John Wemlinger's Michigan Notable Book
selection "The Cut" is one I found interesting especially because it
takes place in northwestern Michigan. It is in Manistee County, Michigan, where
my Fredricks and Graf families settled.
The Cut tells the story of
two warring factions, the lumber industry, and the homesteaders. Two children,
one from each faction, meet and fall in love. Alvin, a farmer, and Lydia, the
daughter of an influential businessman, meet in 1870. The Cut tells their love
story woven between the historical events of the time.
The businessmen want to
build a dam powered sawmill. The sawmill affects the landowners’ farms and
floods them affecting their ability to make a living. Lawsuits are filed and
the reader gets a glimpse of what the farmers were dealing with at the time. A
lot of the book tells the contentiousness of the time.
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Manistee, Michigan was the
center of the lumber industry in the area during this period. The story is
fiction with nonfiction history told. It is a great Michigan history read. The
characters are believable, and the story captures the reader's interest. History
is a bonus.
What is the Cut? It is a
man-made channel that links Lake Michigan to the village of Onekama and Portage
Lake. The channel is the cut.
My great grandfather, Johann August Fredricks, worked at a sawmill in Manistee saving his money to buy a farm. Having spent a lot of time
in the area visiting family and doing family history research led me to
visualize what the time was like. Wemlinger's detailed descriptions take the
reader back in time.
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