| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| melody |
Posted - Jul 20 2009 : 6:59:13 PM
FAYETTE, MICHIGAN
In the mid-1800s, iron ore was shipped from the Upper Peninsula mines to the foundries in the lower Great Lakes at an enormous cost. This high cost of shipping was caused by inefficient transportation combined with the nearly 40 percent waste the ore contained. The solution was to build a blast furnace close to the mine where the ore could be smelted into pig iron before it was shipped to the steel-making centers. The town had to be relatively close to the Escanaba ore docks, have a natural harbor, and be near the limestone and hardwood forests that were needed to smelt the iron ore.
Named after Fayette Brown, the Jackson Iron Company agent who chose the site, Fayette was once one of the Upper Peninsula's most productive iron-smelting operations. Located on the Garden Peninsula at Snail Shell Harbor, Fayette grew up around two blast furnaces, a large dock and several charcoal kilns after the Civil War. Nearly five hundred residents, many immigrating from Canada, the British Isles and northern Europe, lived in and near the town that existed to make pig iron.
During twenty-four years of operation, 1867 to l891, Fayette's blast furnaces produced a total of 229,288 tons of iron, using local hardwood forests for fuel and quarrying limestone from the bluffs to purify the iron ore. When the charcoal iron market began to decline, the Jackson Iron Company closed its Fayette smelting operation.
The day was bright with just a little breeze coming off the bay...a very nice and restful afternoon with Bruce and Elli and my sister Annie and her husband Todd who happen to be spending the next 10 days camping at Fayette....LUCKY! 
Melody |
| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| paradiseplantation |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 1:56:50 PM
Love it, Melody! And the dtory behind it really is interesting! Glad you could get away for some fun for a day!
from the hearts of paradise... |
| electricdunce |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 11:39:46 AM
BEautiful pictures, and lots of interesting reading....there is something so haunting about those old houses. I'm wishing I was headed back to Michigan in October, but maybe next year.
Karin
Farmgirl Sister #153
"Give me shelter from the storm" - Bob Dylan
http://moodranch.blogspot.com
http://domesticnonsense.etsy.com |
| FebruaryViolet |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 11:07:40 AM
How very interesting, Belle. Very!
Now you all are making me blue for Michigan. Would LOVE to get back there soon. Maybe when Violet can comprehend a little better, I can show her where momma went to school.
Musings from our family in the Bluegrass http://sweetvioletmae.blogspot.com/ |
| Bellepepper |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 10:58:49 AM
I know that feeling! The first visit to Longwoods gardens in PA, I felt at peace or something. Like I belonged there. I usually buy a book about the history of a place when visiting for the first time. After we got home, I read the book of the history of Longwood Gardens. The land was first inhabited by the Lanape Delaware Indians. That was my Grandpa's people. I have been back to the gardens several times and the feeling is always there.
We have been to the UP also. It was fasinating. We had never been in that area and loved it. We stayed at the Gitchagummie (sp?) campground right on the shore of Lake Superior. Drove to the Eastern most point and visited the lighthouse and the Edmond Fitzgerald memorial. There is a shipwreck museum there. So very interesting. Along with the Indian, iron shipping and lighthouses and shipwrecks, there is so much to see. Oh, and we ate pasties everyday and bought a cookbook so we could make them at home. |
| FebruaryViolet |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 10:29:11 AM
I totally agree with you, Melody. I don't profess to have any "sight" other than with my own two eyes, but I know that I've never felt that way anywhere else. I often wondered if it was because I was "marked" by my relatives before me in Foy, that I knew my way around to find them, or because I was a woman who could "understand" the saddness that the Tor stood for at one time that I was able to feel those things. Who knows? But I don't think you've gone round the bend--if you have, than I have too!
Musings from our family in the Bluegrass http://sweetvioletmae.blogspot.com/ |
| melody |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 09:37:28 AM
Oh my, Jonni...that gave me goosebumps. I believe that there are a few, chosen few....that are in tune with ...I don't know what word to choose, but have an extra sense about places or events or a spirituality or electricity that creates a connection? I think that's how to explain it. I don't know...sounds kooky and not a lot of people grasp it. But, I can truely relate to your experience. Wow...
This feeling I get when I visit the little village of Fayette and that particular home has only happened to me there... No that's not true. Once, when we were stationed in Europe, I was very small- not even in school at the time, but I remember driving in a taxi with my parents and rounding a corner in Rome and I knew that if I looked to my right that the Colleseum would be there. It was positively an electric feeling. Now..you all are going to think Melody's gone round the bend!! Any one else out there experience something like this?
Melody
Farmgirl #525
http://melodynotes-melodynotes.blogspot.com
www.lemonverbenasoap.etsy.com |
| FebruaryViolet |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 07:21:17 AM
Melody, I experienced such a similar thing while walking Glastonbury Tor in England. It was midnight, there were cows on the tor, and I felt this overwhelming saddness and believe it or not, feminine "cramping" (I had already had my cycle and couldn't quite figure it out)...turns out that the tor once held a nunnery where Guinevere was supposedly held after her affair with Lancelot had been discovered. It was, essentially, a prison for unchaste women. When I left the Tor, everything that I had felt ceased.
I also knew my way around this little village called Foy, where I had never set foot in my life. I had an uncanny sense of the placement of the graveyard, where I was looking for relatives.
Musings from our family in the Bluegrass http://sweetvioletmae.blogspot.com/ |
| melody |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 07:10:54 AM
Cherry....the one snap I have of the window...I am going to build one just like that when DH and I are ready to sell this old boat of a house in a few short years. I have more photos of my "dream" house on the upstairs computer and will post those so you can see different angles.
The picture of the window (from the house I am going to build) evokes a lot of different feelings for me. It's haunting, but in a good way  ....
When I was a teenager and we first visited Fayette we had to walk a great distance from the camping park to the the little village. I knew before we turned one corner in the dirt road what I would see and how it was going to look...there is a french word for that. Knowing that you have been there before. Sounds wacky, but its true!!
I know what you mean about going back and seeing what it was like. I would love to spend a day in the life of a woman in 1867 in a little village like this...
Melody
Farmgirl #525
http://melodynotes-melodynotes.blogspot.com
www.lemonverbenasoap.etsy.com |
| Ga Girl |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 06:30:06 AM
So cool Melody, I love learning about places of the past. Thanks so much for a great history lesson today. Blessings,Karen
Create in me a pure heart,O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalms 51:10 http://farmgirlingastyle.blogspot.com/
www.KKJD1.etsy.com |
| FebruaryViolet |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 06:26:30 AM
That's both beautiful and really lonely looking, Melody! I would love to travel there. One day, Michigan, I'm coming back!!!
Musings from our family in the Bluegrass http://sweetvioletmae.blogspot.com/ |
| CherryMeDarlin |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 06:18:18 AM
Fascinating! I love places like that. Thank you for sharing with us, Melody. Don't you wish you could just stand there in the middle of it all and have time roll back to the days when it was bustling and alive?
~~Cherry~~
http://cherrymedarlin.blogspot.com
"A thing is as simple or as complicated as you make it." --TT Murphy |
| Julia |
Posted - Jul 20 2009 : 10:15:39 PM
What great pictures! I love the first one especially. I love old buildings. Thank you for posting the pictures with a history lesson to boot!
For tomorrow and its needs I do not pray, but keep me, guide me, love me, Lord just for today.
St. Augustine
#440 |
| Sitnalta |
Posted - Jul 20 2009 : 7:08:54 PM
Thanks for sharing! The pictures are just beautiful!
hugs
Jessie
Farmgirl Sister #235
"You are my strength when I am weak. You are the treasure that I seek. You are my all in all. Seeking You as a precious jewel; Lord, to give up I'd be a fool. You are my all in all."
Stop by my blog for a visit www.messiejessie2.blogspot.com |
| peapicker |
Posted - Jul 20 2009 : 7:08:37 PM
What a nice piece of history you are sharing with us. It sounds like you had a great trip. I love places like this. Thanks for telling us about it. |
