From

History and Memory

By

Waube Kanish

And

"Dunny" Bent

1982

Dedicated to

CARETAKERS of the FUTURE

Copyright 1982

2^nd Printing 1986

Re-Print 1987

Arthur J. Bent

354 Linden Avenue

Doylestown, PA 18901

All rights reserved.

No parts may be reproduced without written permission.

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An early history of the Cisco Chain of Lakes was suggested by several friends who spend their summers on the Chain and also by some family members. Many of these people wanted to know about the ‘roots’ of early settlers on the Chain but had not found anyone connected with the past, and asked what my memory could provide.

Although my memories did not begin here, until 1910, my first visit was in the fall of 1907 when we lived at Marvin Hughlitt’s Camp on Thousand Island Lake. But, the bents were story tellers. And also some pictures were taken while others retained information about their ancestors. Much of the detailed information and dates were recorded by my sister Lucy Ann, which she pulled from our Mother, who never forgot a birthday or name of anyone she knew.

Even after searching memory, files, pictures and letters, you will find many approximate dates, some very wrong. Names may be misspelled, Flora and Fauna could be too little and inaccurate, my apology.

This is a condensed version, about half of what it was on the first try, but was willingly cut. After my lifelong partner, Gene, convinced me this should not be a family history. That’s another story which is still being brought up to date, BENT TRAILS.

A forerunner of this story has also been written by Waube Kanish, trying to picture what this country was like about 1853—THE GREAT SPIRIT COUNTRY.

Close to the end of this rape of the Virgin Wilderness, the Bent related Delano brothers from Abrams, Wis., farmers, but looking for ready cash, arrived by following the logging railroad west and a ‘tote’ road to Mamie Lake on the Cisco Chain. They built two cabins and a barn on the lakeshore at the edge of about three of burned forest, and started to fish and hunt for shipment to the Chicago market. They hired men to fish from row boats with hand lines, and caught Smallmouth Black Bass to fill the wagon daily.

In 1895 ‘Bill’ Bent, age 57, and his sons, Charles 38, George 33, Horace 25 and Walter 17 arrived at the Delano Camp on Mamie lake on their way back from Hurley, Wis. They had just completed supplying fresh meat to the crew building the railroad to Hurley. They drove cattle and butchered daily until they ran out of meat. Then they supplied Venison. They all carried 45/90 rifles and wore Buckskins. The Bents stayed to hunt and fish for the Chicago market to get cash.

Charles Bent, a mild conservationist did not like marketing wild game and felt this country should be open to Sportsmen. In 1896 Charlie bought Delano’s and called it ‘Bents Camp’ for sport fishing and hunting. He loved the country and did all he could in his lifetime to protect and improve it for others.

George Bent left the north, married Carrie Stoud and then went to sunny promises of California.

Horace Bent started Camp Tenderfoot on Tenderfoot Lake.

Walter Bent worked at both camps for a few years and then started his own place on Fishhawk and Lindsley Lakes in 1909.

Charles Bent brought his family, wife Elizabeth (Lizzy), son Austin and daughters Elsie and Mamie (Polly) from Abrams, Wis. More cabins were built, mostly of Tamarack logs and laid directly on the ground and because of their rot resistance may still be there. The first log cabin served as temporary home and dining area with Charlie chief cook.

A sawmill was one of the first things added. While the cabins were being built of logs, lumber was needed for roofs, shingles, floors, doors, Cupboards, bedsteads, barns, docks boathouses, outhouses, ice house, etc. Land was homesteaded and bought, and for about twenty years, logs were cut in late fall and decked in the woods, then hauled on ice roads to the sawmill and decked again, to be sawed into lumber in early spring, and piled to air dry.

As land was cleared the hauling of Marsh Hay for the animals over the Hay road from the Beaver meadows on Trout Creek near Harding Lake, was not needed. Gradually they grew hay, corn and oats for the needs of horses, cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and Angora Goats, Lizzie used the wool to make blankets for the Camp. For several years the Goats were taken to an island in Crooked Lake for forage and to clear the underbrush. It was called Goat Island until the Klotz built there in 1926-27. (Forsythe Island). It  had a different name, ‘Big Pine Island’, and with a reason, as perhaps the largest White Pine in the North grew there. The legend of why so large and not struck by lightening, was that the Great Spirit placed normal pines on nearby hills to be struck first. Few lonely tall Pines were left undamaged. The one on Belle Isle in Mamie Lake was taller then, Walter Bent told of standing on Grassy Point in about 1904 and seeing lightening break the top off. It has been hit many times since.

A garden supplied nearly all the fresh vegetables for Bents camp, including potatoes, sweet corn, rutabaga and rhubarb. Wild Red Raspberries, Blueberries, Blackberries and Cranberries were canned. One small Crabapple tree provided pectin. Although fences were gradually built, the cows, with bells hanging from straps around their necks, foraged in the woods.

One of the original DeLano cabins was used as a schoolhouse for the Bent girls. It lasted about fifteen years. A Quoit and horseshoe court took its place. Most people used it to play horseshoe, using shoes of all sizes, depending upon the size of the horse; Polly bent became an expert at both.

The camp log dining room with a fireplace was lined with White Birch bark held in place with cedar bark strips. It joined the kitchen, which was on the lakeshore, with screened porches above the water. The Bents summer home, the ‘Kings Castle’ was a two story log cabin in the center of the Camp with porches on all sides that had railings make of small round Cedar. Behind the dining room was the log office building with Birch bark lining. It was connected to the Folly, a three story frame building with guest rooms up stairs and the Bents winter quarters on the ground floor, their first building with plumbing, built in about 1906. A large septic tank was built in the swamp.

Before 1900 Charlie Bent built a cabin on Grassy Point, opposite Belle Isle, across from his camp and another cabin on Honeymoon Island in West Bay.