1880’s Lumber Era Hemlock Surfaces in Big Norway Lake

Contributors include Clare County Historical Society Members Andrew Coulson, Jon Ringelberg, and Angela Kellogg-Henry

A few weeks ago, the Clare County Historical Society was contacted by a property owner on the southeast side of Big Norway Lake in Redding township.  A 14-foot hemlock log had recently surfaced, and the water’s edge owner was able to get it ashore.  CCHS members were able to identify it as having an ownership affiliation with none other than W. S. Gerrish.  The log mark, seen below with the “cut” log image, was registered by Gerrish in Clare County in 1881, and an assignment gave Carlton J. Hamilton of Muskegon gave permission to orchestrate the movement of the log from Clare County to the Muskegon sawmills.  The law firm of Norris & Uhle of Grand Rapids, in managing the estate of George B. Warren, built the Gerrish owned narrow gauge logging railroad that ran from the west side of Big Norway to the Muskegon River, a distance of about 2 ½ miles.  It was common practice to stage logs awaiting to be loaded on train cars in lakes.  This would protect the logs from fire and insect damage until they could be shipped.  Of course, a certain number of these logs would become waterlogged and sink before they could be sawn or shipped.  Practically every large lake in the county was used for this purpose and it is believed that many of the lakes still have these “dead heads” at the lake bottoms.

Winfield Scott Gerrish was widely credited for building the first narrow gauge railroad in Michigan from Lake George to the Muskegon River in 1877. While not the first in Michigan, it was the first in Clare County and revolutionized the logging industry in Northern Michigan.   The Gerrish railroad in total was a 7-mile narrow gauge railroad that used the traditional method of banking the logs at the Muskegon River waiting for the spring log drives to send logs to market.  Using the narrow-gauge railroad allowed Gerrish to cut prized timber that was inaccessible by traditional logging means and take it to the Muskegon River.

This particular log had the log mark stamped multiple times on each end of the log.  One end of the log was kindly donated to the CCHS, to be banned and put on display at the museum this summer.  Big thanks from the Clare County Historical Society to the property owners for contacting us and donating the log end with the historic log donating the log marks!