Front Page

MC MURDO’S CAMP - A Scion Society of the Baker Street Irregulars.

THE LUMBER CAMPS OF MICHIGAN, ca. 1866

A team pulls a sleighload of timber down the haul road to the lake, where it will be left on the ice and floated over to the sawmill come Spring. As a young man, Birdy Edwards spent two seasons in the pineries of Charlevoix County, doing this sort of work. These experiences were useful to him later in his life as they provided an authentic but untraceable background for him to portray in his position with The Pinkertons.

During the summers of his Michigan days, Edwards found employment as a hand on a fishing boat in northern Lake Michigan. He later traveled down to Chicago, where he used his contacts from the North to find factory work in a lumber-related business.

He worked in a planing mill, and in less than a year rose to the position of superintendent of the spindle turning floor. Although it paid well, after a while it became obvious this job did not really suit him, so he applied for work with the Pinkerton detective agency in Chicago. With his gregarious nature, natural cleverness, and strong work ethic, he was a natural, and became an investigator who rose quickly to become a valuable agent, working both openly and under-cover on many important cases.

*** ************ ***

To learn more about McMurdo’s Camp, explore the “PAGES” in the box at the upper right.