Logging and the Smith/Wilson families

Lumber was an important industry in Michigan.



William Keywis Smith worked for the Antrim Iron Company. In 1920 he was living in Camp 31, Mancelona Township, Antrim County, Michigan with his wife Mary and children Robert (age 21), Anna (13), Alden (11), Cora (8) and Wallace (one month). A total of 14 families made up Camp 31, the other Native families being William P. Wilson, George Russett, (wife Julia and three children), Frank Wesley, (wife Alice and daughter Elizabeth) and William Daniels, (wife Jennie and granddaughter Lily Shocko).

Camp 31 was in section 31 (lower left corner) on land labeled as Antrim Iron Works. Note all the additional lots the company owned.


By 1930 many of the lumbermen had moved to 40-House Camp in Hayes Township, Otsego County. William Keywis Smith is there with wife Mary, and children Elden, 21, Wallace, 10, Moses, 8 and Mabel, 10 [Mabel is actually the daughter of Emma Wesley and Nelson Ransom being raised by the Smiths.] William's daughter Anna, her husband Charlie Wilson, their children Angeline (8), Jim (7), Nancy (5) and Nicholas (2) are there as well, along with Charlie's mother Lizzie and brothers Henry (16) and Isaac (12). The families of Frank Wesley and George Russett had moved to Sanborn in Alpena county, both men giving their occupations as laborers - farm and woods.

On the above 1925 plat map of northern Hayes township, Antrim Iron Company has land in parts of sections 7, 15 and 16 and owns all of sections 8, 17 and 18.

This picture of 40 House Camp and School was found at the Gaylord Historical Museum.

When Anna Smith Wilson writes to the Mt. Pleasant Indian School in 1930 she states they are living at Camp 17, Mancelona. By December 1931 she writes that they are at Motts Camp near Alba.

William Smith dies in November 1934 at Hayes Township, Otsego county. (Most likely at the camp) Some members of the Wilson family still reside at 40-House Camp in December 1936 when a newspaper account is given of Mrs. Wilson (Anna) being cut on her arm by her husband's brother.

By 1940 Mary Smith and her sons Alden, Wallace and Moses have relocated to Elk Rapids in Antrim county, next to  Charles Wilson, wife and children James, Nicholas and Mary. For Charles and Moses occupation is listed as woodcutter, place of work at pulpwood forest. Wallace's occupation is woodman, also at pulpwood forest. Charles and Anna's daughter Angeline and her husband Anthony Sineway (plus their daughter Virginia) are in Cold Springs Township, Kalkaska County. Anthony is a woodsman at a log camp. Angeline and Anthony's children recall her speaking of Camp 9 in Kalkaska, while Virginia remembers a Camp 10, north of Alba in Antrim County.

Charles was a woodcutter all his life. His daughter Beverly and granddaughter Virginia remember living in Cedar in Leelanau County in the later 1940s. Their stories include Charles having a pair of pants with many pockets and candy in one of the pockets; living in a boxcar; and living next to the river which rose during the night and came into the house.

The book "Giishkiboojigeng" (Logging) - Story excerpts from the Elders of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians can be read here: https://dspace.nmc.edu/handle/11045/23849