In 1923, Stanley Newton published, “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part twenty-two of a continuing series about the history of Sault Ste. Marie and area in its early years. I have left punctuation and grammar intact. – Laurie Davis
James Ord, United States Indian Agent at Sault Ste. Marie, after the departure of Henry Schoolcraft, was the Mystery Man of the village in former days. He and his beautiful wife lived in seclusion at the Agency, aloof from people of the town, but constantly receiving visits from unknown people of apparent quality, who came and went ofttimes in the night. Ord was said to be the son of the King of England, of the King of France, or a German nobleman. Letters with great seals came to him from abroad, The day came when he disappeared, upon the receipt of a particularly gorgeous missive, and travelers from the north country in after years fancied they saw him in high circles at the court of St. James.
Street Names
Bingham Avenue, on or near which old pathway the first Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions were erected, was known for many years as Church Street.
Portage Avenue, Portage Road, or The Portage, as it was called in the old days, served as an ancient portage for the transportation of merchandise around the rapids, only on that part of it west of Douglas Street and east of the present Alto Eastown goods were unloaded at a point west of the railroad bridge about on the northern line of the ship canal, the canal of course, having wiped out the western section of the old portage road. The goods were hauled down the present line of Portage Avenue as far as Douglas Street, where the portage curved to the north. It then took the present line of Water Street to and a trifle east off the still-existing warehouse of the American Fur Company.
When Mr. Fred W. Roach came to Sault Ste. Marie with his father Mr. Ashbell B. Roach in 1865, the woods were thick where Magazine Street now is. Spalding & Childs were in business here about that time, and they dealt among other merchandise in blasting powder, which for safety’s sake was stored in a small building in the woods to the west of the village. This building was known as the powder-house or magazine. It was nearly on the line of Magazine Street, and the latter took its name from that circumstance and not from any connection with Fort Brady as is generally supposed.
John Newton Adams is Honored
When Mr. R. N. Adams platted his additions to Sault Ste. Marie in 1887, he named three streets in these additions John, Newton, and Adams, for his son, who is now a City Commissioner. Two other streets, Ann and Augusta, take their names from that of Mr. Adam’s daughter, Mrs. W. F. Ferguson.
The southward leg of Douglas Street, from Ridge to Spruce, was shown on the old plats as Sobraro Street, from Mr. Frank Sobraro, the former owner of considerable property in the vicinity. Mission Road takes its name from the fact that the first Methodist Episcopal Mission was a little to the eastward of it.
The Roach Homestead
The Roach homestead, built by Mr. Ashbell B. Roach in 1872, is familiarly remembered by most Saulteurs standing prominently as it did on Ashmun Street at the water power canal. This house was removed to make room for the Soo Ford Auto Company, and with it went the magnificent elm trees planted by Mr. Roach in the centennial year 1876. The Republic having reached its one-hundredth birthday, President Grant called upon the people of the country, to commemorate the event by the planting of trees, and there are a few trees still standing, in Sault Ste. Marie which recall that happy occasion.
The Ashbell Roach home was at the time of its construction the first house south of the Hotel Superior, which is also remembered by many of the residents of the city. The community’s banking was done at Detroit, and Mr. Easterday was for some years the local representative of the Peoples’s Savings Bank of Detroit.
Navigation of St. Mary’s
There were no lighthouses on St. Mary’s River or Lake Superior then, and navigation usually came to a stop at sundown. Bulk and package freight on the upper lakes was handled to a great extent in schooners of three to four hundred tons burden, which were pulled by tugs through the river channels and the ship canal. Mrr. L.P. Trempe owned a fleet of tugs which towed these schooners up from Detour or down from Whitefish or Bay Mills. Outside the river the diminutive freighters cast off and sailed away.
The Eber Ward liners were the best known boats on the lakes in 1870. About 1875, the Anchor Line brought out the iron steamers China, Japan, and India, massive and wonderful in their time, but tiny now. Other steamers of the period, still remembered by old time vessel men, were the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, Empire State, Badger State, and Winslow; the Canadian liners Asia, Africa, and Sovereign; the Cuyahoga and the Norman; the City of Traverse, Jay Gould, the City of Duluth; and most celebrated of all, the Peerless, the finest boat on the Great Lakes in 1870.
The approach to the State Locks from the village was over a small bridge, with running water and a pool beneath so deep that drownings have happened there. The village circus grounds were just southeast of the fountain in Lock Park, and the circus came to Sault Ste. Marie by boat. The stores were on the north side of Water Street, and each store had its private dock. Peter Barbeau owned the first store west of Ashmun Street on Water Street, and was afterward succeeded by his son-in-law M. W. Scranton.
- The Mystery Man - March 10, 2025
- Reverend Thomas R Easterday - February 3, 2025
- Teaching Future Leaders - January 27, 2025
