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As Fayette Historic
Townsite’s site historian for the Michigan Historical Center, I conduct
research to discover more about Fayette’s diverse nineteenth-century
community.
The Delta County
Courthouse in Escanaba provides a treasure trove of documents. Birth,
marriage and death records dating back to 1867--the year of Fayette’s
founding—are bound within large tabletop-size volumes, each entry
painstakingly handwritten by nineteenth-century clerks.
Beginning in 2000,
and as often as time allowed over the next few years, I drove an hour to
Escanaba for an investigative study of these rich primary documents.
Although it seemed at times like I was taking up permanent residence at
the county clerk’s office, I carefully examined each volume page by page
and jotted down all Fayette references. Not only did my research provide
valuable demographics, including birth, marriage and mortality statistics,
but also nationality, occupation and additional names of residents that
helped to better define Fayette’s nineteenth-century population.
Preserved as a state
park since 1959, Fayette began its industrial era nearly 140 years ago. In
1867 the Jackson Iron Company laid the town’s foundations with
construction of a large blast furnace operation to smelt and purify raw
iron ore into refined bars of pig iron. The furnace went into blast on
Christmas Day of that year, and for nearly twenty-four years the company
fueled the local economy while catering to this country’s post-Civil War
demand for processed iron. By 1891 a downturn in the iron market, in
addition to depletion of the company’s fuel supply, brought an end to
Fayette’s iron smelting operation.
At its peak, Fayette
burgeoned into a self-sufficient community of nearly four hundred
residents. Just over 68 percent were immigrants. French Canadians made up
the majority, while most others originated from the British Isles and
northern Europe. Among Fayette’s native-born population, residents from
Michigan, Wisconsin, New York and Ohio led the way,
Fayette’s growing
community averaged six weddings per year. The brides were quite young,
with just over 45 percent marrying between ages fourteen and nineteen.
Their male counterparts were somewhat older, with 68 percent marrying in
their twenties. One youthful Fayette marriage occurred on July 19, 1887,
between twenty-nine-year-old Joseph Bourbeau and sixteen-year-old Louise
LaFreniere. Years earlier, Joseph had vowed to marry ten-year-old Louise
when she “came of age.”
While women often
married at a younger age, men waited until their mid- to late-twenties,
allowing them time to establish a career and financial security for their
familial responsibilities. Half of Fayette’s bridegrooms were unskilled
laborers, the company’s lowest-paying occupation. On average, laborers
earned $39 per month and most likely struggled to make ends meet while
living with their families in Fayette’s lower-income log cabin
neighborhood. The town’s middle-class of skilled workers, including
blacksmiths, butchers, carpenters, machinists and office employees,
typically earned $55 to $75 monthly and lived across town in comfortable
framed dwellings.
Of 141 available
marriage records, eight brides listed occupations: three seamstresses, one
dressmaker, one tailoress, one domestic and two servants. During the
nineteenth century, few opportunities were available to women other than
marriage. Society frowned on educating girls for anything besides domestic
work, which raised the concern stated in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
“We leave her at the mercy of chance, knowing that the time may come when
she whom we have not taught to do any bread-winning work will have need of
bread, and will know no way in which to get it except through dependence,
beggary, or worse.”
Melanie Cabocel, a
twenty-four-year-old widow and mother of three, took in laundry at Fayette
to support her family, earning up to $6 per month. Given the probable
hardships of trying to survive on a meager income, within two years of
being widowed Melanie remarried in 1890.
While many immigrants
arrived in this country as a family, some men first earned money so they
could send for loved ones. German immigrant Nicholas Thill worked as the
town’s plasterer, earning enough wages to return for the woman he promised
to marry, Julia Eggert. Unfortunately, on his way through Chicago he was
robbed, losing all his money. Unbeknownst to Nicholas, Fayette residents
raised enough money for Julia’s passage; after her arrival they arranged a
party. That evening, friends introduced Nicholas along a reception line
until he stood in front of his beloved. All he could say was, “Why, I
believe that is my Julia.” The couple married on July 3, 1883, and had
nine children together.
Fayette’s young couples started
families fairly soon after the wedding. Some may have gotten an early
start; seven records showed births less than nine months from the day of
nuptials. Over 73 percent gave birth to their first child within two years
of their wedding day. Fayette carpenter George Talbot and wife Julia had
eleven children born in quick succession. Names for the first nine
children all began with letter “A” including: Alice, Addrian, Alvin,
Archibald, August, Agness, Arthur, Anne and Alvina followed by the tenth
child, Herbert. (There is no record found for the name of the eleventh
child.)
Although maternal
fatalities were high throughout the nineteenth century, only two
childbirth-related deaths were recorded at Fayette. The low mortality rate
may be attributed to the fact that expectant mothers had access to the
town’s company doctor. Midwives were also available on the Garden
Peninsula, including Isabelle Gray, known as “Grandma Gray,” who
reportedly was trained in midwifery by Fayette company physician Dr.
Curtis J. Bellows.
Although Fayette
residents experienced their share of wedded bliss and bouncing bundles of
joy, like other nineteenth-century communities the cyclical seasons
occasionally brought sorrow. The major causes of disease-related deaths
were cholera, consumption, typhoid and pneumonia. Tragedy struck one
Fayette family hard in 1884, when James Trembath, Fayette’s hotel
proprietor, lost his wife, Grace, their thirteen-year-old daughter, Lillie
and four-year-old son, Fred to typhoid fever.
Fayette’s leading
killers were typical for the period given lack of medical knowledge.
Common treatments that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century were
administrations of ineffectual and often toxic drugs, including highly
addictive opiates like laudanum and morphine, while others turned to home
remedies and patent medicines as the panacea of ills.
Nearly half of
Fayette’s fatalities occurred to children under the age of four.
Gastrointestinal illnesses like cholera and dysentery caused 31 percent of
deaths. Nationally, two out of ten children died of such diseases before
age five. Children under one year of age were particularly susceptible to
death once foods other than breast milk were introduced. Breastfeeding
protected against diarrheal disease commonly known as “summer complaint,”
which often occurred during the warmest months when infants were
mistakenly fed spoiled cows’ milk.
Fayette’s infant
mortality victims included Edith Jane Kitchen, daughter of Superintendent
J. B. Kitchen and his wife, Alison. As reported in the April 30, 1881,
Escanaba Iron Port, “Mr. Kitchen has lost his little daughter, whose
advent nearly cost the life of its mother.... The home at Fayette is a sad
and lonely one.” Edith Jane’s death shows that even members of Fayette’s
elite were susceptible to fatal illnesses that overshadowed less
prosperous residents.
Given the potentially
dangerous environment of working in a furnace town, it is surprising no
industrial-related deaths were recorded; although “killed by falling tree”
claimed the life of one unfortunate man. Local newspapers reported over
the years on various work-related accidents at Fayette. The most serious
cases typically resulted in amputation, a common practice given limited
medical technology of the era. In 1871 the Escanaba Tribune reported,
“Last week a young man named Alec Kenyon at Fayette, sawed his hand
fearfully, while working at a slab-saw in the mill at that place. Dr.
Bellows found it necessary to amputate the first finger, and our informant
states he may have to lose them all.” At a time when the transmission of
germs and aseptic procedures were largely unknown, amputations frequently
led to death by infection; however, no fatalities from gangrene were
reported at Fayette. This may indicate the town’s company doctor was aware
of and utilized sanitary methods in his medical practice.
In recent years,
archaeologists discovered numerous household and industrial deposits in
roadbeds and near residences, especially on the lower-income side of town,
revealing Fayette was a dirty industrial community. Given the town’s
environment and the era’s limited medical technology, I expected to
discover higher fatalities; however, death-related disease and illness
were infrequent. An analysis of Fayette death records revealed an average
of just 2.32 deaths per year—less than 1 percent of Fayette’s population.
Although historical
research can be challenging, each new discovery uncovers information that
helps bridge the gap between the past and present. Fayette was not simply
a burgeoning industry and company town; it also was a community that
experienced joys and sorrows through life’s rites of passages: birth,
marriage and mortality.
BRENDA J. LAAKSO is
the site historian for Fayette Historic Townsite.
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