Beaver Island History - Helen Collar Papers
Missions & Missionaries
Early Catholic missions:
1669 - 1st Catholic church erected on Michigan soil by Father Dablon at Sault Ste. Marie
1670 - St. Ignace mission started by Father Dablon
1671 - Father Marquette founds St. Ignace at present site
1705 - Jesuits abandon St. Ignace
1760 - French leave fort at Mackinac
? - Mission at L'Arbre Croche; long period Indians left to themselves
1825 - New Catholic mission set up in 1827 in Little Traverse - church built
Early Protestant missions:
Mackinaw -
1802 - Mackinac; David Bacon 1st Protestant missionary; Connecticut Missionary
Society; stayed until 1804
1823 - 1st Protestant mission on Mackinac; Wm. Montagne Ferry; United
Foreign Missionary Society
1825 - Mission Home built
1831 - Mission Church built
1842 - Protestant Episcopal Church started
Grand Traverse -
1839 - Mission of Presbyterian Board; Peter Dougherty & John Flemming; continued
Until Civil War, when financial considerat___ of the Board, had to abandon it.
Father Zorn -
(1860) "From the mission [at] St. Ignace I went in a birch canoe to the Indian village of Cross Village, where a noble German missionary of the Third Order of St. Francis, Rev. Seraphim Zorn, labors zealously among the Indians for the honor of God & their salvation. He has learned the language in a comparatively short time. Mackinac & St. Ignace are mixed missions. In these two places there are Indians, half-breeds, Canadian French, & Irish, but in Cross Village all are Indians."
- Antoine Ivan Reznek, His. of the Diocese, p. 151 [or 157]