“Pinney History Is Traced To Period of the Civil War” from the October 21, 1958 Door County Advocate
Pinney History Is Traced To Period of the Civil War
By JAMES PINNEY
“This looks like Ohio did before the war,” said Silas Pinney when he arrived in Sturgeon Bay ninety years ago. With him were his three sons: George, Augustus, and James. Silas’ fourth son, Smith, had been killed in the battle of Antietam in the Civil War.
George came to Sturgeon Bay to serve as the Methodist minister. After he had been here a few years, he started the Evergreen Nursery. This business is still run by his grandsons. In those days all the supplies for the nursery came in by boat. Once a boat with some of his supplies on board docked in Sturgeon Bay on Sunday. Without any hesitation George went down to the docks and began unloading the ship. Because he worked on Sunday, George was asked to resign as the Methodist minister. He did so and then he put all his time toward raising a family and running the nursery well.
James came to Sturgeon Bay after being held prisoner by the South in the Civil War. First he worked for his brother, George. Then we sought his fortune as county surveyor. Here is a list showing the years he ran, against whom, and the number of votes each candidate received:
1868 James Pinney, 713, W. H. Warren, 75.
1870 James. Pinney, 850, unopposed.
1872 James Pinney, 681, W. H. Warren, 391.
1876 W. H. Warren, 1003, James Pinney, 672.
1878 H. J. Scudder, 538, W. H. Warren, 185, James Pinney, 710.
1880 A. G. Warren, 1099, James Pinney, 927, W. H. Warren, 81.
Sturgeon Bay was (once called Otumba and was a small logging village. It was surrounded by tall stately pines. Two of the saw mills here were located on an island that now has the swimming beach and shipyard on it. This island was connected to the mainland by two bridges. They were the sawdust bridge, which ended where Florida Street now is, and the slab bridge, which ended at the north end at the breeding pond. Augustus Pinney worked in one of these saw-mills. As time passed the sawdust from the mill built up the land between the island and the mainland. Now it is hard to tell that there once was an island there.
Fishing and logging formed the economy for the people in Sturgeon Bay seventy-five years ago. Anything that threatened to destroy the fish or the trees was met with alarm and quick action. So it was on the fateful night of the Tornado fire in 1871.
The air seemed almost on fire that terrible night. Although George Pinney was partially crippled, he went with the rest of the men in Sturgeon Bay to try to stop the fire and save the village. After George had left that night, his wife told the children, “If I call in the night, don’t waste time trying to keep together. Go right away to the stump we picked out on the bay shore. Olive, take John by the hand and watch him. flora, take Bessie and watch her. I will take care of the baby.”
Probably all the children in Sturgeon Bay were instructed as to what to do if the fire invaded the village that night. However, thanks to the kindness of God and the hard work of the men, these instructions were not needed.
At the same time as the Tornado fire the Peshtigo fire on the other side of Green Bay was raging. The hot pine gases and searing heat of the flames forced the people of Menominee to rush to the bay side. As many as could crowded on a ship in the harbor, begging the captain to push out into the bay. “I will when it becomes necessary,” he answered. It never was. Later the captain said “Thank God I didn’t have to leave the harbor. There were so many people on that boat that it was resting flat on the bottom of the harbor.”
In 1872 most of the good lumber had been harvested and the stump land was selling at $1.25 an acre. North Eighth Avenue was once a logging road, and the stump land sold in strips from that road to the bay shore. This was a distance of about half a mile. The strips were a rod wire. The Pinney family bought a strip of land eleven rods wide. The land extended so that it included Garland Park at the curve where Jefferson and Eighth Avenues meet over to the new Standard Service Station on Georgia Street.
James brought with him from Ohio some black walnut seeds. He planted them next to the first home his family lived in in Sturgeon Bay. They are still standing next to Harold Conlon’s house on Third Avenue.
A brief sketch of the Pinney family shows how they have figured in Sturgeon Bay’s past. In its county government, in fighting the Great Fire of ’71, in the logging industry and the nursery business.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
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