Essence of Emmet Part 2

Essence of Emmet

A four-part historical series about Emmet County, Michigan

PART II: 1813 to 1917, the Century of Contrasts 95258.indd 1

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▪ An introduction to Essence of Emmet Part II

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mmet County has always been my home. Through a stroke of good luck, I was born and raised in a place where mail addressed to the Cummings family at Five Mile Creek, Harbor Springs, arrived without fail. Both of my parents were born and raised here as well, and growing up in this beautiful land instilled a sense of place in all of us. Summer afternoons swimming in the big lake with extended family, adventures in the cedar swamps, watching parades on Main Street, winters (oh, the winters)—all of these experiences are tightly woven into the fabric of my life.

What was missing in this fabric, however, were the threads of history. Like the adage about politics, it could also be said that all history is local. Yet in so many cases, both as young students and even as adults, our local history often eludes us. This was especially true in my case. Math, science, language arts were all subjects that I enjoyed in high school—history was not among them. My college studies and then my early work followed the path of the former subjects.

Enter another stroke of good luck: Ten years ago, a friend invited me to get involved as a board Look for timelines with member of the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society. Although I certainly didn’t realize it at each article to help orient the time, my history education had begun in earnest. Through our work opening the Harbor you to when these stories Springs History Museum and later as I transitioned to a member of the staff, I slowly began were taking place. learning the stories of this place. The War of 1812 was for me no longer a forgotten chapter in a dusty history book, but a conflict that involved Odawa warriors who departed by canoe from the shore of Little Traverse Bay. Imagine today, standing on the same shoreline, picturing those warriors gathering to make the arduous journey through the Great Lakes to fight alongside the British. The stories are powerful and they connect us both with our past and with this place.

And now, I have the good fortune to work with an incredible group of people who share not only the love of our local history but also the passion and drive to share it, preserve it and bring it to life. We call our group the Essence of Emmet, a collaborative of about a dozen history-oriented organizations who work together year after year to find ways to make history interesting, relevant and even fun for residents and visitors alike.

In our first volume of this magazine, we shared the stories of early military leaders, Odawa warriors, and others who came to this place before it was known as Emmet County. In the pages that follow, we now invite you on a journey through a Century of Contrasts, from 1813 until 1917. And as it is with journeys, this one is not without its trials and hardships. More than any other period in our modern history, the 19th Century in Emmet County saw the most dramatic change—from native homeland and relative wilderness to the shape of our towns and villages as we see them today, from primarily an Indian population to primarily a European population.

Whether you call yourself a local, a native, a transplant, resorter, cottager, tourist, retiree or just someone passing through, the pages that follow will help you feel the sense of place more keenly and to understand our shared history more deeply. In whatever way Emmet County has woven itself into the fabric of your life, we are hopeful that these stories will serve to make those threads stronger.

Yours in the journey, Mary Cummings Harbor Springs Area Historical Society and Essence of Emmet member

the Essence of Emmet

To learn more about the organizations, visit www.emmetcounty.org

The organizations involved in the Essence of Emmet include: Emmet County, Emmet County Historical Commission, Central Michigan University, Cross Village Heritage Museum, Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, Harbor Springs Area Historical Society, Inland Water Route Historical Society, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Little Traverse Historical Society, Mackinac State Historic Parks, and the Mackinaw Area Historical Society.

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contents

Setting the Stage for Change ▪ 4

Contributing writers & editors 2015 edition of Essence:

'Kanapima:' He who is talked about ▪ 10

The Boarding School legacy ▪ 13

On a Mission: Missionaries arrive ▪ 15

Sandra L. Planisek Emmet County Historical Commissioner Beth Anne Eckerle Emmet County Communications Director Mary Cummings Harbor Springs Area Historical Society Eric Hemenway Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians MaryAnn Moore

Mackinaw Area Historical Society Jane Cardinal Essence of Emmet Jerry Kilar Special to Essence of Emmet Karl Crawford Greenwood Cemetery, Petoskey Tamara Stevens Special to Essence of Emmet Mary Stewart Adams International Dark Sky Park at the Headlands Mike Federspiel Central Michigan University Caity Sweet Central Michigan University Kyle Bagnall Chippewa Nature Center Tom Bailey Little Traverse Conservancy Terry Pepper Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association Christine Steensma Oden State Fish Hatchery Dr. Adriana Greci-Green Smithsonian Institute

Publication design

Beth Anne Eckerle ▪ Sandra L. Planisek

Change & the Odawas, Part I ▪ 7

Protestant missionary, emerging religions ▪ 18

'King Strang' & the formation of Emmet ▪ 22

The Civil War and Company K ▪ 25

Life of the Mossbacks▪ 27

THE RAILROAD ARRIVES ▪ 30

Marketing Northern Michigan ▪ 32

The Inland Waterway makes a splash with tourists ▪ 35

Passenger Pigeon snuffed out ▪ 41

Arrival of the Homesteaders ▪ 44 Lighting of the Lighthouses ▪ 46

The lumber era begins ▪ 37

The call for conservation and the start of state fish hatcheries▪ 50 Emmet's firsts leave lasting impacts ▪ 52

Change & the Odawas, Part II ▪ 54 Disease strikes ▪ 58

Earl Mead, architect ▪ 60 Hiawatha Pageant ▪ 62

How did communities get their names? ▪ 64

Essence of Emmet

A four-part historical series about Emmet County, Michigan

On the Cover:

The Petoskey Penn Plaza railroad station, then & now.

Cover concept: Mary Cummings; Robert de Jonge photo-imaging; Library of Congress historic photo

PART II: 1813 to 1917, the

Century of Contrasts

Printed thanks to funding support from the Local Revenue Sharing Board, the Baiardi Family Foundation, Mackinac State Historic Parks, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Little Traverse Historical Society, Mr. Richard Moehl and the Emmet County Board of Commissioners. Volume II published in 2015. Additional volumes will be published annually through 2017. For information on obtaining copies/reprinting, contact Beth Anne Eckerle, Emmet County, (231) 348-1704 or email

beckerle@emmetcounty.org. Printed by Mitchell Graphics, Petoskey, Michigan.

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A century of contrasts

F

ty

al Michigan Universi

Photo courtesy Centr

or thousands of years the earliest people in Emmet County lived in fishing villages on the shores of Lake Michigan. When white men arrived in 1715 they settled at the northern tip of the county in today’s Mackinaw City, also on the water. Here they built their fort. The white men supported themselves with government subsidies of food and money from France, then England. Shipping food from Europe was expensive so they supplemented as best they could with fish from the Straits, some locally raised farm animals, and garden crops primarily purchased from the local Odawa.

This was an advantageous market for the Odawa, who were experienced traders and knew an opportunity when they saw it. Originally the Odawa tried to meet the demand by growing crops just outside the fort; but for a variety of reasons, including better soils, they moved south to the Cross Village area. Trade prospered until the onset of the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War generated imagined threats behind every sand dune and the fort leadership, constantly glancing over their shoulders for revolutionaries, moved the entire fort community out of Emmet County to Mackinac Island. The soldier’s retreat left Emmet County primarily populated by the Odawa of Cross Village.

But white priests would not leave a void for long. The new era and Part II of our Essence of Emmet series, begins after the War of 1812. The population centers from Cross Village south to Bear River, in the southern portion of the county. This magazine covers the period up to the start of World War I and reports on a huge transformation of the county, including controversial treaty settlements, the arrival of the railroad, homesteading, and the lumbering industry. We hope you enjoy.

Setting the stage: How food tells the story of place

By Tamara Stevens ▪ Special to Essence of Emmet Photos courtesy Little Traverse History Museum, Petoskey

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rnest Hemingway said, “If you want to learn about a culture, study their food.” For Emmet County residents, the time period from 1813 to shortly after the turn of the century was filled with changes and progress, and nowhere were those changes more evident than in the food they consumed. From hunting and fishing in the early 1800s to the gourmet meals served in the many elegant resorts and hotels in the early 1900s, food and dining in Emmet County underwent a total transformation in those 100 years.

After the War of 1812 until about the 1850s, the only inhabitants of Emmet County were a combination of the indigenous tribes of the area primarily the Odawa; French fur trappers and hunters; the occasional missionaries and exploring priests; supplemented with military personnel on Mackinac Island. Most of these early residents spent the majority of their daily lives ensuring that they would have food to eat that night. Hunting for white-tailed deer and trapping small game such as rabbits were constant pursuits. Fishing the rivers for trout and the lakes for whitefish was a year-round activity that included ice fishing in the winter months. And all of it was cooked over an open fire.

Native Americans planted corn, squash and beans together, called the three sisters, because each of the crops used select nitrates that benefited each other, according to Meredith Henry of Great Lakes Consulting, an enterprise focusing on protecting local culture and Native American traditions. In autumn, corn, still in the husk, was scorched over a fire and used in soups and stews. Beans were dried and stored for use during the winter. Wild rice was often harvested and dried, to be used in soups. Berries, especially cranberries, were dried and used in abundance. Squash was practically a staple of their diet, and every aspect of the vegetable was consumed, even the roasted seeds.

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Growing choices

The small trading village of Bear River (later named Petoskey) was slowly growing. By the 1850s a Protestant missionary named Andrew Porter settled in the village and opened a school. Hiram O. Rose set up a temporary store in the village in Ignatius Petoskey’s house where he was renting, creating the area’s first grocery store.

Flour, sugar and salt were sold to those merchants who until then had only known native cuisine – locally hunted, fished, trapped or grown.

Commercially processed foods had arrived.

In 1862 President Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act, which gave Civil War veterans 160 acres -but with a catch. The homesteaders had to build a residence, make the land productive, and most difficult of all, survive upon it for five years before it officially belonged to them.

The national depression in 1873 left many families in larger cities unable to find work or put food on their tables and they jumped at the chance to move to Northern Michigan. Mossbacks, as they were called, worked long hours carving out a homestead on unsettled land, chopping trees and planting gardens, enduring unfathomable winter conditions. Most of their meals were cooked over an open fire, adding to their only iron skillet or pot whatever root vegetables they dug and whatever meat they shot or trapped. Once or twice a year, they would make the arduous journey over undeveloped trails into the village of Petoskey for supplies: a bag of flour, some salted pork, and dried beans.

Times were tough for those earliest settlers, and many nearly starved during the long winters. The townspeople in Petoskey began to organize an annual dinner dance for the Mossbacks, to serve not only as a way for the countrybound settlers to socialize with the merchants and folks in town, but also to be sure they were surviving during the lean, cold months.

The Mossbacks were also bolstered in the 1870s by an unlikely hero – the passenger pigeon. The pigeons chose an area in northern Emmet County to gather at one of the largest nesting sites ever recorded for the docile birds, and their existence brought both food and money to the county. For nearly 20 years the pigeons were credited with preventing starvation for many of the county’s earliest settlers. (Please see article on page 41.)

▪ Place to Ponder Bay View Association, Petoskey

The Association is a thriving summer community offering cultural, educational and recreational opportunities for the community to this day. MayOctober, U.S. 31 N in Petoskey.

Call of the North brings the biggest changes yet

As modern cities developed to the south, the unquenchable need for lumber began to change the landscape of the northern woods. Lumber camps were built, vast forests were cut down by immigrant workers, logs were transported by rivers and over Lakes Huron and Michigan to Detroit and Chicago to supply the construction of cities. The immigrants who came for the work brought with them their families’ traditional foods and palettes: pasties from Finland, lamb stew from Ireland, sauerkraut from Germany. They planted carrots, potatoes and other vegetables that would survive the winter in root cellars. They tried growing vegetables and fruit trees that had grown in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where

they’d lived before moving north.

Originally salting and smoking meats were the only means of preserving them. By the later half of the 1800s, canning of fruits and vegetables and even meats allowed farmers to enjoy foods beyond their in-season freshness. continued on next page

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Setting the stage, via food continued In 1873 something occurred that would forever change people’s lives in Emmet County. The railroad arrived.

No other development had such far-reaching influence on the evolution of the area, its people, and its foods.

The Grand Rapids and Indiana (GR&I) railroad used a land grant from the government to develop the west side of the state of Michigan. The railroads brought settlers, preachers, teachers, physicians and families to the land of promise, build towns to replace the lumber hetoarea known today as Emmet County,camps.

Mich., like other areas the United States, has gone Soonmany tourists rode the in trains to escape the suffocatmore one name over theand course of time.for ing hayby fever of than the Midwest summers to witness The original county name was Tonedagana, named after themselves the land of the “Million Dollar Sunsets. ” Inan Odawa chief10from in rolled 1843 the county’s less than yearsCross afterVillage. the firstBut train into Petoskey, name changed to Emmet, in honor of Robert Emmet, the new industry of tourism was well established. an Irish nationalist.

Emmet officially organized in 1853 Bringing families fromCounty Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and has retained that name since.by the trainload, the Cincinnati, Cleveland andever Detroit, But Emmet County had a very distinctive designation railroads needed a place for the tourists to stay and spend before the arrival of European and later, American settlers. their money. Hotels sprang up in downtown Petoskey to The indigenous people to Northern Michigan, the Odawa, house the tourists, with advertising brochures from the had their own name for this special area. Waganakising or timeof noting, “The harbor would bestill filled with “Land the Crooked Tree” was, and is to thissteamer very day, a ships and more than 20 trains came and went from who very significant area for the Odawa people. The French, Petoskey each ” would be the firstday.

European visitors to the area, would not try In 1875, land treaty with the of Odawas ended to rename it. They simplyprovisions called it the “Land the Crooked andwhich the plat in Traverse City for the Tree” in books Frenchwere is “L’opened Arbre Croche. ” purchase of land in Emmet County.

Settlers Many early French and British maps have thecame area from of L’Athroughout rbre Crochethe plainly designated. oneThe of the Midwest to makeIt awould fresh be start. settlers most political and village settlements in provided the entire builtsignificant homes and planted gardens.

The railroads Great Lakes. would here to north, conduct a means byFrench which officials foods could become transported business during the the latefare 1600s and early withthan the 20 vastly expanding available in 1700s the more Odawa and their close kin, the Ojibway.

Pontiac’s famed war hotels and boarding houses in Petoskey. would have ties to That same year, the railroads contacted members of the Waganakising in 1763, as Odawa from there, under the leadMichigan Methodist Church and made a deal to provide a ership of Odawa war chief/French officer Charles Langlade, plot of land north of Petoskey and guarantee railroad serwould secure over a dozen British soldiers who survived the vice at if the would operate hold athem camptomeetattack Fortchurch Michilimackinac and and transport safety ing there for the next 15 years.

The camp became known in Montreal. Later, from 1831-33, the famed missionary Fredas the Bay View Association of The United Methodist eric Baraga carried out his mission work at the southern end and by at 1900 thereSprings. were 400 cottages built on the ofChurch Waganakising, Harbor grounds.

In the early years of Bay View, camp meeting members Important Odawatents. leaders, as Assiginack, stayed in canvas Thesuch trustees of the Association Mookmanish, Kishigopenasi, Makadepenasi, Charles pooled their money and built a large boarding house with Langlade, Nissawaquat, Augustin Hamlin and J. a vast dining hall. The Bay View House (alsoAndrew called Hotel Blackbird have all called the Land of Crooked Tree home.

Bay View) was built in 1877 and served three meals every Part of what area so fascinating, beyond its summer day makes to 300 this patrons. historical relevance, is the cultural importance the Land of the By 1882, 1,200 Petoskey resident-workers served more Crooked Tree has to the Odawa. The land was once marked than 40,000 tourists who arrived by railroad and steam by a massive pine that was bent out over the water near Midships every day in the summer. The tourists wanted local dle Village (Good Hart). This tree, thought to be misshaped as whitefish servedofinthe theOdawa opulence the as bycuisine spirits, such marked the homelands andof served Victorian The hotels obliged.

Linen cova sign to anyera. traveler on Lake Michigan thattablecloths you have entered

T

Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History

Museum

into one of thethe principal village ofsilverware the Odawa.and Many tribes from the ered tables, polished sparkling crystal Great Lakes came to councils at Waganakising to discuss glassware marked thehold setting. war, trade and locally grown vegetables and fresh Thepeace, cuisine featured alliances; upon seeing the great bent tree,and theywhitefish. knew they had caught fish: rainbow trout, brook trout, arrived. sadly,were the tree was cutbut down its exact Beef andBut chicken available, wereand more expenlocation has become lost to memory.

While the sive. Meals had numerous courses, but portionslocation were of the tree is lost, the overall message of the Crooked Tree is not. smaller than any found today.

A journey inland from the shoreline of Waganakising, one One significant aspect of the early tourism industry was will discover other crooked trees. The Odawa would the dramatic difference between the foods being served purposely misshape young maple trees at significant to patronswithin versusEmmet that eaten by the staff.can Hotel locations County.

Some still employees be seen today, were salt pork fried bread, whatever vegetables alongeating Old Horton Bayand Road near Bay Shore, which is an old they grew in their backyards, and the catch of the day. at Odawa village. These trees were cut down their main-stem One of age the in earliest manufacturing businesses in recover a certain their development.

The trees would Petoskey was Hankey Flour, a company that ground but the main trunk would not fully develop. Instead, large side locally grown wheat. to grind wheathand waswith a branches would grow Having outward,a mill resembling a large big deal to Wheat production the markers region was its palm up.farmers.

These trees would be used asintrail anda also to identify significant areas to the Odawa. successful venture, but without a mill to grind it, farmers The Land of had the Crooked is soit,much more than a single wouldn’t have a reason Tree to grow and Hankey Flour tree that once existed along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. filled that niche.

The tree took many here and hadseafood multiple Bycrooked 1887 refrigerated train forms cars allowed fresh meanings.

Whether it was to identify a landing spot, a council and other delicacies to be transported northward from area, a trail marker or a tree created through divine purpose Chicago and Detroit, expanding hotels’ menus and to signifycompetition Odawa homelands, crooked tree’s significance creating for localthe butchers. is still alive and well to this day. The Little Traverse Bay Bands With the industrial revolution came automation of of Odawa Indians have lived in Emmet County, continually, everything, including food production. Soon hotels and since 1742 and have called the area home for centuries prior. grocers were selling items made popular by World’s Fairs The tribe achieved reaffirmation of its federal status in 1994. such hot dogs, on marshmallows and potato chips.

Uponasembarking its right to self-government, the Odawa Like merchants today, when a customer walked they developed its own constitution. In their constitution, through the ancestors, door and their askedAnishnaabek if the store carried a particuhonor their beliefs and their lar item easily found in any store in Chicago or Detroit, homelands as identifying as “Waganakising Odawak, ” or the merchant was eager to Odawa. please and “Land of the Crooked Tree ” ▪ sought out a supplier. Soon food products such as Coca-Cola soft drinks and other edible delights were available in Emmet County. ▪

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the Emmet County Odawas, Part I

An Odawa from the mid-1800s

CHANGE, CONFLICT &

perseverance

How a century of change impacted the Odawas

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Historical analysis By Eric Hemenway, LTBB Odawa Archives and Records

erhaps no other century has had such an impact on the Waganakising Odawa as that of the 19th century. The 19th century would see the Odawa change virtually every aspect of their lives in order to stay in their ancestral homelands of Northern Michigan. It is a terribly complicated time period for the tribe, as religion, politics, government policies, land loss and assimilation all played major roles in the fate of the tribe. For centuries, the Odawa had fought other tribes, the British and the Americans to retain their lands and rights. But with the Odawa on the losing side â–Ş Place to Ponder of the War of 1812 against the Zorn Park, Harbor Springs Americans, major A sandy swimming beach and the change was nearby historic mineral well make this a wonderful place to enjoy the water, sun, inevitable and and contemplate this history. On the occurred at a rapid waterfront of Harbor Springs. pace.

The Odawa warriors returning from the War of 1812 knew their communities in Michigan were about to experience unprecedented change. The American population was Waganakising: Land of growing and American the Crooked Tree, an victory in the War meant area stretching along the only one thing: Expansion. shore from Cross Village Only 15 years after the war, down to Middle Village a federal law devastating and Seven Mile Point. to Native Americans was enacted: The Indian Removal Act of 1830. This law stated that all Indians living east of the Mississippi River would be removed to lands west of the Mississippi River. Within a 10-year period, more than 100,000 natives were removed from their homelands and forced west to Oklahoma and Kansas. To avoid such a fate, the Odawa in Michigan took action.

The Odawa immediately began adapting to the American way of life and seeking other means to stay in their homelands. Assiginack and his brother Apoksugan, both chiefs, began to invite more missionaries to live at Waganakising. continued on next page

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Odawa in 19th Century continued

Their thinking was this: If the Odawa could show their progress toward “civilization” in the minds of the Americans, perhaps they would not be forced out west. Cabins were built, slowly replacing the wigwam. Churches began to appear in the villages at Cross Village, Good Hart and Harbor Springs. Missionaries arrived with the intent to convert Natives and settlers to Catholicism, and the warrior Assiginack himself was a devout Catholic, as were many other chiefs in the community. But not all the Odawa welcomed the missionaries with open arms, as their demands to change were strict and called for the end of Native traditions that were centuries old.

Influencing the future

Two priests that had an early influence on Waganakising were Auguste DeJean and Frederick Baraga. During the 1820s and early 30s, these two men were set on converting as many Odawa to the Catholic faith as possible. The terms “heathen, savage and uncivilized” were often used by these priests and others during this time period to describe the Odawa. Part of the demands by these priests to erase the “heathen” nature of the Odawa was for individuals to burn their sacred items. The priests built fires by the churches and sacred items such as drums, animal skins and more were burned. Baptisms were administered as well. Some Odawa adhered to these demands, but many Odawa rejected the priests’ requests. They argued their traditions and ceremonial items had served them well for many generations and they would lose prosperity without them. They also argued it was no business of outsiders to demand the Odawa to make changes. Others in the community argued that without a committed change to Christianity, the tribe would be forced off their lands, because of their perceived

“uncivilized” nature. The tension became so intense in the tribe that the Catholic Odawa removed themselves from the traditional Odawa, at the request of a Father Badin, in 1829. The Catholic Odawa, under the leadership of Assiginack, established the village of Wequetonsing, or present day Harbor Springs. Family ties would eventually overcome religious differences and the Odawa worked together to preserve their lands and rights.

The Odawa needed to be unified because the removal policy was a dark, looming shadow that hung over them during the 1830s and 40s. The scenarios were limited for the Odawa, as the threat was real that they would have to leave their lands in Northern Michigan all together.

The Odawa took action to avoid being removed and sent a delegation to Washington D.C. in 1835 to enter into a treaty with the United States, with the hope of securing lands, services and rights. On a cold, November morning in 1835, a young Odawa boy by the name of Andrew J. Blackbird gave this vivid account of the Odawa head men leaving what is now Zorn Park, Harbor Springs, in their birch bark canoes for Washington D.C. His father, War of 1812 war chief Makadepensai, was among them: “In the fall of 1835, I was clear at the top of those trees, with my little chums, watching our people as they were going off in a long bark canoe, and, as we understood, they were going to Washington to see the Great Father, the President of the United States, to tell him to have mercy on the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in Michigan, not to take all the land away from them. I saw some of our old Indian women weeping as they watched our principal men going off in the canoe. I suppose they were feeling bad on account of not knowing their future destinies respecting their possession of land. After they all got in the canoe, just as they were to start, they all took off their hats, crossed themselves and repeated the Lord’s prayer, at the end of the prayer, they crossed themselves again, and then away they went towards the Harbor Point.

We watched them until they disappeared in rounding the point.”

That fateful trip resulted in the Washington D.C. Treaty of 1836. The Odawa of Little Traverse (Waganakising), along with Odawa from Grand River, the Ojibway from Sault Ste. Marie and Michilimackinac, and the Grand Traverse Odawa ceded to the United States over 13 million acres of land in Michigan. The tribes were to have access to this ceded land for hunting, gathering and fishing until the land was settled. More importantly, reservation lands were selected by the tribes. Services, monies and provisions for education were also part of the treaty. The head men from Little Traverse who signed the treaty were: Apawkozgun, Keminichagun, Tawaganee, Kinoshamaig, Naganigobowa, Onaisino, Makadepensai and Chingassamo.

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CHANGE, CONFLICT &

perseverance It was not a perfect agreement, as the tribes gave up 13 million acres to retain thousands of acres. But with the political climate as it was in the 1830s, it was the best the tribe could do. Plus, the Odawa Ogeemak (chiefs) thought they had avoided forced removal to Kansas. But the story of the Treaty of 1836 would not end with the delegation in Washington D.C.

Not what it appeared to be

The U.S. Senate needed to ratify the treaty for it to become official, and the Odawa and Ojibway would not put their official seal on it until it was brought back to Michigan where their tribal communities could witness their leaders agreeing to it. The individual who was representing the United States in the treaty negotiations was Indian agent Henry Schoolcraft, who met with the delegation in 1835. Schoolcraft brought the treaty back to Mackinac Island the following year in 1836, where over 4,000 Anishnaabek came to witness the event. Chiefs, warriors, women, children and elders descended upon the island in their birch bark canoes, eager to see their leaders approve the document and also to receive goods, monies and supplies promised under the treaty. When the treaty was finally revealed, shock, anger and anxiety shot through the island, as a major change was included in the treaty after the Anishnaabek left D.C. in 1835. This change was in Article Two, which simply states: “From the cession aforesaid, the tribes reserve for their own use, to be held in common the following tracts for the terms of five years from the date of the ratification of this treaty, and no longer; unless the United States shall grant them permission to remain on said lands for a longer period."

The chiefs thought they had permanently secured lands and avoided removal. Schoolcraft assured the chiefs that he would fight against their removal, but he revealed his true intentions four years later when he advocated for the removal of the Odawa and Ojibway from their Michigan lands. Schoolcraft had many Ojibway in-laws and associates that were traders, that would benefit from the monies paid to the Anishnaabek, as the tribes had large debts with the traders. Augustin Hamlin Jr., Odawa interpreter, made these remarks during the previous treaty negotiations at Washington D.C.: “The interest he feels for his nation, and the consequences that would result from the course that had been taken, compelled him to speak, know what had been done, he stated without reserve what the words the commission had just heard from the chiefs, was not their words, nor the feelings in their hearts, but the words of white men who wanted reservations and had dictated to them what to say. These men cared not for the Indian, they wished to benefit themselves.”

But what could the Anishnaabek do? If they did not sign, they knew the army would come and force them off their lands, like the thousands of other native communities. The leaders reluctantly signed and bought themselves another five years.

During this period, Assiginack, Mookmanish and approximately 400 Odawa would leave Northern Michigan for the old homelands of Odawa Minis (Manitoulin Island, Ontario).

The Odawa who stayed at Little Traverse immediately began to take action to avoid being forced off their lands.

One tactic to avoid removal used by the Odawas during the 1830s was the purchase of land.

They argued, as individuals holding titles to Michigan lands, that they could not be forced off their lands. This move, in addition to numerous accommodations to assimilate, proved beneficial for the Odawa. Resident priests would often use the Odawa at Little Traverse as the model for conversion. These positive reports helped the Odawa but came at a heavy price, as the tribe had to give up, or at least give the appearance of giving up, their traditions.

Many Odawa would continue to practice their beliefs in secret and pass their traditions along. The flexibility of the tribe to incorporate their beliefs into their daily lives made the transition easier.

One such compromise was the Odawa moving their annual “feast of the dead” to coincide with All Souls Day in November. Honoring the dead through large, community feasts has been a rite with the Odawa for countless generations and is a cornerstone of their beliefs. The Odawa, unwilling to give up such an important ceremony, simply moved the feast to All Souls Day. Such deep connection to their ancestors was a powerful reason the Odawa refused to move. They made compromises within themselves to see their dead cared for. On Dec. 5, 1835, Hamlin Jr. wrote this impassioned letter to Lewis Cass, then Secretary of War under President Jackson:

“The principal objects of our visit here, are these: We would make some arrangements with the government of remaining in the Territory of Michigan in the quiet possession of our lands, and to transmit the same safely to our posterity. We do not wish to sell all the lands claimed by us and consequently not to remove to the west of the Mississippi...

“It is a heart-rending thought to our simple feelings to think of leaving our native country forever, and which has been bought with the price of, their native blood, and which has been thus safely transmitted to us. It is, we say, a heart-rending thought to us to think so; there are many local endearments which make the soul shrink with horror at the idea of rejecting our country forever—the mortal remains of our deceased parents, relations and friends, cry out to us as it were, for our compassion, our sympathy and our love.” ▪

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1815

√

Indians & Catholics

' Kanapima'

The Impact and life of Augustin Hamlin Jr.

√ 1840

By Eric Hemenway, LTBB Odawa Archives/Records

A

Bear River & Treaty

fter the War of 1812, a new battle emerged for the Odawa: the legal fight to stay home in Michigan.

One young Odawa would pick up where his warrior predecessors left off in fighting for their lands. In this new fight, words would replace war clubs and government halls would become the new battlegrounds.

This young man was "Kanapima: He Who is Talked About" -- Augustin Hamlin Jr. Augustin was born on July 12, 1813 at Waganakising, just north of present day Harbor Springs. He was the son of Augustin Hamlin Sr. and Angelica Kimichigan. Augustin Sr. was of Odawa, Ojibway and French heritage from Mackinac Island and was a trader. Angelica was Odawa from Waganakising and came from an influential Odawa family where her father, Kimichigan, was one of the head chiefs at Waganakising. Augustin’s uncles included such respected warriors as Assiginack, Makadepensai and Apoksugan, all major chiefs from Little Traverse.

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To meet the changes and challenges of the immediate future, three Odawa youth from Waganakising were selected to become leaders. They were William Blackbird, Marga'Kanapima:' He Who is Talked About ret Boyd and Augustin Hamlin Jr. William and Margaret were siblings, while Augustin was their cousin. All came from influential families that had multiple chiefs.

These children were expected to acquire the knowledge, skills and tools to meet the challenges put forth by American society and government, as well as their own native culture. The Odawa wanted to retain their lands, populations and way of life as much as possible. Investing in the future, through the younger generation, was a traditional means of survival for the Odawa. Only this time, the investment meant putting the children in foreign environments, to learn new ways of thinking.

Raising Augustin to lead

As a youth, Augustin grew up learning his native language, Anishnaabemowin, and the Odawa traditions and customs of his mother’s family at Waganakising, while at the same time attending Catholic Church and going to school. Rev. William Ferry’s Protestant Indian school on Mackinac Island in 1823 offered him his first formal, western schooling. His attendance was brief because a

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▪ Place to Ponder

Mackinac Island. (Arch Rock pictured in photo; drawings by the Jacques Prat lithograph collection, from the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan). Although outside of Emmet County's boundaries, the Island plays an important role in the regional economy and also had a key role in this article about Augustin Hamlin.

conflict between Catholic and Protestant factions on the Island resulted in the Catholic Odawa removing their children.

Venturing further from his native homeland, Augustin, with his Odawa companions William and Margaret, were chosen to attend a Catholic seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1826. The three Odawa, all young teens, made the trek via carriage and walking. They may have followed the same path south that Odawa warriors once used to fight southern Choctaw, Chickasaw and Cherokee only a few generations prior.

After three years at the seminary, William and Augustin were chosen to attend the College of the Propaganda de Fide in Rome, Italy, to become Catholic priests. They left for Rome in 1829, leaving Margaret to finish her studies in Cincinnati. Margaret would later return to Little Traverse in 1835 to teach school in Harbor Springs for nearly four decades, helping Odawa youth learn the necessary skills in transitioning into American society. Many at Harbor Springs referred to her as “Princess Margaret.”

Immersed in a new culture

Once in Rome, William and Augustin were completely immersed in European culture, language and traditions.

From 1829-33 Odawa in Michigan were still living in wigwams, wearing traditional garb and personal adornments such as piercings, hairstyles and body paint. The Odawa hunted, fished and grew their food to survive. William and Augustin, on the other hand, were living in a huge European city. They slept in beds, were served food raised and prepared by others, dressed like European men, and

wore their hair in the European style. When they arrived in Rome their primary language was Anishnaabemowin.

When Augustin later returned home, he was proficient as well in English, French and some Latin.

For four years, William and Augustin made great personal strides. William especially was noted for his strong oratory skills and potential. The two young men discussed events going on back home, in particular the recent Indian Removal Act of 1830. Odawa historian Andrew J. Blackbird wrote of his brother: “He (William) wrote to his people at Arbor Croche and to Little Traverse on this very subject, advising them not to sell out nor make any contact with the United States Government, but to hold on until he could return to America, when we would endeavor to aid them in making out the contract or treaty with the United States.”

Both knew their Odawa families and villages could easily be removed to Kansas or Oklahoma. Two, well educated, Catholic Odawa priests would serve their communities well in fighting off the relocation efforts under President Jackson’s administration. But neither would become priests, and a tragic event on June 25, 1833 in Rome would alter their futures.

Tragedy brings Hamlin home

The day before William was to be ordained, he was found dead in his room, in a pool of blood. Andrew Blackbird would claim that his brother was assassinated by American students in Rome, jealous of an Odawa rising continued on next page

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Augustin Hamlin continued to equality in the priesthood. But an old carriage injury, or perhaps tuberculosis, might have been his real killer.

The official cause of death has never been revealed.

Upon William’s death, Augustin returned home to Northern Michigan. He devoted his energy and his unique education to helping his tribe navigate one of the most critical time periods in its recorded history.

Augustin was young, highly intelligent (he could speak four languages and write in three) and driven. He understood the complex jargon used by government officials and could decipher the complicated writings as well. The unfortunate turn of events that left his cousin dead did not kill the purpose of the two young Odawa of helping their people.

Upon returning to Michigan from Italy in 1834, Augustin taught school on Mackinac Island for a brief period. From there, he relocated to Little Traverse to teach at the Catholic missionary school. The Waganakising Ogeemak (chiefs) who chose William, Augustin and Margaret to learn western education requested Augustin's attention when he returned. His services were immediately needed to deal with the growing pressure from the then Territory of Michigan, as well as the United States, to obtain lands.

Treaty witness

Augustin received the endorsement of his head chiefs at Little Traverse to speak on their behalf during the 183536 treaty process. A special letter, from May 5, 1835, details their trust in his special abilities, education and knowledge. It is a rare letter, with the signatures of Little Traverse chiefs that includes their clan symbols. Other chiefs from the Lower Peninsula also gave their endorsement to Augustin. The people were putting their trust in Augustin, in official documentation.

The trip to Washington D.C. in November 1835, to arrange a treaty, would help determine the fate of the Odawa for the next 178 years. Augustin was instrumental every day, in every conversation, during the negotiations, largely due to his ability to interpret and his western education. Division among the Anishnaabek was common during the month-long talks. Certain Ojibway from Sault Ste. Marie had their own agenda regarding the negotiations, as well as the Indian Agent Henry Schoolcraft, whose in-laws were from Sault Ste. Marie. Even among the Odawa differences flared; some leaders called for a larger sell off of lands, while others wanted lands held in trust in perpetuity. Augustin voiced his opinion but could not force any of the Anishnaabek leaders in any way.

He verbally fought against government officials, traders (who had a large interest in this treaty, as monies paid to

Odawa were to be used to pay debts they owed to traders) and other Anishnaabek who favored selling all lands. The negotiations were often very confusing and tense, with all of these parties in the same room at times voicing their own desires. Since many of the Odawa present spoke little to no English, they had no idea what was being said.

Augustin was able to honestly transmit the content of the talks to his people, explaining how men with selfish interests and bad intentions for the Anishnaabek were always present, influencing their chiefs.

After a maelstrom of negotiations and meetings, in the end a treaty was agreed upon. It was also agreed that the treaty was to be brought back to Mackinac Island, where the chiefs would apply their final seal of approval in front of their people.

Without Augustin translating and interpreting the entire proceedings that occured in Washington D.C., and informing his community back home, a treaty may have never been agreed upon - or it could have resulted in a treaty which was even more detrimental to the Odawa.

Under Augustin's leadership, the Odawa from Waganakasking came together as a mix of elder leaders and youth, blending traditional knowledge with western education as they reviewed the 1836 treaty. The actions of those Odawa leaders, including Kanapima, had direct influence on all of Emmet County to this very day.

Continuing the fight for the Odawas

Augustin would live the rest of his life in Northern Michigan at Harbor Springs and later Mackinac. He taught school at Harbor Springs and served as a government interpreter who also had the rare position of being a native who surveyed lands.

He continued to use his education to help the Odawa, not only as a teacher but with interpreting and writing letters to government officials as his position as an interpreter.

He also continued to work against removal of the Odawa from their lands through his letters and petitions, which proved instrumental in the 1840s and until the 1855 treaty of Detroit was agreed upon, which ensured the Odawa would stay in Michigan. In fact, his services as an interpreter were called upon again during these negotiations, as they were 20 years earlier.

Augustin died on July 12, 1862 at the age of 49, from an unknown illness. He left his widow Catherine and had no children. â–Ş

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Boarding Schools: A legacy not forgotten The Harbor Springs area has gone by many names. First was the Odawa name Waganakising, meaning “it is bent” or Crooked Tree. Later it was changed to L’Arbre Croche by the French and then Little Traverse by the British. Ultimately, Harbor Springs was adopted in 1881. Through those name changes, various peoples have called Harbor Springs home, from the indigenous Odawa to French fur traders to Slovenian missionaries and American settlers. The longest, consistent residents have been the Odawa, but the education of the tribe has been anything but consistent.

By Eric Hemenway, LTBB Odawa Archives and Records

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he area of Harbor Springs has had many names in its history. Starting with the Odawa name of Waganakising (meaning “it is bent” or Crooked Tree), it was later changed to L’Arbre Croche under the French and then Little Traverse with American rule. Finally, Harbor Springs was the name adopted in 1881. Various peoples have called Harbor Springs home from the indigenous Odawa to French fur traders to Slovenian missionaries and American settlers. The longest, consistent residents have been the Odawa in Harbor Springs, but the education of the tribes has been anything but consistent.

The first permanent American settlement dates back to 1829 when Catholic missionaries established a mission and school in the Indian village. Missionaries had been living with and around Odawa villages in the Great Lakes since 1615. For two hundred years, the relationship between the Odawa and missionaries varied from village to village, with a mix of good and bad. During these two centuries, the Odawa controlled their populations and resources.

Missionaries were a part of Odawa life but only as much as the Odawa permitted them to be. This relationship would change after the War of 1812, when the Odawa recognized the changing political and social tides. Prominent Odawa leaders began to invite more missionaries to return to Waganakising.

To accommodate these changes, part of the Odawa community wishing to follow the Catholic teachings moved with the missionaries to a new village on the north shore of Little Traverse Bay. In addition to the church, the new mission in-

Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

cluded a hewn-log school which by September 1829 had 13 day students and 25 boarders. At this time, the school was a collaborative effort between the local Odawa and the Catholic missionaries. Odawa children attended and boarded at the school at the decision of the parents and community. The school lessons were taught in Anishnaabemowin (the native language). Family ties were strong as many students went home every day to their families at the end of the school day, though the boarders lived at the school. For five decades, mission schools would be found at Beaver Island, Cross Village, Good Hart and Harbor Springs. All were taught in the native language.

By 1880, however, a significant change was happening nationally. The federal government believed the education system was entirely flawed as it kept Odawa children from learning English, promoted traditional knowledge within continued on next page

▪ Place to Ponder The site of Holy Childhood Church, at the west end of Main Street in Harbor Springs, remains a spot of memories for those in the community who remember its past. Its situation across the street from the harbor makes it a peaceful place to ponder this part of its past.

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Boarding schools: A mixed legacy for Emmet County families the home structure and slowed assimilation. Government officials came to believe native language, customs and traditions were barriers prohibiting native people from becoming “ civilized” and advancing in American society.

By 1889, the Holy Childhood of Jesus Indian School in Harbor Springs was one of three government-run, “civilizing” boarding schools in Michigan. In contrast to its early years when the Catholic missionaries worked collaboratively within the Odawa community, the shift to federal government control meant drastic changes. Odawa children, along with all Indian children across the United States, were subjected to some of the most intense assimilation in American history. Odawa children at the boarding schools were not permitted to speak their native language or to participate in native cultural activities. Breaking the rules resulted in harsh punishments, both emotional and physical.

Prolonged stays at the school were common, sometimes for years on end. The long absence from family and community, combined with the strict rules of the school, resulted in a loss of language, culture and history for the tribe.

Experiences at the boarding school ranged from good to bad. Some students forged strong friendships and shared a common drive to maintain their Indian identity. Some children excelled in arts and the experience was positive. In some cases, poor, struggling Odawa families could not afford to feed all their children and sending their kids to the boarding school offered immediate financial relief. In many cases, however, the experience was negative. Odawa children were punished for speaking their language or attempting to return home. Runaways were common. Punishment included beat-

ings, revocation of belongings and additional work.

While the boarding school’s goal of eradicating Odawa culture ultimately failed, its legacy is still felt to this day throughout the Odawa community. ▪ A final note: The Holy Childhood of Jesus school continued to educate both white and Indian students until 1983. The school building was razed in 2007 to make room for the church’s new parish center.

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Characters from our past

ON A MISSION

Two missionaries change the course of faith for Native Americans & settlers in Emmet County While Father Francis Pierz was the historic missionary trying to convert Indians to Christianity, his successor Father John Weikamp represented the new missionary who looked to create new religious communities and to serve the growing white communities in Northern Michigan. These new missionary priests were as business-oriented as they were faith-driven. The following pages provide a look at both men and their missionary work in Emmet County.

Articles by Jane Cardinal, Special to Essence of Emmet

FATHER FRANCIS PIERZ

Into the Northern Michigan wilderness to preach, teach, and treat disease

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n the early half of the 1800s, the Catholic priest Fr. Frederic Baraga appealed to his fellow Slovenian priests back home for help. Northern Michigan needed more priests. The call for help wasn’t sugarcoated; in his letters, Baraga nearly begged, “Truly the want of priests in our diocese is a pitiable one.” The call was heeded by Fr. Francis Pierz – but not without doubts.

He recognized the worthy cause of heading toward the American wilderness and serving its Indian inhabitants, but at 50 years old he must have wondered if he could actually endure the rigors, deprivations and strenuous physical conditions.

He decided to cross the daunting ocean to help serve the needy Indians in Michigan, joining the hard-working missionaries who were poorly compensated yet deeply devoted to their service. They were required to learn the native language and above all treat the Native Americans with dignity and respect while leading their flocks into a satisfactory Christian domestic, social and economic life.

In 1835, at about the time the Odawa were headed to Washington for treaty negotiations, Fr. Pierz arrived in Harbor Springs in the early winter without any suitable winter clothing. He rode “Cossack style” into Cross Village in his summer clothes and his arrival portended the misery he could expect. But he brought a kindly disposition, a deep faith, and special talents. For instance, in Eastern Europe he had developed award-winning, scientific agricultural skills and knowledge of homeopathic medicine.

Medical skills were much needed among the Indians infected with white-man diseases. The very pious Christian Chief Mookmanish (‘Sharp knife’), a venerable man of 70, welcomed Fr. Pierz into his own lodge and accompanied him on his village rounds.

There was much illness and Fr. Pierz treated 22 patients. Only one died. This made a deep, positive impression on the Indian community. Henceforth, the Father had no trouble convincing Indians to attend his services or instructions.

Nevertheless, waves of illness and famine continued to make life Fr. Pierz, b. 1785 d. 1873.

Original artwork by Jane Cardinal/Good Hart difficult in Cross Vilcourtesy Harbor Springs Area Historical Society lage.

The language barrier was his greatest obstacle. He was frustrated by “the yardlong words and their arbitrary construction and placement.

Father Baraga only last fall was able to preach in Indian after having studied the language for five years.” He persisted in learning the language, because having an interpreter was inconvenient and expensive.

Father Pierz wrote many letters home and wrote of instances of remarkable virtue among his parishioners. Soon the Indian converts only required routine spiritual care; the continued on next page

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real work of the missionary priest lay in the outlying territory that stretched more than 100 miles. Pierz had to walk many weary miles to find these encampments, but to his thinking no distance was too great or too arduous.

In a letter home quoted from the Michigan Historical Collections Vo. 39, Pierz :

“These missionaries live in apostolic poverty.

The churches are built of logs; they have very poor altars, but they have very pious worshippers.

Candlesticks of wood and priests of gold. Their conduct is exemplary. They have the spirit of the first Christians in manners and piety.”

Of Cross Village in 1835, he writes. "I found here two hundred and twenty-five Catholics. This number was soon increased by the conversion of the Pagans. The converts appear to live in their baptismal innocence. Their pious eagerness for hearing the word of God and receiving the Blessed Sacrament is to me a source of wonder. I admire their humility, piety, and love of neighbor. They appear anxious to acquire civilization. Many of my pupils read the Indian language after a month's study. They show great joy in attending divine service, although many live far away from the church. Mothers and fathers will bring their little ones to church with them. It is a great pleasure to plant the seed in such fertile ground. Indeed I experience more heartfelt joy and pleasure in my work during these few months than I have during all my twenty years' ministry in the old country.

It is tiresome but I am well satisfied. I am afraid on judgment day these children of the wilderness will put to shame many Christians."

One winter, he wrote of returning from an island off the Cross Village shore. He and his Indian companion were talking and they failed to notice they were getting no closer to the shore that was hidden by fog. They had walked miles in the wrong direction and now they dared not stop or rest, as they would surely freeze. Pierz wrote that the “drops of perspiration falling from his forehead froze as quickly on his coat as wax drippings.”

In both 1842 and in 1846, he saved a major portion of the local Odawa population from smallpox epidemics. On the first occasion, when smallpox broke out in the village, he sent Indians to Mackinac Island to summon the government doctor. The government doctor too was ill, but he sent Fr. Pierz the inoculation virus and instructions.

Pierz vaccinated more than 900 Indians.

Fr. Pierz not only served the medical needs of his followers, but he tried to share his agricultural skills as well. He even took some headmen downstate where the soil was better and arranged for them to purchase land and farm it. This likely prevented many Natives

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from being removed to Kansas. With a feeling that he had converted and secured property for his Indians and with additional priests now in the area, Fr. Pierz sought a more challenging assignment in Minnesota.

FATHER JOHN WEIKAMP

Distinctly different missionary path than previous Catholic pastors in N. Michigan

• He was a man with boundless energy, clever, infectiously charming, a management talent and was truly amazing in the breadth of success in his enterprises. He was also an exacting martinet that demanded as much as he felt he gave.

• Fr. Weikamp bought Harbor Point for $100 in 1855 and sold it to the founders of the Harbor Point Association in 1878 for $1,300.

• Luck also came his way when it was discovered the entire business district of Cross Village had been drawn from an inaccurate plat. All the stores were found to rest on church property.

• Wycamp Creek and Wycamp Lake originally had been named after the beloved priest Fr. Francis Pierz. Fr. Weikamp promptly changed the names when he brought the property.

(There are many spellings of the Weikamp name.)

▪ Pictured on this page is Father Weikamp's meditation board; on the opposing page is a photo of his Cross Village crypt.

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r. John was born into a humble farming family in Bocholt, Westphalia, Prussia. In his 20s, with nothing more than initiative, he spent nearly a year traveling Western Europe and the near East. He arrived in Rome and with financial assistance from some wealthy German patrons entered the Propaganda Fide. He was ordained by Pope Pius IX in 1849.

He requested a missionary assignment and was sent to a German church in Chicago. Here he sought approval of Bishop Van de Velde to form a third order society, The Benevolent, Charitable and Religious Society of St. Francis. This order was styled on an abandoned medieval model, a society of laymen and women who wished to devote themselves to a more religious life. These brothers and sisters were not ordained but they did sign a contract of obedience - forfeiting cash and holdings to the society. They could leave or be asked to leave and would

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MISSION receive equitable reimbursement. His Bishop didn’t directly endorse or deny this request; therefore, Weikamp founded his society, appointing himself as Superior.

After tangling with church elders in two churches in the course of five years he decided his society was his mission.

He locked “his” church (the Bishop’s property), put it up for sale and without Bishop O’Reagan’s knowledge or permission moved ten brothers, eleven sisters and his livestock to Harbor Springs in 1855. Fr. Pierz had departed shortly before.

Bishop Baraga, whom he’d visited and charmed, was eager for new priests in his underserved Native American missions and greeted him warmly. Two of Weikamp’s “brothers” were training for the priesthood which was no doubt an added incentive in Baraga’s decision to welcome Weikamp.

Weikamp bought Harbor Point from the Indians for $100 but, when one of the wealthier society members (a countess, it was rumored) offered money to build a Native American orphanage, he tried to buy the needed additional property and found himself unable. That and money from another’s inheritance led him to purchase what would become a 2,000acre tract north of Cross Village, land suitable for farming.

At the new property Fr. Weikamp converted an existing sawmill to a steam operation. Within two years (1855-57) he supervised the building of a massive 108-bedroom convent, employing the skilled carpentry of the village Indians. The brothers’ and sisters’ wings were separated by a chapel. (They were only permitted to speak with consent of the Superior.) The church did not condone both genders living in the same building.

The society grew to include several barns, a hospital, large flocks of cattle, swine and poul-

Fr. Weikamp, b. 1818 d. 1899

try, a blacksmith shop, gristmill, carpentry and engine shops, and incidentally Emmet County’s first self-binding reaper.

Under the iron-willed management of this little Prussian, the skillful and hardworking society members produced everything needed to sustain their community and more.

They took in orphans and widows, many who came from homes with husbands lost at sea as Great Lakes shippers; anyone in financial straits, sometimes entire families, housed in their appropriate dorms.

The hospital was also available free of charge. There was however a freewill offering basket by the door. Weikamp himself was renowned for his ability to set bones and pull teeth. Maybe this was because he offered a good slug of whiskey beforehand to his patients.

The success of “the farm” was glowingly touted and members sold convent produce, meat and dairy products as far as Chicago. The convent also made and sold wooden shoes, ingenious six board coffins, nails, locks and keys, milled wood and currant-berry wine. “The farm” was not the mission Bishop Baraga had in mind. He noted in his diary whole afternoons of his pastoral visits consumed with complaints from the Native Americans. It was reported that Weikamp read and reread the sermon in Odawa given him by the Bishop and this in such a thick German accent that it was impossible to understand. Although skilled in several European languages, including English and Latin, Weikamp clearly made learning the difficult Odawa language a low priority. In fact he taught his two schools in German.

The peculiarities behind the public man

Of Fr. Weikamp’s personality, some remarked of his prayerful and sunny charm. Others questioned his obsession with death, his praying and singing three to four hours daily in his mausoleum.

Frances Pailthorp, daughter of a Petoskey lawyer and judge, wrote how she loved to visit the convent with her father, who worked on the priest’s property sales and acquisitions. Next to Weikamp’s huge desk was his coffin, a reminder that nothing was permanent.

Every member of the convent worked! The guard dogs, trained to attack anyone trying to climb the palisades surrounding the convent grounds were expected to run wheel treadmills to churn butter in their off hours.

When he died in 1889, Judge Pailthorp had a news article published in the Grand Rapids press recounting his rush to visit his dying friend. On arriving in the evening, he spied Fr. Weikamp praying and singing in his mausoleum.

He went to the convent where the Abbess informed the astonished judge that Fr. Weikamp had been buried there the day before. The mausoleum has drawn a steady stream of tourists ever since. ▪

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And re Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum, Petoskey

Protestant missionary Andrew Porter starts a town and draws Catholic ire

By Michael Federspiel, Little Traverse Historical Society

The arrival of Andrew Porter in 1852 began a new Protestant-missionary chapter in the region’s story, a story that ran concurrently with Weikamp’s. Porter, a Presbyterian missionary and teacher, was sent to open a school at the native settlement at Bear River (Petoskey). For 22 years, 1852–1874, he maintained an active mission and school that interacted with the natives, governments and other religious leaders.

Porter purchased 80 acres directly from the federal government. It was located one-half mile from the Lake Michigan shoreline, and there he built a home for himself and then a school. An additional 80 acres were acquired and the land for a farm that supplied food to Porter and needy natives as well as grain that could be sold and shared. The Presbyterian Church provided financial backing and soon boxes and barrels of missionary goods began to arrive regularly. In 1855, Porter built a gristmill on the Bear River so grain could be cheaply turned into flour.

Between 10–30 students attended the school that opened in July 1853. Initially taught by Porter and his mother, instruction was in English and students were given a lunch of bread smeared with molasses – a practice that undoubtedly helped encourage attendance. Porter was often frustrated with inconsistent attendance as the students continued to assist their families in traditional activities ▫ Place to Ponder like maple sugar making and harvesting pigeons.

When the governmental unit called Emmet County Bear River Valley Recreation Area - The Bear River has been restored to its pre-dam vigor. Visit the Recreation Area on Lake Street and consider was created, the region of native settlement was named Bear Creek Township and, in 1857, the community itself the site for a flour mill as Porter did. This river has the most fall, hence the most energy potential, of any in Michigan's lower peninsula.

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Po rt e r

And rew

was named “Bear Creek.”

Porter served as its first postmaster and later as a county supervisor.

Over time, in addition to political involvement, Porter became involved in conflicts with the Catholic Church. A religious zealot, Porter was a firm believer in the teachings of John Calvin and was determined to diminish the Catholic

The following is exercpted from the obituary for Andrew Porter from 1899

TPR Wednesday February 15, 1899 Transcribed by Kay Parrish Thompson

Father Porter Gone to His Reward

A humble, unselfish, godly life was gloriously closed last week when Andrew Porter quietly and peacefully entered into his well-earned rest. When one looks back over the accomplished facts of a life like his, it furnishes as argument for Christianity more powerful than all the utterances of creed and council, or the fulmination of the pulpit. In 1847 all of northern Michigan was an unbroken wilderness, save for the scattered Catholic mission in the neighborhood of the Straits, and the trading post at Mackinac. Six years before, a Mr. Dougherty representing the Presbyterian board had opened a school at Old Mission on Grand Traverse bay and there came Andrew Porter, a stalwart and powerful young man of thirty-one years, as a teacher.

In 1851, it was proposed to establish a mission on the south side of Little Traverse bay, and on the recommendation of Mr. Doughtery, Andrew Porter was appointed to the work. He went back to Pennsylvania married the faithful wife who still survives him, and in May 1852 they landed at the mouth of Bear Creek from a little schooner owned by Capt. Kirkland, then a young sailor. The story of their early trails, privations, and labors is too long to repeat here. There is still standing a few feet to the east of Mr. Jarman's house the old school house built of lumber packed up from the shore on the backs of Indians nearly half a century ago, by the hands of Mr. Porter. For the next quarter of a century Andrew Porter was the central figure in the slowly growing civilization of the Little Traverse county. He was a protestant missionary and teacher, but such was his simplicity of character, his transparent honesty, and unselfish humility,

Church’s regional influence.

He aggressively began recruiting natives away from Catholicism and proposed establishing additional schools in northern Emmet County (where the early French had located Catholic missions that were still active). In a brief turf war, the Catholics responded by sending missionaries to Little Traverse Bay’s southern shore and constructed a Catholic church, St. Francis Solonus Mission Church – a building that stands in its original location today (see story, pg. 20).

By the 1860s funds came up short and Porter’s mission school was closed. Eventually the farm was sold and in 1875 Porter left the area, only to return a few years later to live out his life. ▪

that he won the entire confidence and the affectionate regard of all the Indian people whether catholic or protestant, in faith.

As a civil officer, (for besides being government agent he was justice of the peace, and judge of probate) no Indian was ever wronged by a white man if he knew it, and it was this sense of absolute justice and this belief that it was the province of law to protect the ignorant, which made every Indian his friend.

After Petoskey began to be settled by whites in the seventies, Mr. Porter returned to his old home in Pennsylvania for some years, but as old age crept upon him he came back to be near his son, and for several years lived in a cozy little home on Woodland avenue. All the fall he has evidently been failing in strength, and since the holidays the failure has been more rapid.

There was no disease, no pain, just the gradual ebbing of the vital forces and at the last the sinking into a gentle sleep. The funeral was held in answer to a general demand from the First Presbyterian church, on Saturday, and although the day was bitterly cold the church was well filled. Rev. John Redpath who organized the first church here made some remarks having reference to his early acquaintance with Mr. Porter, and then the pastor, Rev. James Gale Inglis, delivered an appropriate and eloquent address. Mr. Porter had none of the acidity of age about him. Up to the very last, and when his strength was failing and the end in sight, he was just as full of kindness and charity, as quick in his sympathies, as ready to give of himself to his neighbors as ever he was. Nobody ever questioned his religion.

His life spoke for itself and the entire confidence all men, both white and red, rested securely upon that simple, kindly, upright, christlike life, and not on any profession he may have made.

Father Porter's name will always be identified with the Little Traverse region, and be spoken with reverence by children yet to be born on the shores of the blue bay he loved so well. ▪

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Indians & Catholics

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emerging, converging religions

Catholics, Jews, Mennonites

By Beth Anne Eckerle, Emmet County

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ather Frederic Baraga worked to spread Catholicism south into the Bear River region by building the Solanus Mission Church in Petoskey, one of the oldest original buildings surviving in Emmet County and the first Catholic church in Petoskey. Built in 1859, it has seen many million-dollar sunsets from its spot on the Little Traverse Bay shoreline, and it has many stories to tell.

In 1858, a carpenter and his wife, Jean Baptiste and Sophie Trotochaud, donated one acre of land to Baraga, who had now become a Bishop, for a new church. The design was quite simple: 30 X 20 feet in size and 12 feet high. It was built by Trotochaud under the direction of Father Sifferath, one of Weikamp’s “brothers” turned priest, It was blessed by Baraga in 1860.

The church was used by both the Indians and white settlers and became a sacred burial ground for Indian remains, marked by symbolic white crosses. Among the most evoca-

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tive sights at the church are the rows of symbolic white crosses that mark the Native American ancestors buried at the property.

A little about Mennonites and Jews

While the Catholic presence in Northern Michigan was surely sizable, there were pockets of other religions established firmly here in the 1800s and 1900s. Among the most notable were congregations of Mennonites in the Brutus and Pellston areas and a Jewish center in Petoskey.

The Mennonites had a large congregation in the Brutus area for 50 years, beginning around 1879, according to a comprehensive history of the county’s center section written by Maurice Eby in his publication, “The History of Brutus and Maple River Township, Settled 1874.” The first Maple River Township church was the Mennonite Church, which began in 1879 and a meetinghouse was built in 1883.

“This building had the infamous rail down the center of the church to separate the males from the females.

A cemetery was started before the building was finished. Many Mennonites moved to the area and they were a large group for 50 years,” Eby noted.

As the population of Emmet County diversified, the newcomers brought with them their own religious preferences and sought others who shared their beliefs. The founding of the Temple B’Nai Israel in Petoskey started in a private home on Aug. 8, 1896, when 13 founding members cemented the Articles of Association based on their shared faith.

Among those early founders were Rabbi Levy, Samuel L. Rosenthal (founder of S. Rosenthal & Sons stores in Petoskey) and two of his sons, and Jacob Greenberg, founder of the popular Greenberg Variety Store of the time.

The name of the original association came to be “The Hebrew Benevolent Association of Petoskey, Michigan” Early images of the Solanus Mission Church, on Lake Street in Petoskey, courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum. A current photo (bottom right), Emmet County archives.

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and its early missions were to hold In the earliest years of the 20th religious services, relieve distressed century, little is known about the members, visit the sick, bury the happenings of the congregation that dead, care and assist members in struggled hard to keep the spark of distress and give to charity.

Jewish life alive in a small community.

For quite a while, services were But records resurface and on Dec. 22, held in the homes of members and 1909, the organization was incorpoin rented halls for the Holy Days. rated under Michigan law as the Ben The first recorded services were Israel Congregation. held in 1909 in a rented hall, the A temple was built on the corner of Major Building on Mitchell Street Howard and State streets, with Orin Petoskey, which served as a thodox services conducted by hired Synagogue. rabbis. When finances were insuffiAs part of its mission to care for cient and when no rabbi was available, its congregants, in 1895 the congreservices were conducted by laymen. In gation leased three-quarters of an 1911, the present building, located on acre of land from Greenwood Cemthe corner of Michigan and Waukazoo etery as a burial site for the Jewish streets, was purchased from the Parr population of the community.

Memorial Baptist Church and became It was a young congregation, evithe Ben Israel Synagogue. denced by casual written contracts On Aug. 26, 1911, the congregafor services within the commution gathered at the old location and nity. For instance, in one recorded marched to the new site carrying all transaction the congregants jotthe religious Torahs, books and other ted an agreement with Wolf and belongings through town. It’s unclear Louis Galinsky, to be the exclusive in the temple’s history when it offisuppliers of Kosher meats in the cially began being called Temple B’Nai years around 1904: “We the butchers One of the beautiful stained glass windows Israel, though it appears the name inside the Temple B'Nai Israel in Petoskey. who furnish the Kosher meat to the change occurred after 1925.

This window represents the celebration of members of the Congregation agree Hannukah integral to the Jewish faith.

The Michigan Jewish History orto pay the Congregation one hunganization said membership steadily dred and fifty dollars per year, payable monthly. Meat included families within a 50-75 mile radius of Petoskey. sold at former prices.”

“In 1915, Rabbi W. Goldwasser, a visiting retired Rabbi and Hay Fever patient, served the congregation through the summer and High Holydays at $50 per month … It ▪ PLACEs TO PONDER was about this time that some changes were made in the services to satisfy a changing membership and it beSolanus Mission Church, Petoskey came a mixture of Orthodox and Conservative to satisfy The Little Indian Church is located on Lake Street, on a most peaceful everyone.” patch of land resting on the Little Traverse Bay shoreline.

The World War years would take a toll on the Temple.

The symbolic white crosses lend a strong sense of reverance to the It became tough to try to meet expenses, and more than church and grounds. once it was necessary to have the water and electric meters removed during the winters to survive to another Temple B'Nai Israel, Petoskey Observe the intricately painted stained glass windows of the Temple, season. located on Michigan Street in Petoskey and contemplate what it must've “But the Temple was not allowed to die,” noted the been like for its early founders in a predominantly Christian area.

Michigan Jewish historians. “Somehow, God and member efforts kept it going.” ▪

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Shaping Emmet County

Homesteaders & Habitat

Articles by Sandra Planisek, Emmet County Historical Commission

'King Strang' and his attempted Emmet empire

A

s a socially ostracized youngster, James Jesse Strang was raised as a bookish child in Scipio, New York. Born with “a frail body, an oversize cranium, and an immense intellect” his teachers dubbed him mentally incompetent.

Combining his early experiences with three years of formal education and the selfdirected reading of Volney’s The Ruins of Empires and Paine’s Age of Reason, he seems to have accepted a personal relationship with God. He also accepted Volney’s views on abolition, temperance and justice. He expected great things from himself.

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What did he do?

After a few desultory jobs, he, his wife and their child moved west to Burlington, Wisc. where they had relatives, some of whom were involved in the new Mormon Church. After a winter of listening to the Mormon viewpoint and understanding the leadership possibilities, Strang visited the church headquarters at Nauvoo, Illinois.

He was convinced this was his opportunity; he joined, and volunteered to “plant a stake,” or open a branch, in Voree, Wisc., just west of Burlington. He achieved great success in recruiting members and when Joseph Smith, the head of the Mormon Church, was killed, Strang tried unsuccessfully to take over leadership of the entire church.

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re

Characters laying our political boundaries His “stake” at Voree outgrew the neighborhood, both physically and amicably, and Strang looked for a new location. When he saw Beaver Island he appreciated the advantage of being on an island with water as the nearest neighbor.

He also saw the economic potential of a forested land in fish-filled waters.

Over the next few years he moved his entire church to the island. He had several “revelations” and instituted several ideas that were sufficiently unique to agitate his island neighbors at St. Helena Island and Mackinac Island and to draw the attention of the “sensational” press as far away as Detroit.

His act of anointing himself “King” received and continues to receive the most attention. He probably perceived it as a religious appellation, but his enemies used it to brand him a traitor. Second in notoriety was his conversion to the belief in polygamy, and his subsequent enthusiastic practice of it.

He generated regional ideological wars: ▪ Economic wars over the fish and whiskey trade ▪ Cultural wars over temperance, polygamy, dress styles, and Indian treatment ▪ Political wars over the application of law and order

In 1853 Strang was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives.

He worked to have legislation passed to organize Tonedagana County, now known as Emmet County, a region that included Beaver Island at that time.

Charlevoix Township was also organized and included much of the southern half of today’s Emmet County.

The new County boundaries Over the next two for Emmet and Charlevoix after decades boundaries were 1897. created, dissolved and redefined. In 1897, the boundaries were settled with Charlevoix County expanded to include Beaver Island, while Emmet County expanded south to include Bear Creek, Resort and Springvale Townships.

He was assassinated by his followers in 1856, Michigan’s first and last king. ▪

Edgar Conkling:

'Mackinaw is next Chicago of the North'

E

dgar Conkling was bored and hot. Summer in Cincinnati was always muggy, and the humidity was one of the disadvantages of living on the Ohio River.

He and Belinda could well afford to get away to a cooler climate and they had decided that this summer, 1850, they would venture north to visit Mackinac Island. With the rail line now opened to Lake Erie they could ride a train from Cincinnati to the docks of Toledo and there board a ship for a leisurely cruise up Lake Huron.

Edgar had been born in a restless generation, always on the move, always seeking new opportunities, always convinced he could conquer anything. And why shouldn’t he believe so, born in New York State he moved to the Ohio salt works where he married Belinda. Together they moved to Illinois where they platted the town of Leroy, and next they were on to Mackinaw, Illinois before their ultimate move to Cincinnati. After only nine years in Cincinnati, Edgar had become rich, concurrent with the town, now the fifth largest city in the country. His paint and litharge manufacturing plant was grossing what would amount to tens of millions of dollars in today’s currency. And it was clear that he and Belinda were not going to have any children, so he had money and a wide-open future.

The trip to Mackinac Island was relaxing, but also stimu-

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lating for a businessman. The excitement came in a day trip from the Island to the mainland to visit the remains of the old fort, now buried deep in poison ivy. The geography, the juncture of the two Great Lakes and the proximity of the Upper Peninsula convinced Edgar that this was his next great investment opportunity. Just as Chicago had recently burgeoned under the influence of the spreading rail lines, so would Mackinaw City. It would become the Chicago of the north, a central transportation hub. He saw the vision before him - the land was sitting idle, easily purchased.

Four years later, around 1854, Edgar had organized a partnership of Cincinnati businessmen, raised $25,000 and purchased 1,800 acres of land in the Straits of Mackinac. As soon as the railroad arrived, all of the investors would be rich. In the meantime he needed to plat the town, complete a few more purchases, and rid himself of his paint company obligations. Fortunately Belinda liked spending the summers in Mackinac.

The best laid plans …

In hindsight he should have known his plans wouldn’t go smoothly. The railroad company had financial problems and was slow to extend the lines north; the Civil War stopped all continued on next page

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Conkling: Illiterate County Register of Deeds complicates important land deal for investor expansion; while land-speculating competitors, the brothers George J. and J. A. T. Wendell, appeared on the scene.

The story resumes after the Civil War, in 1865, with Edgar back in Mackinaw trying to purchase the McGulpin Point plot of land. He approached the McGulpin heirs, but too late -- the Wendell brothers had already purchased the McGulpin 640 acres in exchange for life-long financial support of George McGulpin’s widow and daughter.

However, the deal was not in writing, financial support of the women had been withheld, the daughter was destitute, and she was willing to sell to Conkling. Conkling set about to clear the title so he could purchase the land.

By 1865 the county of Emmet had become fully established and land deals were arranged at the county seat in Little Traverse (Harbor Springs). Traveling from Mackinaw to Little Traverse was not simple.

Conkling would have had a tedious trip and probably arrived a bit grumpy. The record, filed in the Register of Deeds Office, tells the rest of the story (including the encounter with an ROD who could neither read nor write): Liber B Page 548 Certificate Rec. for Record Augt 16, 1867 at 10 o’clock am Denis J. Downing Acting Register

State of Michigan County of Emmet “This certifies that on or about the 7th or 8th day of September 1865 at the Village of Little Traverse in Emmet County in this state one Edgar Conkling of Cincinnati in the State of Ohio called on me as Register of Deed and stated he wanted to do some business. I replied that I could not do it as I could not write or read writing, being only able to write my name, and that I had to have my Deputy do all my business and he was absent from home.

Conkling asked Thomas Downing, the young son of my Deputy, to hand him the record book which he done and Conkling commenced writing in said record book and he requested me to sign the said book and paper and I in a hasty manner, without duly reflecting and considering the matter or getting some qualified person to so for me done so, although I did not know the contents or meaning of either or if the one was a true copy of the other, not being able as stated before to read writing.

Conkling also kept continually questioning me about George J. and J. A. T. Wendell of Mackinac Mich. purchasing a certain section of land of Nancy and Francoise McGulpin now situated in the County of Emmet and known as the McGulpin Point property and what they paid for it etc. I stated that I had understood George J. Wendell to say once that “he thought” to support Nancy and Francoise McGulpin (they would “want” so much continually) during their natural lives would amount to entirely more than that property was worth and that all I knew about the matter was hearsay.

He had me sign a paper before Richard Cooper Notary Public at that time, which I supposed contained language to that effect but which I could not however read over and therefore did not know or do not know whether it contained what I stated to him or not. He did not give me a copy of it.

Conkling came afterwards and recorded a paper but for the reasons before stated I don’t know if he recorded it correctly or what it contained. Conkling further stated that he had repeatedly tried to purchase the above described piece or tract of land for Five hundred Dollars ($500.00) from George J. & J. A. T. Wendell and they did not want to sell it, but he was a going to try to get it of them when he returned to Mackinac for the price and then if they would not sell to him he would try to get it away from them anyway.”

Conclusion

After his rather spirited interaction with Emmet County staff, Edgar did venture to Mackinac Island and gave the daughter a $25 downpayment for the land. But there is no record of the details. When the State of Michigan finally “condemned” 10+ acres of the land in the northwest corner of the McGulpin claim, in order to clear the title so a lighthouse could be built, the State purchased it from J. A. Theodore Wendell for $1,000. Conkling, in Cincinnati, did not hear about the condemnation until after it was finalized. He never had a chance to put forth the case that he owned the land. ▪

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The Civil War, 1861-65 Company K: 139 Michigan Anishnaabek take to the battlefields for the United States

by Eric Hemenway, LTBB Odawa Archives and Records

T

he American Civil War helped define the United States as we know it today. Great sacrifice was given by both the northern and southern armies. The greatest sacrifice was the lives lost. Approximately 628,000 people died, an astonishing number, given that 3 million men fought in the Civil War and the population of America at the dawn of the Civil War was near 31 million. Not counted in this figure of 31 million American citizens are the Native Americans, who also gave the lives of their warriors to the Civil War. Over 20,000 Native Americans fought in the Civil War, despite not being American citizens at the time. The North and South utilized tribal participation on the battlefield on many occasions, including from Michigan.

Emmet County

One contingent from Michigan, and Emmet County, contributed greatly.

Here's their story.

A Cross Village Company K soldier, home after the war.

Crooked Tree/L'Arbre Croche area Garrett Graveart Unknown Company K soldier

The men behind Company K Company K of the 1st Michigan sharpshooters was the largest, all-Indian regiment in the Union Army east of the Mississippi River. It consisted of 146 men, 139 of which were Odawa, Ojibway and Potawatomi (the other seven men were white officers).

The Anishnaabek of Company K hailed from various regions within Michigan, but primarily from the Lower Peninsula.

Communities such as Cross Village, Bear River (Petoskey), Isabella, Harbor Springs, Pentwater, Mackinac, Charlevoix, Burt Lake, Sault Ste. Marie, Saginaw, St. Ignace and Northport saw their young men join Company K. Twenty-two Odawa from Emmet County joined the Union army. Of these, nine were confirmed casualties and two were never accounted for, producing a casualty rate of 50% compared to the average of 20% for the war in total.

But why exactly would a group of Native Americans from Michigan, who were not recognized as U.S. citizens, who had no voting rights and who were in the process of being dispossessed of their lands, fight in the Civil War? Why fight for a nation that had done everything in its power to remove, assimilate and disenfranchise them?

The compelling story of Company K lies in the history of Michigan tribes leading up to the Civil War and the complexities of Indian country in Michigan during the 1860s.

Setting the scene: Difficult decisions

As mentioned earlier, since 1830, under the Federal Removal Policy, tens of thousands of Indians were being systematically removed from their lands to Oklahoma and Kansas.

The Odawa were slated to be removed to Kansas but in 1855 the Odawa from Emmet County managed the difficult task of completing a treaty with the United States that kept them in Michigan, a settlement that the earlier treaty in 1836 had failed to achieve.

As the Civil War commenced in 1861, many tribes in Michigan, including the Northern Michigan Odawa, were trying to renegotiate new treaties with the federal government so when war broke out, the tribe faced many difficult questions. Would all of their work for a new treaty mean nothing if the Union lost the war? Would the threat of removal present itself again with a Confederate victory? On a more local scale, how would the war impact their fight to keep their lands, obtain their own equal rights, as well as have the details of the 1855 treaty honored, such as receiving the monies and services promised?

Would enlisting help, as political leverage, in their post-war efforts to obtain a new treaty and ensure more rights to land, hunting and fishing?

There were strong motivations to enlist. Economic times were difficult and Indian soldiers were given the same pay as continued on next page

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Company K: Anishnaabek from Emmet County among Civil War heroes white soldiers. A steady income to send home would be very helpful. Enlisting might also confirm equal social standing. In Michigan during the 1860s, voting rights were extended to Indians who could be described as, “every civilized male inhabitant of Indian descent, a native of the United States and not a member of any tribe” (Detroit Daily Advertiser, 1860). Indians had to “prove” they were civilized and had to renounce their tribal identity. These stipulations, viewed through today’s lens as racist and degrading, were routine 150 years ago in Michigan. Perhaps enlisting would prove that a man was qualified to vote.

Anishnaabek from the all over the state mustered in 1861, including 22 from Emmet County, but initially they were refused entry into the army. Public opinion raged against the idea: “A project was started in the Legislature at Lansing last week, which was very fortunately nipped in the bud, for arming and equipping a regiment of Indians at the expense of the State, to be used in the war….every man knows the system of warfare adopted by these demi-savages, and the civilized people of the northern states will hardly consent this year to become responsible for the performance of such allies……All these projects of employing either Indian or Negro troop cannot be too strongly reprobated and their authors cannot be subjected to, too great a degree of public scorn….”

Detroit Free Press, May 14, 1861

However, heavy losses of men during the first years of the war changed the attitude toward blacks and Indians as potential soldiers. Black soldiers were allowed to join the Union forces before Native Americans. Even by 1863, when Native Americans from Michigan were allowed to enlist, prejudice towards them did not diminish, as this article in a Detroit newspaper shows:

gives this account of the horrors of the prison: “Going sometimes 2 to 3 days and a number of times 4 days without eating at all. They were robbed of their blankets and overcoats and lived and slept in open weather…the water was sometimes 4 inches deep where they had to lie....that the men got so weak they could not keep their rations down and would vomit beans as soon as swallowed…often the boiled rice would be alive with full grown maggots.” (Herek, p.288)

The cruel and abusive conditions at Andersonville were not only administered by the rebel guards, but by captured Union soldiers as well. A group of Union prisoners, known as the “Raiders,” terrorized new arrivals to the prison.

Charles Bibbins, of Michigan Sharpshooters Company E, gives his testimony on how the men of Company K dealt with the Raiders.

The Anishnaabek of Company K “were great lovers of trinkets of all kinds, and those that were captured were well supplied with watches, chains, rings and earrings, which they refused to give up to their captors when first captured…(the Raiders) proceeded to relieve them of the jewelry the second night after their arrival, but the Indians, back to back in a bunch, cut and slashed the “raiders” until they were obliged to quit the fight, with two killed and several wounded. They were not bothered after that, and the camp put an end to the raiders shortly afterward”. (Herek, p.289)

“As a race, they [the Indians] have not yet reached that degree of civilization which should entitle them to all the rights, and place on them all the responsibilities of citizenship. Very few of them can read, any by far the greater portion neither speak nor understand our language. At the best they are but semi-civilized….They are a poor, ignorant and dependent race.”

It is a small miracle those seven men in Company K survived the battle of Petersburg and imprisonment at Andersonville. Amazingly enough, the story does not end for two of the survivors, Louis Miskogoun of Charlevoix and Amos Ashkebugnekay of Elbridge. On their way home, the boat these men were on, the “Sultana,” caught fire and exploded while on the Mississippi river on April 27, 1865. Approximately 1,800 of the 2,400 Sultana’s passengers perished in the disaster, but both Louis and Amos managed to escape death once more and return home to Michigan.

At the end of the Civil War, it would take many more decades before Michigan Indians would enjoy the same rights and privileges as blacks, women and white Americans.

Showing their true colors

Why their actions mattered

Detroit Advertiser and Tribune 1863

Despite the obvious prejudices against them, the Odawa, Ojibway and Potawatomi fought in some of the most brutal and pivotal battles of the Civil War. Company K fought at the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and the siege of Petersburg. The bravery and “civilized” nature of Company K may have been doubted when they first joined, but once battle commenced their heroic actions erased any doubt.

For some of Company K, the struggle to survive did not end on the battlefields. Fifteen men from Company K were captured during the siege of Petersburg and sent to the infamous rebel prison camp, Camp Sumter, Georgia, also known as Andersonville. Seven Company K men managed to survive Andersonville.

Payson Wolfe, a Company K sharpshooter from Northport,

In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act passed, granting U.S. citizenship to Native Americans (but many states were slow to adopt this law). The Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 allowed tribes to pursue their religion and beliefs openly. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 gave tribes the opportunity to reclaim ancestral remains, sacred items and protect burials on federal and Indian lands. Several tribes in Michigan would have their federal status reaffirmed in the 1990s, a battle lasting over 150 years. These are some of the laws granted to tribes to bring equality.

The Michigan tribes of today would like to think Company K’s brave actions were instrumental in bringing about these positive changes. ▪

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the mossbacks

I

Articles by Karl Crawford, Greenwood Cemetery

Indians & Catholics

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n 2008, staff at Petoskey’s Greenwood Cemetery began presenting historical tours honoring some of the locally famous dignitaries 1840 who are interred at Greenwood. In the process of researching these men and women, the staff found many snippets of information about the “Mossbacks” of the Petoskey area. They were the not-so-famous pioneers who came to this area to forge a new life after living through the difficulties of the Civil War years and the nationwide depression which followed.

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“At first it looked somewhat queer to see a man walking down the street with the legend ‘Hannah Lay’s Best’ branded on the ampler part of his trousers, but when every other man got to wearing flour sack pants, it became a matter of course and you could tell the kind of flour a man used by the brand on his back.

The more sensitive bought new bags for their regimentals, but it was an open question whether it was better to travel as ‘XXXSeamless’ or ‘Lily White.’”

1886 Recipe for Squirrel Pie Mossbacks ate what they could find

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1890

"After a pair of squirrels has been skinned, wipe them all over with a wet cloth to remove the hairs, and cut them in joints, saving the blood, and removing the entrails. The liver, heart, and kidneys may be used. Chop a pound of beef-suet fine, rejecting all the membrane; mix it with a pound and a half of flour, two level teaspoonfuls of salt, and a level saltspoonful of pepper. Butter an earthen baking-dish; add enough cold water to the suet and flour, to make a crust which can be rolled out about three-quarters of an inch thick. Line the dish with the crust, put in the squirrel meat and blood, adding enough cold water to half fill the pie; season it highly with salt and pepper, and cover with the crust. In the middle of the top crust, cut a little slit, to permit the escapeon of next the page continued steam. Bake the pie in a moderate oven for about two hours."

Railroads & Resorters

“The opening of the Indian reservations, following on the heels of the panic of 1873, brought to this country hundreds of men who had lived in luxury but whom the exigencies of the times had driven from their homes in the hope of regaining lost fortunes. There were no roads, and if there had been, there were no horses and wagons to traverse them. The supplies had to be toted from the village and every Saturday, the ‘Mossbacks” as they were then called, came to town with their flour sacks on their backs and bore back into the woods the supplies of pork and flour and potatoes to last the family until the week should roll around.

“Not one man in 50 had a team. And for the first year or two but little could be done in the way of clearing for this very reason.

Many of the first settlers were at first well-dressed, for they had been well-to-do before their removal to the north woods. But in a few months their clothing began to show the trials of a tussle with the tangled hemlock and, as the stomach must be fed before the back is clothed, it was not long before the ‘regimentals,’ as the boys facetiously called them, began to put in an appearance on the streets. Sacking withstood the wear and tear of the rough life in the woods better than anything else, it became the regulation costume of the ‘mossbacks.’

Homesteaders & Habitat

Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum, Petoskey

There are many descriptions of these folks, but none of them seem to be worthy of the men and women who wore the title “mossback” in Emmet County and the surrounding region. Instead, a more accurate description was written by WAR William Hampton in the Independent Demo- 1865 crat. Mr. Hampton came to Little Traverse (now known as Harbor Springs) in June of 1875 as a young man:

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the mossbacks M

y father told me the story of his father, walking 10-12 miles from the family homestead near Burt Lake to Petoskey on single-path trails through the woods. He carried a crosscut saw to be sharpened and waited while the blacksmith worked so he could carry the saw back home that same day. For his lunch, he carried two slices of bread to tide him over because the family could not afford to give him the money to buy a meal while he was in Petoskey. My grandfather was ten years old at the time and the year was 1875.

Stories like that were shared by hundreds of men, women and children as they chopped trees, dug stumps, burned brush, plowed the soil for crops and a garden, milked the cow, fed the chickens, and all of this while allotting time to build a house and outbuildings. Husbands worked in the lumber camps in the winter to earn money to purchase seed for next year while the wives and children took over the task of wresting a place called home from the grasp of Mother Nature. The newspapers announced work bees for barn raising and for timber clearing and families came from miles around to help one another with the daunting tasks associated with turning a forest into a farm.

These were the folks upon whose backs rested some of the most demanding work of laying the foundation for homesteading in Emmet County.

The ‘famous’ Northern Michigan settlers such as H.O. Rose, Andrew Porter, William McManus and others have much written about their contributions to life in Emmet County.

They have large memorials in local cemeteries and the early newspapers chronicled their every action of note.

The “mossbacks,” however, were for the most part unnamed individuals who turned north to Michigan when so many others were headed west to California or Oregon after the Civil War. And it was more challenging than they perhaps could have imagined.

Arriving here and starting over

In 1873, the United States began what was known as the Long Depression. Many veterans of the Civil War continued to suffer from wounds and diseases contracted during the War for the remainder of their life.

The hardships of life after the War did not stop them from seeking a new beginning. The Federal Government offered 160 acres of ‘free’ land to Civil War veterans who would live on and improve the land for a certain period of time.

Some of the Mossbacks may have been encouraged to come to Northern Michigan from an article which appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle in 1883: "If one prefers a cooler climate, in Michigan, north of Grand Rapids, there are several millions of acres subject to homestead entry. These

Michigan lands are very fertile; the soil is a sandy loam. Persons might distrust it, not knowing its capabilities, but it is really very fertile and produces twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre.

The timber shelters the settler from the wind, and the heavy fall of snow in that lake region keeps the crops of growing wheat protected from frost, and leaves the soil, on the melting of the snow in April, free and mellow. The farmer can plow as soon the snow melts. ...The lumber woods in the winter season employ thousands of men in various capacities, and boys even are able to earn fair wages as helpcooks or to do various things about the camps.

Suppose a man and wife with five children reach Northern Michigan, secure a piece of government land, and there begin the life of a new settler. If they have found a quarter section of land subject to homestead entry, the man needs about $20 to defray the necessary expense of getting his papers for the entry. He can easily obtain shelter for his family during the few days he spends building a log cabin, for Michigan people are very cordial to new comers, and will do all possible to aid them, be they poor or otherwise. The men will be sure to turn out and help raise the log house that is destined to be the subsequent abode of the new neighbors, and every kindness will be extended. … The winters of Michigan are long and pretty severe, but when people become accustomed to the climate they relish it exceedingly.

The summer season is delightful; the soil produces abundant crops with very little exertion on the part of the farmers for when once the timber and debris is removed, the soil is so loose that much cultivation is not needed."

Reprinted in the Petoskey Record February 28, 1883

Local accounts give a less romantic account of the life of a Mossback family, however. Most of the land was hardwood forest. To the lumber baron this timber may have been an asset but to the one with dreams of a small farm the trees were impediments. The trees had to be cut, the wood that was not used for heat the following winter had to be piled for burning, the stumps and their roots had to be dug out and burned or crops planted between them in some cases.

In 1878, Rozelle Rose, Editor of the Emmet County Democrat, recounted visiting the homestead of Captain D.W. Botsford. Captain Botsford owned 160 acres of ‘free’ heavily timbered land. He had ten acres chopped and three acres cleared along with “a snug little cabin.”

On another trip in the same year, Editor Rose commented on Mr. Spencer’s farm in that he now “has seven acres chopped and quite a patch cleared. He has three-fourths of an acre of wheat that looks splendid. The work on this all being done with a hoe, for Mr. Spencer has no team.” He had no tractor, no oxen, no team of horses – only an axe, a hoe and a steeled determination to succeed.

Times were hard, but they were still good

William Stone, who had settled east of Petoskey in 1874

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Typical scenes from the Mossback way of life in Petoskey in the 1880s-90s. on 160 acres of ‘free’ homestead property, was quoted in his obituary as saying that “the man that did what he did [settled on Homestead land] paid the biggest price of all for what was supposed to be a gift, and that he would never again take the best farm anywhere and have to repeat what he had gone through.”

But while the work was hard and the winters long, the mossbacks still had time for fun. There are numerous accounts in the local newspapers about the parties, balls and hoedowns given by and for the Mossbacks.

The Michigan correspondent for the New York Post, wrote an article in 1883 about a Northern Michigan hardscrabble farm, leaving the reader with no illusions as to the difficulty of life on a homestead: “The half-cleared tract of one hundred and sixty acres, taken by the settler under the Homestead Act, is thickly scarred with the blackened stumps, between which rise struggling patches of grass or grain. Nearer the dwelling is a scrubby garden covered with a weak growth of carrots and the whole cleared tract is covered by the ghost-like array of those dead pines which all over Michigan record the sweep of the forest fires. The dismal environment of the settler’s home has its counterpart in the rough walls, the uncarpeted floor, the squalid children chasing each other from corner to corner, the flock of frowsy, chickens that enter and go out at will, and most pathetic of all, the housewife, worn with toil who, with an infant at breast, pulls wearily through her dreary round of drudgery.”

But after spending a night in the house with the mother, the children, two hired hands and his comrade he concludes his article with these words: “Yet amid all these shadows of poverty, hardship and squalor, there were some rifts of light. Faint glimpses of culture or comfort were to be seen in the coarse prints on the wall, the sewing-machine, and some stray efforts at household decoration. The children, though untidy, were redcheeked, and precocious in speech and observation far beyond their years; and the temper of the inmates of the rude dwelling reflected the most kindly and generous hospitality. When I found that this backwoods home had been wrested, only two years before, from an unbroken forest, I realized the real dignity and import of those humble frontier beginnings from which the

greatness of a nation has sprung.”

In conclusion

As memories fade and generations pass, we lose track of those whose shoulders upon which we stand. We build monuments to Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson for a reason: They remind us not only of the man but of the foundation of our country.

But it was not just Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson who built this country; it was the men and women who built a farm from the wilderness; who built a business that provided essential services; who built churches and schools and hospitals; and who raised families in good times and in bad. ▪

▪ PLACE TO PONDER In a book: Read about the Mossbacks in historical fiction.

“Little Mossback Amelia” was written by Frances Margaret Fox, a Mackinaw City author who penned numerous children’s books set in Northern Michigan scenes.

It was originally published in 1939 and was reprinted by the Little Traverse Historical Society in the 1990s.

The foreword written by the Historical Society notes: “This book, written for children, is a faithful picture of the life and lot of the homesteaders of Charlevoix and Emmet counties in the beginning years of white settlement. For children, it is a happy story. Adults can read between the lines and sense the problems of existence facing the parents. In fact, so great was the toil of the first homesteaders, so impossible their task and so isolated were they from friends and neighbors, that they were beings apart, even from the inhabitants of the small settlements which developed here during that same period. Because of this, they achieved the unique name of “Mossback.”

To read ‘Little Mossback Amelia:’ ▪ Check it out at the Petoskey Library – they have three copies in the children’s section and one in the rare books area. The Mackinaw City Library also has a copy that can be read at the library (not to be checked out).

▪ To purchase a copy locally, contact McLean and Eakin Booksellers downtown Petoskey at (231) 348-1180 or check with your favorite bookstore to see if they can order.

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Indians & Catholics

1815

Arrival of the

RA I L R O A

Bear River & Treaty

1840

By Michael Federspiel Director Emeritus, Little Traverse Historical Society

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Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

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Railroads & Resorters

1890

1915 30

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Train tracks bring rapid change to Emmet County

W

ith the arrival of Emmet County’s first train in 1873, the local economy and way of life lurched into a new economic era. Until this time, the region was almost exclusively the domain of Native Americans, missionaries, and lumbermen. But by 1900 the region sported a robust economy based primarily on tourism.

In an effort to populate remote regions, the federal government offered free land to railroad companies in exchange for the construction of tracks that would create towns and settlement. In 1855, the Grand Rapids and Indiana railroad company was given such a grant in exchange for building a rail line to northern Michigan. Slowed by the Civil War, construction began in earnest in the 1870s as the rails from Grand Rapids reached Cadillac by 1871, Petoskey in 1873, and in 1882 both Harbor Springs and Mackinaw City.

The railroad’s impact was immediate and significant. It enabled goods and passengers to regularly reach the region and encouraged local developers and development.

Petoskey became a hub and went from a settlement of a handful of people in 1875 to a bustling city with 6,000 year-round residents by 1900. Before the railroads there were no tourists; by 1908 an estimated 125,000 summer guests annually visited the Little Traverse Bay region.

Railroad stations were busy places with constant comings and goings. In the summer of 1906 over 13,000 trains travelled to and through Petoskey. That averages 134 per day or 11 per daylight hour. Initially a small station on what is now Lake Street was adequate, but by the 1890s it was replaced by a larger station at the corner of Lewis and Bay Streets. ▫ Place to Ponder As the tourist economy developed, the railroads began to supplement the long-haul trains Little Traverse Historical Society arriving from all over the Midwest with local service. These local trains were referred to as “suburban” or “dummy” trains and made it possible for those with cottages at regional resorts Museum. On Petoskey's beautior lakes such as Crooked or Walloon to easily reach their destinations and to return to ful waterfront, this museum is in Petoskey for shopping or supplies. On busy summer weekends over 10,000 tickets might be the restored Pere Marquette train sold for these local trains. depot. Exhibits feature Ernest In 1892 a second railroad company, the Chicago and West Michigan railroad, completed Hemingway's life in Michigan, lines to Petoskey and began operating from its newly constructed depot on Petoskey’s waterfront. In 1899 the company was taken over by the Pere Marquette Railroad, and the rare Odawa Indian artifacts and station’s proximity to downtown and the steamship dock made it a center of waterfront activhistorical exhibits. ity. That depot currently is the home of the Little Traverse History Museum. ▪

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OAD With trains arriving nearly as fast as they could be announced and passengers disembarking like the flow of a river, clearing the tracks required well-planned choreography. Some, but not all, train cars proceeded north up the line to Mackinaw City. But more had to be turned to head back south for more passengers.

Unlike modern diesel locomotives, steam locomotives were designed to go forward, but not in reverse.

Quickly turning a train locomotive is not simple. An ingenious device called a turntable was invented to serve the purpose. A turntable, like a phonograph, spins on a central axis. The engine is driven onto track mounted on the turntable and given a spin to reverse its direction. It is so well balanced that one person using muscle-power alone can turn a load weighing up to 140 tons, the weight of a large steam locomotive.

Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

Aaron Greeley

1810 American surveyor Why he's important: He resolved the first land claims in the Straits of Mackinac, including Emmet County's 1st deeded parcel

This turntable from Petoskey is now on display at Greenfield Village.

Competing with railroads, steamers up their game

Harbor Springs

Long before roads or train tracks, Michigan’s transportation networks consisted of lakes (Great and inland), rivers and streams and the Little Traverse Bay region was no exception. After the Civil War, Great Lakes steamship companies developed a passenger service to supplement their existing freight hauling business. Competing with railroads, the steamships became a luxurious alternative and Harbor Springs was a natural stopping point. Unlike Petoskey where the shore was shallow and exposed, Harbor Springs boasted of fine, protected, deep-water dockage. Large ships such as the Manitou berthed at Harbor Springs alongside smaller bay ferries. These ferries went back and forth between Petoskey and Harbor and also stopped at the resorts along the bay, offering a welcomed alternative to train travel. ▪

Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum, Central Michigan University, Library of Congress

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1815

Indians & Catholics

Pure Michigan!

(... before there was 'Pure Michigan')

Marketing Emmet County

C

onvincing people to visit and to settle in Emmet County was in the best financial interests of the railroad and steamship companies as well as local businessmen. The Grand Rapids and Indiana railroad was particularly aggressive in its marketing and branded itself as “The Fishing Line.”

From 1877–1895, it printed and mass distributed nine elaborate booklets that promoted the region’s natural and cultural attractions.

By 1900 intense regional advertising had turned Northern Michigan into a destination for the entire Midwest.

Bear River & Treaty

1840

“The Land of the Million Dollar Sunsets”

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Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

Photo above courtesy Central Michigan University; below, Little Traverse History Museum

Petoskey has been called the "Land of the million dollar sunsets" since 1873, thanks to a dazzled reporter who arrived just as the sun was sinking into Lake Michigan. On a late fall day that year, the train whistled to a stop at the new end of its line – Petoskey. On board to celebrate were the governor of Michigan, other dignitaries and a reporter for a Grand Rapids newspaper, who in reporting on the wilderness scenery raved about the area’s "million dollar sunsets."

By the summer of 1874 the railroads were making regular runs between Grand Rapids and Petoskey and the metamorphosis of Petoskey was rapid. It grew into a dynamic, busy village catering to the needs of sightseers. Luxury resort hotels were constructed near the railway depots. Today, those depots throughout Emmet County serve mostly as history museums keeping the stories of the early days here alive for future generations.

Resort communities develop around Little Traverse Bay

By Tamara Stevens & Michael Federspiel

1890

Beginning with the creation of Bay View in 1875, resort communities sprung up along the shores of Little Traverse Bay. They were all governed by mutually agreed upon rules and guidelines and some were associated with particular religions. Bay View, Roaring Brook, Wequetonsing, and Harbor Point were (and are) places where families came annually to spend the summer and to enjoy the company of old and new friends.

By the 1880s, dummy trains transported tourists north out of Petoskey to the Inland Waterway where they traveled by steamer to the many extravagant resorts and summer camps built on the shores of Crooked Lake, Round Lake, Pickerel Lake, Mullet and Burt lakes,

Railroads & Resorters

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and south of town to Bear Lake (later named Walloon).

Wealthy city dwellers could spend their summers canoeing and recreating in the beauty of nature, while dining on the fish they caught that day.

Resort promotional posters and flyers from that era extolled a healthy environment where guests could hunt, fish, hike, and swim while dining on perch, smallmouth and largemouth bass, northern pike, walleye, bluegill, muskellunge, sturgeon (as long as a man is tall), rainbow trout, brown tout, bullhead, Cisco, suckers and smelt.

Resorts on the Inland Waterway such as the Atherton on Crooked Lake, later named the Rawdon Hotel, built in 1895, accommodated 250 guests. This elaborate and luxurious hotel developed quite a reputation for providing high-quality service to its patrons, while being surrounded by the beauty of unspoiled nature. Another hotel, the Mullett Lake House was a four-story hotel serving the rare delicacy of snapping turtle, with the hotel guests devouring the dark meat.

Back in Petoskey, large hotels began to emerge among the boarding houses and smaller hotels such as the Occidental. The Cushman Hotel was built in 1875 on Lake Street, followed in 1882 by the Arlington Hotel on what is now Arlington Avenue overlooking the bay.

North of Petoskey in Bay View, the Howard House was built in 1886, directly next to the railroad. It is known today as the Bay View Inn and is part of the Stafford’s Hospitality business. Another part of Stafford’s Hospitality business is the Perry Hotel built in 1899 across the street from the railroad station in downtown Petoskey.

In Harbor Springs, the earliest resort communities of Harbor Point and Wequetonsing were established in 1878, a full four years before the railroad tracks would make their way around the bay from Petoskey.

The Harbor Point Association was formed by a group of Lansing businessmen who purchased the 52-acre spit of land from Fr. Weikamp. Just to the east of the village limits, the Presbyterian Summer Resort Association received land from the village citizens and by 1880 was renamed the Wequetonsing Association. Both resorts promptly built hotels to house guests and prospective members. Other resort communities followed in the late 1800s each with its own hotel or inn: Roaring Brook, Ramona Park and Menonaqua to the east; Forest Beach and Idylwilde to the west.

This village on the north shore of Little Traverse Bay also featured a number of downtown hotels, the earliest of which were the Emmet House (1876) and the Kensington Hotel (1882). While most of Harbor Springs’ resort-era hotels no longer exist, the resort associations continue their traditions with generations of families still making Harbor Springs their summer home. ▪

The Hemingways

By Beth Anne Eckerle, Emmet County

The Hemingways, from Oak Park, Ill., were one of Emmet County's typical resort families. Just outside Petoskey’s city limits, there’s an old cottage on the shores of the turquoiseblue, clear-to-the-bottom Walloon Lake. It’s about 115 years old now, nestled beside sprawling modern mansions.

Each summer beginning in the 1900s, Dr. Clarence and Grace Hemingway and their children would begin their journey north to that cabin, a lengthy expedition but worth the reward at the end: Months untethered in Up North, Michigan.

They’d first board a steamship in Chicago Hemingway photos courtesy of John F. and travel to Harbor Kennedy Library, Boston Springs, where they’d catch a train to Petoskey. In Petoskey, they’d change trains and ride another into the Village of Walloon, where a boat would deliver them to a public dock. From there, a small steam powered boat would cart the family and their belongings to the cottage.

The children—all six of them, including one named Ernest—would tuck dozens of books in with their swimsuits and when they weren’t engaged in a story on a lazy lakeside summer afternoon, they could be found exploring via their own two feet.

Both typically and famously, Ernest and his siblings’ days were spent outside, hiking the woods, camping and enjoying the lake, with the athletically inclined Ernest often canoeing across Walloon and hiking 3.5 miles continued on next page

When the resorts were established ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Bay View: 1875 Harbor Point: 1878 Wequetonsing: 1878 Roaring Brook: 1893

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continued from page 33

The Hemingways: Just your Emmet County typical resorters into Horton Bay to meet his buddies. Ernest was a wilderness man with a desire to explore on his own who often struck friendships with the Natives and locals alike. His discovery of the people and lands of Northwest Michigan delivered such remarkable experiences that local points of interest can be found referenced in many of his novels.

In her book, “Ernie, Hemingway’s Sister Sunny Remembers,” Madelaine “Sunny” Hemingway Miller wrote: “Wherever else he went in the world—to Europe, Africa, Key West, Havana, Idaho—Ernie always remembered Walloon Lake and Windemere with affection. It was here he lived and gathered the material that would make his first stories, here that he vowed to be ‘ ‘fraid of nothing.’

Windemere, the Hemingway cottage, is still in the family today and it stands as a testament to the deep affection stirred in those who visit here and never leave, if only in their hearts. The cottage is not open to the public. ▪

▪ Place to Ponder The City Park Grill downtown Petoskey, where the famous author was said to hang out and chat with friends when he lived in Petoskey in 1919.

Recalling his Michigan experiences and friendships, his first novel, The Torrents of Spring, was set in Petoskey and he wrote dozens of stories featuring Nick Adams, a young Hemingway-like character.

{an ode to allergy-free living}

'When dust is on the ragweed'

By Rev. Warren W. Lamport When dust is on the ragweed, and the ragweed’s in yer nose, When yer nose is full o’sneezin’, and the sneezin’ full o’ woes; Then’s come the time to pack our duds and quickly git away; Petoskey is the Mecca then, why don’t you come and stay?

When dust is on the ragweed, and the ragweed’s in yer nose, And you keep a-sneezin’ till it lifts you off your toes, Why don’t you buy yer ticket quick and get across the land?

Petoskey is the Mecca then, for all the sufferin’ band.

Petoskey’s got the atmosphere, without the other stuff;: You don’t go sneezin’ round as though you’d been a-taking’ snuff; But all the summer long you find you’re scoopin’ in the health, While hotels and the Midway are a scoopin’ in the wealth.

The Midway 1905

There’s lots o’ fun an’ frolic here, there’s lots of things to do; And if religion’s what you want, they got that at Bay View.

So come along without delay, and don’t forgit yer tin; The hotels an’ the Midway, all ‘ill kindly take you in.

Regatta photo/Little Traverse History Museum Petoskey Midway photo/Library of Congress

And when the frost has nipped the fields, and the ragweed’s lost its grip, Then you can pack yer duds agin and take the homeward trip.

An’ don’t fergit to take along some souv’nirs of yer stay, And don’t fergit we’d like to see you back agin some day.

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Boat photo/Library of Congress Historic Waterway/Emmet County

INLAND ROUTE

'Man of action' reopens waterway to mail, goods & tourists Adapted from the Inland Water Route Historical Society

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s homesteaders rushed into Northern Michigan in 1874 and 1875, a stream of mail was returning to friends and family back home. Crisscrossing the state the mail sometimes moved between Cheboygan and Petoskey, a long dangerous boat passage around Waugoshance Point and through the Straits of Mackinac. A Cheboygan man realized that with a little work and planning the old Indian water route between the two towns, a quicker, safer inland route, could be opened to shorten the distance, time and danger.

In 1874 Frank Sammons of Cheboygan, being a man of action, took a team of horses and four men and cleared the main obstruction, a sand bar at the mouth of Indian River at Burt Lake, hence, opening the route to small vessels.

Just two years later, with the potential clear, the Federal Bureau of Swamp Lands appropriated $20,000 to dredge the Crooked River and shortly thereafter Captain Andrews of Petoskey completed the first trip from Alanson to Cheboygan in a mere 10.5 hours. The Inland Waterway was now in operation. A wagon would await the arrival of the boat at Alanson and carry the mail on into Petoskey along the State Road.

This service quickly expanded to haul people, logs, and finished products back and forth. But when the railroad arrived at Mackinaw City, the commercial trade switched to rail transport since it offered year-round and faster service. Commercial use of the Waterway declined but adept marketing focused on the tourist market and use increased again.

Hotels were built along the “charming and romantic route” and excursions and overnight visits kept the waters busy.

Connector cruises could take people to Mackinac Island or St. Ignace. Hotels along the Waterway gained name recognition as did the boats. The long-running steamer Topinabee offered a popular excursion starting in Oden, making stops at every landing along the way, arriving in the village of Topinabee for dinner, then on to Cheboygan and ending later that evening at Mackinac Island.

The slow meandering passage down the Crooked River was an exciting part of the tourist cruise. In addition to closeup views of nature it featured two bridges and two hairpin curves to challenge the captain and entertain the passengers.

One bridge, called “The High Bridge,” was not sufficiently high to allow steamers to pass. The Topinabee had a telescoping smokestack that could be retracted and a hinged continued on next page

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Images/Central Michigan University

INLAND ROUTE

pilothouse in order to pass under the Bridge.

A swing bridge replaced the high bridge in 1901 and was operated by hand until the 1960s.

A second bridge at what is now at the M-68 road crossing was built in in 1903 as a drawbridge. In 1937 it was replaced by a cement bridge similar to the one in use today. Lastly the curves in the river were also of interest as their sharp angles required a series of back and forward maneuvers plus pushing and pulling to get the boat around the curves. So the trip offered nature for the outdoorsman, and engineering for the mechanic – something for everyone.

From 1876 to 1920 nearly 100 boats operated as commercial ventures on the waterway. The Inland Water Route Historical Society is in the process of reproducing one of these boats for tourist travel starting in the summer of 2016. ▪

In THEIR OWN WORDS ‘Brutus has a Future Before It’ - 1902 Colonial Point sparks the tourism industry further north in Emmet County:

▪ Place to Ponder

Inland Water Route Historical Society on River St., Alanson. (1 block east of US-31). The museum offers exhibits on boating and the Waterway history.

May 30, 1902 The Independent Democrat of Petoskey reported, “Brutus has a future before it. It is confidently hoped by the promoters of the big summer hotel at Indian Point on Burt Lake that a spur of the GR&I R.R. will be built from Brutus to that point. The large hotel is well underway, a force of two hundred men being engaged in rushing it to completion. It contains over one hundred rooms and is to be perfectly modern in all its appointments. Several elegant cottages are being built near the hotel and the Point will soon be one of the leading resorts in the land.”

August 8, 1902 “The resort recently built at Burt Lake is surely a good thing for Brutus. It brings many summer visitors to our little village and an extensive trade to our general store.”

October 7, 1902 The Cheboygan Democrat reported a new railroad would run from Brutus to Indian Point and then to Cheboygan.

“There has been a rumor current in Cheboygan for several weeks that a railroad was to be built from Petoskey to Cheboygan. For several weeks the GR&I R.R. have had surveyors at work surveying for a road to Indian Point on Burt Lake, and we are told by a gentleman who got his information direct from the road’s superintendent that it is their intention to build to the Colonial Hotel as early in the spring as weather and other conditions permit. It is well known that there will be big passenger traffic to this point next summer and in the years to come. “The Colonial Inn is to double its capacity next summer. It is owned by Pittsburg people who are desirous of reaching this point without the inconvenience experienced this summer, by transferring from train to boat and boat to boat. The reporters who frequent this section from Pittsburg and vicinity are all multi-millionaires with money to burn and through their efforts it is that the extension will be made. Next year, they will take the Pennsylvania and GR&I to Petoskey. The Oden dummy would be run through to the Point via Brutus. We have no assurance that the line will continue to Cheboygan but it will be the logical conclusion. In our opinion they are sure to come sooner or later.” ▪

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the LUMBER era

By Tom Bailey Little Traverse Conservancy

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mmet County might be unrecognizable if you look at early 20th century photos. These images reveal a denuded and devastated landscape, nearly devoid of forests and barren - in contrast to the green landscapes of today. Like the people who lived amidst them, the forests of Northern Michigan have their own story to tell.

From the ground up

Beautiful as they are, and as vital as they are to quality of life, Emmet County’s forests are not the same as they were before European settlers moved in and cleared the land for logging and agriculture. Throughout Michigan, the landscape has been profoundly altered. Many written narratives exist and a few keystrokes the Internet can produce maps titled, “pre-settlement forests” for our area and much of the United States.

For centuries, even millennia, Native people used a variety of land management techniques. Medicinal plants were propagated, sacred plants were tended and food-producing varieties were encouraged. Fire was used on a modest scale to manage grasslands and parts of forests. Agricultural plots were created by girdling trees and burning, followed by cultivating such plants as squash and beans. The landscape of Northern Michigan was largely natural before Europeans arrived, but while it may have seemed like raw wilderness to newcomers it was a garden for Native people.

Things changed in a much more drastic fashion after European settlement. In the 1800s, vast old-growth forests served as nesting, roosting and feeding areas for millions of passenger pigeons. Written accounts tell of beech trees broken down by the weight of pigeons on their branches. But market hunting exterminated the passenger pigeon, and we now see beech trees being decimated instead by an exotic disease brought in by commerce from faraway lands. The interconnected dependence on our forests continues to come into focus as the threats to their vitality persist.

Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

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The fall: Depletion and lumber’s decline

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the most devastating alteration of the landscape, as vast forests were leveled.

Settlers were logging for timber, harveting bark from hemlock trees, called “tanbark,” for tanning hides, and clearing with burning to remove obsticales for farming.

In her “Historical Look at the Use of Land and Natural Resources in the Inland Water Route Region of Northern Lower Michigan,” Wendy O’Neil, with the University of Michigan Biological Station in Pellston, offered a comprehensive summary of the use – and misuse – of forestlands. In the 1977 report, she notes the heyday of Michigan’s logging occurred from 1840 to 1900: “White pine was considered the choicest lumber and initially was all that was logged. Generally, Michigan's white pine was from 15 to 30 inches in diameter and approximately 70 to 160 years old, but smaller trees were also cut. Trees less than 8 inches in diameter were considered worthless,” she noted.

“As the last of the white pine fell under the axe and crosscut saw, the lumbering industry turned to other tree species. Ash, elm, maple, cedar, hemlock, spruce and birch were felled as well as smaller red and white pines that had been previously ignored. Finally, between 1900 and 1910, most of the desirable conifers and hardwood stands were depleted and the lumbering industry began its final decline.

“Many people in the region were plunged into poverty. Barren, stump-covered fields were left as a reminder of a flourishing economy that was based, once again, on the philosophy of an ‘endless’ natural resource. A handbook for travelers in 1898 describes a lumbered area north of Cadillac which would have appeared the same as parts of Emmet and Cheboygan Counties: ‘For miles and miles this desolate wilderness of stumps stretches on either side with gaunt, bare pine 'stubs' sprinkled among them and decaying logs scattered in wild confusion everywhere. The stubby undergrowth of oak and poplar adds to, rather than relieves, the desolateness.’ (J. G. Inglis.

Northern Michigan Handbook for Travelers).’

These heavily logged areas became subject to frequent and devastating fires, particularly in the Pellston area in 1892, 1901, 1911 and 1923. Whatever the causes of the blazes, they left behind many burned buildings and permanently destroyed topsoil. Trees that did survive the fires have scars which can be located on sample cores taken from tree centers. Although many people have the misconception that Northern Michigan's wooded countryside is "virgin" growth, our forests today are actually only second and third growth. continued on next page

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the LUMBER men

By Jerry Kilar ▪ Special to Essence of Emmet

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mmet County lumbermen left a legacy that brought settlers, industry and the beginnings of prosperity to the region. They cleared the land, built towns and constructed railroads to open the frontier to farmers and businessmen.

Though pine and hardwood trees in Emmet County grew in sufficient quantities to enable enterprising lumbermen to create personal fortunes, the county’s lumbermen were mostly small operators who made only modest profits. In the Great Lakes pineries, individuals often achieved success in the trade through apprenticeships, inheritance or marriage. Huge start-up capital demands needed to buy forests and open a sawmill made it difficult for the self-starter to achieve wealth in Michigan’s lumber towns.

Occasionally, however, there were rags-to-riches stories of self-made men …

CECIL BAY: O’Neal’s legacy

original settler in Bliss Township and his land, once cleared of pine, became a large, prosperous farmstead. He continued to buy and cut pinelands and ship his logs downriver to the Cecil Bay Lumber Company.

Largely because of his efforts, Cecil Bay became a temporary sawmill village with a few boarding houses, a large sawmill, a store and a post office. In 1909, O’Neal moved to Petoskey when he bought the Park Place Hotel downtown Petoskey. He and his descendants continued ownership until the 1930s.

While O’Neal’s success in the lumber business was a slow process common to the era, his persistent efforts resulted in a legacy that remains. Early on, while still a foreman in the woods, O’Neal is given credit for introducing the use of the crosscut saw to fell trees instead of the old method of chopping with an axe. In the early 1870s, raker teeth were added to crosscut saws. These teeth removed sawdust from the cutting kerfs and greatly sped up the time it took to cut down a pine tree.

These new sawing techniques along with other innovations, like logging railroads, greatly accelerated the cutting of Michigan’s forests.

William O’Neal exemplifies one of Emmet County’s lumbering pioneers who shrewdly worked his way up through the sawmill business maze. The Michigan city of Saginaw, down by the thumb of the Lower Peninsula, was in the beginning of its lumbering heyday in 1861 when O’Neal began work at age 13 in the sawmill of Arthur Hill. By age 16 he was working in the woods and three years later he was a crew boss for about 40 PELLSTON: Dreams of a ‘little Chicago’ loggers. O’Neal later worked as camp superintendent O’Neal’s record as a lumberman is an important exfor A. T. Bliss of Saginaw, who in 1900 became Govample of the self-made success story; however, pioneer ernor of Michigan. It was during this time O’Neal lumbermen in Pellston took a different route to their became superintendent for William Callam, another lumbering wealth. William H. Pells was a wealthy Saginaw lumberman. In 1889, William and his brother land speculator in western New York. After moving Charles Callam established camps along the Carp River his land operations to Illinois in 1872, Pells began to in Emmet County, which ran from what is now called buy railroad land in Emmet and Cheboygan CounParadise Lake to Lake Michigan, and built a sawmill at ties. In ten years he amassed 27,000 acres, and when its mouth near Cecil Bay. Callam became the mill man- the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad was extended ager and O’Neal was superintendent and foreman. from Petoskey to Mackinaw City, the railroad land For the next 30 years O’Neal worked for various ▪ Place to Ponder lumbermen in Northern From deep green cedar wetlands with babbling brooks and bubbling springs to hilltop forests Michigan and eventually of sugar maple, hemlock and pine, the forests of Emmet County are thriving. Explore our State, accumulated sizeable pinecounty, township and city parks. In addition the Little Traverse Conservancy's nature preserves land holdings. He was the offer a wide variety of habitats to explore. The Little Traverse Conservancy’s smart phone app,

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“LTC Explorer” offers “Trails through our region” and “Search by trails” featuring recreational trails for hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and also for snowmobiles and motorized use.

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agent named the small settlement “Pellston” after him.

William came to the roughhewn settlement and laid out a town on paper but before he could sell off his lands he died in 1886. His death left the land to his son Edgar and daughter Hannah. After Edgar died in 1899, Charles Bogardus, Hannah’s husband, decided to come to Pellston. Bogardus, a Civil War veteran, was 60 years old and had accumulated a small fortune working for his father-in-law in Illinois.

When Bogardus arrived at Pellston in 1901, there were only six houses scattered along the tracks, which ran parallel to Stimpson Street (US 31). Instead of buying and selling land, Charles was convinced he could turn his wife’s inherited property into something even more valuable by becoming a lumberman. Inexperience and overconfidence eventually cost him $12 million and a failed dream of building “a little Chicago” in northern Emmet County.

In order to raise capital, Bogardus initially sold his land holdings west of the railroad tracks, which ran parallel to Stimpson Street (U.S. 31) to a barrel and hardwood-manufacturing firm out of Buffalo, NY, called Jackson and Tindle.

Bogardus then decided to develop his lands on the east side of the tracks.

To process timber taken from his land around Douglas and Burt lakes he built the East Mill on the Maple River at Robinson Road. The mill soon employed nearly 100 men and cut 30,000 board feet each day.

Jackson and Tindle built a larger sawmill on the west branch of the Maple and employed 300 men by 1903.

As absentee owners, Jackson and Tindle had little interest in developing Pellston. While they built nearly 75 miles of logging railroads and a company store, when the timber was gone they closed their mill and moved on.

Bogardus, on the other hand, in order to get his timber to a lake port, began to build the Cheboygan and Southern Railroad from Pellston via south Douglas Lake to Cheboygan. This railroad would free him of shipping costs and was a dream that cost him much of his fortune.

Not only did Bogardus sink money into the railroad, but also he built the Pellston Planning Mill and Lumber Company, opened the Pellston Bank, a company store, four lumber camps, and electrified Pellston by building a hydroelectric dam on the Maple River (near the Dam Site ▪ Place to Ponder Inn).

The site of William O'Neal's By 1906, Bogardus was overextended. The railroad ran only to Douglas Lake and the line Cecil Bay Lumber Company went bankrupt and was abandoned. In 1909, the sawmill was sold, dismantled and moved is now an Emmet County to Alabama.

Timber and hard woods were running out and in 1912, the Pellston Journal carried a legal Park at the mouth of the Carp River. A grassy area with a notice that all of Bogardus’ holdings were for sale. picnic pavillion and viewing While he eventually lost everything, in 1908 Bogardus had offered the University of platforms for observing the Michigan 1,440 acres and two miles of cutover land frontage on Douglas Lake for its river make this a pleasant biological station. He died in 1929, 11 days before the Oct. 29 stock market crash, sparing destination. him the onslaught of the Great Depression that turned Pellston into a ghost town. ▪ Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

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Land defaults provide today’s recreation

By Caity Sweet ▪ Central Michigan University

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ith the arrival of the railroad in Northern Michigan, areas of Emmet County that were unreachable suddenly became accessible -- forever changing the landscape and population of the county.

The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad (GR&I) undertook the self-described “bold experiment” of breaking the wilderness, building a line from Indiana to Northern Michigan.

Small towns began to develop quickly as the railroad line was built, bringing lumbermen and their families to work in the growing lumber industry.

While some, such as William Pells and Charles Bogardus, accumulated great wealth in the process, they also experienced financial hardships when the lumber resources were exhausted. But there was a positive result later from the defaults of the lumbermen: The land was forfeited back to state ownership, much of it becoming state land that the public enjoys today.

In the mid-1850s, the United States Congress passed a bill approving numerous land grants for railroad development, with Michigan receiving title to 3,000,000 acres. Approximately 1,160,382 acres were granted specifically to the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Company to build from Grand Rapids to Mackinaw City.

Progress was slow at first due to lack of funding; the GR&I expected to utilize the profits from selling land along the line but their officials were unprepared to cover the startup costs. Slowly but surely, the railroad reached Petoskey in 1873, a distance of approximately 185 miles, and pushed north to Bay View by 1876. The line reached its final destination of Mackinaw City in 1882.

The railroad traveled from Petoskey through the eastern townships of the county up to the Straits of Mackinac. Towns such as Alanson, Pellston, Brutus, and Levering were all located directly on the GR&I and were the only towns in the interior of the county.

The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Company’s advertising booklet “Guide to the lands in the state of Michigan, now for sale, comprised in the grant of over one million acres to the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Company (1874”) was an important tool in bringing settlers to the county. The booklet correctly claimed that villages along the railroad grew rapidly in size upon completion of the rail line.

Nearly every section of lumber had been clear-cut in the late 19th century; afterward, much of it was simply abandoned and returned to state ownership, eventually becoming State Parks and State Forests. Emmet County experienced its fair share of land abandonment and by the 1890s the government had reclaimed large quantities of tax delinquent lands.

Proof that much of the state land surrounding Pellston was once lumbering land can be found by comparing plat maps from 1902 and 2014. In 1902 large portions of McKinley township (Egleston in 1902) and Maple River township were owned by Tindle and Jackson, Barker Cedar Company, and Hannah W. Bogardus, to name a few. Nearly half of the land once owned by Hannah WOMEN'S PROPERTY RIGHTS EMERGE Bogardus, Charles’ wife, is now owned by the state.

While women gained the right to own property in In 1844 Michigan passed The Married Women’s Property Act that protected a Michigan in 1844, there are not many other women’s woman from losing rights to her property upon marriage, the first step towards many names on the 1902 plat map. other women’s rights legislations. Since this law had to be enacted by all-male legislaThe state land is not Bogardus’ sole influence on tors we can look to male advantages in the changes enacted. One such advantage the Pellston area; the town’s street names are was economic. If the wife retained control of her property, then the husband’s credireminiscent of its lumber history, including Bogartors could not touch the wife’s land. Since this was an era of hard economic trials dus Street, Pell Street, Mill Street, Elm Street, and in the wilderness of Michigan, this is one potential motivation for male legislators to Stimpson Street (US-31), named for the Grand pass the law. Railroad developers risked a great deal in their expansion efforts. Many Rapids and Indiana Railroad speculator who helped in Michigan lost everything in their gamble. The shrewd business practice of leaving Hannah Bogardus’ inheritance in her name might have been a hedge against her establish Pellston. ▪ husband’s speculative behaviors. In any event the 1902 plat map shows the Bogardus land all in Hannah’s name.

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The sad fate of the

Passenger Pigeon

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n Sept. 1, 1914, Martha, the last of her kind, died in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo, standing as a symbol of nature’s fragility and what had been lost: The passenger pigeon. The year 2014 marked 100 years since this species went extinct, at the hands of man who used it both to survive brutal Northern Michigan winters and also in a frenzy to kill and earn 40 cents per dozen dead birds.

The skies over the Petoskey area darkened from the millions of passenger pigeons overhead, looking to nest here. Some flocks numbered in the billions, and sometimes actually eclipsed the sun as they moved overhead. It probably didn’t seem possible to these early settlers and inhabitants that such a large flock could ever be extinguished. But it was. Reportedly the last wild passenger pigeon was killed by a boy in Pike County, Ohio, on March 24, 1900.

The Little Traverse Bay area played a major role in the life-and-death cycle of this bird, and following are details from the era that saw the demise of the passenger pigeon.

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The sad fate of the

passenger pigeon

By Kyle W. Bagnall Chippewa Nature Center, Midland, Michigan

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hen Europeans first arrived on this continent, they encountered many wonders of nature which were completely unfamiliar in the Old World. None, perhaps, rivaled the scope and impact of enormous flocks of passenger pigeons which arrived like the roar of a tornado and blocked out the sun for days on end. By most accounts, Ectopistes migratorius was the most numerous bird species in the entire world and may have comprised up to 40 percent of North America’s bird population.

About twice the size of a mourning dove, passenger pigeons were highly adapted for speed and maneuverability in flight, with a small head and neck, long, wedge-shaped tail, and long, pointed wings. They could fly for great distances at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. This was a unique species, and was not closely related to the European rock pigeon, Columba livia, which has been trained for activities such as carrying messages and pigeon racing. Passenger pigeons were strictly native to North America and genetically related to the band-tailed pigeon, which still lives in the southwest.

The vast forests of Michigan provided feeding grounds and nesting sites for enormous flocks of passenger pigeons.

Especially important were oak and beech trees which produced their favorite foods – acorns and beech nuts. Many accounts describe pigeons swallowing whole acorns.

For centuries, passenger pigeons were hunted on a small scale throughout Eastern North America to supply food for the table.

Native Americans relied on these birds as a food source and the species attained special significance in many cultures. Likewise, early European settlers throughout the east and Great Lakes region hunted pigeons for food and feathers. They also rendered the fat of squabs (young birds) which reportedly tasted sweeter than pork lard and also lasted longer. By the mid-1820s, live trap shooting of captured passenger pigeons also became a sport which grew in popularity throughout the 19th century. Between 1852 and 1880, up to 500,000 pigeons were netted annually strictly for use as contest targets.

Michigan pigeon tales

One of the earliest accounts of passenger pigeons in Michigan was recorded by John Tanner in his 1830 autobiography. Tanner was captured as a boy by Ojibwa Indians in Ohio, brought to Saginaw, and lived with Native Americans for 30 years. He recalled hunting pigeons in 1792 near St. Ignace, saying, “Pigeons were very numerous in woods, and the boys of my age, and the traders, were busy shooting them.”

Large passenger pigeon nestings were reported sporadically in Michigan from 1843-1860 and in alternate years from 18661878. As railroads and telegraph lines began to crisscross the

country, nestings such as these became heavily pressured by market hunting and extreme habitat destruction. Hunters from around the country would receive news of a large flock starting to nest, hop on trains and head to the site. The “last grand nesting” occurred near Petoskey in 1878. An unsuccessful attempt to halt its destruction was led by H.B. Roney, of East Saginaw.

Roney described the 1878 nesting in American Field (Vol. X, pp.

345-347):

"The nesting area, situated near Petoskey, covered something like 100,000 acres of land, and included not less than 150,000 acres within its limits, being in length about 40 miles by 3 to 10 in width. The number of dead birds sent by rail was estimated at 12,500 daily, or 1,500,000 for the summer, besides 80,352 live birds; an equal number was sent by water. We have," says the writer, "adding the thousands of dead and wounded ones not secured, and the myriads of squabs left dead in the nest, at the lowest possible estimate, a grand total of one billion pigeons sacrificed to Mammon during the nesting of 1878."

Roney’s was the only such recorded attempt in U.S. history to stop the hunting and is recorded in great detail in the 1907 book, The Passenger Pigeon, by William B. Mershon. Mershon’s work was also the first of its kind, being a collection of personal memories, scientific information and accounts about this remarkable species: "The largest nesting he (Mr. S. S. Stevens of Cadillac) ever visited was in 1876 or 1877. It began near Petoskey, and

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extended northeast past Crooked Lake for 28 miles, averaging 3 or 4 miles wide. The birds arrived in two separate bodies, one directly from the south by land, the other following the east coast of Wisconsin, and crossing at Manitou Island. He saw the latter body come in from the lake at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It was a compact mass of pigeons, at least 5 miles long by 1 mile wide."

In addition to providing food for the newly arrived homesteaders in northern Michigan, the passenger pigeons were a significant source of income for them as well. Mershon continues: "The prices of dead birds range from thirty-five cents to forty cents per dozen at the nesting. In Chicago markets fifty to sixty cents. Squabs twelve cents per dozen in the woods, in metropolitan markets sixty cents to seventy cents. In fashionable restaurants they are served as a delicious tid-bit at fancy prices. Live birds are worth at the trapper's net forty cents to sixty cents per dozen; in cities $1 to $2."

At the 1878 Petoskey nesting, about 500 professional “pigeoners” hunted and shipped dead and live birds for 20 weeks, from midMarch through mid-August. The result was a pigeon harvest which numbered in the hundreds of millions. ▪

Passenger Pigeon Pie

By MaryAnn Moore ▪ Essence of Emmet

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or centuries, people used the plentiful passenger pigeon to feed their families because it was easy to obtain, inexpensive and a source of protein. As a bonus the feathers could be used for fluffy pillows and warm bed covers.

Home cooking methods varied with taste and time: The passenger pigeon was salted, dried, roasted, potted (stewed), smoked, broiled, braised, baked into pies and boiled in soups.

But by the 1870s, some folks saw commercial dollar signs in the overhead flock of passengers. Profiteers packed the pigeons - adults, squab (young birds) and eggs - on ice and in two days, these birds were on the dining tables in fine, fancy dining establishments in Chicago and New York City.

Before the Civil War, restaurateurs even served the pigeons with their feet still attached and sticking through the top of piecrusts to validate that the meat was indeed passenger pigeon. By the 1870s, the fancy food establishments like Delmonico in New York City made dishes of pigeons simmered in wine and stock and garnished with ham, sweetbreads and mushrooms. Some more elaborate entrees included pigeons stuffed with pork, truffles, liver, hard-boiled eggs or pistachios. Squabs were arranged artistically on large revolving stands and garnished with truffles and stuffed tomatoes, topped with a vase of cut vegetables.

Most recipes suggested many additional ingredients while roasting, potting or broiling; items like salt pork or bacon, hard boiled eggs (enclosed in the breast cavity or sliced and layered between pigeons), herbs (especially parsley), salt, pepper, wal-

nuts, chunks of butter the size of small eggs, other meats like veal, ham, pork, and livers of duck and goose. The actual taste of the passenger pigeon was probably never noticed!

Here's a modern "pigeon" pot pie recipe to try at home: Cut up two large chickens (I hunted for passenger pigeons at the local grocery store and could only find a Cornish Game Hen); grease your pot, or Dutch-oven, with lard; roll out pie crust enough in two parts, to go round it, but do not to cover the bottom or it will burn before the pie is done. As you put in the pieces of chicken, strew in flour, salt, and pepper, some pieces of the crust rolled thin, and a few potatoes (garden vegetables were also added – onion, carrots, snow peas); cover this with water, and put on a covering of paste, with a slit cut in the middle; let it cook slowly (325 degrees) for about two hours; have hot water in a tea kettle, and if it should dry up too much, pour some in; just before you dish it add a little parsley and thyme.

Pie Crust

Sift a pound and a half of flour (4 ¾ cups), and take out a quarter (1 ¼ cups) for rolling; Cut in it a quarter of a pound of lard (1/2 cup) Mix it with water (a little at a time until a very thick paste forms) and roll it out (on floured surface) Cut half a pound (1 cup) of (soft) butter, and put it in at two rollings with the flour that was left out.

(To accomplish that last part, using a rubber spatula, spread ½ cup butter on the rolled out dough. Sprinkle about a half-cup of the remaining flour on the top of the butter. Fold dough in half and put in refrigerator to cool for 20 minutes. Place cooled dough on floured surface and roll out to about 3/4-inch thickness. Spread the other ½ cup soft butter on the dough and cover with the remaining flour. Put dough back in refrigerator for 20 minutes to cool again. Cut dough into two pieces, one bigger than the other. On a floured surface, roll out one piece of dough to ¼ inch thick for the sides of the Dutch oven. Then roll out a circle of dough for the top crust of the pot pie. Pinch the two pieces of dough together and brush the top with beaten egg for a golden brown color.) ▪

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Indians & Catholics

1815

Bear River & Treaty

1840

Commander Isaac C. B. Suman signed this document on November 20, 1864 promoting Stutsman to the rank of corporal in the 9th Regiment of the Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

WAR

The arrival of the

Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

√

Railroads & Resorters

1890

1915

WAR

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homesteaders

By Mary Cummings.

Harbor Springs Area Historical Society

Abraham Stutsman and the Homestead Act

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mong the many Civil War veterans who came to homestead in Emmet County in the 1870s was Abraham R. Stutsman. Through a collection of his letters, documents and photographs, we know that Abraham traveled to Emmet County and specifically Little Traverse (today’s Harbor Springs). Writing home to his wife Martha in Elkhart, Indiana in 1878, Abraham remarked, “Homesteaders are generally hard up, but they seem to be in good spirits.” Abraham was likely joining his brother John Stutsman who had already begun prospecting for land in Emmet County. The Stutsman brothers were the namesakes of today’s Stutsmanville.

Abraham was eligible under the 1862 Homestead Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, to lay claim to

a 160-acre parcel provided he meet the requirements: file an application, improve the property and file for the deed of title. Living on the land for five years was also a requirement although veterans of the Civil War could credit their service time toward the residency requirement.

Abraham began looking for land in May 1878 sending detailed letters back to Martha in Elkhart ...

Little Traverse, Mich. May 5, 1878 Dear Wife, I received your card a few days ago. Found me well. Was glad you and the children enjoy good health. I have had but little chance to look for land for the last two weeks as it has been raining nearly every day. I have several in mind however one a claim 160 acres and the other two deeded 40 and 80. Am going to Little Traverse tomorrow to see about them all.

There are new pieces coming in market every day. I have seen but very few pieces that I would care to buy to make a permanent

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In their own words home of. And I don’t intend to buy unless I get a good bargain. I can get 40 acres pretty cheap but I want more than that and here in the woods I can get 160 acre claim for $250 dollars but is rather too hilly to suit me. I may buy it yet.

Little Traverse, Michigan May 9, 1878 …I have concluded not to move or build on it untill [sic] I get my entry papers which probably 6 weeks but I shall plant potatoes and other stuff on it. There is about 1 ½ acres clear on it. The claim contains 160 acres situated 4 miles north on the state road 1 mile west making it five miles from Little Traverse and about 1 ½ miles from a schoolhouse and about 3 ½ miles from Johns. You will ask me why I don’t want to move on it right away. 1st there is no house on it 2nd I want to keep it a secret that the claim has changed hands or I might stand the chance to loose [sic] it if every body would find out that I bought it.

Someone might make it his business to beat me to the land office and get in a head of me or pay the clerk to let them have it.

Little Traverse, Michigan May 10, 1878 You will find it quite a change to move out here in the woods unless they have a charm for you, they don’t have one for me especialy [sic] if I have to clear up a farm. Perhaps I will think different when I go at it in ernest [sic].

Not long after Abraham’s first journey here, he sent for his family: wife Martha and children Bertha, Walter and Alta (known as Mimi). They settled on the piece of property in the woods that Abraham had described in his letter. By 1883, they had received their land patent from the federal government for their 160-acre homestead on today’s Wressel Road in Friendship Township. ▪ To learn more, visit the Harbor Springs History Museum to see the muzzleloader Stutsman used during his service. www.HarborSpringsHistory.org

Mary Denton gives a later viewpoint of Emmet County in a letter she sent to a friend.

This letter can be seen at the Little Traverse Historical Society’s Museum in Petoskey: Petoskey, Michigan, Oct. 30, 1882 Dear Friend Della I believe I have not written to you since I came to my new home. It is a year now since we came and it seems very much like home. There is said to be nearly two thousand inhabitants and the place is growing all the time.

We have a house and lot situated on a little rise of ground so that we have a view of the whole town and the bay and the county seat four miles across the bay. There is a natural harbor there and for that reason, the place is called “Harbor Springs.” I have never lived in so sightly a place before. It is just like looking at a beautiful landscape painting only more beautiful, of course, because it is real nature.

The town is full of tourists from about July until the last of September. Camp meetings are held here every year. It is nice to see the steamers on the Bay. There are several that come only once a week and four or five that are here everyday. Besides there is a little ferry steamer running back and forth from the Harbor to this place.

The railroad runs now through to the straits of Mackinac. We are about thirty miles south of the straits.

This past year the season has been just about the same as it has south only we had about a foot of snow while there was none in the south part of the state. It is said that corn hardly ever gets ripe here but that is the only thing that farmers usually raise that is a failure.

Winter wheat averages thirty five bushels to the acre and the nicest potatoes, turnips – in fact everything in the line of table sauce. Small fruit and apples, peaches we don’t know about because no one has trees old enough yet to bare.

It is only seven years since the town was first started. It was inhabited by a tribe of Indians called the Petoskeys and it is named after them. The old chief is still alive. He is about an hundred years old. Three of his sons are near neighbors to us [and] live in good houses furnished nice and they dress well for they are all rich. One of the sons is a merchant. Land can be bought here from two to two hundred dollars an acre. The price depends on the situation and amount of clearing. We have not bought a farm yet but intend to as soon as we can. Ed works at carpentry [and] gets two dollars a day.

We are building some on our own lot this fall.

We are having a beautiful fall – so warm and your little girls must be quite (?) now. Kiss them for me.

Have you given up coming west? And how are all your family? Have you heard from your father yet? I have not heard from mine in over two years but I must say I have a good husband. How I wish you and yours could make us a visit. We spent a month visiting his relatives this summer.

I have scribbled over considerable paper and not said much after all but I’ll try to do better next time.

Direct [response] to Mary Denton, Petoskey, Mich. Box 262

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lighting of the

LIGHTHOUSES

By Terry Pepper Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association

Photos courtesy of Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association

Little Traverse Light (see story, page 48) Left: Waugoshance Lighthouse

A Triple Run of Firsts for the Lakes

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s maritime commerce boomed throughout the Great Lakes, seven lighthouses would be built on the shores and in the waters of Emmet County between 1851 and 1937, creating one of the most architecturally diverse lighthouse collections to be found anywhere in the country. Beginning in this issue, we will learn why and how they were built, meet some of the dedicated keepers who called them home, and track their adaption in a modern world of thousand-foot freighters and computer-based navigation systems.

Protruding westward 5 miles into Lake Michigan, Waugoshance Point represented a significant impediment to mariners making their way between the Straits of Mackinac and southern Lake Michigan ports. With shallows extending 2 miles beyond its visible western extremity, the point served as the nemesis of many an early 19th century vessel whose captain failed to give the point sufficient berth as he negotiated the turn.

To warn mariners of the danger, the Great Lakes first lightship was placed off the point in 1832. A simple 72-foot wooden vessel with a lantern hoisted atop a pair of masts, she was frequently blown from her anchorage, battered by spring ice and grew increasingly expensive to maintain. The vessel was finally replaced by the first free-standing offshore lighthouse on the Great Lakes in 1851. As witness to the new Waugoshance lighthouse’s importance to navigation, the station’s lantern was outfitted with the first Fresnel lens used in any Great Lakes lighthouse.

Difficult to approach in all but the calmest seas, remotely located, cramped, with little privacy and perpetually damp, Waugoshance light station proved to be a difficult station for the Lighthouse

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Board to staff, with most keepers seeking transfer elsewhere soon after being assigned to the station. While the Lighthouse Board undertook numerous improvements at the station throughout the remainder of the 19th century, relief would not come for over 60 years, until the construction of a new light on White Shoal just 5 miles northwest in 1910.

With construction of the light at White Shoal, it quickly became evident that the new light marked the outside of the turning radius around Waugoshance Point just as effectively as the aging Waugoshance light marked the inside of the same turn. Perpetually driven to reduce operating expenses, the Lighthouse Service abandoned the 61 year-old Waugoshance light in 1912 and left the venerable structure to the ravages of weather and time.

Ile aux Galets, aka Skillagalee

The Three Towers

Lurking 8 ½ miles southwest of Waugoshance Point, a tiny island barely poked its gravelly head above Lake Michigan’s surface, with a location directly in the north-south passage connecting the Straits of Mackinac with Lake Michigan. It was named Ile aux Galets by early French Voyageurs, which aptly translates as “Island of Pebbles.” It is more commonly known to mariners, however, as “Skilligallee,” and the rocky hull-wrecker served as a final resting place for numerous vessels during the early 19th century.

Heeding calls of mariners to light the menace, a stone dwelling with a lantern centered on its roof 35 feet above the lake level was established on the island in 1851. Although the light was undoubtedly better than nothing, mariners quickly complained that its diminutive height was wholly inadequate, and begged for the erection of a taller tower more befitting such a dangerous location.

The Lighthouse Board made a number of attempts to obtain funding for a larger tower, though its pleas fell on deaf ears until March 1867, when Congress finally appropriated the $40,000 needed for a new station. Construction began later that year, and by the following spring a new 100-foot “Cream city” brick

tower and attached dwelling were completed on the island. With its foundation battered by waves which frequently inundated the island, protective walls were built around the structure to stem erosion. However, the lake proved a strong foe, and by the mid1880s the Lighthouse Board had no option but to carefully demolish the entire tower and reuse the best salvaged bricks to build a new tower on an improved foundation.

Work on this third tower began in 1887 and the new 58-foot octagonal tower was completed on October 15 of the following year. Manned by a crew of four keepers, the tiny island somehow supported the tower and dwelling, two fog signal buildings, a privy, an oil storage building, a boathouse and a large dock.

McGulpin Point Lighthouse

Life with 10 Kids on the Straits

Nowhere was the task of threading the needle through the Straits of Mackinac more daunting than in the narrows between Mackinaw City and the Upper Peninsula shore. Responding to requests for a lighthouse to guide the way, Congress appropriated $20,000 for its establishment in 1866. The Lighthouse Board obtained a 10-acre site atop a bluff on McGulpin Point, on the south shore at the narrowest 2-¼ mile width of the Straits, for its location. The lighthouse was built to a plan which would eventually be reused at nine locations on the western lakes. It consisted of a simple two-story brick house with a short 30-foot tower integrated into its northwestern corner. Work on the structure was begun in 1868 and the light shone from the new station’s lantern for the first time on the night of June 18, 1869.

While McGulpin Point Lighthouse would serve as both workplace and home to five keepers, it was James Davenport who became the keeper most closely associated with the station after serving as its keeper for a total of 27 years. Davenport willingly took a pay cut to transfer from Little Sable Point on Lake Michigan to McGulpin Point in 1879. Evidently, the lure of a single-keeper continued on next page

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lighthouse located so close to a village with a school, stores and church was lure enough for a man with a growing family of five children. Over the ensuing years, Davenport’s brood would climb to 10 children, and it is stunning to conceive of so many people crammed into this little lighthouse on the bluff.

With the construction of a new lighthouse on Old Mackinac Point two miles to the east in 1892, it became evident that it was unnecessary to shoulder the cost of two lighthouses which covered the same waters, and the decision was made to eliminate the McGulpin Point light station in 1906. Keeper Davenport was instructed to shine the station's light for the last time on the night of Dec. 15, 1906.

A Just Reward for a Remarkable Woman

Elizabeth Whitney was born on Mackinac Island in 1844 and moved with her family to St. Helena Island, Charlevoix, and then Beaver Island. At the tender age of 16, Elizabeth married schoolteacher Clement Van Riper, who changed careers in 1869 and accepted the position of keeper of the Beaver Island Harbor lighthouse. As was customary at such single-keeper stations, the young husband and wife shared lighthouse-keeping duties. However, Elizabeth's contribution was on a purely unofficial basis and without remuneration, for while female keepers were not unheard of on the lakes, their official appointment was relatively rare.

Elizabeth would become one of those rare exceptions under sad circumstances, however, as she was officially appointed keeper of the St. James lighthouse after she saw her husband drown in the lake in 1872 after he and a local captain went to the aid of storm-pounded vessel off Whiskey Point. In her later memoir, she noted that the storm raged for three more days. Although “weak with sorrow,” she was buoyed by the knowledge that there were other mariners “out on the dark and treacherous waters who needed to catch the rays of the shining light from my lighthousetower. Nothing could rouse me but that thought.”

Three years after Clement's tragic death, Elizabeth married Daniel Williams, who moved into the lighthouse with Elizabeth.

Together, the couple tended the light for the following nine years.

Elizabeth's prowess as a lighthouse keeper was evident when the District Lighthouse Inspector accepted her request for a transfer to serve as keeper of a new lighthouse under construction on Little Traverse Bay in 1884.

Located within the exclusive Harbor Point resort association and within walking distance of the flourishing community of Harbor Springs, the Little Traverse lighthouse was a premium assignment and an appointment for which any keeper would have given his eyeteeth.

During her winter downtime at the lighthouse, Elizabeth penned her famous autobiography, “A Child of the Sea & Life Among the Mormons,” a book which remains popular to this day. Elizabeth continued to serve as keeper at Little Traverse until her retirement in 1913, when after 43 years of faithful lighthouse service she and Daniel retired to Charlevoix. Daniel passed away on the morning of January 22, 1938, and Elizabeth followed him 12 hours later at the age of 94.

A Pagoda Comes to Petoskey

With clean air, grand vistas and a growing number of hotels, Petoskey grew into one of Northern Michigan’s preeminent resort spots in the latter part of the 19th century. With an increasing number of passenger vessels entering Little Traverse Bay to deposit vacationers seeking escape from the stifling industrialized population centers to the south, the creation of an adequate harbor to protect moored vessels became of high importance. The Army Corps of Engineers began work on a $55,000 breakwater to protect the waterfront in 1895. In accordance with federal statute, the Lighthouse Board was required to light all piers and breakwaters, and to this end a pair of lights were suspended from a 25 foot tall iron post on the outer end of the breakwater in July 1899.

The Engineers returned in 1907 and extended the breakwater an additional 400 feet and the lights were relocated to the structure’s new outer end. Considered insufficient for such an increasingly important harbor, the pole light was replaced with a white pyramidal steel structure in 1912. While the new tower was adapted from a plan previously used across Lake Michigan in Racine, Sheboygan, Milwaukee and Kenosha, the structure on the breakwater at Petoskey was the only example of the design used on the eastern shore of the lake. The lower part of the steel structure was octagonal in plan and featured sharply tapering sides to a height of 10 feet above the surface of the breakwater.

A slender octagonal tower rose from the center of this lower structure and was topped by a unique lantern capped by an onion-shaped dome. The striking appearance of the design led to their being nicknamed “pagoda lights.”

Lake Michigan’s Shining White Palace

White Shoal lay just beneath the water's surface in the freighter track between the Straits of Mackinac and the ore docks at Escanaba. After a number of vessels ran aground there, the Lighthouse Board placed a lightship on the shoal in October of 1891. Evidently lightship life was not to the liking of the first crew, as the crew ran their vessel to Cheboygan less than a month later.

All of the crew members except one man were fired and a new crew sent out to man the mooring through the end of the season.

In 1907, Congress finally appropriated the massive sum of $250,000 to build a lighthouse to mark the shoal -- and what a lighthouse it was to be. continued on next page

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▪ Place to Ponder

Construction began in St. Ignace in 1908 when huge 12-inch square timbers, shipped by train from the West Coast, were carefully crafted into a 72-foot square by 18 foot 6 inch high timber crib. The crib was then towed out to the shoal, where it was filled with 36,000 tons of crushed stone, sinking it slowly to the bottom.

With the upper end of the crib below the water’s surface, timber forms were erected on top of the crib and filled with successive pours of concrete which formed the enormous 72-foot wide 20-foot tall pier on which the lighthouse was to be erected. No expense was spared, the lighthouse was built to serve as a possible model for future lighthouse construction around the country. All outer surfaces of the tower were covered with shiny glazed white terracotta tiles, featuring Greek columns around the base and elegantly pedimented windows.

Atop this massive tower, the watch room, lantern and art deco inspired railings were all cast of aluminum, an exotic and expensive material at the time. Centered within the lantern 125 feet above the lake, a huge Second Order Fresnel lens, the largest size ever used on the Great Lakes, rotated on a virtually friction free bearing of liquid mercury allowing a clockwork mechanism lens to rotate the massive lens completely every 16 seconds, sending an intense 1,200,000 candlepower flash across the lake a distance of 20 miles every 8 seconds in clear weather. The nine decks within the tower featured hot and cold running water, modern plumbing, central heating and private bedrooms for each of the station’s four keepers.

Construction of this glistening white masterpiece took a full three years, with the keepers proudly exhibiting their new light for the first time on the night of September 1, 1910. ▪

McGulpin Point Lighthouse, 2 miles west of downtown Mackinaw City, is owned by Emmet County, open May-October, and is free to the public.

The offshore lighthouses can be seen in the far distance from Emmet County's western shoreline, and those still functioning can be seen flashing every night.

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a call to LATE 1800 preserve & conserve s

By Christine Steensma Oden State Fish Hatchery Visitors’ Center

Fish Hatchery among first efforts to stem the 'take it all' mentality

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ake what you can get” seemed to be the mindset of post Civil War homesteaders in Michigan. Land in Michigan was given to the war veterans for their service and the “free – take it” behavior spread from the taking of land to the taking of all types of plants and animals. Hunting and fishing were uncontrolled, as was logging and dam building. Swaths of Michigan’s natural environment were stripped bare of their native life, leaving the land open for invasive species and pollution.

Lumbering policies, such as clear-cutting, left unprotected soils to be eroded into waterways; denuded stream banks

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warmed the cold-water habitats; and floating logs deposited more sediment on the river bottoms – devastating fish habitat. Notable in the fish loss was the demise of Michigan’s grayling, a beautiful northern cold-water fish.

Fish weren’t the only casualty. Market-hunting drove the passenger pigeons to extinction while nearly doing the same for deer. These obvious abuses led to the first game laws in Michigan, laws that initially were unpopular and only enforced selectively against outcast groups, such as against Indians. Most hunting and harvesting went totally unregulated from the 1830s to the 1880s resulting in mas-

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Demise of the grayling creates a call for caution, and a new approach sive depletion of our natural neighbors.

Fish biologists, realizing that politics were ineffective in stopping over▪ Place to Ponder harvesting, created an alternative solution: Restore the populations by In 1913, the railcar the “Wolverine” was purchased biologically rearing the young. In 1873 Legislative Act No. 124 estabfrom the Pullman Company and rebuilt to transport lished the first “State Board of Fish Commissioners” with the duty of cans of fry. Fish mechanics were hired into the “artificial propagation and cultivation of whitefish and such other kinds prestigious but labor-intensive job to restock the of the better class of food-fishes …”

State's fish. This car has been restored and can be State employees were hired to help the fish with their reproductive life: viewed at the Michigan Fisheries Visitor Center and collecting eggs, fertilizing them and even rearing the young, called fry, interpretive complex on U.S. 31 in Oden - in season. that could then be released in the wild.

Hiking trails are open year-round and include the This work required a fish hatchery: a site with a water source, facilities famous underwater stream habitat viewing station. to house the developing fish, and transportation for the departing fish.

These hatcheries were often located near railroad lines because railroads were ideal to transport fish across long distances where they would be received at the final depot by a horse and cart to move the fish to the water’s edge.

The first Michigan state hatchery was constructed in 1873 in Cass County, southwest of Kalamazoo, and records indicated that 9 million whitefish fry were planted in 1876. In addition 12,000 brook trout fry were planted in Cass, Berrien and Kalamazoo counties the next spring.

From 1880 to 1890 the Fish Commission planted 67,000 rainbow fry in Michigan streams. Not only did the number of species supported increase, but the numbers of fry increased too. To distribute this increased production the Board acquired its own first rail car in 1888.

The original Oden State Fish Hatchery in Emmet County was established in 1921 and operated until 2002, when the new complex was completed as one of the most advanced fish culture facilities of its kind. This facility is the brown and rainbow trout brood stock station for the state of Michigan. (Brood stock are captive fish that are maintained for the easy acquisition of eggs and sperm.) Read more about the fish hatchery operations in the next issue of Essence of Emmet, which will cover the timeframe 1918 through 1960.

In summary … High and low patterns of human behavior mark our history, teaching us to celebrate our achievements or wonder where we went wrong. Once humans collectively do away with the “me” concept and embrace the “we” concept, a more nurturing attitude toward preserving our natural resources will develop. ▪

ry

ti

d

bi ts

Did you know...

that Emmet County had a literal 'Poor Farm?'

The Emmet County Poor Farm was 1.3 miles south of Brutus on the east side of the road from 1883-1918. The farm had housing for the poorest of the poor. The county bought the 80-acre property for $1,050 in 1883 from Patrick McCarty, the homesteader.

John Case was the first and long-time superintendent; he was the farmer who lived across the road. Sam Zuck had the job a couple of years, and Wm. Edgerton was the superintendent from about 1901 to 1918. The census reports of 1900 and 1910 show only three residents, mostly old men.

A newspaper of 1902 reported that Mrs. Shafer had wandered away from the farm and was missing for two weeks. Her death certificate states that she died in August of exposure. She had been at the farm for at least two years. In October of 1909, the electric lines were being run

is to H

Essence member Sandra Planisek contributed to this article

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from Pellston to Oden through the farm. A nine-year-old boy, Bernard Embree, who was at the farm because his mother had died and his father was in jail, touched an improperly maintained wire and was killed.

In 1918, the poor farm at Brutus closed and a new institution was built in Petoskey where the fairgrounds are today. This new place was much bigger. In June of 1919, the old farm was sold to Norman Bickford for $3,000. The burial ground at the old property was repurchased by the county in 1928 for $100. The eight graves were moved to Greenwood Cemetery in Petoskey in June of 1929. The bodies are unidentified. The old cemetery was in the right-of-way of the new state highway that was about to come through.

From Maurice Eby’s “The History of Brutus and Maple River Township,” published 2014

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Indians & Catholics

1815

Characters from our past

Emmet County's firsts leave

lasting legacies

Compiled by Beth Anne Eckerle, Emmet County

Dr. William Little: The first to be buried in his own cemetery

1840

Bear River & Treaty

(Nov. 18, 1842 – Nov. 19, 1875)

WAR

Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

√

A

lthough he lived in Petoskey only two short years, Dr. Little’s list of contributions to the area is impressive. He was the first postmaster of Petoskey, first physician, first to build and operate a hotel, first to open a drug store, first to organize a school board, first to print a newspaper, and even the first to be buried in the town’s first cemetery.

He and his brother, Robert, arrived in Petoskey on a steam tug in June 1873, looking for a place to establish a business. H.O. Rose, whom the brothers met aboard the tug, convinced them of the region’s potential for growth once the railroad was completed.

Known for his compassion, Dr. Little traveled wherever there was need, treating Indians, railway workers, or settlers as far north as Cross Village, often receiving no pay for his services. He even crossed Little Traverse Bay in the winter by horse. On his way to Cross Village to set the broken leg of an Indian boy, Dr. Little’s cutter got caught in ice, forcing him to trudge through slush and water to free it. He cared for the boy and returned home thoroughly soaked and chilled. Within a few days, Dr. Little suffered chest pains and decided to travel to Florida by train for some needed rest. He suffered a heart attack on the way and died in Grand Rapids.

Dr. Little was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. As supervisor of Bear Creek Township, he had purchased the property for the cemetery just weeks prior to his passing. He and his son, Willie (transferred from a burial site in Reed City, where he had died at age one) were the first to be buried in Greenwood Cemetery. ▪

Hiram O. Rose: ‘The Father of Petoskey’ had a pioneering spirit (Nov. 27, 1830 – Jan. 7, 1911)

Railroads & Resorters

1890

1915

WAR

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aptain Rose, as he was known to many, moved to Petoskey nearly 40 years before his death at the age of 80. The city’s best known and best loved man is often called “the father of Petoskey,” because of his varied enterprises, particularly with railroad construction, and his pioneer energy.

He moved to Petoskey in 1873 bought 200 acres of land, developing a limestone business and entering into a general mercantile which was known as Fox, Rose and Buttars.

He established the first dock in Petoskey, which was the foundation for the present dock. He built the impressive Arlington Hotel

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overlooking Little Traverse Bay (which since burned to the ground). Rose was Petoskey’s first village president. He is also credited with being the first person to plat the city. In his busy life, Rose was a farmer, a printer, a newspaper writer, a homesteader, a gold miner, a cordwood dealer, a dock owner, three times a storekeeper, a fur trader, a political figure, operator of an electric light plant, a cement magnate, a real estate operator, a ship owner, a railroad builder, ran a waterworks, was an Indian interpreter, a Mason, and a hotel owner.

He was also a patron of the arts, and built the Petoskey Grand Opera House. ▪ Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

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Characters from our past

Ephraim Shay: Inventor, patent-holder, engineer and more (1839-1916)

By Mary Cummings.

Harbor Springs Area Historical Society

A

lthough he is most widely known for his improved, geared locomotive, inventor Ephraim Shay left a broader legacy in Harbor Springs. When he arrived here in 1888 at the age of 49, Shay had already established himself as an inventor, patent holder, engineer, lumberman and businessman.

He lived out the remainder of this life in Harbor Springs with the zeal of an active young man.

Shay had perfected his locomotive in the late 1870s while in Haring, Michigan, just north of Cadillac. Seeking a more efficient and cost-effective method to bring logs to his sawmill on a yearround basis, Shay developed and patented a powerful gear-driven locomotive. Between 1880 and 1945, over 2,700 Shay locomotives were produced at Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, and shipped all over the United States and abroad.

His patented locomotive design had made him a wealthy man, but his Harbor Springs Railway (established in 1902) would have to wait. In his early Harbor Springs years, Shay dabbled first in other projects including designing his stamped-steel home, outfitting his machine shop and crafting a steel yacht. Shay’s 40-foot steam yacht was a curiosity on the water. The craft may have been christened the AHA when, against conventional wisdom, the steel boat floated.

What would prove to be his most lasting project, however, was the Harbor Springs Water Works. Recognizing both the numerous natural springs around town as well as the increasing demand for running water, Shay designed and built the water works and its 12 miles of water mains. As indicated by an original ledger housed in the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society collections, Shay began work on the reservoir and water works system in May 1889.

In a letter to the Harbor Springs Village Council dated December 15, 1909, Shay suggested the price of $40,000 for “our entire

Water Works System.”

He described the sys▪ Place to Ponder tem as “…all the water mains, fittings, valves, Shay Park, Downtown Harbor Springs hydrants, reservoirs, Southeast corner of Main and Judd St. artesian wells, Lots This site once served as headquarters 7-8-9, and one rod off of Shay’s inventiveness, housing both the east side of lot 10, his elaborate machine shop as well as Block 10, Lying north the reservoir and water works. When his of the G.R.&.I.Ry. Harbor Springs Railway was in full operaVillage of Harbor tion (1902-1912), his trains would also stop Springs, Mich. All here. Shay’s machine shop was torn down meters, meter tester, in the 1960s and the reservoir building, one and tools belonging to of the last above-ground remnants of the original water works, was razed in 2011. the above.”

Another proposition followed a month later, offering the sale of the water works for $30,000 which excluded the land mentioned above (today’s Shay Park at the corner of Main and Judd streets). Letters and proposals continued for nearly a year when on November 25, 1910, Shay suggested to the village’s citizens committee chair W. J. Clarke that he would sell the water works system for $22,000, a deal that was sealed within a month of his last proposal.

Today, the former home of Shay’s original water works and machine shop is now a city-owned green space at Main, Judd and Bay streets. The original reservoir is gone but the city’s 1910 water works building on Zoll Street now functions as the city council chambers. ▪ Photos: Shay; his locomotive company; and the Hemlock Central, whose business was transporting logs from the northern lumber camps, but its pleasure was offering 25-cent country excursions to residents and resorters. This excursion train readied for departure on Bay Street in front of Shay’s home. Designed by Shay circa 1890, the Hexagon House was outfitted inside and out with stamped steel.

Photos courtesy Harbor Springs Area Historical Society

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the Emmet County Odawas, Part II

CHANGE, CONFLICT &

perseverance Historical analysis

By Eric Hemenway, LTBB Odawa Archives and Records

T

Photo courtesy of the Monroe Historical Society

he fast and sweeping changes during the latter half of the 19th century for the Odawa at Waganakising left many reeling. Many Odawa still did not speak English as a primary language during this time, thus making the ongoing land situation that much more difficult to comprehend and to organize any opposition. Traditional methods of subsistence were somewhat intact for many Odawa families, such as berry picking, fishing, hunting and planting the traditional crops of corn, beans and squash. As land was available, Odawa utilized it for subsistence, as they had done for centuries prior. While this benefited the Odawa for food, it created a loophole for them to lose their land under the American system of "abandoned lands." While out gathering, their lands could be labeled “abandoned� and thus lost through additional taxation. And further, the taxation rates for abandoned lands were twice the amount for the Odawa as for white settlers. There is much more to this story, as you will read here...

To ask a nation of people to change a way of life that had been ingrained into their communities for millennia, in a few decades, is nearly impossible. But the Odawa did the best that they could as they entered the late 1800s and early 1900s.

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Photo courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

The story of this stage in the Odawa history requires a quick look back first, to when Indian Agents George Manypenny and Henry Gilbert worked with the Little Traverse Odawa on the terms of a new treaty; the Detroit Treaty of 1855. This treaty finally removed the threat of removal for the Odawa of northern Michigan, but the allotment of lands under the treaty would be problematic.

The Interior department thought the “civilization� of Indians could be achieved if the Indians were given their own acreage and had the responsibility of managing it. Eightyacre parcels were selected by heads of families and a certificate was supposed to be issued. After six years, a patent was to be issued to the individual who made the selection valid. These stipulations included that the lands were to not be part of the public domain, since they were selections within a reservation. The time period from when a certificate was issued and an actual patent given, the lands were to be tax exempt from the state.

However, the allotment process became a mess, with intentional and unintentional mishaps on behalf of the federal and state governments. Unethical federal land office officials, timber speculators, settlers and loan sharks were known to take advantage of the Odawas during this time.

Furthermore, delays in issuing certificates and actual patents to the Odawa became a massive problem. Originally, the land selections for the Little Traverse Odawa were to be substantiated in 1861, but the date got pushed back to 1864. As the Civil war raged on, the Odawa realized they committed a major mistake in their 1855 treaty: They did not reserve lands for future heads of families.

Seeing this, and other issues, as major problems, the Odawa pressed for a new treaty. In 1866, chiefs from the entire area of Little Traverse wrote to the President, requesting a new treaty to protect their lands. But no treaty was to be made. By 1870, the federal government had decided that a new treaty with the Little Traverse was unnecessary and it had met all its obligations to the Waganakising Odawa. The Odawa would contest that point until the late 20th century.

Land continues to be the major focal point

Without a stronger treaty in place, lands were being removed from the tribe. Timber was becoming a lucrative natural resource and many Anishnaabek found themselves caught in complicated swindles and legal scenarios regarding their lands. In the early 1800s, the Odawa were not recognized

as U.S. Citizens, but they could become Michigan citizens by the 1850s. This lack of national citizenship hindered some Odawa when they brought cases to local courts involving their lands that were questionably obtained by non-Native individuals. Cases that involved Odawa lands being lost included failure to pay back taxes, abandoned land stipulations or outright squatting on Odawa lands. Taxes were another sticking point; some Odawa argued that their lands were exempt from taxation due to treaty agreements.

Some Federal officials were of little to no help in sorting through the quagmire of issues. In fact, many would approve the sale of Odawa lands to non-natives. American homesteaders often picked lands already chosen by an Odawa, but the American homesteads trumped those of Odawa claims in court. The Grand Traverse land patent office (which oversaw Emmet County) was so wrought with corruption that a special investigation was made in 1887, a time during which land selections were being made to Odawa who had already died. Schemes involving loans became common; land was used as collateral and if the loan defaulted, the land was taken.

Odawas take action

The Odawa at Little Traverse took action to combat lands being lost and took additional measures to remain in their home region. They pooled their monies together (many times from annuity payments from previous treaties) and bought what lands they could. In some cases, they would entrust all of their selections to a few chiefs and leaders of the Odawa community.

One such leader was Chief Nissaquat from Little Traverse.

Other Odawa families bought lands, paid taxes and worked locally. More and more children were making the transition to western education, which was primarily done at the local continued on next page

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in their ancestral homelands: An indigenous community is literally burned out of their homes, yet they do not give up.

Odawa villages remain

Photograph from the Burt Lake Burnout in 1900.

mission school at Harbor Springs, but also at small, rural school houses throughout Emmet County.

Odawa farms became common sights at Cross Village and Middle Village (Good Hart). Logging provided immediate work, but it must have been painful for Odawa men to see a natural habitat being forever altered. Their forest homelands became fields. The lands of their ancestors were becoming unrecognizable. Many families came to rely on the Great Lakes, as their ancestors did, for fish, which fed their families but which they also sold and traded for goods. Odawa men worked on fishing boats as well. Despite all of these efforts, the Odawa were still in the eye of the storm regarding land conflicts. Some acquisitions would become infamous.

Burt Lake Burnout: A local atrocity

The most brutal land grab occurred at the Odawa community at Burt Lake in 1900. A land speculator by the name of John McGinn claimed Odawa lands by way of back taxes. The Burt Lake Odawas, however, argued their lands were exempt from taxes due to treaty agreements and were not to be taken.

But their arguments fell on deaf ears.

McGinn, with the local sheriff, went to the Odawa settlement while the men were away at work. All the Odawa women, children and elders were forced out of their homes.

These Odawa watched as McGinn and his posse poured kerosene on their log homes and set them ablaze. The Odawa of Burt Lake gathered what belongings they had managed to rescue and made the 30-mile trek to family in Cross Village and Middle Village. This atrocity occurred in November, as winter was settling in. John McGinn never saw a day in court nor did the sheriff.

The Burt Lake event is an important part of the Odawa history in Northern Michigan. This case epitomizes the extremes from both the Odawa and white settler perspectives. Some of the families would eventually return to Burt Lake,while others dispersed to their families' homes in Emmet County. It's a testament to the desire of the Odawa to stay

The Odawa managed to maintain communities and steady populations at their traditional villages throughout the 19th century. Settlements at Cross Village, Petoskey, Middle Village and Harbor Springs maintained over 1,000 Odawa living there throughout the entire century.

Beaver, High and Garden Islands had communities as well, with churches and schools built on those islands.

By the end of the 19th century, only Beaver Island would have a substantial population, even though Odawa fishermen and their families continued to live on the other islands into the 1900s. The only other Odawa community in the Great Lakes that had the same population as Little Traverse was Manitoulin Island, which Assiginack and Moomkanish from Little Traverse helped to establish in the 1830s.

The Odawa continued to solidify their place in United States history in other ways. For instance, Odawa from Emmet County would contribute in the Union’s efforts during the Civil War, helping to form the largest, all-Indian regiment in the Union army east of the Mississippi River. (See article, page 25.) While Company K fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the war yet back at home, their Odawa communities were fighting their own battles. Mini land rushes were occuring in 1875 and the Odawa, within a matter of a few days, became the minority in their homelands: “The Homestead Excitement- This northern region has never been rocked by greater excitement than that which followed the announcement last week that the Indians lands would be open for settlement on the 15th of this month. During the first two days of this week, the woods around Petoskey and Charlevoix were filled with homestead seekers-in many cases dozen and even a greater number, claiming one description of land.

Tuesday and Wednesday the pilgrimage to the Land Office commenced and both towns vomited forth all the transient sojourners and a few more.

In Charlevoix county many of our citizens have mad selections and are now in Traverse City making entry. Telegraphic dispatchers from Traverse City on Thursday stated that the wildest excitement prevailed in the vicinity of the Land Office. At an early hour the walk yard and steps of the building were thronged with anxious homesteaders; and, indeed the crowd was so great that none were admitted to the interior of the building but were forced to do business through the windows. The entries were made by counties, and Emmet county was taken up first. On Thursday afternoon they were engaged upon Charlevoix county; and as learned this the storm commenced and the wires have not worked since. We will give further particulars next week.�

Charlevoix Sentinel April 17, 1875

The latter half of the 1800s became a dark period for the Odawa, one that tested their perseverance. Resources and land were being separated from the tribe, and so was their

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An Odawa family from the early 1900s (left) and Odawa boys work in the carpenter shop of the Holy Childhood Boarding School.

connection to their sacred dead. In a newspaper article from October 25, 1898, chilling details are given on where to go to dig up into Odawa graves to find “relics” and “artifacts” in Cross Village. The title of the article “Rifling Indian Graves for Ancient Silver Crosses -White Settlers at Little Traverse Bay Crazy for Relics That Were Buried with Dead and Gone Ottawa Chiefs-Hundreds of Braves Routed from their Long Sleep and Denuded of their Ornaments” tells a sad story of disregard and disrespect.

Just 50 years prior, in Augustin Hamlin Jr.’s impassioned letter to Lewis Cass, he explains the importance of the dead to the Odawa and how they will not leave them. The Odawa did not willingly leave their ancestors, but they were often powerless in protecting their dead. (It would not be until 1990, under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that native burials would have some measure of protection and ancestral remains would be returned to the tribes. In the 1870s and '80s, no such protection was offered.)

Transitioning to the 20th Century

Despite all the changes occurring within the Odawa communities in Emmet County, they maintained a presence and sustained a steady population in their homelands. The booming resort community of the 1880s was in stark contrast to the Odawa experience of that time. Men and women would work for this new resort industry in Emmet County as carpenters, nannies, cooks and caretakers. Economic relief would be offset with the production and sale of art, such as quilboxes, black ash baskets and birch bark canoes.

Families relied on personal farms for food and men still hunted and fished, although their practices would change, as now they had to obtain licenses and lands were restricted.

Many Odawa men were fined when caught hunting and fishing without a license. Odawa fishermen contested their right to fish in the lakes, as their ancestors did, to feed their families. The transition into American society was still difficult

at the end of the 1800s and fishing would become a political rallying point for the tribe in the 20th century.

The transition into American society was very evident by the end of the 19th century. Gone were the scalp lock hair styles, tattoos, piercings and clothing made out of buckskin.

The Odawa lived in log cabins or simple plank homes. Many attended church on a regular basis.

But beneath the veneer of American assimilation, the Odawa retained many of their traditions. Anishnaabemowin was still being spoken in homes. Traditions and customs were being practiced in secret. The annual ghost suppers were still being held in Odawa homes. Beautiful art was being produced, using traditional knowledge and resources. As the world changed around them, the Odawa adapted but retained much of their core identity.

The Odawa also never stopped fighting for their treaty rights during the late 1800s. Even with the 1855 treaty agreed upon, stipulations regarding lands were never fully fulfilled. In addition, monies were still owed to the tribe from that 1855 treaty. Odawa leaders from Waganakising such as Simon Keshigobenese, John Miscogeon and John Kewaygeshick helped organize a lawsuit against the United States for monies owed from that treaty. The Odawa won their suit and were awarded $131,000, a modest sum but just as important as the money, it made the government take notice of the Odawa and their rights.

Another very important development was born out of this case, which was a census of all the Odawa who were entitled to money. This became a large undertaking. The official in charge, Charles McNichols, found thousands of Odawa and Ojibway living in Northern Michigan. The task of creating this list was inherited by Horace Durant, who completed the list in 1909. This list, known as the Durant roll, is one of the key pieces of information for LTBB Odawa membership enrollment today. ▪

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Disease strikes A smallpox victim from the late 1800s

By Sandra Planisek, Emmet County Historical Commission

Death age comparison

1875 2013 Total deaths published 45 954 Deaths with age listed 30 913 Adults 10 907 Children (age 1-14) 12 2 Babies (under age 1) 8 4 Average age of adults 42.3 77.3 Oldest age at time of death 80 106 In the chart are comparisons taken from Greenwood Cemetery records in 1875 and those of 2013. Not all of the obituaries include an age at death and most of these are assumed to be adults. Even if all of the deaths in 1875 in which the age was not noted were adults the following chart shows that 25 adults died and 20 children (age 14 or under) died.

Mackinaw City Pest House a quarantine facility

D

isease was an ominous, evil force around 1900. Control and treatment were poorly understood. Isolation worked best.

Contagious victims were removed to the dreaded place of disease, the pest house, located in a remote corner of town away from healthy family and friends.

The term “pest house” derives from the word pestilence, or disease. Contagious diseases such as smallpox, scarlet fever, cholera, or influenza could spread quickly and with deadly force once introduced to the community. Maritime communities such as Mackinaw City, Petoskey, or Harbor Springs were very vulnerable. Disease outbreaks in distant ports could unexpectedly arrive with any inbound boat. How was a community to protect its healthy citizens from its unhealthy ones? (A question we are re-visiting today with airplane transport.) Isolation, quarantine - transport the ill to the remote pest house! ▪

▪ Place to Ponder

Mackinaw City’s pest house, in Heritage Village on W. Central Ave., is probably the last remaining pest house in Michigan. It is a modest building that was originally located on the northeast corner of the cemetery, a convenient location for too many of its residents. You can visit the pest house at Heritage Village at 1425 W. Central Ave., Mackinaw City. www.MackinawHistory.org

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costumed reenactors

THE FUTURE ARRIVES As the 20th century presented itself, the people of Emmet County were offered better professional and social services. Medical treatment was available as well as professionally designed homes. The weakening economy forced creativity and the new trend of using our history to earn a living began.

Dr. O'Brien:

Remembered for his care of the gravely ill Hon. Edward James O'Brien, M. D. "There can be no error in the statement that Dr. Edward James O'Brien, mayor of Pellston, is one of the most stirring and dominant factors in the life of Emmet County.

As a physician he has gained much more than a local reputation for his researches and investigations; his record as a public-spirited citizen, ready at all times to contribute to the community's welfare regardless of his own interests, even to a point where his life has been endangered, is an admirable one; as a public official he has always had a high regard for his fellow-citizens rights and privileges, and as a man who has worked his own way up the ladder of success from the bottommost round, his career is one that should prove encouraging to aspiring youth. …

After leaving college in 1910, Doctor O’Brien assisted Doctor Beaver, of Mancelona, for a time, and then came to Pellston and opened an office and engaged in practice. Thirty days after his arrival Pellston was visited by a smallpox epidemic, and the Doctor was prevailed upon to accept the position of health officer, in which capacity he fought so fearlessly and capably that the disease was stamped out. He was elected mayor of the village of Pellston in May 1913…

When Pellston was practically isolated from the world because of an epidemic of smallpox, the villagers made Dr. Edward J. O'Brien president of the town. That's where he got the title 'Mayor of Pellston' as he is known from the 'sun kissed shores of Superior to the sin cussed shores of the metropolis, as Fred Wetmore once remarked down at Lansing. President O'Brien immediately turned his attention to the sanitary condition of the town and hasn't been idle since. That is the reason why, when members of the state board of health made an investigation, instead of finding fault with the village officials, they turned out words of commendation. Doctor O'Brien could stand on the beach of the Atlantic and still be six feet above the sea level; he is thirty-five years old, of exemplary habits, physically sound and an advocate of eugenics. Although he sees no evil in the tango or the maxixe (a tango-like dance popular in the early 1900s), he is still single. His reputation as a physician and surgeon is more than local and he is a success in his profession.” ▪ pg. 1674 History of Michigan Vol 3 by Charles Moore 1915

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1815

Indians & Catholics

Roaring Brook Inn

Bear River & Treaty

1840

WAR

Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

1890

Railroads & Resorters

√

1915

WAR

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Earl Mead

Lansing architect moves north for work and wellness

By Mary Cummings.

Harbor Springs Area Historical Society

J

ust as the arrival of the railroad, the land rush of 1875, and the development of resort communities significantly impacted Emmet County in this century of contrasts, so would the arrival of Lansing-born architect Earl Humphrey Mead.

Born in Lansing on January 12, 1871, Earl was the eldest child of Charles and Hattie (Humphrey) Mead. Earl’s father was an artist, photographer and an entrepreneurial type who dabbled in businesses ranging from dry goods to real estate, moving vans to patent medicine. Charles Mead’s sketches and photographs of Lansing in the 1870s showed a keen eye for the architecture around him—perhaps a trait he passed on to his son Earl.

Earl Mead studied mechanical drawing and engineering at Michigan Agricultural College in Lansing. He started his family in 1892 with his marriage to Lansing native Lela Julia Garlick. In the two years that followed, the Meads welcomed daughters Jean Louise (in 1893) and Lela Julia (in 1894). At the same time, Earl was embarking on an architecture career which began in 1892 as an apprentice to Edwin A. Bowd, a noted Lansing architect. Within a year, he had begun his own practice and later partnered with Thomas E. White in

their firm Mead & White.

Together Mead and White designed residences, summer cottages and resort buildings from their Lansing office.

The various resort communities, some founded as early as 1878, had been established by wealthy Midwestern families seeking relief from oppressive city summers. Railroad lines funneled families from Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and Chicago to the clean air and clean water of the Little Traverse Bay area. As the resorts grew, so did the firm’s business, and Mead & White prospered to the extent that they opened a branch office. By the turn of the 20th century, drawings prepared by the architects read “Mead & White Architects, Lansing and Harbor Springs, Mich.”

Earl’s professional connection to Harbor Springs was established in the early work done for prominent Lansing businessmen such as Henry Pattengill, one of the founders of Roaring Brook in Harbor Springs. Mead had designed Pattengill’s Lansing home as well as his main cottage and guest cottage in the Harbor Springs resort. One of Mead and White’s first commissions in northern Michigan was the Roaring Brook Inn. The good reputation of Earl’s work spread by word of mouth throughout the resorts, and while this business opportunity would have been a likely reason to move his fam-

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“Mead designed houses that worked for summer vacation life. In exterior appearance his early designs are of four types: rambling, hip-roofed; gable roofed; half-timber; and bungalow. He varied the model to suite the need, fancy, and means of the owner. Mead’s work related to the “Prairie School” because it represents a Midwestern attempt at developing an early modern style in the decades preceding World War I.”

ily to Harbor Springs, his family may have come first. Family recollections indicate that the health of eldest daughter Jean, who had rheumatic fever, brought the entire Mead family to Harbor Springs. In a July 1895 diary entry, Earl’s brotherin-law Ralph Garlick wrote “Jean getting along fine up north” and the following month added “Earl goes up north in evening to see about that club house and some cottages to remodel.” The family likely moved north ahead of Earl for Jean’s health while Earl continued to live in Lansing and prospect for additional work in Harbor Springs.

As history tells us, there was no shortage of work for Earl Mead in Harbor Springs. On an application to practice architecture filed with the state, Earl indicated that he had fully established his practice in Harbor Springs by 1899. By 1902, the firm of Mead & White had been dissolved and Earl continued to design using his name. Although he may have briefly occupied an office in the building he designed for Joseph Stein on the southwest corner of State and Main, Earl practiced from an office on the second floor of the “Clarke Block,” the three-story bank building at Spring and Main

Kathryn Bishop Eckert Midwestern Resort Architecture: Earl H. Mead in Harbor Springs Michigan History Magazine, Jan/Feb 1979

streets.

Not only did Earl continue to draft plans for fantastic resort cottages, but he also established himself as a designer of commercial buildings, churches and schools. During the 1900s and 1910s, he designed a number of commercial and public buildings in and around Harbor Springs including the Harbor Springs Christian Association Library, the Erwin building, the former Cassidy Hardware building, the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, the high school and the shelter for the memorial fountain at Zorn Park. Earl’s work was not limited to Harbor Springs, he also designed cottages in Bay View and the Petoskey-Bay View Country Club.

Outside of his work life, Earl Mead was remembered by his family as a wonderful grandfather and an outdoorsman.

Earl’s grandson, the late Edward M. Burt, recalled in a 1989 letter that Earl would often take him and his sister Betty hiking and camping outside of Harbor Springs. Earl was also active in the community, singing tenor solos in the Presbyterian Church where his wife Lela was the organist. ▪

From Candlelight to Electric Light: Petoskey makes the transition

By Mary Stewart Adams, Headlands

In 1882 Thomas Edison flipped the switch at his Pearl Street Station to distribute electric light to 59 customers in lower Manhattan for the first time ever. Not long after, Petoskey pioneer businessman H.O. Rose erected a small building to be used for an electric light plant on the dam just south of the Mitchell Street Bridge. Four years later, on March 5, 1886, electric lights were turned on - and the era of the gaslights vanished like the setting sun.

In May 1893, the Petoskey Village Council authorized electric lights, and so continued the placement of light poles through

the neighborhoods and along the roadways, illuminating routes and connecting communities. By the early 1900s, electric lights and power had reached all the way up to Mackinac Island.

A perhaps unanticipated side effect began to occur, however, as the world lit up: The most beautiful view of the night sky afforded by life along the rugged shore of Upper Lake Michigan was increasingly diminished. Who knew that artificial electric light would change lifestyles so dramatically, and alter the environment so completely?

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Indians & Catholics

1815

Bear River & Treaty

1840

The Hiawatha Pageant Historic Reenactments Begin

The “Indian Hiawatha” Performances at Petoskey

WAR

Homesteaders & Habitat

1865

Railroads & Resorters

1890

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1915

WAR

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By Dr. Adriana Greci Green National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Photos courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

In 1905, a dramatization of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha (published in 1855) made its debut in Petoskey.

Originally created by Louis O. Armstrong with a cast of Ojibwa actors drawn from the community at Garden River, Ontario, the play had already had a successful run the previous four summers as the prime entertainment for cottagers vacationing in the Sault Ste. Marie area.

Because the story was loosely based on Ojibwa myths and stories recorded by Henry R. Schoolcraft in Algic Researches (1839), the natural outdoor setting in the heart of the lands where Longfellow’s fictional Hiawatha lived, loved and toiled imbued the performance with an appealing romantic sense of authenticity. Indeed, the 1900 inaugural show was enjoyed by none other than the poet’s daughter, Alice Longfellow.

Hoping to similarly draw more tourists to the Little Traverse Bay resort area, officials at the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway brought this production of Hiawatha to Petoskey, with its original Ojibwa cast.

It was marketed as the only original Indian pageant in the country. The play was an immediate success and continued to run every summer well into the next decade, with two shows daily during July and August.

The performances took place at a small lagoon on Round Lake, which was given the name Wayagamug and was accessible from the Petoskey main station by dummy train (the track lines are still visible along Hiawatha Trail). Tipi-like

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dwellings and a stage meant to represent an Ojibwa village were constructed amongst the birch trees on the far side of the pond, across from the audience seated on the bleachers of a long, two-level rustic building. As a narrator stood up and recited the poem in a loud voice (a libretto, or script, was available for 25 cents), the performers acted out the scenes with choreographed physical gestures and dramatic action. Several episodes in the story, such as the wedding feast between Minnehaha and Hiawatha, featured Ojibwa songs, music and dances. Whenever Hiawatha set out on a journey, he paddled around the pond in a birchbark canoe.

Perhaps the most breathtaking scene was the “death leap” of the evil Pawpukkeewis, who, surrounded atop a cliff (a tall, fake rock was specially constructed) would jump off and into the water. The closing scene was of Hiawatha standing in his canoe and paddling away in the sunset.

Eventually the cast for the play in Petoskey was drawn from the local Odawa community, and Wayagamug was developed into a complete entertainment beach venue with swimming, playgrounds, canoe rides, water sports, pony rides and other entertainment such as lectures and moving pictures. Tents furnished with chairs and cots were available for rent by the day or by the week. A building referred to as the Indian Workshop included a restroom, a tea room (decorated with Indian designs), a library, and a row of stalls where Anishinaabe artists made and sold baskets, quill boxes, pottery and rustic furniture. Upstairs, in the studio of photographer Grace Chandler, visitors could buy pictures and postcards of the play as a memento of their experience.

The Hiawatha play was performed at Wayagamug until at least 1915, although a new and different production was staged in Petoskey during the 1950s. ▪

Grace Chandler: Hiawatha photographer

Grace Chandler (1879-1967) was one of Michigan’s first women to make a career as professional photographer.

As an artist she engaged in the Pictorialist style, recognizable mostly in her landscapes and portraits, which display the soft focus, painterly composition, rich tonality and experimentation with hand-coloring characteristic of the form. By 1907 she and her first husband had moved their photography business from Battle Creek to Petoskey; her married surname appears on her prints until their divorce in 1915. The images Grace took of the Hiawatha performances at Wayagamug, where she operated a satellite studio in the summer months, were published as illustrations in the 1911 Rand McNally deluxe Players Edition of The Song of Hiawatha.

Not long after her second marriage ended in 1922 she moved her studio to California. For reasons yet unknown, in 1928 she was committed to a mental institution, where she spent the rest of her life. Her lasting legacy includes immortalizing, with artistic elegance, many of the Ojibwa and Odawa Hiawatha actors from the local community.

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How did Emmet County t get their new names?

I

By Beth Anne Eckerle ▪ Emmet County

n Northern Michigan’s earliest years, before there were named towns and villages and cities, places throughout Emmet County were fanciful-sounding, multi-syllable descriptions bestowed by the Native Americans that were often literal translations of what they were seeing. Harbor Point was known as “Sing Gog,” or “Beautiful point.” “Ahpitahwaing” meant “In the middle,” and so became the Native reference for Middle Village. The name “Weekwitonsing” meant “Little Bay place,” and Petoskey hearkened a beautiful connotation when it was known as “Betasiga” or “Light coming at you.”

Those names became more anglicized, like so many things did in Northwest Michigan, with the arrival of settlers and explorers who discovered this region and made it their home, too, during the mid-to-late 1800s. Many of those descriptive, flowing, expressive handles disappeared into names that adopted an English dialect; Betasiga morphed to Petoskey; Kiogamic lost a syllable to become Kegomic; and “Ahnumawatikomeg,” likely a mouthful to the newcomers, became easier to reference as “Cross Village.”

Other places, as they were discovered and settled, took on the names of those who were instrumental in their development: Land barons, railroad executives, hoteliers and restaurateurs. Here’s a look at how some of Emmet County’s communities got their names during the late 1800s to early 1900s:

1 → Alanson: Alanson was first named Hinman after its settlement in 1875, for unclear reasons.

The name was changed to Alanson on June 22, 1882; it was named for Alanson Cook, an official of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad which first came through here. It was incorporated as a village in 1905.

2 → Bay View: This community in Petoskey was founded by a group of Methodists as the Bay View Association in 1875 for religious purposes.

Lectures and music began in 1886 and the community developed from it. It was clearly named for its view of Little Traverse Bay! 3 → Brutus: As a stage coach stop in Maple River Township, Abner S. Lee built an inn, the Brutus House, in 1874. The village soon developed in the years ahead and adopted the name Brutus after the inn, its first structure.

4 → Carp Lake: The village was founded by

Octave Terrian and was given a station on the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad and a post office on Jan. 27, 1880. It was named for the kind of fish still abounding in nearby Carp Lake, though, with a marketing update, the community is now known as the more aesthetically pleasing, Paradise Lake.

5 → Conway: Conway was originally named Crooked Lake. In 1878, W.E. Dodge, founder of the Phelps Dodge Copper Co., took an interest in the Conway area and bough a large tract of land.

He donated acreage for a school and a church. In 1881 the name of the community was renamed to Dodges Landing. In 1882, his son Conway died at age 11 and Mr. Dodge asked that the town be renamed Conway in his honor.

6 → Cross Village: Early historical accounts

indicate that Father Jacques Marquette, the famous French Jesuit, planted a huge white cross on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan here before his death in 1675. (Today, a replica of this cross stands on the bluff.) In 1855, Emmet County was reorganized and four new townships were created by the State, including “La Croix,” which was officially renamed to Cross Village in 1875.

7 → Good Hart: An unincorporated community along M-119 north of Harbor Springs, Good Hart was a center of Ojibwe settlement under the leadership of Joseph Black Hawk and his brother, Good Heart, in the early 19th century. It was named after Black Hawk’s brother.

8 → Harbor Springs: In 1847, L’Arbre Croche

had the largest concentration of Native Americans in the state and included an area reaching north

from today’s Harbor Springs along the shore to Cross Village. At that time, the area was called L’Arbre Croche, which means Crooked Tree.

Later, French traders arrived and renamed the village Petit Traverse, or Little Traverse, a name it held until it was incorporated as Harbor Springs in 1881. Harbor Springs drew its new name from the deep, natural harbor and the abundant springs that bubble up around this area.

9 → Larks Lake: The first settlers here, Nicholas and Peter Goldsmith, John Gales and Nicholas Dusseldorf, came here around 1890 and called it Round Lake. However, due to the super fluidity of Round Lakes, it was renamed Larks Lake in 1900 for Alexander Lark, a pioneer landowner here; he became the first postmaster here also.

10 → Levering: This village was founded in 1882 as a waystation on the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad and first named Leverington after Joshua Levering; the name was shortened to Levering and it was given a post office on Feb. 15, 1883. The significance of Joshua Levering is unclear.

11 → Mackinaw City: Believing the shape of Mackinac Island resembled a turtle, the Native Americans in the region named it “Mitchimakinak,” meaning “Big turtle.” That name was even-

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y towns

•11

tually given to the entire Straits of Mackinac region. By the 1820s, it was shortened to Mackinac. The founders of Mackinaw City opted for the phonetic "aw" spelling, probably as a way to distinguish their town from Mackinac Island for confused postal carriers.

Today Mackinaw City retains the "aw" spelling while the Bridge, the Straits and the Island steadfastly cling to the "ac" spelling. (No matter how it is spelled, however, it is always pronounced Mackinaw.)

•4

after William Oden Hughart, who was president of the Grand Rapids& Indiana Railroad from 1874-1894. Oden was considered a resort center at that time. In 1882, Oden became an official stop on the GR&I Railroad.

Around 1895, there were grocery stores and a main street and the Post Office was known as the Oden Casino – it had slot machines, an ice cream parlor and an upstairs dance hall, which doubled as a roller skating rink.

13 → Petoskey: According to legend, Petosegay was the son of a descendant of French nobleman and fur trader, Antoine Carre and an Ottawa princess. Petosegay, meaning "rising sun,” "rays of dawn," or "sunbeams of promise,” was named after the rays of sun that fell upon his newborn face. In keeping with his promising name, Petosegay was a wealthy fur trader who gained much land and acclaim for himself and his tribe. He was described as having a striking and appealing appearance, and spoke English very well. He married another Ottawa, and together they had two daughters and eight sons. In the summer of 1873, a few years before the chief's passing, a city began on his land along Little Traverse Bay. The settlers christened the newborn city Petoskey.

14 → Pellston: Pellston was named after William Pells, a native of Poughkeepsie, New York, who began buying up land in Northern Michigan in 1875. Up until 1885, Pells purchased more than 27,000 acres of timberlands in both Emmet and Cheboygan counties. He platted the village of Pellston – named for him by land agent Warren B. Stimpson – in 1882.

15 → Ponshewaing: Some say Ponshewaing means "Peaceful Waters;” others say it means "Winter Home.” The two earliest settlers were the Rufus Myers and Novacious

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•10

•6

12 → Oden: Oden may have been named

•9 •16

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•14

•3 •1

•8

•12 •15 •5 •13

•2

Map courtesy of Little Traverse History Museum

Kellam families from Alanson. By 1900, so many fishermen were stopping here and asking for meals and rooms that the Kellams decided to enlarge their home and turn it into a hotel. Mr. Kellam wanted to name the hotel "The New Klondike" after the Alaskan Gold Rush that was happening at the time. An old Indian told him that there was once an Indian Village on the spot of the hotel named "Pon-

She-Waing,” or "Winter Home.”

16 → Van: The village was first named Egleston after its township. It was given a post office on March 15, 1898, with Albert E. Van Every as its first postmaster. The Van Every brothers were local lumbermen and the village was renamed Van in that same year. ▪

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Looking ahead …

The Odawa perspective The 19th century had the Odawa living in their indigenous homelands but paying a heavy price to do so. Intense assimilation, compromise and restructuring of family, political and social structures were needed to stay home and were felt by every family and individual Odawa in Emmet County.

National policies to remove, “civilize” and bring native people into American society were inescapable. The Odawa avoided removal early in the 19th century, by having good leadership and acting decisively. But many Odawa left for Manitoulin Island during this period, fracturing the community to a certain degree. The Odawa who remained at Waganakising adapted to American society and government as best they could, while maintaining their own identity and sense of community. The Odawa would contest their indigenous rights, as well as treaty rights, for the entire century and for the next hundred years.

The changes the Odawa made, in appearance, traditions, economics, land use, politics and socially were staggering. The 1800s were truly a time of change and conflict for the Odawa but they persevered and managed to stay home. ▪

The homesteaders’ perspective The railroad brought new towns and new industries to Northern Michigan. Young men moved from farming to city life. The American dream of owning a house with running water and sewer spread across the country and the county. To support this dream required many new municipal services. Water, sewer, electricity and most importantly roads spread throughout Emmet County in the decades leading up to 1950.

City jobs, both locally and regionally made it possible for the average American to use the new roads for recreational purposes.

The tourism industry expanded, just as the lumber industry was exploited out of existence. As the depression and then World War II limited opportunities, residents partook of picnics, movies, and parks. It was to become the era of travel, consumerism, and expanding government. ▪

IN THEIR OWN WORDS “Our pioneer days were coming to a close. The automobile was beginning to influence our routine. Roads were improved more each year, electric power lines were installed, first only for lights, then for stoves and refrigerators as they came into use. Food of better quality, better home furnishings were catching up with the times. The electric water pumps made inside toilets available. Interdependence on neighbors melted away as snow before sunshine. I miss that feature. More and more of our friends drove their cars to the cottages. In 1918 we made our first trip in a car, an air-cooled Franklin touring car. . . .We used the already mentioned Blue Book. It was almost as voluminous as a dictionary. Michigan recognized the needs of tourist even then and was among the first states to install road signs.” ▪

"In the Wake of the Topinabee" by Arline M. Browne, about their up north cabin on Crooked Lake

Please donate to future publications of the Essence of Emmet!

Since the first Essence of Emmet publication was released in January 2014, many readers have asked us how they can donate to future installments of this fourpart series. We are funded in this effort by grants and by generous donations from individuals who appreciate the amount of time, research, editing and effort it requires to accurately tell the history of such a storied place as Northwest Michigan.

If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation to future Essence of Emmet magazines, Part III and

Part IV, please send your contribution to: Essence of Emmet c/o Emmet County Attn: Beth Anne Eckerle 200 Division St., Suite 178 Petoskey, MI 49770 When donating by check, please indicate "Essence of Emmet" in the notation line. If you have questions about how to donate or future publications, please call Eckerle at (231) 348-1704 or email beckerle@emmetcounty.org.

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Essence of Emmet members

Back row, standing from left: Beth Anne Eckerle, Bill Marvin, Susie Safford (in red), Mary Cummings, Mary Stewart Adams, Dylan Taylor, Eric Hemenway, Phil Porter, Sandy Planisek Front row, seated from left: MaryAnn Moore, Terry Pepper, Dick Moehl, Jane Cardinal

About our volunteer writers

▪ Mary Stewart Adams is Program Director at the Headlands International Dark Sky Park. She is a sought-after speaker who tells the stories in our stars, as well as advocating for proper lighting and mitigation of light pollution. A mom of four, she lives in Harbor Springs.

▪ Kyle W. Bagnall, is Manager of Historical Programs, Chippewa Nature Center, Midland, Michigan.

▪ Tom Bailey has been executive director of Little Traverse Conservancy since 1984. He has served two Michigan governors in special appointments to the Water Resources Commission, Michigan Great Lakes Protection Fund, Blue Ribbon Panel on Michigan State Parks and Outdoor Recreation, and the Michigan State Parks Advisory Committee.

He previously worked for MDNR and the U.S. National Park Service.

▪ Jane Cardinal retired in Good Hart where she lives with her husband.

Her career spans locations in Chicago, San Francisco and L.A. as teacher, artist, graphic and character designer, creative services and character art mgr. Her latest project was to co-author “The Place Where the Crooked Tree Stood," a history of the L’Arbre Croche area.

▪ Karl Crawford is a third-generation Superintendent of Greenwood Cemetery in Petoskey. His interest in history is mainly local, believing that the early Emmet County settler’s toil and vision should not be forgotten.

He lives in Petoskey with his wife Ruth.

▪ Mary Cummings is the Executive Director of the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society. She was born and raised in Harbor Springs, is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has a background in writing, photography and graphic design.

▪ Beth Anne Eckerle is the Director of Communications and Web Development for Emmet County. She spent 15 years as a journalist and editor, earning numerous writing awards. She has twin sons and lives in Petoskey with her husband.

▪ Michael Federspiel is Director Emeritus of the Little Traverse Historical Society and a lecturer with Central Michigan University's history department. He is also the author of two regional history books: "Little Traverse Bay Past and Present" and "Picturing Hemingway's Michigan."

▪ Dr. Adriana Greci Green works for the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.By Dr. Adriana Greci Gree ▪ Eric Hemenway is an Anishnaabe/Odawa from Cross Village, Michigan. He is the Director of Repatriation, Archives and Records for the Little Traverse Bay bands of Odawa Indians.

▪ Jeremy W. Kilar, Ph. D. (U of M), has written several articles on lumbering and Michigan history and is the author of several history books. A retired history professor, he now resides in Petoskey.

▪ MaryAnn Moore is a retired Life Management Education teacher. She volunteers as the principal lighthouse keeper at St. Helena Island Light Station during the summer months, geocaches, sews and paints.

▪ Terry Pepper serves as Executive Director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association where he advocates for the preservation of lighthouses. One of the nation's foremost authorities on lighthouse history, his research, writing and photography are widely published. Terry has proudly made Emmet County his home for the past eight years.

▪ Sandra L. Planisek is a local historian, winner of the 2013 American Association of State and Local History Leadership Award for her numerous books and museum displays. She serves on the Emmet County Historical Commission.

▪ Christine Steensma works as a seasonal interpreter at the Michigan Fisheries Visitor Center/Oden State Fish Hatchery. She lives in Indian River, Mi with her family. Christine enjoys photography and the enthusiasm that comes from sharing her photos with others.

▪ Tamara Stevens works for a nonprofit in Emmet County, where she grew up with her family. Her articles and photographs have been published in Kiwanis International's magazine, Edible Grande Traverse Magazine, and numerous newspapers throughout Northern Michigan.

She lives in Harbor Springs.

▪ Caity Sweet is the Executive Secretary at Central Michigan University’s Museum of Cultural and Natural History and is a graduate student at CMU in the Cultural Resource Management Master’s program. She enjoys riding her horse and spending time with her fiancé and their Doberman, Ernie.

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Photo courtesy Little Traverse History Museum

Essence of Emmet Four editions:

▪ Pre-contact through 1812 (2014) ▪ The Century of Contrasts 1813-1917 (2015)

▪ The 20th Century 1918-1960 (2016)

▪ Modern times 1961-present (2017) By the history organizations of Emmet County,

for the residents of Emmet County. www.emmetcounty.org

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