Wilwin at Cygnet Cove History:
Taken from the Ludington Daily News, July 16, 2016:
Sippy Ranch came to be the result of a snowstorm and a stranded Chicago doctor who fell in love with the area a century ago.
The property, which once stretched from Bitterly past Baldwin and north to nearly Custer, was purchased by Dr. Bertram Sippy, a well known Chicago doctor who had come to the area as a medical examiner for an insurance company. The patient was at home south of Baldwin.
Traveling by train and sleigh team to the home, when the doctor had completed his task, he was ready to return to Chicago via the same mode of transportation. A huge snow storm had begun in the interim and it was impossible for him to catch the train. He sought shelter at the home of a woman named Runnells south of Baldwin.
At breakfast the next day, she told the doctor of the farm she owned and now being widowed that she wanted to sell it. He promised her if the property was still for sale in the spring, he would come back and look at it.
He purchased her property the following spring and continued to purchase land. The properties he bought were of varied terrain, with some being wooded, others cleared, and some swampy.
Sharecroppers were installed on the property and a dairy farm of 1500 acres near Branch was also established. The Sippy holdings in Eden Township once extended over 4000 acres. Much of the land was swamp and was known as Butters Swamp. Dr. Sippy purchased the property from the Butters’ and the co-owners. The co-owners of the property were the Sands and Maxwell Lumber Co. of Pentwater, and another family from Ludington.
The farm home on the property was built in 1918 as a summer residence for Dr. Sippy and his family. Upon his death in 1924, the Sippy family home was sold and the family moved to the Eden Township home permanently.
In the 1940’s Mrs. Sippy sold half of the Eden Township property to the federal government and that is now part of the Manistee National Forest. Part of the 2,000 acres she kept continued to be rented out for cattle grazing in the summer and another portion located south of the former community of Fern became known as the Eden oil field after several wells were drilled by Superior Oil Company. The wells were capped many years ago.