Beaver Island and Michigan - Subject Cards E-I

The first occupation followed along these shores was fishing. The first Frenchmen in this country introduced the French modes of fishing, by which fish were pursued to the deep waters, & thus a supply was obtained all the year.
About the year 1843 fishing stations began to be established at other points, & in time the whole shore country was peopled to a greater or lesser extent with fishermen, & with them, as a natural accompaniment, came traders.
The early fishermen, as a class, were a reckless & lawless set of men. They were far removed from the influence of civilization and the restraints of law. At a later date they were succeeded by a more industrious class, composed of men of better habits, who came there for permanent residence. It is only until quite recently that the business of fishing was constituted a real industry, & has been more a benefit than damage to the region in which it was carried on.
(- this is obviously taken from Strang in An. & Mod. Mack., p. 23-25)

(Summer 1848) "Before leaving Detroit I must not neglect to mention that it was here I first became acquainted with that delicious fish known as the whitefish. ...among epicures it is so greatly esteemed, ranking higher than the lake salmon which is quite equal in flavor to that of the severn.

The whitefish is peculiar to the waters of this high latitude. Its flesh is of the purest white, & it is of remarkable richness & delicacy of flavor. It is also a very prolific fish, & gives the chief value to the fisheries of the northern lakes, which are among the most important in the country... It is the opinion of scientific men, as well as of the lake fishermen, & this is a subject of real congratulation, that no system of fishing now in place, or likely to be adopted, will ever have the effect of exhausting, or of materially diminishing, the whitefish in these waters."

- John Lewis Payton, Over the Alleghenies & Across the Prairies (1870), p. 165-66

"Lake fish form a staple article of provision in all the lake ports. The principle kinds are whitefish & Mackinac trout. The latter, a delicious fish, resembles the salmon-trout, & are probably the same. They vary in size from 5 lbs. or under to 50 or 60 lbs. weight. Besides these there are pike, pickerel, & different kinds of bass... In Lakes Huron and Michigan and the Straits of Mackinac, trout, whitefish, and other kinds are caught in abundance. The Thunder Bay Islands in Lake Huron, the Beaver, Fox, & Manitou Islands, near the foot of Lake Michigan, & Twin Rivers on the western shore are the principle fisheries of those two lakes. They are also caught in the vicinity of Mackinaw, in abundance; and about the small island in the Straits, & at Point St. Ignace."

- Cleveland Herald article, in J. S. Buckingham, The E. & W. States of
America, Vol. III, p. 439-40

(Trip, 1837-38) "The chief produce is from the lakes; trout & whitefish are caught in large quantities, salted down, & sent to the west & south. At Mackinaw alone they cure about 2,000 barrels, which sell for $10 the barrel; at the Sault about the same quantity; & on Lake Superior at the station of the American Fur Company they have commenced fishing, to lessen the expense of the establishment, & they now salt down about 4,000 barrels. But this traffic is still in its infancy, & will become more profitable as the west becomes more populous."

- Capt. Frederick Marryat, Diary in America, p. 126

In many cases an immigrant's location was determined by the occupational skill he brought with him.

- Maldwyn A. Jones, Am. Imm., p. 119
(Fishing - B.I.)

With the decline of the fur trade the fishing business became prominent, & the voyageurs, Indians, & their boats & outfits were utilized for that purpose. ...As early as 1824 whitefish & trout, in small quantities, salted & packed in barrels, were caught & sent to the Buffalo market. All the fishing grounds for 150 miles or more sent their catch to Mackinac Island, where the fish were assorted, resalted, & repacked in barrels ready for shipment. From 1854 to 1860 the trade in salted fish increased to over 250,000 packages, valued at over 1 million dollars. Whitefish were frequently taken in gill nets that weighed from 20-25 lbs., & lake trout were taken that weighed 85 lbs..

The pound or trap nets introduced about 1865, later the long gangs of gill nets, set about the shoals & reefs in the lakes, fished by men on steam tugs in which the fish are taken on the shores & shoals while spawning, have nearly ruined the business.

- John R. Bailey, MD, Mackinac (Mil. Library), p. 199-200[1]
Names of firms & families familiar before & since the [18]40s:
Jonathan N. Bailey (postmaster, 1825-29 - later 1st postmaster of Chicago)

"I fished on the Catherine B. for Dennis & Hughie Boyle (sons of Dan?), the Alva & C&C for Cull & Connaghan, the Liberty for Harold McCann, the Shamrock for Shing, the A&M Link for Left, & the Panther for the Danes at Garden, that was Matt Jensen & Peter Neilson. I left school through the eighth grade & started to fish. I was very proud to be hired by Shing, for at that time he was outranked only by the Margaret McCann for tonnage. I thought I could learn the grounds & someday be a successful fisherman & be able to say like the Portugese that I followed the profession of St. Peter."
- Eddie O'Donnell to Clink, Oct. 6, 1973

This is from an interview with Big Dick Martin in the Milwaukee J[ournal], Jan. 10, 1932:
"Nearly 100 men, or most of the male working population, are engaged in the fishing business. There are 8 tugs (boats) operated out of St. James during the season, which extends from April to December. When the fishing is real good the tugs bring in about 15 tons a day, but this last summer it averaged only about 400 to 500 pounds a day to a lift, or 3 tons a day for all of the crews. We put out gangs of 200 to 6,000 feet of net, sinking it so that it rests on the bottom, generally out along the steamboat channel, & we never know if we will pull up only a few pounds or if we will be back with the Silver Moon full. Dick tells us that his father Ralph, better known as Briney (!!!) has been in the fishing business for 50 years. Despite the density of a fog, Briney always travels unerringly to the spar that marks the end of a gang of nets, this son says. With the price of Irish linen, of which the nets are woven, at $5 a pound, and constantly rising, the future of the fishing trade on the Beavers is somewhat dubious, according to Dick."

This man obviously had a very poor ear for the Island speech - Briney for Barney. He also tried to remember, not taking notes - hence Barney being Ralph instead of Big Dick. [-HC]

The fishermen, until within a few years (1854) were all Indians & Frenchmen, continually in debt to the traders.
Gradually a few Americans & Irish went to the fisheries. Some of these took with them small stocks for trade. This taking intoxicating liquors among the Indians made their use more common & fatal. These men were bred to civilization, who had gone among savages to get beyond the restraints of the law. They were the worst class of men, stealing the catch of the Indians in the night & selling it as their own... They sold to Mackinac traders.

Since 1843 merchants & traders have established themselves at other stations than Mackinac, more convenient to the fisheries. These interlopers carried on a trade ruinous to the Mackinac traders. They made the fishermen no advances, purchased the fish put up in their barrels, & salted & caught by men provisioned & purchased by them. Such were the habits of dissipation on the fishing grounds the fishermen were worse off at the end of the season than at the beginning, & destitute of credit, they could not return to Mackinac. This threw them more into the hands of the felons & outlaws, several wealthy traders at Mackinac were ruined, & the fishing trade is passing to other places, situated more conveniently to the fisheries.

Traders cannot make as much profit off this class of customers. By this means, more than 1/2 the trade of Mackinac had been transferred to Washington Harbor, St. James, St. John, St. Helena, Duncan, Detour, & other places. The trade of Mackinac in fish must soon cease.

- from (not word for word) Strang, An. & Mod. Mackinac (1854), p. 23-25
(He always referred to the settlement at Pine River as outlaws {see his
description of it}.)

Associated with the fishermen, wherever they were numerous, were always a number of coopers, who found employment in making barrels for the fish. Sometimes the cooper's shop was in the immediate vicinity of the fish shanties; sometimes, for the convenience of obtaining material, it was located at a distance. The material for barrels was derived from timber growing on the public lands, which were looked upon as lawful plunder.

Small trading establishments, like that of Capt. Kirtland under the management of Mr. Richard Cooper at Little Traverse, sprang up at various points, drawing their customers from both the fishermen & Indians. A few small vessels, or "hookers," found a lucrative business in trading from place to place, selling supplies & purchasing fish. Not infrequently, whiskey was a principal article of trade. It is remembered to the credit of Capt. Kirtland that he never sold whiskey to the Indians or took advantage of them in business transactions.

- His. of the G. Traverse Region, p. 81

The store of the Northwest Trading Company was kept by a man by the name of Dickson. He stayed on with the Mormons and married a schoolteacher they brought. He went along with the Mormons.

According to Mrs. Vesty Vesty, the fur-trading post building stood back of where the Beachcomber is now, but Lawrence says, "The N.W. Trading Co. built their trading post before 1814,"* and he says it was the log building I remember below the place where the Medical Center is now. (Could this have been the store & the other the place for receiving & storing furs or vice versa?) This 1814 date is possible because the Company was organized in 1783 - however it was a Canadian company. They had exclusive rights until after the Treaty of 1896, when Britain gave Mackinac & Detroit to the new U.S.. After that Astor cut into their trade. The drawing of the international boundary gave Astor Grand Portage on Lake Superior & the Northwest Trading Co. had to move further north. In 1816 Astor had Congress pass a law refusing trading licenses to anyone but American citizens (however could an American get a license to operate for a foreign company).[1] The N.W. Co. merged with the Hudson's Bay Co. in 1821. This is the North West Co. of Rochester, Col. Fisk president.

*Could he have meant 1841? Much more reasonable.

The trade by the [American] Fur Co. continued until 1834, when Mr. Astor transferred his stock & charter to Ramsey Crooks & Associates. Mr. Crooks became president, & the business continued as usual until 1842 when, on account of competition with the old "Northwest Fur Co." (British) & other causes, it was obliged to assign, & the American Fur Co. career ended.

- p. 198 [no other citation given; possibly John R. Bailey, Mackinac]

To the archaeologist the B.I.s have been the most interesting part of the county. Mr. Henry Gillman, Smithsonian Report 1873, removed from the mounds upon the point on the north side of St. James Bay (Whiskey Point) some of the most interesting specimens found in the state. There were villages at both ends of the largest island, B.I. proper, & at intermediate points. Upon some of the other islands of the group [Garden & High] are still to be seen the remains of Indian construction. These islands were stopping-places for voyagers crossing the large lake, & served also as a kind of refuge from the mainland in times of disquiet.[1]

- Wilbert B. Hinsdale, Archaeological Atlas of Michigan (1931), p. 17[2]

Passing the river which flows from Lake Nipissing, Nicolet "upon the same shores of this fresh-water sea," that is, upon the shores of Lake Huron, came next to "the Nation of Beavers," whose hunting grounds were northward of the Manitoulin Islands. This nation was afterwards esteemed among the most noble of those of Canada. They were supposed to be descended from the Great Beaver, which was, next to the Great Hare, their principal deity. They inhabited originally the Beaver Islands in Lake Michigan; afterwards the Manitoulin Islands; then they removed to the mainland, where they were found by Nicolet.

- C. W. Butterfield's History of the Discovery of the Northwest by Jean
Nicolet, as recorded in Walter Havighurst's The Great Lakes Reader, p. 6-7

From Mrs. O'Brien's notes -
"How the Indians first came to the Beaver Islands is told by our Indian friend Jack Thomas of High Island, who tells the story as told by his grandfather:

An Indian first visited the Islands, coming from Goodhart, a small settlement at that time on the Upper Peninsula. The name of this Indian was She-gog. He & his wife landed on Hog I.. Exploring this island they found a great many beavers, which led them to visit the other islands where they found still more beavers, which delighted them very much. This Indian had come to Goodhart from the present site of Chicago, which had been his happy hunting ground. Too many white settlers having drifted in he left there for the north, finally locating at Goodhart, hence his visit to the Beaver Islands. After looking over the islands and being well-pleased with the prospects for fur-trading, he returned to the north shore but said nothing of his find.

But this did not keep others away, for two more Indians with venturesome spirits started out to visit these islands. Mogwisom (meaning bear heart) and his grandfather also landed on Hog. I., exploring this & the other islands and finding a great many beavers. They went back & reported this to their friends. Mogwisom and his family returning with a few other families and settling on Hog I., where they caught beavers and started trading with Mackinac I., where two fur-traders were located at that time.

Our friend Jack tells us of their first trip to Mackinac. This is the story as told by Jack. White man gave Indian glass of whiskey. White man ask Indian how he feels. 'Make Indian feel good.' White man give Indian more drink. Make Indian go round & round. White man give Indian another drink. Indian fall down. They take some whiskey home with them to the other Indians, who like it very well.

The next trip they bring home a good supply & they all get drunk. A big fight is the result - in which one Indian kills another. This Indian, whose name is 'Misigan,' for his crime is banished to High I., which at this time was not inhabited. He & his wife were forced to live there alone for a long time, but later were forgiven and other Indians moved there. Many Indians came from the North Shore, settling on the islands, attracted by the beavers, until they had settled most of the islands."

- This was written during the year of the 100th celebration of Bishop
Baraga's 1st visit, so it must have been 1932.

Five Indian villages in Emmet County (1854): Garden Island, Cross Village, Middle Village, Le Arbre Croche, & Bear Village, all containing a population of about 2,000.

Garden - formerly lived on Beaver & have moved to Garden in last 6 years. A priest
visits once a year; very devout but a few are pagan.

Cross Village - priest lives there who is supported by U.S. as a teacher. Have a sawmill.
Middle Village - on bluff back of Isle de Galet (Skillagalee) lighthouse. Much such a
place as Cross Village.

Le Arbre Croche - Little Traverse; most thriving town - have well-built vessel of 30-40
tons burthen, constructed, owned, & navigated by themselves.
Bear Village - south side of Little Traverse; an outstation of Le Arbre Croche.

- Strang, An. & Mod. Mack., p. 39-40