Prehistory Ancient Stone Circles There are at least two
stone circle sites located on Beaver Island. The main site, Beaver Island Sun Circle (site no: 20CX65) (aka Beaver Island Stone Circle, or Beaver Island
Stonehenge), is an unusually symmetrical 397-foot diameter stone circle consisting of approximately 39 (up to 150) stones and boulders of various sizes, from 2 feet to 10 feet with a ground height of 6 inches to 4 feet, with some stones presenting the appearance of hand-carved symbols and incised lines, hieroglyphs or pictographs including: geometric shapes, Algonquian thunderbirds, bulls, feathers, human faces/heads, human figures, and early Celtic writing. An example of these face/head markings, the Carved Face Rock, is on display at the
Mormon Print Shop Museum. The site is located on the northwestern side of the island bisected by Mrs Reddings Trail, south of Angeline's Bluff Lookout, near Peshawbestown, a historic Native American village. It is considered a sacred site by the Anishinaabemowin and Anishinaabe culture, as explained in 1990 by Frank Ettawageshik,
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBBOI) Tribal Chairman. The site was discovered in 1985 by Dr. Terri Bussey, of the Grand Rapids Inter-Tribal Council, who would spend 32 summers researching and documenting the site. It was further investigated in 1988 at Bussey's request by Dr. Donald P. Heldman,
Mackinac Island State Park Commission archaeologist, and Dr. Elizabeth B. Garland, Western Michigan University Anthropology professor. The stone circle construction date has been estimated to be approximately 1,000 years ago, possibly produced by the
Mississippian people, and was possibly used by the
Odawa Indigenous peoples as a solar and lunar medicine wheel calendar or for navigation. The site is astronomically aligned with the midsummer solstice, the center stone positioned under the North Star, and appears to chart constellations like the Big Dipper. The validity of the site has been scrutinized and disputed since its discovery as being a misinterpreted common geological phenomenon, such as a random scattering of rocks or glacial deposits by other archeologists like Dr. Charles Cleland, Michigan State University Anthropology professor, and Dr. Christian Feest, Austrian ethnologist and ethnohistorian that specializes in the Native Americans of Eastern North America and the Northeastern United States. The site has been protected/owned since 1988 by the LTBBOI (Public Law: 103-324), and interpreted by the Amik Circle Society, a 501(c)3 organization (EIN: 81-3233690) originally formed in the 1990s and dedicated to understanding and protecting "the many stone circles, mounds and burial sites found in the Islands." The island's second site discovered by M. T. Bussey in 2014, Fairy Stone Circle, is located on the northeastern side of the island bisected by East Side Drive, north of Mike Boyles Beach Road, and shows similar astronomical alignments as the Beaver Island Sun Circle.
Pre-colonial history Beaver Island was called "''''" by the
Ojibwe, meaning "where the
beavers live". The
Odawa, who speak
a dialect of the
Ojibwe language, lived on Beaver Island for at least 300 years prior to its settlement by more recent immigrants. and a wreck within swimming distance of the island itself has been proposed as the possible last resting place of
La Salle's missing 1679 flagship
Le Griffon, which is widely considered the "Holy Grail" among Great Lakes shipwreck hunters. The Odawa population on Beaver Island was so large that a fur trading post was established there in the late 1830s. Despite Federal legislation criminalizing the sale of alcohol to Native Americans, the former location of the trading post is still known, revealingly, as "Whiskey Point".
The Mormon Kingdom of
James Strang, taken on Beaver Island the year of his death by J. Atkyn, itinerant photographer who later became one of Strang's
assassins Although Beaver Island is known today mostly for its beaches, forests, recreational harbor and seclusion, previously it was the site of a unique
Latter Day Saint kingdom. The island's association with
Mormonism began with the
death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the
Latter Day Saint movement. Most Latter Day Saints considered
Brigham Young to be his successor, but many others followed
James J. Strang, who argued his own claim using a letter that he said Smith had written and mailed to him. Strang founded the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), claiming it was the sole legitimate continuation of the church that Joseph Smith founded. His group initially settled in
Voree,
Wisconsin Territory, in 1844, and established a community there that persists today as an unincorporated community within the town of
Burlington, Wisconsin. Seeking refuge from
religious persecution, Strang and his followers moved from Voree to Beaver Island in 1848. At the time, unlike the
Danish-American settlement on nearby
Garden Island, Nothing, however, would have been more infuriating to
Irish Catholic immigrants, for whom the events of the
Tithe War were still a recent memory, than having once more to pay tithes to a denomination other than their own. Irish Americans on the island, who were not welcome in St. James, first moved to a new settlement around Cable Bay, on Beaver Island's southern tip. The
Ojibwe and Odawa population, on the other hand, fled to nearby Garden Island, where they sided invariably with the Strangites' enemies to the point that Strang later alleged that the Indians had been, "armed and hunting me for my life." After first decreeing eleven days before the election that, "every Gentile family must come to the harbor and be baptized into the Church of Zion or leave the island within ten days", Strang was unanimously elected to the
Michigan House of Representatives in 1853 and again in 1855. He founded the first newspaper in
Northern Michigan, the
Northern Islander. During his tenure in the State Legislature, he made the island the center of the new
County of Manitou, which included the Beaver Islands,
Fox Islands and
North Manitou and
South Manitou Islands, and set the
county seat at St. James in Beaver Island. The State of Michigan, however, abolished Manitou County in 1895 (see below). After meeting and falling in love with 17-year-old Elvira Field during a mission trip in 1849, Strang declared that God had commanded him to become a
polygamist, contrary to his previous opposition to polygamy. After allegedly
eloping with Strang, Miss Field became the second of an ultimate five wives, On him was bestowed a crown that a witness described as "a shiny metal ring with a cluster of glass stars in the front", a royal red robe, shield, breastplate, and wooden scepter. In an interview with
folklorist Ivan Walton, one old sailor later recalled, "Old Strang was a bad one. One time there was a fine old schooner anchored down here in Sand Bay to wait out a blow. She was a fine old schooner and when it came dark, them Mormons came done on her and murdered the whole crew except the two daughters of the Captain who were making the trip with him. Strang sees them and has him put on his boat and struck for the harbor with them but on the way one of the girls jumps overboard and they think she was drowned and went on but she swam back to the schooner and got a hold of the bob stays and there she was a-hanging when two Irishmen seeing the schooner and thinking she might be in trouble, rowed out and found the girl almost exhausted. Well, she told them her story and they took her back with them. One of the men was married and his wife took care of her and the fellow who wasn't married went to the nearest Mormon house and with two loaded pistols, stole a horse and rode as fast it could run right up Strang's big palace and went in and made them all put their hands up except the girl, who he told to go out and get on the horse and as soon as she did he backed out still keeping their hands up. There was old Strang and his five wives and some others and he got out and on the horse and rode with the girl. He later married her." According to Strang's biographer
Miles Harvey, there are numerous well-documented cases of groups of Strangites, who saw non-Mormons as the enemy, making marauding raids in settlements around the shores of
Lake Michigan. Their acts included
timber piracy,
counterfeiting,
home invasions,
armed robbery, and
horse theft in
Koshkonong, Wisconsin,
Perrysburg, Ohio,
Woodstock, Illinois, and the theft of fishing equipment from the refugee fishermen in
Mackinac Island. Furthermore, on July 13, 1853, Mormon fishermen from Beaver Island fought a pitched battle on Lake Michigan against fishermen from what is now
Charlevoix, Michigan. Strang, however, insisted through his newspaper that all of these charges were lies motivated by
Anti-Mormonism. Open hostility between the two groups frequently became violent, and a growing number of Irish-American refugees fled to
Mackinac Island. Other Irish-Americans once assaulted Strangites at the post office and, in what is still called the "Battle of Whiskey Point", Strang fired a cannon at a private army of Irish-American fishermen who had come to retake the island and expel the Strangite church. Meanwhile, one former Strangite later recalled that more and more Mormon families were, "leading a double life, seemingly good Mormons, but only waiting for the opportunity to get away". The beginning of the end came when Strang ordered all Mormon women to wear
bloomers instead of dresses. When two Mormon women refused obedience, Strang punished them by having their husbands
flogged, an act that was rendered less unpopular after one of them was discovered
in flagrante delicto while committing
adultery. While recovering from their floggings, both outraged husbands vowed revenge against Strang. On June 16, 1856, the
United States Navy gunboat entered the harbor of St. James and Strang was invited aboard. As Strang walked along the dock the two Mormon flogging victims followed by several other disaffected Strangites repeatedly shot the Mormon king from behind and pistol-whipped him as he lay dying. The shooters, Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth, then boarded the gunboat, which refused to surrender them to the Mormon Sheriff and instead sailed away and disembarked both men in
Mackinac Island. Mackinac's own Sheriff Julius Granger, who also kept the Grove House, took both shooters into custody and lodged them at his boarding house. Bedford and Wentworth were briefly ‘tried,’ fined $1.25 each for the judges service and released to a cheering supportive, and sympathetic crowd. No one was ever convicted of Strang's murder. Following the ‘trial’ the freed men departed Mackinac Island for Green Bay, Wisc. After Strang died of his wounds on July 9, 1856, mobs of dispossessed Irish fishermen from
Mackinac Island and
St. Helena Island arrived and expelled the Strangites, who then numbered approximately 2,600, from their claims on Beaver Island. The Strangite tabernacle and Strang's royal palace no longer survive, neither does the Strangite
regalia, but a
printing shop that his disciples erected persists as the only Strangite-era building still existing on Beaver Island. The Mormon printing shop now houses a museum of local history. The Strangite church continues to exist, though not on Beaver Island, and numbers a maximum of 300 adherents. According to Frederick Stonehouse, "Whether Strang and his Mormons were guilty of the charges of piracy and murder their enemies levelled at them or not is unknown. In today's more politically correct climate, the feeling is that the charges were trumped up by their enemies, who were jealous of the success of the 'Saints'. As usual, the truth is likely somewhere between the two extremes. There is a persistent rumor of treasure on Beaver Island. As the old tale goes it is part of King Strang's ill-gotten gains and is 'buried' in Fox Lake in a large chest. Over the years, people have searched for it without result, but of course, if someone did find it, is it wise to announce it to the world or just keep mum?"
"America's Emerald Isle" Irish Catholic fishermen from Gull Island, Mackinac Island and various port cities of mainland Michigan, and also emigrants from
County Donegal,
Ireland, rapidly replaced the Strangites in Beaver Island. Their community, which more immigration from the
Gaeltacht increased, developed a unique identity that isolation from the mainland fostered. Catholic sermons and even quotidian conversations were in
Ulster Irish for decades. By the middle of the 1880s the island became the largest supplier of freshwater fish consumed in the US, yet overfishing and technological change ended this dominance by 1893. A bill was introduced to this effect yet failed to be enacted. A second attempt in 1895 was more successful, and Beaver Island was incorporated into
Charlevoix County while Fox and Manitou Islands were incorporated into
Leelanau County. The 24-room King Strang Hotel was built in 1901 by Capt. Manus Bonner. Originally named the Beaver Hotel by Bonner, in the 1930s the new owner, Everett Cole, renamed it the King Strang Hotel after James Jesse Strang, the Mormon leader of Beaver Island in the mid-19th century. The hotel was sold in March 1982, and was reopened as the King Strang Hotel Club, a private club where each member owns a share of stock in the club. The local club members consider it an escape and refuge from the Detroiters in the summer. In addition to King Strang, the island became the residence of two other locally famous persons. Father Peter Gallagher, a priest from 1865 to 1898, was a colorful and charismatic leader who dominated insular society. He once engaged one of his parishioners in a fistfight in the insular chapel.
Feodor Protar, who arrived in 1893, was a member of the
religious movement founded by
Leo Tolstoy. He served as a local doctor and friend-to-all while living as a recluse in a cabin in the interior of the island. Protar died in 1925 and left many admirers. In 1938, John W. Green (1871–1963), a resident of Beaver Island, was recorded by
folklorist and
ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax singing traditional songs, which can be heard on the
Library of Congress website. Logging, which was always an important part of the insular economy, greatly increased with the formation of the Beaver Island Logging Company in 1901. Docks, housing, railroads and a mill impacted the local scenery, while fishing continued as the primary economic activity. The collapse of the Great Lakes fish population caused by the accidental introduction of the
lamprey eel by deep sea ships during the 1940s and '50s also caused the exodus of most of the residents, until tourism in the 1970s renewed interest in the island. == Geography ==