McInnis and their family of six, he was also bound for Stirlingville. The land in what is now Pickford Township was recognized as having excellent farming possibilities, and the practical way to get there was by boat down the St. Mary’s and up the Munoskong to the limit of its navigable waters at Stirlingville. The trip by sailboat took three days, and the fare for the family was twenty dollars. The Reverend Mr. Davidson had a small Presbyterian church at Stirlingville, and Mr. Henry Pickford owned a still smaller store at Pickford. Mr. Hery Pickford owned a still smaller store at Pickford. Bear and deer were everywhere. Often the settlers were without flour or sugar for some time, and the road to the Sault was nothing but a winding and at times impassable trail through the bush.
Among the other families first in the Pickford and Stirlingville region were the Campbells, the Rouses, Cleggs, Taylors, Stirlings, Roes, Hills, and Christies. Most of the settlers there came from Canada, and it is estimated by competent authorities that sixty percent of the residents of Sault Ste. Marie, and seventy-five percent of the people in Chippewa County, are of Canadian descent.
Bankers Look Town Over
With the construction of the Weitzel lock and the looming of three railroads on the Sault horizon, the town began to present good banking possibilities. Mr. Otto Fowle and Mr. Homer Mead of Hillsdale County, Michigan, came up to look the town over in February,1883. The Michigan Central tracks then as now extended to Mackinaw City, and the overland trip from St. Ignace to the Sault consumed two days.
The sleigh pulled up for a moment on the brow of Ashmun Hill, and the newcomers crawled out from under their furs and blankets and surveyed the snowy village with interest. On their right as they came down the hill were the farmhouse and buildings of Mr. R. N. Adams. The next house, on the left, was Mr. Ashbell Roach’s home. From there the houses grew thicker toward Spruce Street, and from the latter, Ashmun Street narrowed considerably, so that from Ridge Street to Portage Avenue it was but a lane twent-eight feet in width, ending at Portage Avenue.
The travelers proceeded westward on Portage Avenue to Plank Alley, west of the present Conway & Hall’s drugstore, thence to Water Street. There were some saloons and one story buildings on the east side of Plank Alley, but most of the business places were still on Water Street. The latter extended from Douglas Street or Canal Park on the west to a picket fence and gate which stood on a line with the eastern boundary of the Hursley home lot. The Fort Brady grounds had been extended westward somewhat, the stockade had been removed, and this fence was the western limit of the fort grounds.
There were but three brick buildings in the village – the Catholic Church, the school which now forms part of the Junior High School building, and Mr. Andrew Blank’s residence on West Portage Avenue.
There were three stone buildings – the front part of the present courthouse, a stone building just east of the Catholic school, known as Alderman’s Delight, and the power building of the old lock. The census of 1880 had enumerated 1,947 inhabitants in the village.
- 1880s Sault and Area - May 2, 2025
- 1870s Sault Ste. Marie MI - April 1, 2025
- The Mystery Man - March 10, 2025
