Adolph Belfy was one of the earlier pioneers of Muskegon. He had a couple of articles written about him in the Muskegon Chronicle that tells of the ealry days in Muskegon and its lumbering past. There are a couple of places in one article that my copy is unreadable. There is a picture of his son, Napolean, that became the Fire Chief of Muskegon on the Firehouse page.

     Adolph Belfy, father of chief of the fire department Napolean Belfy, resides at 105 Division street, and is one of the city's oldest settlers. He came here September 20, 1852.
     "I came from Vermont here," said Mr. Belfy, "to Buffalo, then to Chicago, and then here on a vessel owned by George Ruddiman. There were only four or five houses here then- on Pine street. There was the Muskegon House, the house now called the Kempf House, the Ryerson grocery and some others. The rest of the town was all woods. The second year I was here I came as far out as where the cracker factory now is and I remember I had to pick my way through the woods and along the beach for there was no road. There were not many people here then.
     "John Ruddiman had a mill run by water at the mouth of Bear Lake and George had one at Ruddiman's Creek. They used to take the logs up with an ox. There was a slide but no chain and one log at a time was taken up."
     Mr. Belfy spoke interestingly of old lumbering methods.
     "They can saw twenty logs now where they could saw one then," he said. "I remember how ten years after I came here they used to raft logs from Bluffton to Trowbridge's old mill with a horse. The horse would walk along the beach and a man would stand on a raft and keep shoving it off. The horse took care of himself but sometimes  they had a boy drive it."
     "Logging methods in the camps were just about as now but the men went up to stay all winter. They were not paid until the spring and they would sometimes come down with $100 or $150 and spent it in one day. They got $15 to $18 a month."
     "On the drive they had three men in a boat  for every million feet driven and there would sometimes be 100 or 150 men on the drive."
     "They used a side mark on the logs that was put on when they were cut. Some used an X, some three straight marks and like that. They were notched in with an ax. The mark was put on two sides so it could always be seen no matter which way the log laid in the water. They were sorted in the lake."
     "None of us in those days expected to see Muskegon amount to much or expected to stay here long enough to see any such town. But I have been here ever since.

    Adolph Belfy of Division Street has lived fifty years in Muskegon. On September 20, 1852, just fifty years ago last Saturday, he walked into the lumbering camp on Muskegon Lake that than hardly possessed so much as a name.
    There were no streets, no church, no schools, no jail, no organizations, no anything that gave promise of future civic life or permanance. The little lumbering camp was merely a collection of shanties created for no purpose and grounded upon no thought of future greatness or material prosperity.
     Muskegon was then little more than a side issue to Grand Haven. The schooners laded their passengers at that port and they were left to find way along the beach to the straggling lumber town.
    "I was born in Canada," said Mr. Belfy to the Chronicle, "and if I live until next April I will be 70 years of age. When I left Canada I went to Vermont and stayed a year and then I came to Chicago, where I had some friends. I could have got work there but people told me about Muskegon. They said there was a good river here and lots of pine."
    "I walked along the beach and into Muskegon on September 20, 1852, and stayed here one day. Then I went up into the woods-- up to Sandy Creek about 20 miles up the river. There were five or six of us in the party but we had never been up there, any of us. We picked our way through the woods, following the river. There was no road, I thought I would never get there. I went to work in the wooods, laboring as a chopper. in the spring I came down to Muskegon and began rafting logs. I was in the woods two years.

"There was very little to Muskegon then. The village was not platted and there were no regular streets. in fact Pine Street was the only street. There were six or seven houses on that. The town was not platted until some years after that. When it was platted I could have bought any lot in the town, lots right where the heart of the city is now for $5 apiece. I <unreadble> lots where Hackley Square is could have been bought for less than that."
     "There wer three mills on this side of the lake fifty years ago. There was the Ryerson mill run by Martin Ryerson. It was a small mill with one upright saw and cut 3,000 or 5,000 feet of lumber a day. There was the Ruddiman mill at Ruddiman Creek and the Ashley mill which stood where the W. R. Jones mill stands now. All the mills then cut a small amount of lumber. When Wing & Trowbridge's mill a few years later was run night and day, it cut only 3,000,000 feet in the season."
     "There were almost no houses here then. There were six or seven on Pine Street. There was a log shanty where Hackley & Hume's office afterward stood st the corner of Eighth Street and Western Avenue, and this was the house farthest west in Muskegon. Some shanties were afterwards built at Ruddiman Creek but they were not there fifty years ago. All there was at Ruddiman Creek then was the mill and boarding house. On the other side there was nothing east of Pine Street and the country south of Western Avenue was not settled."

     "Western Avenue was simply a path through the woods following the lake shore. Western Avenue between Fourth Street and the Stewart Hartshorn factory now follows this old path. The ground north of Western Avenue is all made ground built up with refuse from the sawmills- that is from Fourth Street west."
     "Of the people who were in Muskegon when I came here fifty years ago, I only know of two who are now living- Joseph Davis and George B. Woodbury. Mr. Woodbury was engineer at the Ashley mill and Mr. Davis was postmaster."
     "Over at North Muskegon John Ruddiman had a water mill at the mouth of Bear Lake. At the <unreadable> nine feet of water."
     "We handled logs a good deal differently then. After they came down the river we rafted them in what is now known as Peck's Bayou, using rope instead of chains. There was no way of towing logs on Muskegon Lake. When Trowbridge built his mill at Bluffton, I hauled logs along the shore with a horse. I had a boy drive the horse and a man on the raft to keep the logs from going ashore. There were no booms to interfere."

     "I do not believe there is a building standing in Muskegon now that was here 50 years ago. I have lived in Muskegon now 50 years and I have seen a great change from the lumber camp to the fine city it is today. But I believe if I could live 50 years more, I would see as great a change. Muskegon is growing fast. I know of no reason why Muskegon should not keep on growing as it has grown the past 50 years."
     Mr. Belfy can hardly hope to live another 50 years but he is still active after his three score and ten years and there is no reason to believe that he may not survive for many years to watch the growth of the locality he has made his home for half a century. He is the father of Chief of the Fire Department Napolean Belfy and one of the city's most prominent pioneers. 

     Mr. Belfy was a French Canadian by birth and his boyhood was spent in Canada. He lived a year in Vermont and a short time in Chicago before coming to Muskegon. When he located in this city, he had no intention of remaining, according to the story he had told his children, but expected to move farther on. He settled here, however, and followed various occupations, never leaving Muskegon after locating here. He resided for many years in a house at 105 Division Street, but since he had been seriously ill, he had been taken care of by his daughter, Mrs. Morin.
     Mr. Belfy is survived by the following children: Adolph Belfy, Wallace, Ida.; Napolean Belfy, Muskegon; William Belfy, Bemidji, Minn.; Eli Belfy, Minneapolis, Minn.; Mrs. Samuel Cousineau, Mrs. Phillip Morin, and Miss Flossie Belfy of this city. He also leaves twenty-one grandchildren and four great grandchildren. 
     The remains will be brought tomorrow afternoon to the residence of Fire Chief Belfy, 100 S. First street. The funeral will be held Thursday morning from the St. John Baptiste church, with service at 8 o'clock.

Researchers with a connection to Adolph Belfy- Bill Morin and Patti Norton.