April 29, 1954
(reprinted from the days
when Floyd Mitchell was at the bank and R.E. Roe was at the Messenger office.)
(transcribed by: L. Johnson)
John S. Weidman was born in St. Clair County, Michigan, May 10,
1852. When he was 14, his parents, Evan
and Harriet Weidman, settled in Hinton Township, Mecosta County, where they
lived until John S. was 25 years of age, attending school and working on a
farm, and also working as a river boy for logging camps, in which capacity his
duties were to keep the logs going down the Muskegon River. These logs were started in Higgins and
Houghton Lakes, then went down the Muskegon to Muskegon Bay, where they were
delivered to the 100 sawmills lining its shore.
The river boy had the same duties as a
section hand; it was his business to
keep the line open. If a log jam
occurred, he had to break it and start the logs again.
It was this experience on the logs that
turned John S. Weidman’s attention to the lumbering business. In 1876 he bought 40 acres of land in Hinton
Township. In 1877 he was employed in
lumbering on the LittleMuskegon River and passed seven months in that
occupation; then settled on a tract of
80 acres which he had bought for a homestead.
He built a frame house and spent five months clearing his farm, then
returned to lumbering again on the Muskegon, where he was occupied eight
months. He continued lumbering and
farming until he had a farm of 600 acres.
When did the dream of larger and still
larger lumbering operations take possession of the young man’s mind? We cannot know; but it might very well have been at this stage of his industrial
affairs. He visioned great tracts of
land then covered with hardwood timber, made over into farming country. He foresaw towns springing up in favored
locations surrounded by these new farmlands.
Perhaps (said the Weidman Messenger of
Floyd Mitchell’s and R.E. Roe’s time)—but that was a fanciful dream, of
course—there might be a town yet to develop that should bear his name. Fanciful?
Perhaps so; but stranger things
than that have happened. Even this
dream might come true.
During the years spent on his farm in
Hinton Township, where he ran a small sawmill, Mr. Weidman drew lumber from his
farm to Lakeview, and became well known to the lumbering fraternity of the
state. Among other customers was a
large manufacturing plant in Belding, and a concern in Big Rapids that bought
ten million feet of lumber.
He wore lumberjack clothes on his farm,
and was at heart really a lumberjack instead of a farmer. He and Mrs. Weidman were frequently invited
to meals at the homes of their friends and neighbors. On returning home a conversation something like this would ensue:
“What’s that white thing in your pocket,
John?”
(Business of pulling out a white piece of
cloth.)
“Why, John Weidman! That’s Mrs. So-and-so’s napkin! You put it in your pocket instead of back on
the table!”
“Why, so I did,” John said with a
sheepish grin.
Mrs. Weidman had to return many a napkin
abducted in that manner.
Mr. Weidman was in Belding waiting for a
train, once, and while waiting conversed with two well-dressed representatives
of a big refrigerator company. John was
dressed in his rough clothes, while the others were well tailored. He was trying to sell them a contract for
lumber, but they could not agree on a price.
Finally, one of the refrigerator men said.
“We’ll flip a silver dollar for the
difference in price.”
In those days folks thought nothing of
carrying around a pocketful of these unwieldy coins.
The flip was made, and the roughly-dressed lumberman won. He always won chances like
that.
So the days passed, until the timber on
his farm had been converted into lumber.
Would he now have the farm stumped and settle down, or had lumbering got
into his blood so that other opportunities would beckon him on and on? A chance conversation with a man named
Miler, living near Remus, was the deciding factor. Mr. Weidman was not to settle down in Mecosta County. His future lay in Isabella.
HISTORY OF WEIDMAN
(this 2nd part of the history
was in the following weeks paper)
Mr. Weidman had heard of large tracts of
hardwood and hemlock in western Isabella County. Mr. Miller living near Remus, had been there and had seen this
timber. If you are looking for
something really big, he said, hereis your opportunity.
Accordingly, with his own farm cleared of
timber, the young lumberman came to Isabella County to look things over. It was as Miller had said. There were large tracts of beautiful
hardwood and hemlock, one that especially appealed to the prospector, starting at
the junction of the Coldwater River and Walker Creek and running to the big hill
known as “The Mountain” in Gilmore Township.
It looked promising, but it was a big venture.
Here was the arena for a battle with
fortune. Many men of lesser ability had
passed the opportunity by, but this young lumberman from Mecosta County saw in
the situationthe incentive that he needed to spur him on to greater
achievement, so he decided to locate at the junction of these streams.
All this territory had been lumbered for
pine by the Eddy Company of Saginaw, but the timber they had left was enough to
keep a large mill busy for years. The
hardwood was especially good on land now occupied (The Messenger said, ‘way
back) by Will Warner, George Kunkel, John Faver and many others in northwestern
Nottawa Township.
A new mill had to be purchased, as the
one on his Hinton Township farm was too small for the work here. He found a band saw for sale in 1893 south
of Bundy Hill and moved it to the new site.
Workmen had to be fed and housed.
Accordingly a dwelling was erected and here the Weidman family lived and
the men boarded here. This building is
now the Neubecker residence (now Clara Fox’s).
Another need was some sort of a store for
those who had families and would live in their own homes. So a small office building was erected on the
land that is now the Schauppner yard (Fred Cole’s). In the rear of this building were stored flour and other
groceries, and the duties of the bookkeeper, Floyd Mitchell, who came to the
new camp in 1894, included waiting on folks who wanted these commodities. This building has been moved, and is now
occupied by the printing office of the
Weidman Messenger. (And again occupied
by the Messenger today.)
With the erection of the mill, work began
in earnest. A dam had to be built to
make a pond to float the logs in. A
railroad had to be built to carry out the lumber. Both these projects were accomplished in 1893. There was always one and sometimes two
trains a day. Even as late as 1913
Weidman had one train a day and it
carried the mail. On every Weidman Day
an excursion train was run from Big Rapids to Weidman.
In order to keep a large saw mill,
shingle mill, planing mill and numerous logging camps running, it took large
crews of men. These men had to build
homes for themselves and their families.
Houses were built and Weidman rapidly took on the appearance of a
village.
From here on we leave the reprint stories
of the old Messenger histories, and give you a sketchy account of a few
highlights that have come to our attention.
Oscar Rufner’s father, John Rufner, built
the first house in Weidman, Oscar points out, situated back of Leon McArthur’s
place at this time. The men worked 12
hours a day at the sawmill, he recalls, six days a week, and Mr. Rufner Senior
built the house in his spare time, after work.
Henry Robinson was the first white child
born in Weidman, (1897). There were
many papooses, it has been pointed out.
Marie Dellsworth (Mrs. Walter H. Smith) was the first white girl-baby
born here. Mr. Dellsworth was a barber,
his shop and home being about where Bill Louisell’s shop now stands. Henry Robinson’s father was Fred, a brother
of Ott Robinson.
Royal Gibbs built a large hotel building
on what he thought would be Main Street.
Later the building was moved to the corner of Main and Third, where it
prospered for many years. Eventually
two hotels had livery stables doing good business. When the hotel business diminished, Charlie Carr started a livery
stable at the corner of Third and Parsons Streets.
Charles Woolworth came to Weidman in 1896
and started a harness shop, which did business until around World War I, when
automobiles began driving the horses out of business. Mr. Woolworth moved to Mt. Pleasant, where he took on an auto
agency, and of late years he was with Lee Equipment Company, on farm
machinery.