IN 1895, when railroads were still being extensively built in the American west, and when the forest and mineral wealth of large parts of the country was just beginning to be exploited, the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste Marie railway (always called the “Soo Line”) was being cut through the virgin forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As it happened, the General Manager of the railway, Frederick D. Underwood (1852-1942), was a devoted admirer of the work of Rudyard Kipling, and he indulged the privilege of the American railroad builder to name two stations on the route after his favorite author: Rudyard, Michigan, and Kipling, Michigan.
Kipling learned of this curious honor from his old friend and colleague on the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, Kay Robinson, who had been traveling in the U.S. and had recently come from Minneapolis to Vermont to visit Kipling, then living at “Naulakha” near Brattleboro. Kipling at once wrote to Underwood to say that Robinson had just showed him a “folder of your R.R. in which appear the stations ‘Rudyard’ and ‘Kipling’.”
“Robinson”, Kipling went on, “tells me too that “Kipling” may some day have a great future before it in the iron ore way. This immensely flatters my vanity: and I write to beg you to send me a photograph if possible, of either ‘Rudyard’ or ‘Kipling’ or preferentially both. I shall take a deep interest in their little welfares. ‘Rudyard’ I gather is already a post office, but I have not heard of Kipling” (Letters, II, 214).
Underwood had expressed his wish to have a Kipling autograph, and Kipling obliged by sending him a photograph with a set of verses, called “The Michigan Twins,” written on the back. The verses, he said, were “rather ornery doggerel,” but it was, he observed, “the first time I ever had to acknowledge twins on the spur of the moment” (Letters, II, 230).
The verses were published in the American Railway Age, 7 March 1896, but were never collected by Kipling. They run thus in the text printed by R.H. Harbord in The Readers’ Guide to Rudyard Kipling’s Work, VIII, no. 368, where they are misdated March 1889:
“Wise is the child who knows his sire”,
The ancient proverb ran,
But wiser far the man who knows
How, where and when his offspring grows-
For who the mischief would suppose
I’ve sons in Michigan?Yet am I saved from midnight ills
That warp the soul of man;
They do not make me walk the floor
Nor hammer at the doctor’s door –
They deal in wheat and iron ore,
My sons in Michigan.Oh, tourist in the Pullman car,
(By Cook’s or Raymond’s plan)
Forgive a parent’s partial view –
But, maybe you have children, too,
So let me introduce to you
My sons in Michigan.
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan at its eastern end is the meeting-place of three of the Great Lakes: Lake Superior joins Lake Huron at Sault Ste Marie; 30 or 40 miles south, across the width of the peninsula, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The builders of the Soo Line must have hoped for the development of a profitable rail-and-lake traffic in the Peninsula, especially since the vast iron ore deposits of the Mesabi Range then beginning to be developed extended into the Upper Peninsula.
Rudyard
The town of Rudyard has prospered more than its twin. It lies about a hundred miles to the east of Kipling, midway between the Sault Ste Marie rapids on the north and the Straits of Mackinac on the south.The nearest towns of any size are about twenty miles away in any direction, so that Rudyard has a clear raison d’etre as a supply and maintenance center for the surrounding countryside: much of that is forest, but there is considerable farming in the region as well. The current population is 500.
Rudyard is unlovely in the straggling, unplanned and mongrel style of American small towns, but it evidently has life in it. A few things are on the highway – a filling station, and a large credit union building, for instance. Then one turns on to the main street and is surprised to find it lined with beds of petunias in bloom, a work of genuine civic amenity. Some of the buildings on the main street have fallen into decay, but others – a bank, for example – are new and flourishing.
There is a large feed store, a hardware store, a little shop combining gifts, a lunch counter, and a stock of liquor for sale. The railroad that was the reason for the town in the first place, and to whose manager the place owes it name, is still operating though not, apparently, very busy. The Soo Line no longer exists, but this section of its old line is now a part of the large regional railroad called the Wisconsin Central. Rudyard boasts a school, and a library, and at least three churches: Catholic, Presbyterian, and, one is pleased to see, a “Rudyard Bible Church.”
Among the new buildings of Rudyard one of the newest is the busy Rudyard Post Office. The postmaster, who kindly undertook to cancel our post cards by hand with a big stamp reading “Rudyard, MI”, told us that he did not get any inquiries about Rudyard Kipling’s connection with the place, though he had heard that people used to ask. The Rudyard library was closed on the day that we were there, so I had no chance to find whether Kipling is represented in the local collection.
Kipling
The town of Kipling lay at the head of Green Bay, on the northern end of Lake Michigan, and might reasonably expect to develop as a shipping point for iron ore. Thus Kipling’s remark that the town of Kipling “may some day have a great future before it in the iron ore way.” That did not happen; instead, the town of Escanaba, a few miles south of Kipling on Green Bay, drew all the Lake Michigan ore traffic to itself by virtue of a deep-water harbor.
Kipling, in fact, seems never to have amounted to anything as a town but remained a hamlet: the current population is only 300. The few houses there today are quite decent, but the only visible enterprise is a small bar, the Kipling Bar: there is no town hall, no post office, no library, no church.
By one of those cruel jokes that history is so full of, the town of Kipling is now a mere suburb of the larger town of Gladstone, which immediately adjoins it on the south. Since the historical Kipling despised the historical Gladstone, this is not a turn of things that Kipling would have wished to know about.
Rudyard + Kipling
So far as is known, Kipling never saw his “sons in Michigan,” as he called them. There is a small mystery about this matter, however.In 1922 the inhabitants of the town of Rudyard published a book of local history called Tales of Rudyard as Told by the Folk, n.p. [Rudyard, MI], n.d. [1922], and sent a copy to Kipling himself. In acknowledging it, he wrote:
“I have not been in Michigan since a trifle more than thirty years ago, and in those days big stretches of the State were hardly settled up, and the trade at the small stores in Schoolcraft county, if I recollect aright, was nearly all barter. There certainly did not seem to be any prospect of hay for export in those days and it is hard to realize that all the lumber round you must be cleared by now. (15 January 1923: British Library).
There is no other record of Kipling’s ever having been in Michigan. His sole opportunities were his trip from San Francisco to New York in 1889, and the outward bound and return journeys from the American east coast to Japan that he made in 1892. There are gaps in the records of both these trips, so that we cannot positively say that he had not been in Michigan. Schoolcraft County, Michigan, mentioned in the letter of 15 January, is in the Upper Peninsula, adjacent to Delta County, in which the town of Kipling lies. But how he might have visited the Upper Peninsula is by no means easy to understand, for it lies off all the main rail routes, by which Kipling traveled.
Thomas Pinney, Claremont California, August 2000
From the Journals…
A search through past Journals for “Michigan” produces 44 results of which the following referenced “the twins”.
KJ011 (1929) Kipling in America by Anice Page Cooper
In 1897 Kipling left America to make a journey to Africa. Although he has never returned to make his home in the United States, he has left such an impress on the American consciousness that villages are named after him from Louisville to Saskatchewan. There is a Kipling station in Saskatchewan—a Kipling in Ontario, Rudyard, Montana—Rudyard and Kipling, Michigan—Kipling, North Carolina—Rudyard, —Mississippi— Kipling, Louisiana. The Michigan Rudyard and Kipling were named by the President of the Soo Line Railroad who treasures an autograph poem by Kipling celebrating his two new children of the north.
KJ188 (1973) “Rudyard” and “Kipling” — Two American Towns by Thomas N. Cross, M.D.
In 1895, E. Kay Robinson, the former editor of the Pioneer, told Kipling that Mr. Frederick D. Underwood, a railroad magnate of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, U.S.A., had named two railroad stations after him—”Rudyard” near the beginning of the line and “Kipling” toward the end. Kipling then wrote Mr Underwood the delightful letter reproduced below.*
He also became much better acquainted with Mr Frederick N. Finney, another railroad man, who supplied him with the details for the trans-continental dash described in “Captains Courageous”.
“Rudyard” and “Kipling” are today small, thriving towns in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and in each, unlike so many other places, Rudyard Kipling would be glad to know, the railroad is still functioning in fine shape!
Naulakha Waite,
Vermont Windham Co.
November 23rd, 1895
F. D. Underwood Esq., S.S. Marie, R.R.
Dear Sir:
My friend and one time chief, Mr E. Kay Robinson, tells me that you would like to see a specimen of my handwriting. He has further shown me a folder of your R.R. in which appear the stations “Rudyard” and “Kipling”. He tells me too that “Kipling” may some day have a great future before it in the iron ore way. This immensely flatters my vanity; and I write to beg you to send me a photograph if possible, of either “Rudyard” or “Kipling” or preferentially both. I shall take a deep interest in their little welfare. “Rudyard” I gather has already a postoffice, but I have not heard of “Kipling”.
Please encourage the development of “Kipling”. Give him an express and telegraph office, and a new water-tank and if ever he has a restaurant let it be known for the best coffee on the line. Tell him if he is big enough—to avoid strike and bloodshed, never to open the wrong switch and to be careful about his grade crossings. Some day I hope to be able to come out and see him and his brother. In the meantime and with many thanks for the splendid way in which you have given me a circulation, believe me,
Very sincerely yours, Rudyard Kipling.
(Reproduced through the courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.)
KJ195 (1975) Who Was Slatin Beeman? by W. S. Tower
Incidentally, it was not Finney who named the Soo Line railroad stations “Rudyard” and “Kipling” (both in Michigan). They were named by F. D. Underwood, general manager of the Soo Line from 1888 until 1899, presumably after Kipling’s visit to St. Paul in 1892, when Finney no longer had any connection with the railroad. (Letter from Mr. James W. Lydon of Minneapolis, unofficial historian of the Soo Line.)
KJ199 (1976) RAIL ROAD MAGNATE by THOMAS N. CROSS
In the September issue, Mr. W. S. Tower, at the end of his article, “Who was Slatin Beeman?” appeals for help in finding out how Kipling came to know two railroad magnates, Mr. F. N. Finney and Mr. F. D. Underwood. In the December 1973 issue of The Kipling Journal I quoted a letter from Kipling to Underwood, dated 23 November 1895, telling how much he appreciated his naming two towns in Michigan after him. The letter shows that it was Mr. E. Kay Robinson, the famous editor of The Pioneer, who put the two men in touch with each other. The first sentence in the letter reads, “My friend and one time chief, Mr. E. Kay Robinson tells me that you would like to see a specimen of my handwriting.” It was through Underwood that he came to know Finney, who wrote him saying how much he enjoyed his works. Kipling replied with unusual warmth, and the two exchanged letters now owned by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. When Kipling needed information for the transcontinental dash in “Captains Courageous” he obtained it from Finney and used the exact figures he supplied, and even a name or two of different individuals he mentioned. When Finney went out and broke the record time described in the book, it was perhaps no great accomplishment; he was, after all, improving on a time that he himself had set up! After Kipling returned to England in 1896, the Finneys visited him there; so far as I know, this is the only time the two men actually met.
KJ205 (1978) Letters: from W. S. TOWER
Dr. Cross (September, 1976) misread my article of the year before. I was not looking for information on F. D. Underwood. I knew from Dr. Cross’s previous contribution and other sources how Underwood and Kipling became acquainted. Indeed, I have the text of some verse Kipling wrote on the back of his photograph that he sent to Underwood, after he learned that Underwood had named two towns ‘Rudyard’ and ‘Kipling’. This seems to have been published previously only in the WPA guide to (New York, 1941): “Wise is the child who knows his sire… What concerned me was how and when F. N. Finney ever became acquainted with Kipling.
Now, thanks to Dr. Cross and Ms. Grace Tratt of the Dalhousie University Library, Halifax, N.S., I have my information. I can even add bits to that provided by Dr. Cross. According to Ms. Tratt, who takes her information from the Kipling-Finney correspondence in the Killian Memorial Library at Dalhousie, plans were made for a visit by Finney to Vermont in July, 1896, but there is no confirmation that this took place. Finney did visit the Kiplings in England in 1897, and again in 1907. The correspondence ends shortly thereafter, without any reference to a trans-continental train trip by Finney which beat the record set by Harvey Cheyne. Perhaps Philip Mason is right in saying that it was another railway magnate who broke the record.
KJ253 (1990) Letters: PLACE NAMES IN NORTH AMERICA from Mr R.B. Appleton
Mr Appleton notes the existence of two towns in Michigan called Rudyard and Kipling; a town in Montana called Rudyard; and another in Saskatchewan called Kipling. He wonders if there are other towns in North America or elsewhere named after the writer.
KJ254 (1990) Letters: PLACE NAMES IN NORTH AMERICA from Professor Rinehart S. Potts, Glassboro State College, Glassboro, New Jersey 08028-1752. U.S.A.
Professor Potts writes in response to Mr Appleton’s letter at page 49 of our March 1990 issue. Citing the official directory of U.S. post offices, he finds Kiplings in North Carolina (Harnett County) and Ohio (Guernsey County), and Rudyards in Michigan (Chippewa County) and Montana (Hill County). He comments that “many post office listings in the United States are for quite tiny rural places, many of them not incorporated, so they would not appear elsewhere”.
The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer ofthe World evidently omits the foregoing examples, but shows Kipling, a village in south-east Saskatchewan, population 404. The Rand McNally International Atlas shows the same Kipling, and Rudyards in Michigan and Montana; “both of these are very near Canada”, as is a Rudyerd [sic] Bay in Alaska.
[Ian.S.Bell Editor Nov 2025]