Source: The Mining Journal
Marquette, Mi.
August 20, 1887
Saturday
For the Summit Division
A special train passed through the city at midnight Thursday
with 200 laborers for F. C. O'Reilly & Co.'s camps on the Summit division of The DSS&A. The men came from Cincinnati, 0.,
and were under the charge of E. L. P. Wetmore, of this city,
who went down to bring them up. O'Reilly & Co., have an agent
at work in Cincinnati securing men for them and this is but the
advance guard from that part of the country. The men came up
as far as St. Louis on the steamer Peerless, but as they were
becoming uneasy, Mr. Wetmore thought that it was best to have them
landed there, and as soon as he had telegraphed up from the Point
a special train was arranged for. It left St. Ignace in the after-
noon and upon arriving here was run up to the upper yards where
men were waiting with baskets for the hungry crowd which filled the
coaches. Many of the 200 were colored. The special train took
them to Baraga and from there they will strike in to the line
of the road. There are now about 2,500 men at work on the Summit division, mostly Italians. It is an extremely difficult piece
of railroad work, but the contractors are determined to push it
through as fast as possilbe by putting on every man they can get,
and to this end they are scouring the country for railroad laborers.
