History of the Region

The Leland Boat Yard with the steamer Big John used to bend the ribs beside a boat in progress. Courtesy Leelanau Historical Museum When Johnny was a little boy, growing up in Sweden, he had no idea where life was going to take him. Johnny was born in 1876. Times were hard in Sweden at that time, there was not enough land to feed the growing population and a mass migration to the United States followed. Many Scandinavians came to this area where there was a promise of “open land.” In fact, there were four John Johnson’s living right around… Read More »

Number 6 is the First Omena Inn that Graves owned. Look for number 4, the sidewalk that led to the Inn. Courtesy Bentley Historical Museum. From early Omena Resort brochure, ca. 1890s. Bay View Association Imagine you are living in Grand Rapids in the 1880’s, with its smoke and noise from its many furniture factories. Imagine the roughshod lumberjacks accompanying the logs from the forests upstream to the sawmills sawing up the logs into lumber for those furniture companies. A flood of foreigners also came to town to work at those furniture companies. The streets were filled with smoke and… Read More »

Hospitality in the 1800’s depended very much on supply. You could not give what you didn’t have, even if it was Thanksgiving. One of my favorite characters from that time is a woman known only as Mrs. Gay. She was only about 15 or 16 years old, a new bride coming to the wilderness with her new husband and a 14 month old baby but she was very spunky! Mrs. Gay’s house on the Lake Michigan side of Leelanau, had only walls at first, no roof, floors, doors or windows. A lean-to, or open shed with a floor of hewn… Read More »

Amos and his Ice Wagon – Courtesy Omena Historical Society. “Please find enclosed one weather-beaten old shoe. The shoe was removed from Bodie (a Ghost Town) during the month of August 1978… My trail of misfortune is so long and depressing it cannot be listed here.” said one person, returning the old shoe. A younger correspondent blames getting grounded by his parents on the ghost town curse. Another child simply writes: “Sorry I took the glass pieces. I thought they were pretty. My fish died the day after.” And then there is this, “So sorry for picking these up. I… Read More »

The Wanderer. The battered 40′-50′ two masted schooner with dark sails Seavey acquired in the early 1900’s. Credit: laststandzombieisland.com. Once there were Pirates in our area according to many sources. I just finished reading Sprague’s History of Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties, a large and old book (1903). Here is how they described these freshwater pirates in the flowery language of 1903. “Boats named “Nighthawk, Dark-cloud, Fly-By-Night, or Dread-Naught came swooping down on the unsuspecting settlers with their tan colored sails shielding them from observation at night.” “Wing-in wing they came tearing down into the bay, sailing forth in their swift winged… Read More »

Here one of the lumberjacks is doing card tricks for the others. People thought the trees in northern Michigan would last for many years, but within a 20-year period, 1870 to 1890, most of the trees were cut. Logging was a dangerous and risky winter job. Lumbermen were often injured or killed. The men worked from 4am to dusk, even eating their noon meal in the cold winter woods. The logger’s meals were plentiful, if boring. Infectious diseases like chicken pox were a problem with the crowded conditions in the bunkhouse. The men were in the woods many months with… Read More »

In 1864 there was a need for a jail in Leelanau County. The people of Northport held a meeting and passed a resolution to build it, paid for in part by the county and the rest “by subscription”. About this time four gangs of cattle rustlers roamed the county stealing oxen, cows, and horses, driving them off and selling them. ‘Sherriff Lee’ had his hands full capturing them. Where did these and other law breakers in our area go once captured? To the Northport jail, built in 1864, and replaced by an even more substantial jail in 1903 (the one… Read More »

I met him once, in his dark shed of a workshop smelling like the cedar shavings that covered the floor. His shop was close to the water by the marina in Northport, an important location for launching his boats. Friend of a friend, his appearance was not what I expected. He was barefooted, stoop shouldered, wearing varnish-stained old pants, and wild haired. He stuck out his hand in greeting and it felt as rough as sandpaper. My friend has a sort of reverence in his voice when he talks about this man, He describes him as a “tough, vanishing breed… Read More »

Seddie Powers was a young single Victorian lady and taught at the Onominese School. She took over for Ann Morgan in the summer of 1868. The school was in Onomonee Village (west of Northport on Lake Michigan), and she instructed the native children in the village. Seddie did not last very long, only a few months. She wrote a melancholy poem about the sound of the waves and the isolation she felt there (under her pen name of Faustine). She left on Oct 2nd of that year and Mr. Ranger took over on Oct 13th. “I watch the dawn and… Read More »

Morgan Landing, the train station near Ahgosatown. This photo is credited to Betty Craker Armstrong and is courtesy “Omena, A Place in Time” and the Omena Historical Society Ann Morgan must have thought things could not get any worse. First Frankie, her 9-year-old son died, scarlet fever it was. Then word came that her husband Jesse was dead from a service-related illness, his body in Little Rock, Arkansas, impossibly far away in those days. She could not even bury him next to little Frankie in the Mission Church Cemetery Mission School Closed But then due to circumstances beyond his control,… Read More »