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Beaver Island History - Helen Collar Papers

Pre-Mormon History

[see also separate Mormon section, below]

"At this time (1847) there were 3 white families temporarily settled in the township, 4 or 5 men with Indian wives, several French half-breeds, and 20 or 30 single men & men whose families were elsewhere spending the winter at Beaver."
- Strang, An. & M. Mack., p. 38

When Whitneys moved there (spring 1848):
"Hearing there were many people settling on B.I., several families we knew from N.Y. State, Ohio, & Canada..."1
She says at that time Garden Island & High Island had large Indian populations - Islanded[?] deeded to them by government.

There were several Painesville, Ohio families [who] came and fished in the summer. Two names were Crane & Hill.
Fishermen also came from Canada and Detroit for the summer, going home in the winter
(- Child of the Sea).
The land was thrown open for homesteading in 1848. no
There was a dock where Strang was [later] killed [that existed] before the Mormons (this must have been for the Northwest Trading Co.).

Traders & other Gentiles [on B.I.] before (P) & during (*) Mormon occupation:

PAlva Cable
PJames Cable
*Peter McKinley - did not come back spring of 1852 - house destroyed
PEber Ward - mentioned by Strang [in] An. & Mod. Mack.
*Thomas E. Dodge
PErri Moore
PRandolph Dinsmore
*Richard O'Donnell - attack[ed] Graham
*James Hoy (or Hay) - attack[ed] Graham
PLuneys - not traders; already there [in] 1848 when Whitneys came; had cows
PC. R. Wright - at Cable's dock - cooper; in 1849 Child of the Sea; in 1850 census
*Tom & Sam Bennett - Sam married by 1850 to Julia Sullivan, & Tom to Isabella, with
3 girls

Spoken of during Mormon times by Mrs. W.:
William Hill, p. 99 - Fairport (summer)
John Goering (Goring?), p. 98; Ire.
Thomas Crane, p. 101 - Fairport & daughter Eliz. (summer); his daughter kept house
For him; Headlands, Ohio (near Fairport)
James Corlette, p. 126 - Headlands; married Jennie Crane, 1852; in 1850 census

Settlers at Pine River (from Child of the Sea):
Capt. & Mrs. Morrison
Whitneys
Alva Cable - left for Little Traverse

C. R. Wright - left for Little Traverse

 

 

1 Fragment in original.