Barbed Wire & Ahnapee's Tifft and Hay Hardware Store

Barbed wire is something few have on their things-to-research-list, although barbed wire had an impact on settlement of the west and farming in general. The upbeat Farmer and the Cowman Must be Friends from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma, puts fences into Broadway musical theater. Barbed wire has a history.

Such wire is something we see little of today. Rural America remembers it while their city slicker cousins know little about it. Wikipedia tells us one Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, applied for a patent in October 1873. His patent? Glidden developed a new kind of wiring using sharp barbs, and that wiring changed the face and the future of farming. The wire was really a cable formed by twisting two or more wires, and then twisting barbs, within a few inches of each other, around that.

Barbed wire caught on fast and by late January 1879, a bill was introduced into the Wisconsin Assembly revising statutes relating to barbed wire in fences. Ahnapee’s Tifft and Hay hardware store was on the cutting edge. Within a few years, they had the Door County market as well.

Barbed wire was far better for controlling cattle than smooth wire, log fences or hedges. Since barbed wire fences only called for fence posts, it was popular on the plains where wood was in short supply. It meant Wisconsin fences could be built more easily following the Great Fire of 1871, but the wire was expensive. Wikipedia puts its cost at $20 per hundred pounds in 1874, $10 in 1880 and dropping to $2 just before the turn of the century when technology and falling steel prices brought costs down. During the mid-1880s, said the Enterprise, ¾ of U.S. barbed wire companies formed a pool to keep prices up. That price-fixing raised charges 15% while claiming selling prices were ten cents per hundred lower than costs, however the companies had business and were making money rather than going into foreclosure.

According to the May 13, 1886 Advocate, Door County farmers had discovered the superiority of barbed wire fencing thus bringing new importance to the hardware trade, most notably to Tifft & Hay, the Ahnapee hardware store that launched a Sturgeon Bay branch. Until Tifft and Hay opened the new store, the few Sturgeon Bay merchants selling the wire charged 8 or 9 cents a pound. Tifft and Hay brought Ahnapee prices, charging two cents less, or the same price charged in their Ahnapee store. Then they lowered the price again.

When Hay ordered a half ton of wire, he felt it would last a year or, perhaps, two. By the time Hay got the invoice, he sold a few more tons. The Advocate said that the cheap prices encouraged the farmers to give away timber and buy wire.

The following year, Mr. Hay ordered more wire and needed two shipments. From February to the 1^st of May, he sold ten tons. The Advocate pointed to men throughout the county buying large quantities of the wire. Some bought as much as a ton each.

Barbed wire faced deceptive advertising in the late 1800s just as other products did during the shortages of the 2020-2022 Covid pandemic. In 1886, false advertising said prices had risen significantly, but as the Advocate pointed out, it was not the fact. Throughout the summer, Tifft & Hay advertized being the sole agents for the popular Kelly steele barbed wire and at 1885 prices.

What about Charles Tifft and John H. Hay who were partners, as well as brothers-in-law, in a hardware venture?

In 1880 the men, who had just become brothers-in-law, bought a red brick building on the northwest corner of 4^th and Steele, on Lot 6, Block 8, Eveland Plat, from George Roberts for $3,000, and then built a coal shed behind their building. By September 1881, they moved their immense stock of nails, iron, paints, oils, and shelf hardware into the section used by H.W. Bates as his drug store, and broke ground for two-story, 23’ x30’ addition for the storage of heavy hardware. Although the new building was frame, plans were for it to be brick veneered in 1882. The second story was eventually used for rental offices. Bates did not discontinue his business but moved it into the brick store owned by Stebbins and Decker on the north side of Steele between 2^nd and 3^rd Streets, now the west section of Clay-On-Steele.

Charles Tifft and John Hay quickly made inroads and an impact with the farming cmmunity. As early as February 1882, papers often mentioned them in Door County on hardware business or the numbers of Door County customers flocking to the Ahnapee store. Tifft and Hay said they were a headquarters for low cost barbed wire, and they were.

Business was good and in September 1889, Tifft & Hay moved into their newly completed building at the corner of Cedar and St. John Streets in Sturgeon Bay, now  the southwest corner of 3^rd and Kentucky. Business remained good in Ahnapee. Hay ran the Sturgeon Bay branch while Tifft managed Ahnapee’s. In 1891, Tifft and Hay’s Ahnapee branch was building cheese manufacturing systems, as was the city’s popular Leopold Meyer. That same year each company manufactured 6 or 7 outfits each, making for 12 or 14 cheese factorys’ equipment coming from Ahnapee alone. By the end of that year, the Ahnapee firm was the second city mercantile to be lit with electric lights. The company was on a roll.

Business continued, but things changed following a depressed economy when the February 8, 1894 Advocate pointed to Mr. Hay as unethical. As chairman of the fire commission, he directed a piping order to his firm, Tifft & Hay, without seeking other bids. The paper said ordinances forbade aldermen from an interest in what was furnished to the city, said Hay made 15 to 20% on the deal, and said it needed investigation. There was another issue because the company was not paid by those they carried on credit. On February 17, 1894, Door County Democrat published a letter in which Mr. Hay thanked the public for the business they brought. Hay wrote that the depression of the previous year caused business failures due to carrying so much customer credit. Hay said the company was going forward to serve customers on a different and solid basis, and would not offer credit beyond 60 days. As he pointed out, a business could not survive selling products in January and February and then waiting till fall for payment. Hay said he was correcting an incorrect system of doing business.

Just two months later, on April 19, Tifft and Hay dissolved their partnership as hardware merchants in both Ahnapee and Sturgeon Bay, Mr. Tifft assumed the assets, debts, and liabilities of the Ahnapee business while Mr. Hay assumed the same in Sturgeon Bay.

The Ahnapee building burned in 1896 and in 1900, Tifft sold the proberty to Mr. Charles. In that time, Tifft continued business, still selling farm imolements and Sherwin-Williams' paint. In April 1896 he was elected mayor of Ahnapee. He and his wife eventually went west where he died near Portland. 

John Hay died on October 25, 1898 while he was on business in Oshkosh. His obituary recounted his life saying, following his Civil War service, he joined his parents who had relocated to Manitowoc, where he found employment as a traveling man for farm machinery. Mr. Hay and his wife Susan moved to Ahnapee in 1879 where he joined his brother-in-law Charles B. Tifft in the hardware business. When the men opened the Sturgeon Bay branch in 1884, Hay moved there to manage it. The Advocate called him a man of tact and judgement who grew the business rapidly.

Barbed wire use in the two counties kept on, although sometimes brought sensational news. It was July 1907 when the Kewaunee Enterprise alerted readership that barbed wire fences served as a lightning rods and if livestock drifted toward such a fence during a storm, there were chances that the fence would be struck by lightning. Because animal bodies were such good conductors of electricity, results could be fatal. The paper went on to point out that the barbs worked like batteries to collect charges and went on to report animal losses, due to the wire, in other states. It was advised to run a wire perpendicular to the post and into the ground. Such a “lightening rod” was much cheaper than lightening running down the legs of cattle. Driving a staple over the barbed wire and the safety wire would save thousands in losses each year. The cost was insignificant compared with the value of a choice animal.

There were other losses from the barbed wire. In April 1914, three Forestville men were in a runaway accident when the horse was frightened and jumped into the ditch, tossing the buggy into a telephone pole and a barbed wire fence. The horse dragged the buggy and the men who were only able to free themselves when the buggy was completely smashed. Aside from the wire scratches, the men escaped from an accident that could have cost their lives.

During World War 1, British army scouts described the barbed wire being used by the Germans in “no man’s land.” It was reported that one night some scouts crawled to the barbed wire, about 10 yards in front of a German machine gun trench. There they tied empty jam tins to the barricade and tied small telephone wires to that before they crawled back to their own lines. When the British began pulling the wire, the tins began to clatter and the Germans started firing in the direction of the noise. The English saw it as a good joke while the Americans said, “It was good tonic for the Tommies.” Ther Germans used about $10,000 worth of ammunition and lost a night’s sleep over the noise made by about 5 shillings worth of jam containers.

Just as other metals, barbed wire was in short supply in World War ll so it was big news in June 1943 when about 20,000 tons of wire with extra long barbs made for military purposes became available. The use of military wire was allowed because of the shortage created by midwestern floods. The War Food Administration was going to release the wire maintaining fair and equitable tretment. There would be quotas according to the June 25 Enterprise. 

One hundred fifty years after its patent, barbed wire is still being used, however electric fences have replaced much of it. 

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Record Herald, Commercial History of Algoma, WI, Vol. 1, Door County Advocate, Door County Democrat, familysearch.org, Kewaunee Enterprise, Wikipedia.

Algoma, Wisconsin: The Ghosts of the Ahnapee River

 

What a sight Ahnapee/Algoma must have been in the days of the wind ships. What it must have been like to witness 12 or 15 -  or even more - schooners riding at anchor in the harbor is nearly impossible to imagine. Today we see scores of fishing boats, and perhaps a sailboat or two, while knowing the likes of the Wren, Industry, Shaw, S. Thal, Whirlwind, Evening Star, Glad Tidings, Sea Star and so many more will never be seen again.

The late 1860s was the heyday of Lake Michigan schooner traffic. As steamers and railroads replaced sailing vessels, they began to disappear. Some were scrapped. Some were burned to the waterline and sunk. Others just deteriorated and sank. That’s what happened to Lady Ellen and Spartan whose final resting places are between the present 2^nd and 4^th Street bridges in Algoma.

Lady Ellen’s history is storied in the annals of Algoma. The Spartan? Not so much. For several generations, the Ellen was remembered by Algoma youngsters such as Jag Haegele, who sat on its gunwales each winter while putting on their ice skates for some after school fun. Spartan came to life years later when Jim Kirsten was making preparations for his campground at the corner of 4^th and Navarino.

Spartan made a significant commercial impact on Ahnapee and beyond, and its resting place seems fitting. As early as 1854, Yates and Wild had a mercantile on Capt. K’s spot. Lots 10 and 11 of Block 3 in the Youngs and Steele Plat of the City of Algoma. There were other owners, the most impressive being Detjen Bros. Planning Mill and Dock which opened in 1870. Just over 20 years later, the company became known as Ahnapee Manufacturing Co. Years later the building served as a flour and feed store and then as an annex for Algoma Net Co. , just across the street to the south.

Lady Ellen lives on in the memories of the retired set who remember part of her peeking out of the Ahnapee River near the southwest side of the 2^nd Street Bridge. Built by respected Civil War hero Major William I. Henry, also Ahnapee’s most noted shipwright, the two-masted Lady Ellen was built of walnut that more than likely came from the area’s virgin timber. Henry built the schooner to join Capt. Bill Nelson’s Whiskey Pete in Capt. John McDonald’s stone trade, however she was used for lumbering operations, fishing and was also one of the Christmas tree ships. Lady Ellen was engaged in Lake Michigan traffic until 1899 when she was put out of business by the steamers. The hardworking Ellen was docked on the north side of the river, about 200 feet west of the 2nd Street Bridge where she eventually rotten and sank. (See below for a description of the photo.)

William I. Henry honed his shipbuilding craft  in his native Scotland. Born in 1820, Henry, the old Ahnapee seaman, was credited by the men of Ahnapee  who carefully observed his Civil War battlefield actions, advances and retreats as saving their lives, Henry served General Sherman who used the shipwright's skills on the famous March to the Sea.

Northeast corner of the point at which the Ahnapee River meets Lake Michigan, 1883

It wasn't only the Ellen. Henry designed the largest ship ever built in Ahnapee, the 105-foot, 173-ton Bessie Boalt. Henry’s shipyard was in a small bay, east of the bottom of Church St., behind what became the end of Michigan Street between Algoma Dowell Co. and Algoma Pallet Co., later Pier 42. Henry’s son William I. Henry, Jr. was another sailor, and he sailed the Ellen for over 25 years, from 1871-1899.

Lesser known is the schooner Spartan which sank in the river on the southeast side of the 4^th St. Bridge near the old Detjen dock. Forgotten until in 1985 when Jim Kersten began improving the lot on which Capt. K’s campground sits, the Spartan languished, deteriorated, and faded into history. But what a significant history the Spartan had.

The Spartan, said the Ahnapee Record in September 1885, was the oldest vessel plying the waters of Lake Michigan. Since construction in Montreal in 1838, the schooner had made all 5 Great Lakes and even sailed the Atlantic. Spartan was the largest schooner on the Great Lakes for many years and one of the best sailors afloat, but at the time of the article, the schooner was laid up in the Ahnapee River, its final resting place.

It was only two months earlier that the Spartan was undergoing repairs in Ahnapee when a kettle of pitch on the cabin stove caught fire. Fortunately, the damage was not severe, but when she was bound for Clay Banks two weeks later, exceptionally fierce winds forced her to seek refuge in Ahnapee’s harbor for two days. At the time, September 1885, the owners could not decide whether to strip the vessel or rebuild it. By the 1^st of October, the nearly 50-year-old, mighty schooner was stripped of everything of value and allowed to decay and sink in the Ahnapee River, or possibly serve as a relic to days gone by. It did. (See Detjen's dock description below.)

That decision was not the end of the Spartan.

During 1890 the Advocate carried an article saying the schooner was being broken up. Three years later the Record editorialized saying that the old Spartan was nearly rotted to the waters’ edge and that if it were not removed then, the work would be far more difficult. In April 1894, the paper again called for removal, this time saying that if much more was cut away from the old boat, it would not be self-supporting and that removal would be quite expensive. The paper felt that a powerful tug could lift what was left at substantial savings. The paper also encouraged the City of Ahnapee to have the job looked at by one of experience. What the paper didn’t say was that the city was doing too much diddling around and its failure to act was costing the taxpayers more as the days went on.

As it worked out, it was Jim Kersten who took care of removing the Spartan in 1986, about one hundred years after the mighty vessel was “laid up.”

It is not only the ghosts of the Lady Ellen and the Spartan that inhabit the Ahnapee River.

In 1899, Algoma Record commented on the dredging going on in preparation for the new 2^nd Street Bridge and mentioned the boats sunk in the river. By then, the lower half of the Spartan’s hull was submerged in mud, although broken pieces of its ribs were sticking up above the water. The hulk of the Lady Ellen was in the water, however all the rigging had been cut away. During blasting, rocks and debris was blown higher than the Ellen’s spars, which remained. The paper said since the useless Lady Ellen presented a “bad appearance,” the “whole outfit” should be taken out of the river. It didn’t happen.

At bit up-river beyond the Spartan was the schooner Tempest. A few rotten timber ends were visible at the turn of 1900. The Tempest also figured prominently during the schooner heydays. Town of Carlton’s James Flynn was one who sailed aboard the small schooner and served as her captain. As a footnote, history says in 1862 during the Civil War Flynn fired the first shot when the “formidable Tennessee” was coming down the river through the Union fleet. Porter was created an admiral following the action. Also sunk in the river was the schooner Belle. Who would have believed that after a month, the vessel was raised, taken out of the river and partially rebuilt? The Belle faded away in the local papers, so what happened to her is conjecture.

Beneath the fire engine platform at the foot of 3^rd Street in 1899 was the rudder of the old river tug Betsey/Betsy. Years earlier, in 1892, the paper said plans for the Betsy’s hull was being torn to pieces to be burned for fuel indicating that tug had been in a state of deterioration for at least 5 years. As early as summer 1887, Betsy’s boiler and engine were sold to C.W. Baldwin. The equipment had a history before being put on the tug. The machinery had belonged to the Evelands who arrived in (then) Wolf River in 1854. Interestingly, A.D. Eveland purchased Capt. Ross’s interest in the boat. The tug was built in the 1860s by Orrin Warner, a founder of what is now Algoma, and Charles Ross, an early resident. The Betsey and her companion tug, the Two Davids, towed scows and rafts up and down the Ahnapee River for years. Two Davids disappeared in the river marsh near the old Forestville sawmill.

An 1899 paper opined that the “relics of bygone navigation at ‘The Mouth’” brings a “tinge of sadness as one views the old fragments and thinks of the busy, happy times when the ties, posts, wood bark and provisions constituted the main articles of commerce at this port.”

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Photo description: As the photo indicates, Lady Ellen is west of the present 2^nd Street Bridge and in some ice. Wenniger’s pump factory and saloon, last known as the Northside Tap, is the building with the high roofline right of center. The white building on the hill is Wenniger’s Wilhelmshoeh. By the time of this photo, Wilhelmshoeh was refurbished and sections torn off. It is now an apartment building.

The amounts of wood products to be shipped are evident in this Frank McDonald photo dating to before 1900. Writings prior to 1900 tell about wood products awaiting shipment as far as one could see all along the river’s edge from Ahnapee to Forestville. As the forest was cut, the river was left to bake in the hot sun and eventually seep into the surrounding area leaving the narrow, shallow Ahnapee River that exists today. During the pioneer days of the community, before the trees were all cut, it was possible to make Forestville by boat. In 1834 Joseph McCormick and a party of men sailed upriver to today’s Forestville. Trees made the vast difference.

Photo description: Detjen's Dock was on the river side of the Detjen furniture factory on the northeast corner of S. Water Street (now called Navarino) and what is now the foot of 4th Street. The map section was cut out of the 1873 Ahnaoee Birdseye Map. 

When the river was being dredged to permit the docks shown in this 1986 Harold Heidmann photo of Capt. K's Landing, pieces of the old schooner Spartan, which sunk about 1900, came to the surface. A section of a rib is shown in the H. Nell photo below.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Press, Algoma Record, and Algoma Record Herald; Commercial History of the Youngs and Steele Plat, and Other Significant Properties in the City of Algoma, Wisconsin,