Maritime Bay County

By Bloomfield, Ron and Bay County Historical Society

Since the 1830s when the first hints of permanent settlement appeared on the banks near the mouth of the Saginaw River, the river and bay have supported the busy traffic of a major Great Lakes seaport, the humming saws of hundreds of lumber mills, the waves caused by countless vessel launches, and the many other sounds, sights, and smells indicative of industry and innovation. Bay City and West Bay City became major players in the lumbering, shipping, and shipbuilding industries on the Great Lakes from the mid-1800s into the 19th century. Indeed, innovation and perseverance have been the keys to Bay County's world-class maritime industry and culture that are still apparent today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439636725

Bloomfield, Ron

Ron Bloomfield is the director of operations and chief historian of the Bay County Historical Society and has extensively researched, written, and lectured about the maritime history of Bay County. The images chosen for this history are primarily from the extensive collections of the Bay County Historical Society, with additions from several other private collections. The Bay County Historical Society (founded in 1919) operates the Historical Museum of Bay County where more information on Bay County’s maritime past can be found in exhibits, publications, and programs.

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INTRODUCTION

An abundance of natural resources, namely the freshwater of Saginaw Bay, the meandering Saginaw River and its tributaries, and the prolific stands of pine in the area, was the major factor that helped determine the growth and success of the communities within Bay County. Of these resources, water was arguably the key ingredient to that success; the earliest groups of Native Americans used the water for many purposes, the shipbuilders saw a need and developed a superior product, the lumber barons and shipping lines utilized the water highway for transport, and many other residents used the waterways for other purposes, including recreation, sport, and transportation.

The point of transition between Native Americans and Europeans dates back to the late 1600s. The water route had been used by earlier French fur traders bringing items to trade for the rich furs of the area. Early settlers used the river mainly as a route to transfer supplies for building a settlement on what was considered the frontier of Michigan during the 1820s and 1830s. Travel on these early vessels was also a big part of the settling of that frontier. The Bay City and the Essex were two of the earliest vessels of considerable size to be built in the area called Lower Saginaw that would later become Bay City, setting the stage for a long-standing industry that would last over 150 years.

Bay County’s largest industry used the river and bay as an integral part of its success starting around the 1850s. The Saginaw River watershed and the bay were a very important part of the lumbering industry, which made Bay County one of the most prolific producers of cut and finished lumber and lumber products between the 1850s and the end of the century. Water was the easiest mode of transportation to float cut logs from the interior downriver to the many sawmills along the Saginaw River where they were cut into raw lumber, boards, lathe, and shingles. These products were then shipped out on vessels bound for markets abroad. Later, as stands of cork pine became scarce in the area, logs from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and even across Lake Huron in Canada were transported by large rafts of logs pulled by tugs and steamers run by two very successful Bay City firms. In fact, the origins of log rafting can be traced to Capt. James Reid and Capt. Benjamin Boutell of Bay City.

The need for vessels for the lumber and other commodities trade on the Great Lakes was fulfilled by enterprises along the Saginaw River, including two of the most successful firms in Great Lakes shipbuilding history. James Davidson started his shipbuilding business at West Bay City in the late 1860s and continued to build vessels until 1905. The 100 or so vessels his yard built during that time included the largest wooden vessels ever built on the Great Lakes. The remains of some of these 350-foot-long vessels still lie in the river off the former Davidson Shipyard, now a part of Veterans Memorial Park, a public park on the west side of the Saginaw River. Davidson’s chief competitor, Frank Willis Wheeler, started building wooden vessels in West Bay City in the 1870s, and by 1890, his yard had converted to producing steel vessels and quickly became one of the best-equipped and most productive yards on the Great Lakes. Wheeler’s conversion to steel ultimately led to a strain on his business that caused him to sell the yard to the American Shipbuilding Company. He later started a shipyard upriver in Carrollton (Saginaw County) that produced lakers for service in World War I.

The year 1900 represented a distinct turning point in Bay County’s history. The prosperous lumbering industry had, for the most part, packed up and left in the few preceding years, leaving a huge hole in the economic fabric of the area. The lumber industry moved on when the supply of trees dwindled beyond a level that could sustain major industry and many of the lumbering interests moved to new markets, looked to new products like hardwood production, or simply ceased to exist. In 1905, Bay City and West Bay City merged into what was termed as Greater Bay City by the pundits of the time, which was probably an effort to help foster a new sense of optimism in an uncertain world. Although Bay City would never again reach the heights attained during the lumbering era, much of the 20th century would be characterized by a diverse assortment of entrepreneurs with an even more diverse group of enterprises from kit homes and railway cranes to sugar production and parts for automobiles.

Water-reliant industries had a prominent place in Greater Bay City’s new outlook. Just as Davidson was building the last of his large wooden behemoths, Harry J. Defoe, a former school principal, took a gamble on a new boatbuilding concept. His knock-down kit-style boats were sold through catalogs and word of mouth from the Defoe Boat and Motor Works yard that opened in 1905 at the foot of Fifth Street on the east side of the river. A series of steel mine planters were the start of a long-standing relationship between Defoe and the Coast Guard and later the U.S. Navy. Defoe built ostentatious yachts during the 1920s and 1930s and continued to produce military contract vessels during the same time. During World War II, Defoe built over 150 vessels for the war effort, including the prototype for a subchaser, the patrol craft (PC). After World War II, Defoe built a variety of vessels from navy guided-missile destroyers to Great Lakes ore carriers and even a series of oceanographic research vessels. In the 1960s, it had the distinction of building three guided-missile destroyers for the Australian navy under contract with the U.S. Navy. Defoe closed in 1976, ending a long history of significant and successful shipbuilding on the banks of the Saginaw River.

Other shipbuilders of note built vessels of a variety of styles and functions. Bay City was the king of the kit boat industry early in the 20th century, including companies like