IRON MOUNTAIN – The thirteenth installment of Menominee Range Memories, a series of articles by William J. Cummings, Menominee Range Historical Foundation historian, now available on the Dickinson County Library’s website, focuses on Lewis Young Whitehead.

Whitehead was born in Hurdtown, Morris County, New Jersey, April 6, 1833, a son of Silas and Susan (Little) Whitehead. Silas Whitehead, a son of John and Phoebe (Turner) Whitehead and a native of Morris County, was a farmer and wood and charcoal contractor.

Lewis attended public schools until his father died at 37 years of age on Aug. 20, 1845. Lewis was 12 years old and was soon engaged in mining in the winter and boating in the summer.

At 16, Lewis became the captain of a canal boat on the Morris Canal, a 107-mile canal across northern New Jersey, stretching from Phillipsburg on the Delaware River eastward to Jersey City on the Hudson River, which officially opened May 20, 1832.

Lewis, at 19 years of age, was a foreman in the Hurdtown Mine, an iron mine in magnetite ore located at Hurdtown, about 6 1/2 miles northwest of Dover. Started before 1855 and worked until 1903, it was one of New Jersey’s major iron mines.

In 1853, when Lewis was 20 years old, his mother died.

Kept a diary

Whitehead began writing a diary on Jan. 1, 1876, which included detailed records of dates and places he traveled between 1853 and 1860, as well as recording family history information. His story prior to arriving on the Range helps illustrate the complexity and scope of the lives many of our pioneer settlers lived in the nineteenth century. The full account of his travels in the Midwest prior to the Civil War is contained in Menominee Range Memories 13.

Apparently Lewis spent the winter in Suamico, Wisconsin, leaving there on June 5, 1860, for the city of Green Bay, and then proceeding to Marquette, Michigan, on Lake Superior, a distance of 220 miles. His diary noted that he walked half the way, arriving in Marquette on June 14 after what he termed “a hard tramp.”

From 1860 to 1862 Whitehead engaged in the charcoal business in Marquette County, Michigan. In 1862 he was employed as an explorer for iron and copper by the St. Mary’s Canal & Mineral Land Company. He also examined timber on lands owned by the Company with Houghton, Michigan, serving as the company’s headquarters.

Sometime in the winter of 1866-1867, Lewis left Negaunee, going to Lawton, Van Buren County, Michigan, located in the extreme southwestern part of the state, as an officer of the Michigan Central Iron Company. This company was engaged in making charcoal pig iron from Lake Superior ores.

While working in Lawton, Lewis met Jennie Mary Rice, a school teacher there. They were married in Lawton on September 26, 1867.

Explorer for Cliffs

In 1868, Lewis and Jennie went to Negaunee, where he entered the service of the Iron Cliffs Company.

Lewis became chief explorer for the Iron Cliffs Company, and did much work on the topographical and geological map of the Marquette Iron Range under Major Thomas B. Brooks in the early 1870’s.

Walter R. Nursey interviewed Lewis Young Whitehead while researching his book The Menominee Iron Range, published in 1891 to promote or “boost” the development of the area. Most of the following information was taken from Whitehead’s interview, giving a firsthand account of early mining here.

In the fall 1872 Dr. Nelson Powell Hulst, of the Milwaukee Iron Company, engaged Lewis Whitehead as chief of a party of explorers headed for the new iron range. Whitehead hired 12 men and left Negaunee Sept. 18. The exploring party first traveled to Escanaba and then took a tug boat from there to Menominee. Traveling along the tote road, later called the State Road, the party followed the Menominee River north for 60 miles to the property known as the Breen Mine, located where Waucedah was later established.

The exploring party arrived at the Breen Mine Sept. 23, finding a camp already prepared large enough to accommodate twenty men. Whitehead noted that “of the few pits sunk at that time one was in brown hematite.”

At a gathering of early Menominee Range pioneers in November 1950, daughter Nellie “Nella” Phoebe (Whitehead) Myers, born in Negaunee on July 8, 1872, stated that the Whitehead family made the trip from Powers to the Breitung Mine (later the Vulcan Mine) in a wagon pulled by oxen sometime in the late fall of 1872. She also noted the family spent the winter of 1872-1873 in a cabin near the later site of the Vulcan railway depot.

Whitehead “marked a tree near the present Vulcan depot” on October 15, 1872, and “began the erection of camps for forty men. At the same time a supply road was cut to the Breen mine, over which the men were brought to Breitung, as the camp was then called. A road was also cut to the mouth of the Sturgeon river, the New York farm of to-day,” where Whitehead was surprised to find a logging camp belonging to the Menominee River Lumber Company. Thomas Rice was in charge, and had his wife and family with him.”

On November 1 explorations were stopped, “leaving a showing of brown hematite one hundred feet wide north and south, although the pits exposed jasper and quartz mixed, along the belt for three-fourths of a mile.”

“Our supplies at this time, together with the mail and the doctor, came from the mouth of the Menominee River. Seven days were allowed the teams to make the round trip. On January 1st, 1873, our buildings consisted of a dining camp, sleeping shanty, smith shop, supply shed, and a ten by twelve foot office, built of logs and situated in the midst of dense forest and swamp, from which issued swarms of tormenting flies. The camp was covered with ‘shakes’ cedar slabs four feet long, and as wide as the cut would permit and caulked with moss. The Indians supplied us with plenty of venison and the wolves with music.”

A town is born

“In March of 1873,” Whitehead continued, “a saw mill was erected with a four-foot circular and a capacity of 10,000 feet per day, and here was cut the lumber used in the first frame structure built upon the range. This building was used as a store and office. The mill sawed in all about 100,000 feet. This same month trains were running between Menominee and Escanaba.”

On April 14, 1873 the Breitung Mine, the first mine in what was then called Breitung, employed 10 to 15 men.

“The summer of 1873 was spent on many sections of the range,” Lewis Whitehead stated in his interview. “Groups of men in parties of from five to ten were sent out. Mr. Clark Roland was foreman at Section 10, while Mr. Daniel Bundy was assistant explorer, and divided his time either with Dr. Hulst or myself in running section lines, taking topography, or locating camps.”

“In the same year [1873] a wagon road was surveyed and cut out to Felch Mountain, section 22, township 42, range 28, now known as Metropolitan,” Whitehead recalled. “This road was called the Iron Road. Its length from Vulcan to Metropolitan was 23 miles, and its cost to the Milwaukee Iron Co. was $1,300.”

“Camps were put in, and in the fall of 1873, a shipping ore was found. Iron Mountain or the Ludington Mine property was tested by Dr. Hulst the early part of this winter, but a banded ore only was found.

“On October 8th I was sent by the company to test Mr. Buell’s working at the Quinnesec. Deepened the shaft to 35 feet, and then drifted north 39 feet, all through shipping ore. On January 4, 1875 [sic 1874], we broke camp, and the wilderness of the Menominee Iron Range was abandoned until 1877.” Lewis Whitehead and his family returned to Negaunee.

Leader of the mines

In 1877 Whitehead returned to Vulcan and mining operations resumed. On May 2, 1877, Charles Mather, superintendent of the three mines of the Range, (the Breen at Waucedah, the Breitung at Vulcan, and the Quinnesec at Quinnesec) selected Vulcan as the headquarters for these three mines, placing Captain Lewis Whitehead in charge of the Vulcan Mine. On May 26, 1877, John A. Armstrong came to Vulcan as the first mining captain, bringing his family with him from Negaunee.

In its June 16, 1877 edition The Escanaba Tribune reported that Capt. Whitehead had stripped nearly 100 feet in length along the vein at the Breitung Mine, and had commenced the building of docks, anticipating everything would be ready when the railroad reached the mine.

On the same date, under “The Menominee Range” caption head, Marquette’s The Mining Journal noted: “Louis [sic Lewis] Whitehead has charge of the Breen, Breitung and Quinnesec mines, and no doubt will gladly welcome the first train of cars at the Quinnesec, so that his now tedious tramps will be no longer necessary. Some seven to eight miles of track is laid, and the prospect is that the cars will be running to the Breen by the first of August, which will save the ‘old times’ pull through the swamp on the winter supply road.”

The first railroad through Vulcan was completed on June 16, 1877, linking together the three mines the Breitung, the Breen and the Quinnesec. The first trains to use these tracks were freight trains. On August 4, 1877, the name Breitung was changed to Vulcan. On September 12, 1877 the first carload of freight consisting of hay, bar iron, and etc., arrived at Vulcan.

Under “Menominee Range Items” in the August 25, 1877 issue of Marquette’s The Mining Journal, it was reported that the Breen Mine began shipping ore on August 16, with anticipation that tracks would reach the Breitung Mine in a short time.

In its September 1, 1877 edition, The Escanaba Tribune noted: “The Breitung mine is opening splendidly under the superintendency of Capt. Whitehead. This mine is located in a hill which rises up between two and three hundred feet in the highest part. The arrangements for handling the ore are excellent, and when all the plans are completed, it can be worked very economically. Several hewed log buildings are going up for the accommodation of the men.”

Hotel and post office

In the fall of 1878 the Whiteheads opened the Vulcan Hotel, the first hotel on the Menominee Iron Range. In early April, 1879, Whitehead was digging a well close to the hotel, and in mid-May was building a henhouse in the rear of the hotel. By late November, 1879, workmen were putting up a large addition to accommodate more guests.

In addition to serving as a hotel, the hotel later contained a store and was Vulcan’s post office until the new town hall was erected in 1904. In October, 1905, Whitehead razed this pioneer landmark. Whitehead also worked a homestead farm and did some township office work.

Lewis Whitehead was appointed postmaster of Vulcan on Dec. 15, 1897, serving until his son-in-law, Harry K. Myers, was appointed on Dec. 11, 1903.

On June 5, 1904, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Whitehead moved into their new home, a three-story frame building called the Penn Inn which replaced the old log building as a hotel. In later years the Penn Inn was kept as a boarding house, and was “home” for many single local teachers.

Nine children

Lewis Young and Jennie (Rice) Whitehead had nine children: Louis Grant (1868-1928); May (1870-1876); Nellie “Nella” Phoebe (1872-1954); Gussie Rice (1876-1901); Roy Gurley (1879-1945); Fay (1885-1885); Bessie (1887-1889); Laurette Glen (1887-1889); Jeffie Jane/Jennie (1881-1959); Cloa.

Lewis Young Whitehead died August 9, 1908, in his home at Vulcan from stomach cancer.

Jennie (Rice) Whitehead died May 23, 1918, in her home at Vulcan from cancer of the tongue and face.

They are buried in Quinnesec Cemetery, Breitung Township, Quinnesec, Michigan.

This 23-page installment of Menominee Range Memories contains detailed in genealogical information on the Lewis Whitehead family, as well as photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Whitehead, their Vulcan Hotel and the Penn Inn, as well as other family-related photographs.

Read the rest of this story on the Dickinson County Library’s website (www.dcl-lib.org). New installments will be added to the Library’s website and on the Library’s local history research computer.