180 Years Ago: First Newspaper in the U.P.

One hundred eighty years ago, the first newspaper ever published in the U.P. rolled off a hand press in Copper Harbor. On July 11, 1846, Marquette hadn't even been founded. Today, that same newspaper is still publishing there as The Mining Journal. Here’s an AI-assisted transcription of the first issue of The Lake Superior News that makes the 180-year-old newspaper easier to read.

LAKE SUPERIOR NEWS — July 11, 1846 — Front Page
Forensic transcription: unreadable portions are marked [illegible] or [unclear].

COLUMN 1

THE LAKE SUPERIOR NEWS,
is published every Saturday, at Copper Harbor,
Houghton County, Michigan, by
E. D. GIBBS.  [unclear if middle initial]
——————
TERMS — Three dollars per annum, invariably in advance. Advertisements, per square, $1 for the first insertion, and 25 cents for each subsequent insertion.

BROCKWAY HOUSE,
COPPER HARBOR.

THE undersigned would inform the travelling public and those visiting the mineral region of Lake Superior, that he has opened and comfortably furnished a large and commodious house at Copper Harbor, and is now prepared for the reception and accommodation of visitors. The house is situated at the upper end of the har bor, directly opposite the head of Porter’s Island, and in the immediate vicinity of the [unclear: “wharf”] where the lake craft land their goods or passengers. Every convenience that the miner or country will admit shall be afforded his patrons, and no pains spared to please all who may sojourn at his house.

Visitors to the Mineral Region will find at the Brockway House every accommodation for their comfort, and they are most respectfully invited to call.      

D. D. BROCKWAY.
Copper Harbor, July 7, 1846.

PORTER ISLAND HOUSE,
COPPER HARBOR.

THE subscribers having erected a large and convenient house on Porter’s Island for the accommodation of visitors in the Copper Region, would respectfully solicit a share of their patronage. Their house is well fitted up, situated in the most pleasant part of the harbor, and central in the government Mineral Agency. Every attention will be paid their guests to make them comfortable, and a boat kept on hand to convey them to and from any part of the harbor.     

J. RAYMOND.
H. HASKELL.
Copper Harbor, July 7, 1846.

EAGLE HARBOR HOUSE,
EAGLE HARBOR.

THIS large and commodious house recently erected, and on the most delightful situation of Lake Superior, is now open for the reception of travellers and the travelling public, who are invited to call; and the subscriber wishes to say that no effort shall be wanting on his part to render their stay agreeable.     
HIRAM JOY.
Eagle Harbor, July 8, 1846.

VAN ANDEN HOUSE,
SAULT STE. MARIE.

THIS house has been recently enlarged, newly finished and furnished, and a portion especially fitted up for the accommodation of Ladies and Families. The location is in full view of the Falls, with fine prospects of the river up and down. Within a few rods is the finest fishing in the universe! and, where speckled trout and every variety of Lake and River fish are taken in abundance. No pains will be spared for the comfort and accommodation of
visitors.     
J. W. VAN ANDEN.
Sault Ste. Marie, July 1, 1846.

ALGOMAH HOUSE,
SAULT STE. MARIE.

BY JAMES CARSON. The above new and commodious house is now open for the reception of visitors, furnished in a style that will insure the comfort and convenience of the public. The proprietor confidently hopes that strict personal attention to business, with unremitting exertions to please, will enable him to make his guests “at home” during their sojourn at the Sault. The Table will be furnished with all the delicacies of the season, and the Bar with choice Wines and Liquors.      

JAMES CARSON.
Sault Ste. Marie, July 1, 1846.

MICHIGAN EXCHANGE,
DETROIT.

D. GOODNOW & SON, successors to Or ville H. Dorr, beg to present themselves
as proprietors of this extensive and favorite es tablishment. Its location upon the principal avenue, in the immediate neighborhood of the Bank, Post Office, and the most extensive business part of the city, overlooking the river for a considerable distance, affording an extended view of the Canada shore, and the surrounding country; a [unclear: “fine”] inducement to the traveller for business or pleasure, unsurpassed in the city. Their long experience in the business of conducting a public house will enable them to make their guests at home during their sojourn in Detroit, and they respectfully solicit a share of pub-
lic patronage.
Detroit, July 1, 1846.
COMMERCIAL HOTEL,
DETROIT.

JON SMITHEY has opened the above new and commodious Hotel at the foot of Fifteenth on Jefferson avenue, and is now prepared for the reception of visitors. The House is new and has been fitted up in a superior manner. The table will at all times be furnished with the best the market affords, and servants attentive to the wants of persons. The location of the house is pleasant, being on the bank of the river, and convenient le- rooms from the interior. The Stable is one of the largest and best in the city.
Detroit, July 1, 1846.

Plats and Bills, No. [illegible], furnished and forwarded by
C. R. RUSSELL.

LAKE SUPERIOR NEWS — July 11, 1846 — COLUMN 2 (Forensic Transcription, Revised)

MUSINGS BY THE LAKE SHORE.

Majestic Lake! let not my troubled waves
Tell they recoil upon their rocky course!
A stranger’s feet have trod thy shores to-day,
Where many other strangers once have trod,
With varying resolutions. Few, perchance,
Have felt the wonders of thy presence,
When the soft smile of day was pouring on thy breast
In bitter rays; and the thin mists curled up
From forth their sleeping place.

And thou, wide waste! Where earth and water blend,
To bound the dim horizon from our sight,
What secret thrill can thy bosom not afford!
Behind yon icy bergs—some pilot’s track?
What floating vessel waits the freight of souls
All bearing an identity unknown!—
Whether to honor, fortune, and never home,
Or that which calls its own him and almost invites,
And wearied men secretly pine, with lips to breathe?

Oh! “beautiful” as sinks the golden sun,
And the blue heavens bend tranquil down the while,
Yea, beautiful indeed! to us it must
The rim, red westward spread her volume of velvet,
And small and humble mirrors—while hoar and
Keen in her wake the summer; still the lake,
A sleeping queen with her very look.

Night on the lake! Below, around, above—
But not a night of darkness, nor of storm;
The thousand sparks will even-tide watch the shores,
The fleecy clouds assume a bell-vapor’s form;
While phosphorescent flashes gleam, and play,
Herald the pale light of the sister moon.

Oh! ye who are, thousands of leagues from home—
By a few planks and fearfully upborne
From an eternity’s unshaken deep—
Would ye not yet remember your souls,
That ye could thus this scene before, look out
In the expanse of waters, with an eye
That kindles with the fervor of soul awe,
And answer by the doctrines that ye hear
From ocean, whom battle feeds? O, and in our souls—
Has been years’ trouble, and may ye pour sorrow!

TWO MONTHS IN THE COPPER REGION.
BY CHARLES W. WHITTLESEY.

It was on the 19th day of August, 1843, that our party—consisting of a  [unclear] and well built
yawl, of about four tons, moored in the still water above the rapids of the St. Mary’s river. We were venturing upon an experiment. We could not learn that such a craft had ever put forth alone upon the waters of Lake Superior, and our intention was to follow the south coast as far as the season would permit.

Four hundred rods of trees this lake had been navigated by the bark canoe, and parties were setting off every day for Copper Harbor, La Pointe, and other remote points, in these apparently frail vessels, but which the experience of centuries had demonstrated to be the safest conveyance known. The Mackinaw boat had long traversed these shores, transporting goods to the Fur Company’s post, and returning with furs.

These boats, narrow, flat-bottom boats, carry a heavy burden, so well before the wind, and are easily drawn ashore. The bark canoe, as well as the Mackinaw boat, has no keel, and the safety of both consists in being able to make a harbor of every sand beach, in case of a storm. The expert voyager, has a kind of second sight in regard to weather, smelling a storm while it is yet a great way off.

It is only when a great saving may be made, and the weather is perfectly fair, that he ventures to leave the vicinity of the shores, and cruise from point to point, in the open sea. These passages are called “traverses,” and such is the suddenness with which storms arise, that a traverse of ten or fifteen miles, even in fair weather, and while every indication is favorable, is regarded as a hazardous operation. Some daring boatmen make them of thirty miles.

Of course, the birchen canoe and the Mackinaw boat, being without keels, cannot sail up on the wind. Our yawl, with a keel of four inches, having nine men and about a ton of provisions aboard, sank about sixteen inches in the water. She was provided with a cotton square-sail, containing forty square yards, and had row-locks for six oars. How she would row—how she would sail, and how she would behave in the storm, we could only surmise, and the surmises were rather against the little sea- [boat].

The portage, over which goods now pass, from the level of Lake Huron to that of Lake Superior, is a flat, wet, marshy piece of land, about three-fourths of a mile across. To the westward, the country appears to be low and swampy, as far as the view extends, which, however, is limited by the thick timber, principally spruce, pine, white cedar, birch, and hemlock. But a walk of one mile in this direction,

LAKE SUPERIOR NEWS — July 11, 1846 — COLUMN 3 (Forensic Transcription, Revised)

[Continuation of “Two Months in the Copper Region.” — by Charles W. Whittlesey.]

…brought me to a low eminence, rising out of a cedar swamp, composed of masses of rolled granite and other primitive rocks, in size from small pebbles to a diameter of ten feet. The timber among them had been lately blackened by a raging fire. The trunks of these, chiefly [unclear] trees, some standing erect, some leaning [unclear] others; and many prostrate on the [unclear], were scattered indiscriminately, with the white [unclear] of moss [unclear], [unclear], and the ashes.

On the north and [unclear], it is [unclear] scenery; and, on the south, a high [unclear] of mountain extended, in each direction, out of sight. There was [unclear] visible at the head of St. Joseph’s Island, lifting the jagged outline of trap rocks. The view from the low ground, on the American side, towards the high land across the river, is extensive and grandly [unclear]. In front is the river, a mile broad, and the rapids. At the opposite shore, the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company, half commercial, half military, with a block house and white house. For several miles down the river, there are houses on the bank, and farms surrounding both, at irregular distances, up the mountains. Here the trader, voyageur, mountaineer, freeboot, Indian, and Indian goods, made promiscuously—such is the foreground of the view. Behind and beyond are the mountain ranges, in that pure atmosphere perfectly distinct at the distance of twenty miles.

Our tents were struck at 7 o’clock, A. M., and the journey began. There were other parties scattered about the open space at the warehouse: some had regular tents, some sheltered themselves under a broad piece of India rubber cloth, stretched over a pole like the roof of a house. One [unclear] had a conical tent, with an upright pole at the centre, the canvass spiked out around the foot; and another, in default of other covering, by sewing together a cotton bedtick, [unclear] it. A dozen [unclear] surveyors were encamped near the landing, from a cruise of three months in the interior. This party had run a tier of townships, from Mackinaw, northward, into sections of one mile square. These men encamped a few days at this place, to secure their tattered garments, of which only the shreds and fragments remained. In enterprises of this sort, it is only by pluck and energy, and great powers of endurance, that the engineer can reduce any thing from the pittance
allowed by government for its original surveys. They provision themselves by carrying all on their backs, from the depots on the shore. “Packers,” though slender their purses, their evident want of rest, week after week, and month after month, would be deemed absolutely impracticable to a person not trained in that school, especially in the vicinity of the lake. No beast of burden could pass without bridges, even in case a path may should be cut through the matted evergreens that cover the ground. To make a path for a horse or mule, would consume more time and labor per mile than the survey itself. There
is a hardy class of Frenchmen and half breeds from Canada, voyageurs, called “packers.” They are bred in the service of the Fur Companies, to carry goods, from the nearest landing to the trading post, and return with a pack of furs. The surveyors found these packers indispensable in their operations. They will carry from 50 to 70 pounds, and can
travel along in the recesses of the forest without loss of losing their way.

They are patient, cheerful and obedient; in fact, they are on land what the voyageur is
upon the water. His appetite for food corresponds with his ability to endure fatigue, and
his great care to recreate it in sufficient quantity. He makes, with little instruction, an excellent axeman and chainman. If circumstances prevent a return to the camp or the rendezvous, he can lie down at the foot of a tree, sleep till daybreak, and resume his tramp without complaint.

The party which joined our encampment here was a subject for Colin, the Indian stecher
[unclear: “Store”] [unclear], hearty and jovial fellows, never broke into the limits of civilization. The northern atmosphere had tinged their cheeks with red, they were all young and active men, glowing with that high animal life, that extreme buoyancy of spirits, which is a stranger to the inhabitants of cities—to those who toss upon feather beds, and live upon soups and comfits. This rugged company, full of lies and frolic,
with [unclear: “beards”] of three months’ cultivation, in red

[continues into Column 4]

COLUMN 4
[Continuation of “Two Months in the Copper Region.”]

…flannel shirts, and fustian trousers in shreds, white beaver hats, less the borders, some in shoes, some in moccasins, and some in boots, from all of which various toes were looking out.

And yet the worthy burghers of the Sault say, St. Marie has been a trading post some [unclear: “one or”] two hundred years. The good Catholics, R[a]mbault and J[ogues], preached repentance to the Nadowessie, or Sioux, on the [unclear] in 1751, whom the French traders [unclear] followed. Here is my [unclear] for doubt if a civili-
zation has been fixed for two centuries!

In consequence, a mixed race has sprung up, rather the representatives of refinement, nor of barbarism, but of a medium state. It may well be supposed, that a band of jolly fellows habited as we have described, those hardy surveyors, axemen, chainmen and packers, would not attract here that attention which they would in New York, or in London. But they appeared to be objects of no little interest and curiosity to the worthy inhabitants of the Sault, especially as some of them were so disguised that their old friends did not recognize them.

Looking back from the water, upon the collection of tents and lodges, we had a view of the group at one glance, and the scene from the new point of observation suggested ideas
that had not presented themselves while we formed a part of it. Around some of the camp fires were gentlemen from the Atlantic shore, with greased cap and costume, shivering in the raw wind of the morning. Poor fellows! impelled by the hope of wealth to be found in the copper region, they had rushed, at unseasonable rates, to the extremity of navigation, of taverns, and permanent habitations.

The reality of copper exploration had now commenced. A night of drizzling rain and fog
had been passed in a cold tent, on wet ground. Among them were several voyageurs and half breeds, [illegible line: cleanliness/clothing]. The low wind was no annoyance to
them, so long as there was a flint and steel to strike a fire, and a plentiful stock of provisions between the cup and current; and the flannel shirt and canvas trousers, was every grade of man represented by a grade of habiliment.

In front of this motley collection of persons and things, lay the frame of a large schooner,
on which fifty workmen were laying the plank. All the timbers and lumber brought from the lower lakes; and in the open level space beyond, alone a stack elevated through the swamp, stood the ruins of a vessel, advancing on solid land towards the town above the Falls. This labor and expense of bringing vessels over land, or the lumber to construct them with, is unavoidable. As for as known, there is not ship timber enough on Lake Superior to build a schooner.

The rock which causes the rapids is a clear, fine grained red sandstone, in thin layers, pitching to the northeast. There has been much diversity of opinion among geologists, about the geological position of this rock. As I proceed, I shall again notice this rock, and its analogues, which occupies almost the entire southern coast of the lake.

The first principal meridian of the U. States survey, comes out on the waters of St. Marie’s, at the ship road, just above the rapids. This is a true meridian, run with great care from the base line, which is about 12 miles north of Detroit. The 1st meridian is about 20 miles west of Detroit, and passing up through the peninsula of Michigan, crosses the straits near Mackinaw. By the government system of rectangular co-ordinates, referred always to a given base and meridian, an observer knows his exact position, wherever he may be, in the surveyed portions of the U. States. Every township is six miles square, every section one mile square, every quarter section half a mile square. Every section corner has permanent marks on some adjacent tree, which give the situation of that corner, from its proper base and meridian. I make this explanation, to give light upon terms that I shall use hereafter.

In traversing the American shore of Lake Superior, we found, as far as the Porcupine Mountains, west of the Ontonagon, that the surveyors had preceded us. During the present and the past year they had extended the township lines to the distance along the coast, and for a part of this distance had subdivided the townships into sections.—
These surveys had been carried to different distances, interior. From the base near Detroit.

LAKE SUPERIOR NEWS — July 11, 1846 — COLUMN 5 (Forensic Transcription, Revised)

[Continuation of “Two Months in the Copper Region.”]

…numbering northward. St. Marie’s is in township No. 47 North, range No. 1 East. But our point of embarkation was on the west side of the meridian, in town 47 North, range 1 West, or 222 miles north of the base line.

We are now fairly under way, and shall be able to keep our reckonings. The river expands as we ascend against a very gentle current; the shores are low and swampy, or sandy, and
covered with [unclear] pines.

In an hour and a half, so easily did our boat tow, we were at “Point aux Pins,” on the British side. At ten o’clock, we were on shore at “Gros Cap,” looking up [unclear], and clambering the red granite ridge, which here projects towards the American shore — the extremity of the range of mountains in view from the rapids, to the eastward.

From the height of 500 feet, we could see the continuation of the range, westward, into Michigan, until its summits were lost in the mist. The eastern extremity of the American range is “Point Iroquois,” nearly opposite “Gros Cap,” where the Chippewas, by their ancestors, fought a great battle with the Iroquois, long before the French came into the waters.

The range is called the “Tequamenon Mountains,” overlooking for some 20 miles a deep bay, known as the Tequamenon Bay. The waters about Gros Cap are so clear that the bottom is seen from 50 to 60 feet below the surface.

Before leaving this inhospitable crag, we set fire to a windfall of about two years of age, and consequently in a fine state for a conflagration. This was not done through any republican contempt of the British Queen, or her territory, but from pure benevolence towards subsequent travellers exploring Gros Cap.

It lay between the ridge and the bay, in a swamp so thickly covered with previous trees that one might go a quarter of a mile on them without reaching the ground, unless unlucky misstep should precipitate himself 10 or 15 feet beneath.

At one o’clock, we were at “Isle Parnore,” a low island, five miles long; cooking a dinner, and procuring a better oar.

We succeeded here as well in fixing our sail [unclear] our traverse of 15 miles to “White Fish Point,” ordinarily a hazardous voyage — accordingly and pleasantly made. A little
after dark, and the wind, though light, being still fair, we ran into the lake without landing, and made along the shore.

We were now upon the largest body of fresh water on the globe; called by the Indians, Kitche-goming; by the French, Superieur, or Upper, and corrupted by the English into
“Superior.”

The moon shone dimly through a heavy sky, the water was [unclear] ruffled by a warm southern breeze, and in the distance the flame of the burning windfall shone conspicuously above the mountains.

On the Michigan side, several large trees of burning timber were seen on the hills, at the head of Tequamenon Bay. It was determined to proceed out here as the wind continued
favorable; but no shore could be found altogether, and we cast anchor at half-past ten, ate, and encamped. The ground here lay in a series of low sand ridges, with scattered pines. Distance from the Sault, 35 miles.

COPPER RAIL.

At the National [unclear] there is a specimen of a copper boat from the North West of New York. The boat is 23 feet long, 5 feet wide, and made of four sheets of copper, [unclear] and [unclear] to its present shape by repeated machinery.

It is impossible for any number of persons to sink her — the strength is [unclear] greater than wood boats. It requires one-third less power to propel it at the same speed as wood.

The copper after any number of years’ wear will sell for three-fourths first cost. The weight is one-third less than wood, and the water is not absorbed — no caulking, [unclear], or paint are needed.

Oars, [unclear], [unclear], [unclear], [unclear], [unclear], club, and ducking stools, from 10 feet to 60 feet, made of copper or iron, without seams, they are made in four pieces. The strength has been fully tested by dashing them on the rocks and running against [unclear] [unclear]. They cannot leak or sink.
[Short news item — largely illegible]
It is reported by a New York [unclear] [unclear] company that the value of copper received in England from the Island of Cuba from Jan., 1844, to Jan., 1845, will [unclear] amount to about [unclear], and [unclear].