Curtis - Freer
E. D. CURTIS, of Curtis Township, Alcona County, is one of the early comers to the Lake Huron Shore. In 1867 Mr. Curtis came to Saginaw from Maine, his native State. He was on his way north, and arrived there too late for the steamboat. Not wishing to wait for the next trip of the steamboat, he bought a small skiff, and using a United States blanket for a sail, started out upon a voyage to Au Sable. His father was a sea captain, and the son had inherited some notions of sailing from him. After a three days voyage
he reached Au Sable. He was in pursuit of pine and farming lands, and located some the following Winter. He engaged in lumbering, which he has followed ever since. About 1870 he began farming on some land he had in Alcona County, having brought his family there in 1869. In 1881 the township of Curtis was organized and named after him. He has a wife and six children. Mr. Curtis in an enterprising man, and has been successful in his operations both at farming and lumbering.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”, 1883, Chicago, Page 277)
THOMAS DUGGAN, proprietor of the livery stable at Harrisville, is a native of Nova Scotia and came to AuSable about 1868 and worked on the first dock built there. He remained there about seven years, working in the woods a portion of the time. In 1875 he came to Harrisville, and has been engaged in lumbering. In 1879 he went into the livery business, which he still continues, and has the only livery in the village. His principal business, however, is lumbering.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”, 1883, Chicago, Page 273.)
PETER J. EFFRICK, farmer, was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1847. In 1861 he came to Saginaw City, and in 1865 to Alcona County, and worked at fishing and in the woods. In 1870 he purchased eighty acres of land in Section 22, Harrisville Township, and began farming. In 1873 he was married to Miss Beever, of Harrisville Township. They have four children. Mr. Effrick is a successful farmer and a prominent citizen of the county. He has a farm under an excellent state of cultivation and with good buildings. In addition to this home farm he has forty acres of land in Section 32.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”, 1883, Chicago, Page 277)
GEO. W. EMMERSON, foreman of the Colwell mills, at Harrisville, was born in the State of New York, in 1849. At fourteen years of age he went at work in a sawmill and has continued at mill work ever since. In 1867 he came to Harrisville and went into the mill of Weston, Colwell & Co., with the exception of a time when he was running a shingle-mill for the same firm, he has been
engaged at this mill. Since 1882 he has been foreman of the mill. In 1870 he was married at Harrisville, to Miss Beever, daughter of one of the pioneer farmers of the county. The have four children. Mr. Emmerson is an experienced and competent mill man and a good citizen.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”, 1883, Chicago, Page 277)
JOHN A. FRASER was born in New Brunswick in 1843. He came to Michigan in 1868 and worked on Cass River for Tom Nestor, at lumbering. He came to Alcona County in 1875 and worked for R.A. Alger & Co., at Harrisville, Alcona County, then with the company to Black River. He was married to Jenny Bridgeman, in 1879 and has two children, boys, who are still living. Mr. Fraser was made foreman of a camp and is now still engaged at Black River in that important business, and is a reliable man at lumbering in the woods.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”, 1883, Chicago, Page 279)
ANDREW J. FREER was born in Geneva, N.Y., in 1836, and came to Michigan in 1844, and to Alcona County in 1856. He was married to Mary E. Mitchell, at Cheboygan, in 1856. They had four boys and five girls, who are all now living in Alcona County. Mr. Freer’s first business was fishing at Black River, where he had a fishery; also at Harrisville. He left that business in 1866, and commenced farming in Section 1, Harrisville Township, where he nowresides. Mr. Freer held several township offices and was elected as county surveyor for two years, and is now engaged with Messrs. Alger, Smith & Co., as land agent and estimator of pine, his qualifications as woodman and his judgment of pine being first class, with much experience. It would be difficult
to lose him in the woods of Michigan.
(Bibliography: “History of the Lake Huron Shore and Its People with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Pioneers”; 1883, Chicago, Page 279)