Photo Credit: Julia Gallup
go to Nicholas Heinemann Empire
The arrow above is placed on "Christian Hollow Road" & is
pointing back to Crosby.
The crossover road in the foreground is the road to White Hollow.
The
sawmill shown above was located at the convulence of Walcott Brook and White
Hollow, just east of Crosby as shown on the map below. This plant was
owned and operated by Nicholas Heinemann. Heinemann was born in 1848 in
Germany. His family moved to the United States three years later and settled
about a mile south of Colegrove. His father bought a farm and an up-and
down sawmill. Nicholas worked for him and eventually took over the business.
He moved and enlarged the mill closer to his homestead, now rebuilt as the Maples Inn. By 1890 he was cutting 30,000 feet a day. In the spring of 1891 Heinemann and his partner, Clinton Comes, built a three foot tram road up Colegrove Brook.
He continued buying only timber until January 1893 when he bought a warrant of land drained by Taylor Field Branch of Colegrove. Most of his best saw timber was located along Colegrove Brook and its tributaries.
By early 1898 Heinemann was considering entering
the wood chemical business to make use of the abundant smaller hardwood.
In February
Herbert Rich sold him 4831 acres for $4831 of
cutover land which had a considerable amount of chemical wood (wood under
eight inches in diameter).
The land was located adjacent to Liberty Township's
southwest corner and represented the northern most portion of the Rich
lands cut at Gardeau. Also
influencing the decision to enter the chemical
wood business was the discovery of natural gas on his Colegrove Brook property.
The gas would fire the
retorts and was also sold to the glass plants
at Hazelhurst and Mt. Jewett. Today these fields are owned
by the North Penn Gas Company.
The sawmill continued below Colegrove until late
1905 when the machinery was moved to Crosby. The old mill remained
standing at Colegrove for many years. The new mill was small, the
majority of Heinemann's good saw timber having been cut by then.