Justus Smith Stearns: Difference between revisions

 

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== Later life ==

== Later life ==

Stearns established his lumber operation at Stearns Siding in 1880, a place that eventually became a key shipping point for his lumber. The sawmill settlement was about {{convert|30|mi|km}} east of Ludington, in adjacent [[Lake County, Michigan|Lake County]]. When the sawmill initially opened it had 30 men employed that were capable of manufacturing {{convert|35,000|bdft|m3}} of lumber per day ready to be shipped by rail. The first Stearns Ludington area sawmill before Stearns Siding was located {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} from the railway line of the [[Pere Marquette Railway]]. The finished lumber was hauled over to the rail line with {{convert|10|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} Michigan logging wheels pulled by mule teams.<ref>{{harvp|Nagle|2015|pages=19-20}}.</ref>

Stearns established his lumber operation at Stearns Siding in 1880, a place that eventually became a key shipping point for his lumber. The sawmill settlement was about {{convert|30|mi|km}} east of Ludington, in adjacent [[Lake County, Michigan|Lake County]]. When the sawmill initially opened it had 30 men employed that were capable of manufacturing {{convert|35,000|bdft|m3}} of lumber per day ready to be shipped by rail. The first Stearns Ludington area sawmill before Stearns Siding was located {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} from the railway line of the [[Pere Marquette Railway]]. The finished lumber was hauled over to the rail line with {{convert|10|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} Michigan logging wheels pulled by mule teams.<ref>{{harvp|Nagle|2015|pages=19-20}}.</ref>

[[File:Stearns Siding 1901.jpg|right|thumb|Stearns Siding sawmill in Lake County near Ludington, Michigan]]

[[File:Stearns Siding 1901.jpg|right|thumb|Stearns Siding sawmill in Lake County near Ludington, Michigan]]

[[File:Stearns Lumber Company Stores.jpg|thumb|Stearns Coal and Lumber Company]]

[[File:Stearns Lumber Company Stores.jpg|thumb|Stearns Coal and Lumber Company]]

[[File:Stearns 1902 sawmill.jpg|thumb|Stearns 1902 electric sawmill]]

[[File:Stearns 1902 sawmill.jpg|thumb|Stearns 1902 electric sawmill]]

<br>

The sawmill equipment of the first Stearns Ludington area sawmill was relocated to the railroad tracks near [[Branch, Michigan|Branch]] in 1882 for the convenience of shipping lumber by rail. The operations of the sawmill for making lumber were located alongside and adjacent to the railroad tracks. It was given the name of Stearns Siding because the mill operations were just to the “side” of the railway tracks. The sawmill’s location spurred the growth of a village named Bennett. The local postmaster and station agent was D. W. Bennett. The community had over a thousand residents. It was fully provisioned, featuring its own post office, train depot, general store, and restaurants.<ref name=”nagle-20-40″>{{harvp|Nagle|2015|pages=20-40}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url = https://www.lakecountystar.com/local-news/article/DAYS-GONE-BY-Justus-Stearns-and-Stearns-Siding-14389416.php |title = Days Gone By: Justus Stearns and Stearns Siding |date = March 25, 2015 |newspaper = The Lake County Star |location = Baldwin, Michigan |url-access = subscription }}</ref>

The sawmill equipment of the first Stearns Ludington area sawmill was relocated to the railroad tracks near [[Branch, Michigan|Branch]] in 1882 for the convenience of shipping lumber by rail. The operations of the sawmill for making lumber were located alongside and adjacent to the railroad tracks. It was given the name of Stearns Siding because the mill operations were just to the “side” of the railway tracks. The sawmill’s location spurred the growth of a village named Bennett. The local postmaster and station agent was D. W. Bennett. The community had over a thousand residents. It was fully provisioned, featuring its own post office, train depot, general store, and restaurants.<ref name=”nagle-20-40″>{{harvp|Nagle|2015|pages=20-40}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url = https://www.lakecountystar.com/local-news/article/DAYS-GONE-BY-Justus-Stearns-and-Stearns-Siding-14389416.php |title = Days Gone By: Justus Stearns and Stearns Siding |date = March 25, 2015 |newspaper = The Lake County Star |location = Baldwin, Michigan |url-access = subscription }}</ref>

American businessman (1845–1933)

Justus Smith Stearns
Born	(1845-04-10)April 10, 1845
Died	February 14, 1933(1933-02-14) (aged 87)
Resting place	Ludington, Michigan, U.S.
Other names	J. S. Stearns
Occupation	Businessman
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Paulina Lyon

Justus Smith Stearns (April 10, 1845 – February 14, 1933) was an American lumber baron and businessman. He was involved in many enterprises that involved commercial real estate development, sawmills, coal, farming, railroading, and electrical technology. Drawing upon his business skills Stearns learned as a teenager at his father’s sawmills he became a lumber merchant in his twenties. As a dealer, Stearns was associated with his wealthy brother-in-law Eber Brock Ward as a vendor to lumberyard suppliers. He moved to Michigan later in his thirties to manage Ward’s lumber operations he had going there that at that time was inherited by Ward’s widow. He progressed from an entry-level position to senior management and eventually became the general managing agent for Ward’s extensive lumber empire. He then undertook independent lumbering activities to develop his own lumber operations in northern Michigan. His expertise in business allowed him became a lumber baron. Stearns had large timber interests in the Pacific Northwest, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Florida and became known as the “Pine King”. He was the major influence in the development of the towns of Ludington, Michigan and Stearns, Kentucky.

Stearns’ father was Herman Swift Stearns (born 1819 in Vermont) and his mother Mabel E. Smith (born 1823 in Connecticut), the daughter of a merchant shipman. They were married April 19, 1842. Stearns was born in the Van Buren Harbor area of the village of Fredonia in the town of Pomfret, New York, April 10, 1845. He was an only child in a middle upper-class household. His mother had one sibling named Justus, who died in 1841 in a boating accident around the age of twenty. Stearns received his name from his uncle.^[1]

Stearns had limited formal education, with common schooling at the district public school of Chautauqua County, New York. Stearns was trained as a farmer’s chore boy as was usual at the time in the state of New York. One of his duties was to milk twelve cows each day before he could go to school, a three-mile morning walk. His formal education was concluded while an early teen with a business course at a college in Poughkeepsie, New York. His practical business education was learned at his father’s Pomfret sawmill where he worked as a teenager each Saturday. There he was a laborer and clerk in the retail lumber business processing loads of lumber for customers.^[1]

Stearns’ family moved from the Pomfret area to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1861 when he was sixteen years old. He worked with his father in businesses in Erie as an assistant manager until 1864 when the family then moved to Conneaut, Ohio. There Stearns came to know his future wife, Paulina Lyon, four years his junior. They were married at the home of Paulina’s mother on March 4, 1868. There they lived with the well-to-do Lyon family for the first few years of their marriage. They had one child, Robert Lyon Stearns, born March 14, 1872.^[2]

Stearns established his lumber operation at Stearns Siding in 1880, a place that eventually became a key shipping point for his lumber. The sawmill settlement was about 30 miles (48 km) east of Ludington, in adjacent Lake County. When the sawmill initially opened it had 30 men employed that were capable of manufacturing 35,000 board feet (83 m³) of lumber per day ready to be shipped by rail. The first Stearns Ludington area sawmill before Stearns Siding was located two miles (3.2 km) from the railway line of the Pere Marquette Railway. The finished lumber was hauled over to the rail line with 10-foot-high (3.0 m) Michigan logging wheels pulled by mule teams.^[3]

The sawmill equipment of the first Stearns Ludington area sawmill was relocated to the railroad tracks near Branch in 1882 for the convenience of shipping lumber by rail. The operations of the sawmill for making lumber were located alongside and adjacent to the railroad tracks. It was given the name of Stearns Siding because the mill operations were just to the “side” of the railway tracks. The sawmill’s location spurred the growth of a village named Bennett. The local postmaster and station agent was D. W. Bennett. The community had over a thousand residents. It was fully provisioned, featuring its own post office, train depot, general store, and restaurants.^[4][5]

Stearns constructed a luxurious house for the family at that time Stearns Siding village was developing. It was located in Ludington’s Fourth Ward neighborhood at the corner of South Washington Avenue and Fourth Street. The home cost over six thousand dollars, a considerable sum of money for the time, as the average lumberman earned about $300 annually.^[4][6]

Annual production across the Stearns mills consistently averaged 27 million board feet (64,000 m³) yearly starting in 1890. Stearns also had a daily production of 1,200 to 1,500 barrels of salt. He manufactured 125,000,000 board feet (290,000 m³) of lumber by 1898. Stearns was then the largest manufacturer of lumber in the state of Michigan. He purchased the lumber company of Thomas R. Lyon in 1898 and took over its extensive operations. He then formed the Stearns Salt & Lumber Company. It became a large company in Ludington with 50,000,000 board feet (120,000 m³) of lumber output annually and 300,000 barrels of salt yearly. Stearns emerged as a preeminent Michigan businessman in the production of lumber and salt. He formed in 1893 the Flambeau Lumber Company in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, with a partner named Fred Herrick. In 1894, he started Stearns Lumber Company in Odanah, Wisconsin.^[7]

Stearns controlled vast timber interests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and the Pacific Northwest by 1901. At this time he started acquiring 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of timber on the Cumberland Plateau in Kentucky, referred to as the “Big Survey”. The acquisition included the land that is now the Jackson Purchase region, which covers parts of both southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee. Stearns, at this time, leased another 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) in Whitley County, Kentucky. He set up a company store there in 1902. It became the center of the newly established town of Stearns. Kentucky. The Stearns Lumber Company was renamed Stearns Coal and Lumber Company in 1910, shortly after coal was discovered in the area.^[8] Stearns was responsible for erecting the nation’s inaugural all-electric sawmill in 1902.^[9][10][11]

Stearns used the Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad to transport his logs and lumber from his Kentucky town of Stearns.
The railway’s initial route connected his town to Barthell, Kentucky, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) away. the lines were subsequently extended to the Yamacraw and Oz areas in Kentucky. In 1909, the extension reached White Oak Creek, Kentucky, some 20 miles (32 km) away from his village. In 1901, Stearns acquired 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) of timber in Kentucky. Later, with his partners, he purchased further large tracts of timber near Ashland, Wisconsin. After a three-year tenure, he sold his stake to his partners. Stearns then took this capital he got from his partners to acquire 107,000 acres (43,000 ha) in Tennessee and Kentucky. Large coal deposits were coincidentally discovered within the timber land in Kentucky. He acquired significant wealth as a result. Stearns then in 1903 acquired 180,000 acres (73,000 ha) of pine timber land in Florida. He set up a mill there at Bagdad which he operated until 1919.^[6]

Stearns went back before he died to Conneaut in Ohio and settled his debts with all his creditors he had previously contracted debts with. He expanded his company over the years and increased his company size ultimately becoming the largest producer of lumber in Michigan by 1898. He manufactured 125,000,000 board feet (290,000 m³) of lumber annually. He was known as the “Pine King” due to his vast timber holdings in Michigan.^[12][13]

Stearns branched out into various enterprises apart from lumber and coal. In 1900, he purchased the Ludington Electric Light Company and took over the general management of it. He oversaw the power company’s operations for seventeen years, dedicated to serving the city of Ludington in Michigan. In 1902 he obtained the Ludington & Northern Railroad. He had The Stearns Hotel in downtown Ludington on Ludington Avenue built in 1903. He also held roles related to farm lighting, machine engines, and stationary manufacturing operations. He was elected president of the Ludington First National Bank in 1910, a position he had for several years. His acquisitions continued in 1910 with the Carrom Company, followed seven years later by buying the Handy Things factory.^[6]

Stearns served as president of these companies that he acquired or formed himself: The Stearns Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Stearns Lumber and Salt Company, Ludington, Michigan; Stearns Coal, Cincinnati, Ohio; Stearns Company, Cincinnati; Stearns Lumber Company, Stearns, Kentucky; Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, Stearns, Kentucky; Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad Company, Stearns, Kentucky; Stearns and Culver Lumber Company, Bagdad, Florida; Flambeau Lumber Company of Florida; J. S. Stearns Lumber Company, Odanah, Wisconsin; J. S. Stearns Improvement Company, Ludington; Ludington and Northern Railway, Ludington; and Stearns Lighting & Power Company, Ludington.^[7]

He also maintained connections to a number of smaller industrial businesses. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Stearns was the preeminent lumber shipper in Wisconsin. He organized and started up the Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad, Stearns Coal Company of Kentucky, Stearns Lumber Company Incorporated of Kentucky, and Stearns & Culver Lumber Company of Bagdad, Florida – all of which were owned and run by the Stearns Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan.^[7]

Stearns was affiliated with the Republican Party. He served as the chairperson of the Mason County Board of Commissioners. Stearns was school director at the town of Ludington in Mason County. He was presidential electoral from the Ninth Congressional District in 1892. Stearns was Michigan’s secretary of state in 1899 and 1900.^[14] Stearns was referred to as the “bald-headed man from Ludington”. He served as a Harrison elector in 1888. In 1898 he appeared as a candidate for the office of secretary of state and was elected for two years. In 1900 he campaigned for governor against D. M. Ferry and A. T. Bliss.^[15] Stearns was appointed to the governor’s personal staff as an aide-de-camp on June 16, 1930, by Kentucky governor Flem D. Sampson. For this special recognition of the economic development of southeastern Kentucky Stearns was given the rank and grade of a colonel.^[16]