John Adolf Johnson “Big Foot”

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 here at that time.

Big Foot

But this story is about Omena’s John, John Adolf Johnson known as “Big Foot.” Johnny and his family lived in Sweden until he was 12. Then in 1888, they came to United States, looked for a logging town where his father, Peter, could find work and found the Manitou Islands. They built a little house in Crescent City on North Manitou, a logging town. Johnny did not go to school but learned to read and write. He spoke Swedish at home but learned to speak English too.

After four years on the Island, the family moved to Northport. John would have been about 15 according to the Leelanau Enterprise . Perhaps he was getting a growth spurt and his friends probably began calling him “Big Foot.” The name stuck and from then on, he was known as “Big Foot Johnson” or just “Big John” for short. John did some farming, got married in 1910 and had three children. He did some carpentry work and built a house or two. And then, in 1919, he started building boats.

His first boat was the mail boat which he built for Tracy Brosvenor. This would have been the boat that delivered mail and supplies to the Manitou Islands.

Then in 1926, he built “The Samba” for George Cook, a fishing tug. This was followed in 1927 by another tug, the “Helen S.” For Henry Steffens, and then “The Ace” for Harting and Light.

Leland Fixture

Johnson soon became a fixture in Leland, working as a carpenter, routinely repairing boats, and eventually building most of Fishtown’s wooden fish tugs. Photographs of the Fishtown boat yard show the steam boiler with which he steamed and shaped the ribs out of oak. Johnson hewed the keels by hand out of a big hand-picked red beech or birch and used cypress for planking. During incredibly hard times during the next decade, Big John made fishing tug after fishing tug, many written up in The Leelanau Enterprise as they were launched as important news.

By 1930 John and his family were living in a rented house in Northport and building fishing tugs in Fishtown. He finished the “John A” that year, naming it after himself, perhaps identifying himself as an important fishing tug builder.

In 1934, the tug, “the New Deal” was launched with great fanfare in Leland. According to the Leelanau Enterprise the tug was “christened with a bottle of amber-colored liquid upon the prow.” In fact, the launching ceremony was held up momentarily “while Vero, son of Capt. Oscar Price, and first mate on the new vessel, went to a near-by grocery for the purpose of getting said bottle of amber-colored fluid,” a prohibition era description for sure.

The following year, 1935, John finished “The Bonnie Lass”, and “The Manitou”, another mail boat for Tracy Grosvenor. And in 1936 “The Smiling Thru” was launched, a cheerful name for a fishing tug.

Johnson Shipbuilders

By 1938, he was calling his operation “Johnson Shipbuilders”, and living in Omena on a farm on Overlook Road, where he would have lots of room for the bigger tugs he was making. It was there that he built “The Pal,” a 40-foot-long tug powered by a big 95 horsepower engine.

Then that same year, tragedy! The well known and loved fisherman Will Carlson’s fishing boat “Diamond” caught fire near Manitou Island and sank, taking Will and his crew down with it. Only his son Lester (known as Pete) narrowly escaped, but the drama caused Pete to quit fishing. He was waking up at night with nightmares. In them he was always swimming. In his dreams he thought he was going to make it to the island, but the current was carrying him out, just like had happened that night. The village of Leland was grief stricken and rallied together to help, forming ‘The Leland Foundation’ to finance the construction of a new fishing tug so Pete could continue the families fishing business.

”Big John Johnson” of Omena, was contracted to build a new gill net tug, 35ft long with a 10′ beam. It would be named “Good Will,” commemorating both Will Carlson and the kindness of the town. The September 10, 1942 Leelanau Enterprise describes the launching of the “Good Will” this way. “A large crowd was present at the christening and launching of the “Good Will” at the Schram and Bauer dock in Omena. After the boat was christened, the boat was launched immediately. The skipper was ‘hoisted aboard’ followed by its builder, John A Johnson, and selected crew, and they initiated it with a short tour in the waters of Omena Bay.” Pete, Will’s son, had “returned to the waters,” and the Carlson legacy continues to this day. The article goes on to say, “This boat, the ’Good Will’ has graceful, beautiful lines, with much roominess inside the cabin. It will, at the present time, be docked at Omena.”

In May of 1941, John finished the “Louise” at his home in Omena and launched it in Omena as well. According to The Enterprise, “Mrs. Cizek, the new owner, christened it by breaking a bottle of beverage over its bow. A large crowd was gathered to watch the proceeding. After the boat had successfully taken to the water, it was motored up to Northport where it will be one of those in service in the Nelson-Wilson trolling fleet.”

Time to Retire

Big John Johnson continued making fishing tugs until 1949, but he was slowing down. He was 73 years old and he was tired. It was time for him to retire. He had made his name in fishing tug building during the hard scrabble 1930’s and 1940’s and had done well.

John stayed on his farm on Overlook Road, still listed as a “farmer” in the census at the time of his death in 1956. He was 80 years old and had been ill for a year. In his obituary in the Enterprise, it says, “John ‘Big Foot’ Johnson was well known for his outstanding skills in the boat building trade. He built most of the local commercial fishing boats that operated out of Leland and Northport.” Fisherman Roy Buckler remembered Johnson as “an artist with the adze.” An artist and a craftsman who lived and worked up on Overlook Road in Omena.

Where are the ships now?

What happened to those fishing boats John built? For many, they just quietly disappeared from sight. But for some, the Enterprise reported on their demise.

The “Pal” was doomed by a fire in 1947 two years before John retired. Captain Dan Loncar and his crew, Clyde Smith, and Merrill Ginther went down with their fishing tug. It was last seen at 10am one Saturday, ”chugging contently headed out to retrieve its nets set the day before 25 miles offshore.” It did not return. By Monday, “bits charred wood found by beach combers carried grim hints of the “Pals” fate. Parts of a charred cabin washed up the next day which caused the Coast Guard to say, “it was a fire, not an explosion, which doomed the ‘Pal’”. Eight days after they were set, the “Pal’s” nets were still waiting to be retrieved.

In 1953 the “Good Will”, Pete Carlson’s tug, began to take on water during a storm and was beached near Empire. Eventually the boat was moored in Betsie Bay, where it settled on the bottom, where it remains to this day. A sad ending for the tug that kept the Carlson legacy going at a critical time.

The “Irene” was built for Marvin Cook, who later discontinued his commercial fishing business. It was then lifted by crane from Leland Harbor, loaded aboard a truck and hauled to Omena where John Bauer overhauled her. Once restored, she was used by the new owners, Whiteford and West, who fished out of Omena.

The “Louise,” built in 1941 for the Cizeks, was taken to Northport where it was a part of a trolling fleet there.

The bones of Oscar Price’s Nu Deal, launched with great fanfare in 1934, lie somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

The “Etta” was placed in front of a Frankfort, Michigan, restaurant until she rotted away.

The “Smiling Thru” was dropped from marine registry records in 1972, listed as “abandoned”.

My turn to retire

And now, like John “Big Foot,” it is time for me to retire. There are only so many local people with a paper trail I can track down for their history. It is a small village. And when I find someone interesting like “Big Foot Johnson”, it is hard to keep these posts short and appropriate for Facebook. This will be my last article here, but others will take it up and history will continue. All of my posts are preserved on OVPA’s website. Omena Village Historical Association will continue to work to preserve the history of our little village. Thank you all for being a valued reader! – Lynn Spitznagel Sutton

Be sure to visit the fishing exhibit at Omena Historical society. They have information about many of the fishermen of this area.

Courtesy Leelanau Historical Society, Northport Area Historical Association, Omena Historical Society, MLive.com, Jim Malewitz and “The Story of the “Good Will” and the Carlson’s” from Laurie Kay Sommers “Fishtown, Fish Boats of Wood and Steel: Leland, Michigan’s Historic Fishery” 2012; Leelanau Enterprise, 8 November 1956, 13 December 1956, 22 May 1941, and 10 September 1942; and the United States Federal Census.

John Johnson’s childhood home on North Manitou Island. Courtesy Leelanau Historical society