The Cut

1871—Manistee County, Michigan.

The lumber industry is the predominant and most powerful business in Northern Michigan and is used to doing whatever it wants to do, wherever it wants.

It is trampling on the rights of a small group of homesteaders whose small 80-acre farms surround Portage Lake. A dam is used to operate a water wheel-driven sawmill, and when the dam's gates are closed, Portage Lake rises 12 to 14 feet above its normal level and floods out 10 to 15 acres of the homesteaders' otherwise tillable land.

The Cut tells the David and Goliath story of the farmers' resolve to overcome Big Lumber's abuse as seen through the eyes of their reluctant leader, Alvin Price, a Civil War veteran who lost an arm at the Battle of Gettysburg.

A work of historical fiction, The Cut is a riveting novel that combines fictional characters with the lavish history of Michigan's late 19th-century lumbering era.

©2021 John V. Wemlinger (P)2022 John V. Wemlinger

Great historical fiction!

This book gave the reader a wonderful chance to learn History intertwined, with a lovely story.