Category Archives: Forgotten Stories

Articles in this feature are reprints from works in the public domain, typically anything published prior to 1924. Reprinting public domain articles both promotes the survival of these works for future generations and brings to light histories that have been forgotten. Articles are chosen that recall the history of the Grand Traverse Region.

Forgotten Stories

so with fear hidden and smiles showing—we forded a river!: An Automobile Journey of 1913

1 Comment

(This document is provided courtesy of the Traverse Area Historical Society, 322 Sixth Street, Traverse City, MI 49684)

EAST JORDAN, MICHIGAN TO YORK STATE

INTERESTING AUTOMOBILE TRIP DESCRIBED by Miss JENNIE WATERMAN

In Three Letters published in the CHARLEVOIX COUNTY HERALD

A Weekly Newspaper in East Jordan, Michigan
Mr. George Lisk, Editor and Owner

Detroit, Michigan

August 7th 1913

Dear friends:

There is always a kink in a real trip to start out on, don’t you think?  We wanted good omens, though, so we refused to go back after our lunch when we discovered it was missing, a couple miles out of town.  We left Main Street at 6:43 and made Eastport at eight o’clock.  About twenty more miles brought us to a field of five-inch corn and a corresponding backwardness in other crops.  The hypothesis that last year’s crops had been as poor is all that we could find to account for the straight-tailedness of the pigs in the next fields.

We found teams working on the roads but had no trouble before reaching Traverse City at 9:55, coming into the town along that beautiful stretch of road right beside the Bay which we had seen before only from train windows, and passing the high board fence about the large Fair Grounds.  In Traverse City, Father’s cousin, Edwin P. Waterman, surveyor for Grand Traverse County, made us a plat of the roads we were to follow as far as Manton.  We passed through a storm area just below Buckley.  Buckwheat fields are numerous and flourishing from Buckley and east of Big Rapids.

We made Cadillac, 106 miles from home, at 2:50.  There we separated, Mother and Father going on with Gertrude Bretz to stay the night at her parents’ far home near Evart, and I taking the train for Big Rapids, where I would sign out at Ferris Institute and Eva and I would be packed ready for the next day’s start.  The car made 141 miles that Tuesday for the first day of our trip.

Wednesday morning we left Big Rapids with the entire party of five and paraphernalia at 9:35 a.m.  The things along the road of incidental interest were a young quail, and later a real sauger that had shed its rattles, this being the season for that.  Cobble stone houses appeared often and we think they are fine.  Certainly they had some artistic and comfortable porches.  An unusual number of fine big barns were either just finished or in process of construction, and we had several glimpses of wind-stackers in action.

At Mt. Pleasant we discovered that the valve had been broken off, letting the water out of the cooler, and used three pails of water in cooling the machine down.  Through Gratiot County we saw beautiful level fields and really got to missing our native hills before we struck some slight grades in Lapeer County.  Farming looked pretty prosperous through there, with oat crops especially fine.  At Shepard they were repairing a bridge, so with fear hidden and smiles showing—we forded a river!  It really was an interesting experience, water coming not quite over the tool-box on the running board.  Just about here we passed groups of splendid farm buildings.

We saw a storm ahead of us at 4:30 but it was traveling the same direction we were and we did not overtake any of it but the puddles.  This was along the thirty miles of absolutely straight road between St. Louis and Saginaw which we made in an hour and a quarter.  The farms and the buildings looked poorer from St. Louis on.  We had made 170 miles for the day when we stopped for the night at Mayville.

Our third day started out beautifully.  Everybody smiled.  A farmer with a wagon load of milk cans assured us we were good looking but his horse was afraid of us just the same!  Barley fields were fine through to Brown City.  We found silos quite numerous and they commonly have an octagonal roof which I have never seen up north.

We found a rather faded Stroebel Bros. Hardware sign.  It did not say, but we figured it out to be 328 miles 32 rods from home.  Query—does advertising pay?  A large pig was out in the road as we passed the sign and when we tooted he immediately advanced to meet us and waited in the middle of the road until we stopped the car before deciding in favor of the clover on the right hand side of the road.

We found the clay roads of Lapeer County bad after the storm.  Whenever the roads are bad, we think we must be off the route and stop for instructions.  Conferring with one knight of the pipe—said pipe of unestimable strength—and were recommended in all sincerity to “keep right on the telegraph poles and we couldn’t miss it.”  Mother, of course, held the King’s Blue Book and read off to Father the directions as to “half a mile to a stone-heap on the right, then one mile to the small church on the left before turning east” but even such help had weak points.

In following local instructions we rode over a clay bump and broke the rear right hand spring on the Overland.  This was near Yale, 38 miles from Port Huron, where we had intended to cross into Canada.  Father found that we could not get a new spring in Port Huron so trailed cautiously on into Detroit shortly after 7:00 p.m.  He has taken the train to the Overland Car Works in Toledo to bring back the needed spring, and we hope to leave dear old Michigan by noon tomorrow!

A punctured tire happened between Mt. Clemens and Detroit.  Gertrude Bretz and I had taken a train from Mt. Clemens to Detroit to lighten the load and so I still have my first tire-experience coming.  I suppose it is safe to say it is coming.

This is rather a bad place to leave the narrative but there’s a better day coming.  And then it is rather exciting, “projeckin’” until you hear next time.  Being an editor, you realize the psychological value of that!

Sincerely,

Jennie Waterman

________________________________________________

Stafford, New York
August 15, 1913

Dear friend:

While the chauffer [sic] is riding around the country with the sheriff (who happens to be in the family) of Genessee [sic] County, we “women folks” are set down on a lovely York State farm long enough to breathe twice.  This particular visit is to last twenty-four hours.  But perhaps you want to know how we got out of Detroit.

When Father came back from Toledo Friday with the new spring the garage people had found a broken casting—which might have been made in an hour by Maplass Foundry—but the original article was preferred and another twenty-four hour wait, it seemed.  At least the garage people thought so.  Mother and we three girls spent most of Friday on Belle Isle and the pleasure boats.  Except for the delay our time and experience in Detroit were interesting.  The all-negro orchestra on the boat Promise had one member with red hair and blue eyes, but the music was wonderful.  But we liked to choose our own ways so pretended to be very bored.

Customs officers are jolly people.  Doubt if they could survive long otherwise.  Getting from the garage to the ferry dock Father got in a hurry and took the turn onto Woodward a few feet nearer the left than the right (both meanings) and a blue-coat inquired where we were from.  We spread the charge as thin as we could by saying “Northern Michigan” so East Jordanites need not feel diffident about visiting Detroit.

The customs officers asked a few questions, gave advice, mysterious papers, and a reduced toll “because of the ladies,” then waved us majestically onto the Excelsior Ferry.  The crossing took five minutes.

Canadian red tape must be stickier than ours, it took so long to unwind, and was it ever hot in that narrow cobbled street between tall brick buildings where we had to wait!  It cost us $14.00 to go through Canada, $4.00 for the licence and $10.00 for bonds–$5.00 of which we will get back when we are home again and Canada is satisfied we did not just drive over to sell our car!  At 5:20 p.m. Saturday we were ready to leave Windsor.  There was some trouble getting onto the right street to “turn this way, then that way, then this way, then that way, until you hit the telephone poles.”  Just out of Walkerville we passed several large fields of tobacco plants and these occurred all along our route through Canada.

We were so anxious to make up for lost time that we drove eighty-one miles before 11:45 when we stopped in Blenheim for the night, pounding on the door and bringing the proprietor out onto a tiny balcony above the door in his nightcap before he came down to unlock and let us in.

Next morning we found the dining room, and our good breakfast, decidedly English.  Where in the U.S.A. we have mirrors and out glass and flowers, they had copper platters, queer spears and arms.  Three great tusks of elephants decorated the sideboard.  It was raining when we left Blenheim and rained by spells until late afternoon.  The worst of the storm was east and south of Blenheim in the country through which we had to go.  Corn and grain were laid flat or standing in great lakes of water.  The clay roads were really dangerous.  The car slewed dreadfully even with the chains on.  At Ridgetown we were warned of a formidable hill which we might not be able to make.  But because we are from Michigan, Canada has yet to show us any hilly roads.

At London we stopped for dinner.  Since it was Sunday everything was closed tight, with the exception of one large Chinese restaurant.  There we were smilingly offered “Sli” tomatoes, green peas, Flench flied potato, yah!”  We ordered and then Mother led us determinedly back to the kitchen to wash our hands.  Such a kitchen, with drifts of vegetable peelings on the floor.  But the dinner still tasted good.

The favorite salutation in Canadian rural districts seemed to be “Hello, Jimmy!”  Names of towns, Highgate, Strathburn, Thamesford, Lambeth and Burford, sounded English enough and just fitted the scenery which looked the original of little English prints we have seen of the Avon and Thames.  By the way, we crossed the Thames rive three times and a muddy stream it is.  We have not seen, either in York State or Canada, a clear, clean stream such as we find all through Northern Michigan.

Coming out of London we passed Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes building.  From there to Brantford we took the Governor’s Road and I am sorry for the Governor and all Canadians.  Just out of Brantford, two hundred six miles from Windsor, we saw the first speed limit board we encountered in Canada.  Father declared some of them we saw later were not on his speedometer.  Out of Brantford and after dark, we came up against our sixth washed-out bridge.  We slid down a clay bank, wallowed across a clay swamp, and after unloading—first time on the trip—eight men pushed the car up the further bank.  Mother ungratefully told them she did not like their country.  We passed a Ford in the swamp, stuck with a broken spindle.  We made it into Hamilton after a couple miles of winding road, down which the car coasted.  Clay roads are bad for tempers and we were glad to stop for the night, having a mileage for the day of one hundred and forty-nine miles between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m.

Monday morning the sun was shining on the town of Hamilton, gloriously decorated for a Commerce Produce Industry Centennial 1813-1913.  We had beautiful views of hills to our right for twenty miles or more.  Through there is a great fruit country and we passed grape vineyards in plenty.  Here we had a mighty interesting three-cornered race with a motor cyclist and an interurban limited.  Beat them both on a five-mile stretch.

Just out of St. Catharines we stopped and watched two big Lake barges being locked through the Welland Canal.  Seeing it straightened out our ideas of locks beautifully.

niagarafalls

My first glimpse of Niagara Falls five years ago was from the train on the Canadian side, and this time we drove the car along the edge for half a mile, nearly up to St. Anthony’s Falls and back.  The view of the Horseshoe Falls is much better from that side.  The spray for a couple blocks is like a heavy rain so that we ducked under the blanket and peeked out, for the speed limit of four miles is rigidly enforced, rain or shine.

We had made two hundred and eighty-two miles in Canada when we tied on our Michigan pennant of blue and gold, attended to red tape at the Canadian end of the bridge, paid 10 cent toll and crossed into the U.S.A. at 12:10 Monday noon.  The Customs officers looked at our papers, made us a lot of bother getting suit cases untied from the car and then let us go without the satisfaction of being examined.  That is because Michigan people look honest.  We turned into the park and started to leave for the nearest observation point, when a policeman demanded to know where our U.S. car license was.  We declared it was on the back of the car under the mud but we had to scratch it clean and show him before he was mollified.  He was quite indignant that we should expect him to recognize the Canadian license for a minute.  He even recommended that we better run in somewhere and tet the car cleaned up—before we got hauled in!  Honest, you would have thought it a gray car a rod away—so completely smeared was it with clay-mud.  We spent two hours wandering around the Falls, with the air clearer and the sun brighter than I had ever seen it there.  We girls saw enough amusing honeymooners so that we all vowed Niagara Falls would NOT be on our wedding trip itineraries, anyway.

Passing through Tonawanda we saw the Kelsey Hardwood Lumber Company’s office, and five acres of lumber yards which had burned over recently.  We had ten miles of brick pavement out of Buffalo.  The rest was state road, and we made the last forty miles to LeRoy, New York, in an hour and forty minutes.  We have not had a foot of clay so far in the States.

Michigan used natural resources in her root and stump fences.  Canada had wire fencing and white painted posts almost entirely.  York state has stone fences.

This morning we visited the State Fisheries at Mumford.  Not as well stocked at present as they have just made their largest shipments of fingerlings for this season.  From there we drove to Lime Rock Stone Crusher.  The manager conducted us all around and explained things to us—above the frightful roar of the machinery.  The seams are eighteen feet deep.  Each drill makes 115 feet a day, going down from six to eight feet apart, and is driven by air compressed in the main plant and conducted through pipes all round the quarry.  The crusher takes rocks up to three feet in diameter and they come out on an endless chain cobble-stone-size and part are crushed smaller.  The lime rock is too hard to be used by the chemical plants and its main use is in building railroad bed and highways.   This plant is the largest of its kind in the world, turning out 3500 tons a day, working Sundays but not nights.

The total for the trip from East Jordan to LeRoy, N.Y. was 808 miles.  We were on the road five days and had only one rainy day.  The collapsible car top of the car looks so exactly like buggy tops that Father announced they were just for putting up if it rained.  We all became expert at unfolding and extending it when showers began, and at unstrapping, collapsing and tucking it back into its boot when the sun came out again.  Consequently, we four women folk arrived at the wedding of our cousin last Tuesday with badly sunburned noses.  But that was a small matter.  Our party left LeRoy Tuesday morning in a Buick and our Overland.  Toledo cousins here on their own motor cycle honeymoon accompanied us.  At the end of the day they proceeded on their own trip to New York City and Boston.  The wedding was on the lawn under the giant locust trees beside the hundred-year-old cobble stone home of Father’s older sister, Martha Paine.

The new bridal couple left in our Overland with Father taking them to the boat at Buffalo, where they embarked for Cleveland and the new home.  We expect to call on them on our way home through the States.  Our present plans are to get us on our return way Monday, August 18th, and we will make calls on friends and relatives in Toledo, Cleveland, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.  I certainly is proving a wonderful trip.

Sincerely,

Jennie Waterman

———————-

WATERMANS FINISH A DELIGHTFUL AUTO OUTING TRIP
East Jordan, Michigan
August 27th 1913

Dear Friend:

The return trip began Monday the 18th at 8:10 a.m. from LeRoy, New York from the home of Father’s younger sister, Rena Goldsmith.  With fine roads and beautiful scenery we came into the vineyard country between Buffalo and Westfield.  Grape vines were heavy with fruit on both sides of the road.  Here, too, we had dangerously winding roads and went over the first real hills since leaving East Jordan.  We came into Westfield at 4:30 with a flat tire.  Decided to stay for half an hour to have it vulcanized—and stayed half an hour at a time until 8:30 when we decided to put up for the night.  Another auto party were victims of the same garage—their car was overheated and behaving unpredictably—and we condoled with each other while the mechanics experimented.

People in cars from West Virginia, Massachusetts, Nebraska and California, Chicago and Cleveland met us and we hailed each other joyously when we sighted pennants.  Some of the cars had more pennants on than we did—but always the home state pennant was proudly across the windshield, and after all, Oklahoma and Michigan could be close neighbors if they met way out in York State!  It was no trouble at all keeping roads out East for sign boards and danger markers are put up by the Buffalo Automobile Club in New York and western Pennsylvania and by the Cleveland Auto Club in Ohio.  We crossed the New York and Pennsylvania State Line 13 miles from Westfield, N.Y. and 3 miles from Northeast, Penna.  Tuesday morning at 9:17 we had another punctured tire.

Just at the end of Girard’s main street the road dips and curves to cross a bridge over a deep gorge.  There we had a grand, wide viw of the most picturesque country we ever saw; steep cliffs, a winding stream and bands given over to hot house uses.

We crossed the Pennsylvania and Ohio State Line two and a half miles from West Springfield, Penna and one and a half miles from Conneaut, Ohio.  From Conneaut to Ashtabula it was level country.  At Ashtabula we hung up our latest pennants and while Father took the tire to be vulcanized we located a restaurant and ordered dinner.  The second course was being served when it occurred to us to take account of the cash in our four purses.  We found the grand total to be twenty-three cents—even Gertrude B. had given her money to Father for safe-keeping!  But Father came just then.  We were delighted that he had found the same restaurant that we had for the food was very good.

Ashtabula is the largest iron ore receiving port in the world.  While we were waiting for the tire we drove down to the ore loading locks and watched a vessel being unloaded.  The machinery was wonderful.  A great crane lifted an iron ore car, swung it through the air, poised it over a larger car, dumped it and put it back on the tracks.  Jack-knife drawbridges were in action, too.  Later, near Painesville, we saw an immense bridge and went under it through a fifty-foot tunnel.

Nearing Cleveland they were tarring the roads, which should be a good surface against dust for cars.  We were looking for the newlyweds in their apartment on 92nd just a couple blocks off Euclid.  But only 91st and 93rd showed as leaving Euclid.  We asked a sulky drayman the way once, and then went around and met him face to face again.  He need not have been so mad, though.  He shook his fist in the direction we were to go then ordered us to follow him.  We did, very meekly, and reached our port.  92nd started at a Y after 91st and 93rd had gone parallel a couple blocks!  Ruth and Howard were looking for us, and we had a pleasant day in the nation’s 6th city.  When we were ready to leave next morning Howard drove the machine fourteen miles to the city limits and we went on our way rejoicing as long as the good roads lasted.  We were told fabulous tales of “elegant asphalt and brick all the way to Toledo” but we did not find it.  And we had a record of three punctured tires for the day when we drove into the Overland Company’s garage in Toledo at 10:30 that night.  We spent the night at the home of Charles Waterman, Father’s cousin and the tallest of the Waterman men, by the way.  Repair work on the car gave us time to make other calls and to visit Tedke’s big grocery with its foods from all over the world dramatically displayed.

Friday Gertrude B. left us for visits on the side and we four went on to Galesburg, Michigan, where Mother’s people are.  Coming through Battle Creek we were delighted with the decorations for Home Week.  Several cars were beautifully trimmed.  The prize float was white and yellow.  The clown float was a sulkey and horse driven by a clown.  A sign “Please Excuse Our Dust” hung a the back and his license card read “41,144H”.  With our brightly colored twenty fluttering pennants we should have entered the parade ourselves.  Of course the parade marshall might have suggested that we wash off the clay first!

Saturday night we had an auto party dinner with friends in Kalamazoo and went on to Breedsville where we visited old friends of Father’s who had all played in the famous Breedsville Band with him before he and Mother moved north.  Sunday we reached Jenison Park by way of South Haven and Saugatuck over indifferent (bumpy) roads.  From Holland through Grand Rapids to Big Rapids we had the very best roads of all—and then corduroy with all the “brass tacks” in evidence.  I was left off at Big Rapids to attend to trunks Eva and I had left there from our summer course at FI, and the others again spent the night at the D.A. Bretz farm home near Evart.

Tuesday there were just three to make the last start and home run.  The morning starts have been interesting all through—eighteen in all for the twenty-one days out—so we feel we have a welcome left for another time, most places.  I gathered from comments, that it was pretty dark at 9:24 that night when the folks rolled up Main Street in East Jordan, so nobody saw the treasured pennants on our return.  They came off before the usual Sunday drive.  The milemeter registered 3600 miles on arrival.  The reading three weeks ago was 1582, making the trip 2018 miles.  Going was 818 miles, returning 1200 miles.  Now that we are away from the dusty heat and excitement we are enjoying our beautiful trip all over again and planning how we will go next time.  In the meantime it is wonderful to be at home in East Jordan, Michigan.

Sincerely,

Jennie Waterman

Written in pen:
Mrs. Clayton L. Arnold
623 Washington St.
Traverse City, Mich.
1955

Note: This account was written when Jennie Waterman (Arnold) was twenty years old.  It was published previously in the Charlevoix County Herald, and in Michigan History magazine, 1950.

Forgotten Stories

A History of Lake Ann’s Disastrous Fires

by Richard Leary, Lake Ann historian

Three times the village of Lake Ann was nearly destroyed by fire. Twice, the business district was virtually wiped out. Each time the people rebuilt their homes, businesses and lives.

In addition to the three major fires, fire destroyed two prominent business structures: the Douglas Hotel and Bert Smith’s residence, black smith shop and hardware store.

The first and third of the major fires are well-known and were dramatically described in Traverse City newspapers of the day. The second major fire is far less known and the date of the fire wrongly remembered and wrongly published. The dates of the Douglas Hotel and Bert Smith’s store fires were also lost to history.

The following is an accurate account of these five fires complete with citations from newspaper stories of the period. This fascinating, if unfortunate and sad, part of Lake Ann’s history deserves to be remembered correctly.

Lake Ann’s first huge fire

The first and most devastating fire occurred in July 1897. At that time the village was large and prosperous. Its population was about 1,000, making it one of the larger towns in northwestern Michigan.  Logging was a major employer and supported several saw mills. The William Habbler Jr mill on the north shore of Ann Lake was the biggest.

The mills brought in many other businesses, from boarding houses to bakeries, grocery stores, barbers and doctors. As in any town employing so many men, saloons, pool parlors and poker games could be found as well.

Some of the buildings and homes were well built and up-to-date architecturally. Businesses were adjacent to one another in the business district. Homes and business buildings were made of wood. Lots were small – often 100 feet deep and 40 feet wide – so homes were close together as well. Other buildings, such as barns, sheds and other out buildings were more rustic and even more flammable.

Once the fire began, apparently from a spark at the Habbler saw mill, a breeze north from the lake spread the fire rapidly through the town. Within minutes it was out of control. Because nearly all the town was north of Ann Lake, just about everything was within the fire’s path.

Because it was Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend, many of the town’s residents had rowed across Ann Lake to a favorite picnic spot on Piney Point. When they saw the smoke and fire in the village, there was little they could do to return home in time to save their belongings.

According to the newspaper accounts of the fire, 50 businesses were lost and 75 homes burned. Most people lost everything they owned.

The Traverse City newspapers gave readers dramatic and complete coverage:

GRAND TRAVERSE HERALD, JULY 8, 1897

Holocaust at Lake Ann

Lake Ann is a mass of smoldering ruins, and there are scarcely thirty buildings left standing. The fire broke out in Habbler’s mill at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and spread through the town with lightening rapidity.

The entire business portion of the village has been swept clean by the most disastrous conflagration that has ever visited this locality.

Not less than 75 families are homeless and nearly all of them have lost all their possessions. Many were fortunate in saving their lives.

The prompt response from Traverse City brought the steam fire engine and twenty members of the department from that city. When the much needed aid arrived, the men who had been fighting fire with all their strength were nearly worn out but they were relieved by the arrival of fresh and efficient help.

When the special train bearing the engine and firemen from Traverse City entered the pall of smoke, the spirits of the discouraged and unfortunate ones arose and hopes of saving what remained were revived.

It required but a few moments to transfer the engine from the flat car to the shore of the lake, just west of the factory, and but five minutes to start two streams.

 A well-organized force manned the hose lines, and soon two heavy streams were pouring into the fierce flames which threatened to consume everything that remained.

After a half-hour’s hard work, the flames at the points mentioned were under control. It was necessary to run one line of hose along the shore among the slabs, timber and miscellaneous lumber stock, but the energetic work of the men was effective and showed good results.

The Herald continued with an enthusiastic account of the Traverse City fire department’s efforts:

Traverse City to the Rescue

     Fifty-four minutes.

That was the time which elapsed after the fire engine left the Cass street engine house before two powerful streams of water were pouring upon the destructive flames which were destroying the greater portion of Lake Ann Saturday afternoon.

When the special arrived at Lake Ann, the people were almost panic stricken and it seemed as though the entire village was to be swept out of existence. The Traverse City firemen with commendable coolness and precision immediately began work in earnest. Only a few moments were required to transfer the engine to the lake shore, just west of the burning mill and cooperage stock. A team was found at once and the engine hauled to the shore and placed upon an improvised dock of slabs. Firefighter Fulgham lost not a moment and effective streams were doing good work in a few moments.

The men worked with an energy characteristic of the Traverse City firemen and Lake Ann’s business men and citizens felt relieved when the excellently organized force went to work. They labored like tigers and their work immediately began to show satisfactory results, while the engine worked like a charm and threw streams which stayed the fast advancing flames.

An almost identical article appeared in the Morning Record, also Sunday, July 4, 1897. It was perhaps more sensationalist with headlines reading:

HOLOCAUST AT LAKE ANN

Thriving Place swept by Terrible Fire Fiend Yesterday
and Nearly Wiped Out

TOWN WILL SUFFER AGGREGATE LOSS OF NEARLY $100,000

Aged Mrs. Masters Cremated In attempting to Save
Valuable Personal Property

Entire Business of Town in Ruins – Fifty Buildings Destroyed

Seventy-five Families Rendered Homeless and Deprived of

Necessities of Life, also Employment – Traverse City

Responded Promptly to an Appeal for Aid

One can imagine seeing this on the cover of a paper beside the check-out in any grocery store today.

"Ann Lake" plat map, 1901. From Charles Edward Ferris' "Atlas of Benzie County, Michigan," made available online by the University of Michigan, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/2911274.0001.001
“Ann Lake” plat map, 1901. From Charles Edward Ferris’ “Atlas of Benzie County, Michigan,” made available online by the University of Michigan, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/2911274.0001.001

Lake Ann’s second major fire

The date of Lake Ann’s second major fire has been incorrectly known for many years. Even the newspaper report of the third fire, in 1918, gave the wrong date, saying it occurred in 1907. More recently the date has been given as 1914. In reality, it happened in 1902.

The second fire also destroyed most of the Lake Ann business district but it was much smaller than that of 1897. It is clear that little of the village had been rebuilt following the devastating fire in 1897.

Again the Traverse City papers gave it prominent coverage.

THE EVENING RECORD, TUESDAY JANUARY 28, 1902

LAKE ANN FIRE SWEPT

—————–

Business Portion of the Town Again Destroyed

—————–

Lake Ann Jan 28 — Again last night the business portion of Lake Ann was laid in ashes, and nothing but cinders remain of four of the principal businesses places of the town. The saloon building and stock of Dan Willard, the store building of A. B. Huellmantel, the livery barn of W. J. Shilliday and the store building occupied by S. S. Burnett, were completely destroyed and the stock of A. B. Huellmantel and S. S. Burnett were greatly damaged.

    “The fire started in the saloon of Dan Willard about 9:30 o’clock. The saloon had been closed for the night and Mr. Willard had gone home. The fire had been banked for the night but in some way a blaze started from the place where the stove pipe passed through the second floor.

Once again, the people of Lake Ann rallied and the village survived and rebuilt.

Douglas Hotel fire

Soon after the fire, a large, elegant hotel opened in the center of town. The hotel, being across the tracks from the M. & N. E. Railroad depot, perhaps served as a destination for people coming on railroad excursions from Manistee or Traverse City. The hotel was close to the shore of Ann Lake and maintained a number of small boats for guests to use on the lake.

Sadly, in 1910 the Douglas Hotel burned to the ground. Fortunately, no one was injured but it was a great loss to the village. A Traverse City newspaper gave complete coverage:

THE EVENING RECORD
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN, FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1910

HOTEL WAS DESTROYED

———–

LAKE ANN HAD A BAD FIRE THIS MORNING

———–

ALL GUESTS ESCAPED

———–

NORTH WIND SAVED THE REST OF VILLAGE

———–

Origin of the fire is unknown but it started in the roof – Loss on building is $2,500 with insurance of $1,200.

———–

Lake Ann, Mich. May 13. — The Hotel Douglas, the only all-year-round house in Lake Ann, was totally destroyed by fire at 6:00 o’clock this morning. The house was well filled with guests but all escaped, although some lost their personal belongings. The loss on the hotel is $2,500 with $1,200 insurance. The insurance on the contents is $1,200 but as some were saved, L. E. Knoedel, the landlord, is unable to give his loss.

The fire originated in the roof near where the two buildings came together. The alarm was quickly given and a bucket brigade was soon on the scene, the men doing very effective work. Fortunately, the wind was from the north, blowing the fire toward the lake, else it is very likely that the entire business street would have been destroyed. It was only by the great effort that the home of Dr. Shilliday and the house and store of S. S. Burnett were saved from destruction.

The fire spread very quickly and while many of the guests were still asleep when the alarm came, all got out fully dressed, although some left their baggage behind. In 10 minutes, the hotel was a heap of smoking ruins.

B. E. Smith’s residence and store

Another major fire happened in 1911. Although not as devastating as the fires of 1897 and 1902, it was significant and probably spectacular.

The following appeared in the April 14, 1911 Benzie Banner:

B. E. Smith’s residence and store were destroyed by fire Monday noon; it was nearly a total loss as only a small part of the contents were saved. Mr. Smith carried no insurance. The rest of the town was only saved by the heroic efforts of the Lake Ann bucket brigade as there were several buildings which caught fire.

Some recollections mention the explosions that occurred as the building burned. The large two-story building was a combination residence, blacksmith shop, livery and hardware store. As such, it no doubt contained hunting ammunition and black powder used for reloading gun shells and blasting tree stumps out of the ground.

Lake Ann’s Third Major Fire

The village of Lake Ann had not experienced its last major fire. The third fire did not destroy the business district, as had the first two big fires. The final fire to sweep through the town primarily burned homes. Once again we look to the newspapers for a compelling account of the conflagration.

Traverse City Record-Eagle, TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN
Friday April 12, 1918              Price – two cents

Conflagration Destroys Half of Lake Ann Village

BENZIE COUNTY VILLAGE

SUFFERS THIRD DISAS-

TER IN ITS HISTORY

—-

Ten Dwellings, a Church, Three Barns and a Cooperage Laid Low

—-

Half  the  village  of  Lake  Ann  lies in charred ruins today, the result of a fire yesterday afternoon,  that swept its course, leveling ten dwellings, the congregational church, three barns and the old cooperage.  Nor did the flames stop their ravaging work until every particle of inflammable material in their path had been consumed.

The fire started in the A. Frazer residence, apparently from a defective chimney.  Flames were not discovered until the fire was too well under-way that the roof was ready to fall in. A high northeast wind was howling and sparks and flames from the dwelling were carried to the next, and from that, on westward through the town.

Bucket brigades were formed, and farmers, who drove in from miles around, lent their assistance in battling the fire, but to no avail. The fire did not stop until it had exhausted the material, and the balance of the city was spared only because the wild wind did not change. 

In spite of the fires that destroyed the town’s business district, Lake Ann survived. An article in the Traverse City Evening Record in 1907 gave evidence of this perseverance.

Lake Ann, Mich. Jan. 10 —Lake Ann was twice visited by disastrous fires. In fact, both conflagrations nearly destroyed the entire town and each time, before the ashes had cooled off, the business men of Lake Ann were planning for the reconstruction and after two hard struggles a pretty village full of life and spirit remains as a result of their perseverance and pluck.

This was just as true after the third fire in 1918 as it was after the second fire.

Lake Ann business district between 1902 and 1910.

The village lives on. Habbler’s store, which survived the last two fires, is now the bustling Lake Ann Grocery. S.S. Burnett’s store, rebuilt after the 1902 fire, is now the B & M Party Store and holds down the center of town. Huellmantel’s shoe store, also rebuilt after the 1902 fire, is now a busy restaurant, the Stone Oven. Two new businesses opened in 2014 (The Red Door and Lakeview Realty and Rental Management) and another is scheduled to open early in 2015.

The village of Lake Ann survived three nearly disastrous fires, outlived logging and the M&NE railroad. It continues, in its own way, as a busy, but laid-back, friendly center of activity for locals and tourists alike.

Richard Leary is an active volunteer at the Almira Historical Museum in Lake Ann. Leary is passionate about exploring and documenting the history of Almira Township, and finds inspiration equally in studying written records and in traversing the fields.

Forgotten Stories

“Exhilarating and easily accomplished”: Roller Skating as Sport in Traverse City, 1906

This article appeared in The Evening Record on March 13, 1906:

Many were on rollers

Auditorium was crowded last evening

Old and young alike took part in the fun- twelve piece orchestra furnished music

For three hours last evening 200 people shod on skates with slippery rollers fitted fore and aft, slewed, slipped, fell, tumbled and rolled upon the white solid flooring of the new auditorium to the tune of a grand march played by a twelve-piece band stationed in the corner far out of harms way. A general feeling of good will pervaded the atmosphere and if a sprawler insisted  on sprawling, friendly hands placed him on his feet or gathered him together and sat him gently down on seats provided. Sometimes the greater energy was expended in attempting to do nothing, or in other words, it more often took a greater amount of energy to stand still than it did to go some. As long as motion was kept up, direction didn’t count.

The number on the floor during the entire evening was probably 150, as the 150 pairs of skates were in use the entire evening while the crowds were constantly coming and going.

Roller skating, which will prove from now on to be the popular sport of the city as it has become a fad throughout the country, is exhilarating and easily accomplished. There were many in attendance last evening who had had previous instruction in the art and those materially assisted the new recruits.

Postcard image courtesy from the personal collection Julie Schopieray.
Postcard image courtesy from the personal collection Julie Schopieray.

Some of the beginners, however, showed remarkable proficiency.  “Mickey” McManus felt at home as soon as he got on the rollers and did some fancy skating which was looked upon with wonder by those whose feet wouldn’t stay where they put them. Andy Hermuth gave some high dive exhibitions which were greatly appreciated. As soon as every one had laughter at him until they were tired, he straightened up and skated as well as he pleased. The rollers got even in the end, though, by depositing him in a graceful heap. Jens Petersen was also new to the game but after a little practice in the corner got along so well that in a short time he was able to skate backwards. W.W. Fairchild said that he was a beginner but didn’t skate like it. John Ashton no more than got them on until he was at home as much as though he were on ice, while Don Cameron also did it very gracefully. Ben Montague had some difficulty with a number of the turns, but before the gong rang for 10 o’clock was an old hand. Pete Nay and Mart Winnie joined forces and between the two managed to conquer the pesky things. Frank Meads was very busy during the evening and found some surprises but didn’t make any holes in the floor. Albert Haskell was among the graceful ones and Dell Schuter did so well that he held a place as an assistant instructor.

There were a number of ladies on the floor, part of the time, the rest of the time they were on their feet. For the most part, they picked up the art very readily and among the crowd on the floor, there were several that vied with the sterner sex for the honors. Some, however, described many gymnastic evolutions before they managed to conquer their slippery steeds and many, after they had shed their skates, still walked as though they were on rollers.

It is announced that Thursday afternoon will be reserved for ladies while a Saturday morning from 9:30 till 11:30 will be given over to children who are not allowed in the auditorium during any other session during the week.

Thanks to Julie Schopieray for submitting this article for republication in Forgotten Stories. Schopieray is a regular contributor to GTJ.

Forgotten Stories

The Great Knickers Controversy of 1922

It was June, 1922, Traverse City, Michigan and trouble was brewing: Accompanied by a parent, two 14-year old girls appeared on Front Street, wearing knickers, apparently “displaying their wares” (showing too much) or else wearing other articles of clothing with “fashionable trimmings.” (clothing too suggestive).  Local police had been instructed what to do if confronted with obvious displays of immorality: Order the offenders off the streets.  And that is exactly what happened: the two girls with their adult chaperone were told to “get off” the streets of Traverse City.

The McCall's three-piece knickers suit for fashionable young women; This image appeared in the Traverse City "Record-Eagle" on April 27, 1923.
The McCall’s three-piece knickers suit for fashionable young women. Knickers were also called “sporting pants”. This image appeared in the Traverse City “Record-Eagle” on April 27, 1923.

The women of the town did not take kindly to dress restrictions imposed by city officials.  The mayor, Lafayette Swanton, quickly made himself clear that it was not the knickers in themselves that caused the trouble, but the licentious behavior that often accompanied immodest dress.    A local minister, Dr. Klyveh, backed him up: “If the mayor is after the girls and women who are parading the streets with unbecoming conduct, every citizen of Traverse City should back him.  It is of no concern whether girls wear knickerbockers or skirts.  If their conduct is unbecoming, they should be kept from the streets, arrested if necessary, and every voter who believes he elected the mayor to perform certain civic duties should call him up and offer his co-operation.”  He went on to decry the habit of young people parking in cars, all the while displaying immoral behavior that shocked passers-by.  In many towns, he proclaimed, “promiscuous parking” is prevented by the authorities, Grand Rapids even going so far as to arrest young men who offered rides to young women.

Dr. Lafayette Swanton, Mayor of Traverse City in the early 1920s. Image courtesy of Michael Annis via Findagrave.com.
Dr. Lafayette Swanton, Mayor of Traverse City in the early 1920s. Image courtesy of the Annis Family Association.

Local women did not accept the connection between knickers and immorality made by Mayor Swanton.  They planned a protest parade, began discussions in women’s clubs, and brought the subject up at church.   Reacting to the firestorm of criticism, the Prosecuting Attorney for the city, Parm C. Gilbert, printed an apology on the front page of the Record-Eagle, apologizing to the affronted parent, Upsal Hobbes.  Worried about the impact of Swanton’s actions, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, W. J. Hobbes, declared, “The mayor is all wrong.  His knicker campaign is absolutely ridiculous.  Not only is it ridiculous, but it is damaging.  My own daughter wears knickers.  I wish my wife did.  They are not only nice, modest and decent, but they are pretty.”

The mayor, himself, offered no apology, but did say this in clarification,

Knickers are welcome in Traverse City.  Let’s not have this misunderstood.  No orders have been given to arrest the wearers of that sort of apparel and they will be unmolested so long as they conduct themselves properly on the streets of the city.  My instructions to Chief of Police Blacken were to see that women in knickers who acted in an unbecoming manner were denied the privileges of the thoroughfares.  The instructions still stand so it is up to the wearers whether or not they shall be told to keep from the streets.

That statement was made to the Grand Rapids Herald.  The knickers controversy had gone viral—in modern parlance—many newspapers in the Midwest had picked up the story.  For Swanton, it was important to tell the world that Traverse City, a resort destination throughout the region, would welcome resorters who wore knickers to town.  It would be bad business not to do so.  Later in the interview, though, he confessed that he was opposed to one-piece bathing suites worn at public beaches.  There were, indeed, limits to the mayor’s sensibilities.

Women plant workers at Greilick Manufacturing donned "woman-alls" (overalls for women) in 1918, article published in the Traverse City "Record-Eagle," 17 May 1918.
Women plant workers at Greilick Manufacturing donned “woman-alls” (overalls for women) in 1918, article published in the Traverse City “Record-Eagle,” 17 May 1918.

What happened with the knickerbockers controversy?  It melted away.  Women could wear knickers downtown, one-piece bathing suits were not forbidden at Clinch Park, and, presumably young men in motor cars would offer young ladies rides.  Only three years earlier women in factories started to wear overalls, a change that merited a front-page story in the Record-Eagle.  It was a time women began to experience freedom at home, at work, at play, and the change grated with those who had grown up with different cultural values.

One thing the controversy did accomplish: knickers’ sales skyrocketed.  Stores were backordered for days.

Richard Fidler is co-editor of Grand Traverse Journal. 

Header images courtesy of “MDafoeMay1924Crop”, licensed under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MDafoeMay1924Crop.jpg#mediaviewer/File:MDafoeMay1924Crop.jpg; “Knickerbockers for child of four” image is in the public domain, available through Wikimedia Commons.

Forgotten Stories

Tracking Grand Traverse Bay Freeze Dates

When Grand Traverse Herald began publication in 1858, the editors began tracking the freezing dates of Grand Traverse Bay. Perhaps not the most thrilling of past-times, but Bay Freeze dates have long been used as a measure of weather and forecasting.

Imagine living in a dirt settlement, tracks where roads would someday be built, and you rely on your farming abilities and that of your neighbors to get you through the winter.  Supplies come in by train, but dangerous conditions, flooding, wrecks, anything that interrupts that supply line could spell disaster. To top that off, you’ve just moved to the region, perhaps from Bohemia, and have no idea what an “average” winter might be like. Stories from frontiersmen might be helpful, but how can you know?

Just as we do now, people tracked weather patterns and made other observations, like when the Bay froze over or when the ice finally melted, to establish these crucial time frames for planting and harvesting, for running timber on the rivers, and other life-sustaining activities. We know this data was important to all: freeze dates, ice storms, and other weather phenomena are recorded not just in newspapers of the time, but in the journals of men and women. Being aware of how the weather acted on average was of the upmost importance for every member of the community.

When was the last time you watched the Bay freeze over? Please click on the article below to open larger, readable images, and take some time out of your day to consider the Bay!

forgotten-bayfreezept1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

forgotten-bayfreezept2

Forgotten Stories

The Meteor, 28 January 1879, viewed from Traverse City: Bigger than the Russian one?

Last year’s meteor fall in Chelyabinsk, Russia had a counterpart in Leelanau County a hundred thirty-five years ago.  The Grand Traverse Herald January 30, 1879 edition tells the story:

The meteor pictured here is much dimmer than the 1879 meteorite that struck Lake Leelanau. (Image of The Quadrantids meteor shower December 2011. Image courtesy of Luis Argerich, https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/.)
The meteor pictured here is much dimmer than the 1879 meteorite that struck Lake Leelanau. (Image of The Quadrantids meteor shower December 2011. Image courtesy of Luis Argerich, https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/.)

About half past 2 o’clock Tuesday morning, an enormous meteor passed over this region.  The accounts given by the few who saw it are so conflicting that it is difficult to settle upon anything definite in regard to its direction or apparent size.  We have had it coming from every point of the compass and straight up and down: it varied in size from a pint bowl to a hogshead; it struck in the bay and it struck all along the shore; it traveled “as fast as a horse could trot,” and it “flew like lightning.”  We didn’t see it ourselves.  We were asleep, as all good editors should be at that time in the morning.  Those who did see it were evidently too startled to observe it closely.  What is known is that it was an immense ball of fire, and that the darkness was made light as noonday, and that a terrible explosion followed its appearance—or disappearance, no one seems to know which.  The night watchman at Hannah, Lay & Co., says that he saw it explode and that it flew into minute pieces like star dust.  (The one thing that all agree upon is the explosion.  This was heard with equal clearness and with like effect at Mayfield, thirteen miles south of this place and at Williamsburg, twelve miles east.  We have not heard from other directions.  The effect was of an earthquake shock.  The houses were shaken, windows shook and dishes rattled upon the shelves.  A swaying motion seemed to be given to the buildings as an upheaval and settling back.  If the meteor had not been seen it would have been thought an earthquake shock.  It was a big thing any way and that fellow that was close by when it fell or exploded must have thought “something dropped.”

A watchman, most likely the Hannah and Lay Company employee mentioned above, provided a more detailed description of the meteor’s passage to the editor of the Herald, Thomas T. Bates.  Somehow, his notes turned up in the Report of the 49th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1879) in an article called Report of Observations of Luminous Meteors.

Was on watch, passing from due west to east; saw a great light; turned quickly, and saw a ball of fire over my right shoulder; turned to left and watched until it disappeared; when first seen it appeared about as high as ordinary rain-clouds; appeared to me larger than full moon; full moon looks to me to be 18 or 20 inches in diameter; meteor appeared to pass me, and move out of sight at about the rate of speed a descending rocket has after its explosion; had a good chance to see it plainly; just after passing me a singular thing occurred; a ring of fire seemed to peel off the meteor itself, and this followed the ball of fire out of sight, but dropped a little behind it; it was perfectly distinct, and appeared to be hollow, for I could see a dark centre.  Everything was as light as day.  I looked at my watch as it disappeared; it was just 28 minutes after 2 o’clock.  I passed on my beat, and shortly the terrific explosion came.  It shook and jarred everything around.  I immediately looked at my watch, and it was 32 minutes after 2.

From this account and others, Professor Kirkwood of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, commenting about the event, drew the following conclusions: The fireball first came in sight nearly 100 miles over a point about 30 miles S.W. of Great Traverse City and disappeared about 26 miles above a point about 42 miles N.E. by eastwards from that town.  The whole visible track was 124 miles, and its projection on the earth’s surface 66 miles in length from a direction S.W. by S. towards N.E. by N.  Of the time of flight, which was described as several seconds, and of the real velocity, except that the observations indicate a rather slow motion, nothing definite can be affirmed.  (The author goes on to speculate that the meteor may be related to the ‘Cancrid’ meteor systems which occur in the months of December, January, and February.)

In 1879 there were few inhabitants living in the Grand Traverse area, this fact explaining why, outside the Herald, little note was made of the meteor in other publications of the time.  Surely, an event that lit up the night sky as “light as noonday” while producing an explosion loud enough to “shake houses” would have aroused the interest of larger populations living in Chicago or Detroit.   Newspaper editors there would have written about it in order to answer questions of readers.  However, there is no apparent mention of the meteor in the Detroit Free-Press or the Chicago newspapers.

A more precise word than “meteor” for this event is “fireball”. Nowadays that term refers to a very bright meteor of magnitude -4 or better, brighter than the planet Venus.  They are relatively common, the Earth receiving several thousand a day, most over oceans, mountains, deserts and other inhabited regions.  Very few reach a size large enough for a fragment to impact Earth and even fewer that light up the sky as if at midday, producing an explosive thunderclap.

Another term used to describe fireballs is “bolide”, the word connoting an extremely bright fireball, one that explodes, often leaving fragments on the surface of the Earth.  Even bigger than a bolide is a “superbolide”, a meteor with a brightness more than -17 (the sun has a magnitude of -26).  If the 1879 account describing the meteor as brighter than the noonday sun is not an exaggeration, the Traverse area certainly encountered a superbolide.

The Grand Traverse Herald was not through describing the meteor.  After penning the above article, editor Bates later talked to R. S. Bassett, a local fisherman, who offered a first-hand account.  Bates continues:

We have just seen Mr. R. S. Bassett, who has a fishing shanty within a few rods of Fouch’s dock at the head of Carp Lake, seven miles northwest of this place.  Mr. Bassett was awake and saw the flash and was almost immediately deafened by the report of the explosion.  The next morning a large hole, fifty feet or more in diameter, was discovered in the ice about 600 feet from shore.  The ice was solid in this spot the day before.  For a long distance around the surface was cracked and broken and the ice around the hole itself, being twelve or fifteen inches in thickness, had the appearance of being driven down. The water at this spot is only eight or ten feet deep and the bottom of the lake is soft and muddy.

Carp Lake is an early name for Lake Leelanau; Fouch’s dock is at the extreme southern end.  The community of Fouch, consisting of a few cabins and cottages, can be found on the oldest plat maps of the area.  Clearly, a meteorite, perhaps more than one, lies in shallow water in the lake—and we know approximately where it is.  Not only that, with a hole in the ice approximately fifty feet in diameter, we can make guesses about how big it is.

This image is of a the recent meteorite fall, which occurred in Russia in 2013. Photographer Eduard Kalinin, Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
This image is of a the recent meteorite fall, which occurred in Russia in 2013. Photographer Eduard Kalinin, Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

One of the fragments of the meteorite that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 also struck the frozen surface of a lake.  It left a hole about 23-26 feet in diameter, from which a five-foot long meteorite was pulled some time after the event occurred.  If the Lake Leelanau meteorite left a hole twice as big, it may have an even larger fragment–though such size estimations are difficult to predict, since it is possible—even likely—that the fragment broke up into smaller pieces upon impact.

Would modern imaging techniques reveal the under-lake location of the 1879 meteorite?  Even if located, could such an object be easily brought to the surface?  The Chelyabinsk meteorite weighed 1250 pounds before it broke apart into three pieces.  How much more would an object that produced a fifty-foot hole in the ice weigh?  We do not know the answers to these questions—but wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

References:

British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1879, 49th meeting, Available online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/94485#page/10/mode/1up

Richard Fidler is co-editor of Grand Traverse Journal.

Forgotten Stories

What were women baking in 1905 Traverse City?

4 Comments

Traditions are comforting reminders that we have a shared past with those around us. Perhaps the favored traditions during the holiday season revolve around food: cooking the recipes of our grandmothers, gathering to eat at the tables of our forefathers.

tccookbook001
Page 28 features a number of chocolate cakes, perfect for the cocoa-loving family member.

Your editors located this serendipitous find in the Nelson Room collections at Traverse Area District Library, and thought you might enjoy perusing the recipes and advertisements within: The Home Cook Book, a collection of recipes, mostly baked goods, collected from women all around Traverse City at the turn of the last century.

From the introduction:

The compiler of this book presents it with the confidence that brings to the housewives of Traverse City the most modern and strictly up-to-date recipes obtainable.

Reclaim fruitcake from stories of holiday terror by making a fresh loaf yourself, using one of the recipes found on page 29.
Reclaim fruitcake from stories of holiday terror by making a fresh loaf yourself, using one of the recipes found on page 29.

The recipes contained herein were contributed by the local housekeepers and have been tried and tested. To those who so kindly loaned their assistance in this way, the complier is deeply grateful and trusts that the book may in some measure compensate for the time and effort expended.

The Home Cook Book was compiled by Lewis W. Smith, Circulator for the Evening Record, “with recipes carefully arranged and classified by” Mrs. Lewis W. Smith and others. Although the cook book is undated, the Evening Record circulated between 1901 to 1910, so it was likely printed during that decade.

For the ambitious, layered caked recipes. Imagine baking one of these in a wood-heated oven...from page 37.
For the ambitious, layered caked recipes. Imagine baking one of these in a wood-heated oven…from page 37.

With sixty pages of recipes, all “the most modern and strictly up-to-date” from over 100 years ago, there’s bound to be a new treat for you and your family to try. The best way to keep alive traditions, and therefore history, is to use and pass them along to the next generation.

If you feel inspired, you can click on a page to enlarge it, read and test a recipe out, and send in your results to the Grand Traverse Journal (gtjeditor@tadl.org)! We will be pleased to publish your photographs and descriptions in our January issue. Bake on!

Forgotten Stories

Poetry of Mary K. Buck, from the turn of the 19th Century

1 Comment

GRAND TRAVERSE BAY

by Mary K. Buck (1849-1901), poet of renown from Traverse City

Was ever bay so lovely as our own Grand Traverse Bay,
With the sunlight on its ripples in bright and changeful play;
With snowy clouds above it, and pine-clad hills around;
With crystal depths, and shadowy coves where finny tribes abound.

Let others sing of Naples and the blue Vesuvian Bay,
None other can be lovelier than greets my eyes today.
Its changefulness enchants us, we love each varying mood—
If lashed to foamy billows, or by soft zephyrs wooed.

Each time it meets our vision more beautiful it seems;
It murmurs in our mem’ry, it flashes through our dreams.
The mood wherein we see it seems ever best of all,
Be it in morning’s brightness, or when the shadows fall;

When lulled to glassy smoothness, by south winds soft and low,
Or when above its white-capped waves the cold north breezes blow;
When rippling in the moonlight, or dyed with sunset’s glow,
Or in the morn when white-winged boats glide gladly to and fro.

There’s magic in its beauty—it holds us with a spell.
Could we but understand it, a strange, weird tale ‘twould tell:
Of red men of the forest, of dusky lovers’ vows.
Of warriors bold, and council fires where now the farmer plows.

But placidly it smileth ‘neath fleecy summer skies,
While o’er it sparkling waters no more the arrow flies.
Where once the red man hunted, now peaceful hamlets lie,–
But, like an echo of the past, still rings the loon’s wild cry.

Bright jewel of the northland, within thy green hills set,
Though other lands may claim me, thy charms I’ll ne’er forget.
Though ‘mid the storied splendors of distant shores I stray,
My longing thoughts like birds will fly back to Grand Traverse Bay.

ON THE BAY

Over the bay, over the bay,
Glide little boat for the billows are gay;
Bright in the sunlight the wavelets are dancing,
Down in the depths shining fishes are glancing,
Happy and free, happy and free,
Song birds are singing in glee.

Over the bay, Over the bay,
Lightly we row for our hearts are gay;
Blue are the skies that are bending above us,
Near are the friends that so tenderly love us,
Happy and gay, happy and gay,
Over the sparkling bay.

From Michigan in Literature, Andrews, Clarence, 1992:

An unusual entry is Mary K. Buck’s Songs of the Northland (1902), published posthumously.  Mrs. Buck (1849-1901) was born Marjanka Knizek in Bohemia and came to Traverse City, Michigan, at the end of the Civil War.  She attended college, became a schoolteacher and a contributor to several nationally circulated magazines.  She also collaborated with Mrs. M. E. C. Bates (see the October “Forgotten Stories” feature for information on Mrs. Bates) on a volume of northern Michigan stories, Along Traverse Shores.

Image courtesy of Traverse Area District Library, Local History Collection, Tom Olds Historical Postcard Collection. And if you guessed it was an Orson W. Peck postcard, you were right! http://localhistory.tadl.org/items/show/2146

Forgotten Stories

Fortney’s Ghost: The Supernatural Comes to Traverse City

1 Comment

Copious amounts of thanks go to the Teen Sages of Traverse Area District Library, who were employed as free labor to illustrate this article. For more information and to get involved, catch up with the sages at http://www.tadl.org/teens.

Supernatural manifestations at the haunted house near Boonville Monday night were eclipsed by adventures in a purely human realm—when Mrs. C.R. Rogers opened fire with a high caliber revolver on the half hundred sightseers who had surrounded the house to await the nightly appearance of the celebrated Fortney Ghost.

So begins an article in the January 25th, 1922 Record-Eagle.  Boonville was an eastern suburb of the city, extending south along present-day Woodmere Avenue for some distance.  The house, itself, was situated  “south of Hannah and east of Barlow”, an unprepossessing frame building constructed only ten years before the article appeared.  No injuries were reported as a result of Mrs. Rogers’ fusillade of bullets: apparently, they were intended to scatter the crowd of onlookers, not murder them.

terror
Teen Sages of Traverse Area District Library explore the terror of the unknown on the third floor, and get more than they bargained for. Perhaps the onlookers gathering at Mrs. Rogers’ property expected a similar encounter with the supernatural?

She was unprepared for the host of visitors loitering around her house because she was not aware that the Traverse City Record-Eagle had previously published two articles detailing the “supernatural manifestations” that infested her house.  Those manifestations included “a weird wail of a newborn babe, a light as bright as day that appears after midnight, and an eerie, luminous glow that cast fear into the hearts of onlookers.  With such advertisement, what citizens of the town would not want to trespass on Mrs. Rogers property?

THE FIRST HAUNTING: 1920

It was not the first time the house was proclaimed haunted.  Two years before, another resident of the house, Francis Fortney believed the building housed a female ghost (of about thirty years old) which abruptly vanished up a hole beside the stove pipe—this according to the testimony of Fortney’s wife’s seventeen-year-old brother, Frank McPherson.  Mysterious floating lights also attended the haunting, their source unexplained and unexamined due to the absence of hand-held lighting.  The newspaper account takes the boy’s story seriously: His story had a convincing coherence, an analytical sequence, a profusion of detail that lent it a genuine aspect. These were not the half-baked ravings of an adolescent.

Fortney’s ghost—as the paper called it—dominated the front page for several days.  A newspaper reporter, taking courage in hand, explored the haunted house to look for evidence of the ghostly manifestations.  As the family had abruptly fled (leaving dishes upon the table as they ran),  he had the house to himself.  The hole beside the stove pipe where the ghost disappeared was plainly visible as was a detached piece of beaverboard residents had tried to nail over it—more than once.  Invariably it would come clattering down, no matter how firmly the nails were set.  The ghost clearly had the strength to pry it off whenever she wished to do so.  Other than that slim piece of evidence, there was no story to report from the home.

An artists' rendering of Fortney's Ghost, thanks to our Teen Sages actor.
An artists’ rendering of Fortney’s Ghost, thanks to our Teen Sages actor.

Fortney’s ghost disappeared from the pages of the Record-Eagle as fast as the specter disappeared up the hole beside the chimney.  The chief of police, John Blacken, subjected “French” Fortney and Frank McPherson to the “third degree”, firing questions at them one after another.   Under the ferocity of questioning, they buckled, admitting they had concocted the whole story: it had started harmlessly enough, but just snowballed after that.

THE GHOST RETURNS: 1922

Now, two years later, from the porch of the very same house that housed Fortney’s ghost, Mrs. Rogers was forced to break up a crowd by firing her revolver into the air over a new.  A friend of Mrs. Rogers corroborated her account as least as far as the unexplained bright light was concerned.  Only upon prodding his memory could he recall the crying of the babe.  This time the Record Eagle seemed less credulous that it did in reporting the ghost episode two years previous.

In the end, the latest haunting of the house went away as rapidly as the first.  Mrs. Rogers recanted her account, perhaps because a resident of the house, Charles F. Howard, was sought for bootlegging, a common offense during the Prohibition era.  Most likely she wished to get out of the limelight, her ghost story doing just the opposite—making her home the center of interest and controversy.

A TIME OF SPIRITUALISM, SEANCES AND THE OCCULT

Copious amounts of thanks go to the Teen Sages of Traverse Area District Library, who reenact a seance to illustrate this article.
Teen Sages reenact a seance for the purposes of educating readers, with nary a care for their own safety.

What do these tales of hauntings tell us about the people of Traverse City who lived at that time?  Is it unusual for newspapers to report stories of the supernatural?  Why the inordinate interest in the supernatural, an interest that expressed itself in the assembling of “half hundred” onlookers in one case?  Would such reporting gain traction with newspaper readership now?  These are questions that probe the underlying values and customs of a different time.

From the 1890’s through the twenties spiritualism was a powerful force in America and in England.  Spiritualists—among them, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame—would attend séances conducted by guides to the spirit world.  Ouija boards reached the pinnacle of their popularity in the twenties—Norman Rockwell even did a Saturday Evening Post cover of a couple manipulating one.  They sat opposite each other with the board on their knees, their knees touching or not, a pose of extreme daring at this time.  Their fingers lightly touched a token which would move over the board as they jiggled it with their knees.  It might stop on Yes! if the question posed was, “Will I be divorced?”  Or it might spell out a whole sentence in answering a question, the token stopping for an instant at appropriate letters.   In any case, the toy appealed to those who took the spirit world seriously.  The owner of the patent, William Fuld, made one million dollars in 1920, a sum that would have to be multiplied by 20 to convert to today’s money.

Newspapers would occasionally tell about ghostly visitations within their communities, the story designed to attract interest–perhaps on a slow-news day.   While a single story of a ghost might attract a few readers, a whole series of articles extending over five days would heighten that interest even more.   That is what the Record-Eagle did in 1920, setting the story up in the second week of January.  While the newspaper expressed a willingness to listen to first-hand accounts of witnesses, it stood back a little, not jumping on board the occult band wagon.  After all, reporters were supposed to be journalists—and journalists should be skeptical of sources unknown to them.

Nowadays occasional articles still pop up in magazines and newspapers, but they seem more like curiosities than genuine stories based upon accounts by reliable witnesses.  They are printed wholly for entertainment value, not for insights into the world of spirits.  It is unlikely a tale of a haunting would draw a hundred people to the site where ghosts, bright lights, and the wail of babes have all been observed.  Or not.  At bottom, how much different from our grandfathers and great-grandfathers are we?

Horowitz, Mitch, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, Bantam Books: NY, 2009 (available for checkout at Traverse Area District Library.)

Forgotten Stories

To Traverse Point and Return, M.E.C. Bates

1 Comment

Did you ever ride down to Traverse Point and back by way of Old Mission, all in one summer evening and night?  If not, one of the freshest, most charming pleasures awaits you that ever your life held.  Give your imagination the rein for a little space, and in fancy take the trip with us, to-day.

"The Old Wilson Road (V)," lithography by William S. Holdsworth, 1901.
“The Old Wilson Road (V),” watercolor by William S. Holdsworth, 1901.

It is verging on five o’clock p.m. when we leave Traverse City.  The sun is dropping towards the western hills, and sending long level golden beams into the eastern belt of pines and oaks as we leave the town behind, and sweep around the bight of the bay to the Peninsula.  The bay is a misty blue with long lines of sparkling waves rushing shoreward, for though the air is warm with a languid, luxurious August heat, there is a brisk breeze from the northwest that sweeps through it—cool, bracing, exhilarating.  In a few moments the town is dim behind us,–white houses, mill stacks with their plumes of smoke, church spires, and the castle-like walls of the asylum all melting together into the dim outlines.  With swift and steady stroke our horses’ hoofs fall upon the hard, level road, and the speed of our going, with the rush of the wind in our faces, makes us feel as if it were wings instead of feet that are bearing us onward.  The pines and cedars have closed in on both sides of the road.  The air is spicy with resin and balm.  All the little nooks are ablaze with goldenrod, blue with wild asters, or white with yarrow, that “dusty beggar, sitting by the wayside in the sun.”  Now and then, a pretty clearing opens on the right, with a cosy white farm house set down in its bit of orchard, or green meadows, with a bright bed of flowers by the door, and beyond, fields of corn standing stately and tall in serried ranks, like soldiers on parade.  Then the wood closes in again with its sweet, dark greenness.  To the right it is close and dense.  To the left is always the bay, so near we could toss a pebble in it through its fringe of birches and cedars.  The wind freshens and the white caps dance out beyond the pebbly shallows.  The crisp waves run up the beach and fall with a musical crash on the shore.  Marion Island begins to loom large and green ahead.  The little haunted island shows its fringe of bushes and stunted pines more clearly.  The bay shore begins to take a great curve.  The islands are abreast and then drop astern.  The sun is shorn of his beams, and, a great glowing ball of fire, drops below the purple hills.  A sudden, dewy breath as of twilight and the coming night sweeps out of the thickets.  Tall pines stand in stately colonnades along the beach.  There is a dock, ancient and wave-worn, running out into the water.  This must be Bower’s Harbor, and we look out towards the haunted island, half expecting to see the ghost of the old Sunnyside come steaming out from behind the bluffs as she speeds to her old landing place.  But no.  Her timbers strewed the beach of Lake Michigan long years ago, and bluff Captain Emory sleeps his last sleep somewhere under these northern pines, and for her there has never been given a ghostly resurrection.  On and on, the road sweeps around o the west and climbs a steep way cut on the side of the bluff, so near and so overhanging the water that the spray from the tips of the great green curling waves now coming in falls over us.  The stout horses tug and bend to their task, and presently we are out on the top of the highlands, and the world lies open and fair before us, and this is Traverse Point.

The "Old Fish Shanty" on the shore of the Holdsworth property, Old Mission Peninsula; lithograph by William S. Holdsworth, undated.
The “Old Fish Shanty” on the shore of the Holdsworth property, Old Mission Peninsula;  watercolor by William S. Holdsworth, undated.

What shall we say of it?  Here are the beginnings only as yet of the improvement of one of the loveliest spots for summer homes in all this beautiful Resort Region.  It is not fair to tell now of what is,–for that is changing so rapidly to the far different what-it-will-be.  These pretty cottages rising here and there are only the avant couriers of uncounted others to come.  Here is a children’s paradise, where all the summer through the little ones may gather roses for their cheeks, and strength and litheness to their supple limbs.  Here—but why foretell? The swift years are telling the story of them both,–beautiful Traverse Point and fair Ne-ah-ta-wan-ta, “placid waters.”  What will never change are rose of dawn and gold of sunset, silver glory of moonlight and purple of twilight, misty gray of summer rains and strength of wild waves when the winds send them sweeping in from the northwest in long lines of foam crested rollers, sparkle of blue under the noonday sun and glint of stars in fathomless depths of midnight in heaven above and water below,–a thousand variations of tint and form, of sound and motion, of shadow and light, and all beautiful beyond expression.

"Path to Shanty on the East Shore of West Bay," lithograph by William S. Holdsworth, 1900.
“Path to Shanty on the East Shore of West Bay,” watercolor by William S. Holdsworth, 1900.

But time flies; we must not stop for rhapsody.
Back to the eastward we go and are off across Peninsula.  The west is all aglow with gorgeous sunset hues of orange and crimson and dusky gold.  There is a strange sense of wide expanse and unwonted freedom.  We look to see why, and find it is because there are no fences in this township.

“How beautiful it is!” we say to each other.  Here is a wide stretch of meadow land; just beyond it melts into a yellow stubble where the wheat was not long ago; then acres of silvery oats and then again the corn, rustling in the evening breeze, while again great patches of potatoes—green tufts, dotting the well-tilled brown soil, come down to the very wagon tracks.  It is a great Acadian garden.  The road winds and turns.  It seems further than we thought.  We must have come out of our way, for part of the time we are surely going back on our former direction.  Shall we stop and inquire?  No.  It is fun to be lost in Peninsula, for we can’t get far away without getting into the water, and we must come out somewhere.  So on we go in the fast gathering twilight.  We are in the midst of the great Peninsula fruit farms.  Far and wide on either side stretch the orchards.  Those—green and glossy in the dim light—are cherry trees; they lost their ruby fruitage long ago; these are pears—loaded down, and with their branches propped to keep from breaking, and already the air is getting spicy with their ripening; yonder are plum trees, more purple than the purple twilight shadows with the bloom on their masses of fruit,–and everywhere are apples,–trees gnarled and knotty with age and crimson with clustering fruit,–trees young and vigorous and heavy with golden treasure,–surely the fabled apples of the Hesperides were not so well worthy of fame as these.  There are handsome farm houses set down among these orchards.  The light is dim now, but we can see and feel evidences of thrift, of comfort, and of substantial competence.  Lights twinkle here and there through the trees.  The road is hilly now, and we go swiftly up one rise and down another, till soon the road bends again and we sweep out on the East Bay shore.  We are at Old Mission.

The Old Mission Inn, once known as Porter House, where Bates sat "under the great maples". Little has changed to the exterior of the Inn in the century since she rested there. Photograph courtesy of the History Center of Traverse City.
The Old Mission Inn, once known as Porter House, where Bates sat “under the great maples”. Little has changed to the exterior of the Inn in the century since she rested there. Photograph courtesy of the History Center of Traverse City.

Here we stop for a little rest before we fairly start on our homeward way.  We sit under the great maples at the Old Mission house, and watch the far off stars, and the distant lights across the bay at Elk Rapids, and listen to the whispering of the waves down on the beach and the moaning of the wind in the trees overhead, and dream.  By and by the moon rises large and fair over the eastward lying hills beyond the bay.  There is a path of silver across the water.  The shadows of the great trees lie heavy on the grass.  The lights in the cottages down at Old Mission Beach Resort begin to go out one by one.

It is time for home going.  The good horses are rested and ready for home.  Once more their hoof beats ring on the hard, level road.

img367 copy
“Birches on the East Shore of West Bay,” watercolor by William S. Holdsworth, date obscured.

Down the center of Peninsula this time.  Right along the high ridge that is the “backbone,” in the old settlers’ dialect.  On either side are deep ravines, dark with shadows.  Overhead the trees shake shadowy hands with each other from either side of the way.  The farm houses are all dark.  The world is dead with silence but for the echoing hoof beats.  On and on.  At last we rush down a long winding hill road, and out on the level lowlands.  To the right, the country with its fields.  To the left the beautiful bay sparkling with silver in the moonlight.  We are tired of saying “How beautiful!” but are silent and drink in the still loveliness of the moonlit water, the quiet fields, and the shadowy woods.

Another hour, and we cross again to the other side.  The West Bay welcomes us with its wind-tossed waves.  The village with its white houses stands still and fair under the oaks in the moonlight.  It is its silent streets that echo with our horses’ hoof beats now.  Forty miles and more of riding between supper and sleep, and such a ride!

Home at last!

——————————————————————————-

Notes: M.E. C. (Martha E. Cram Bates) Bates was an important literary figure of the Traverse area, arriving here in 1862.  She married Thomas T. Bates, the editor of the Grand Traverse Herald, working in various capacities for that newspaper over the next thirty years.  She especially enjoyed keeping a column in the Herald called “The Sunshine Society”, which entertained children with poems and stories.  As an early woman journalist, she helped to found the Michigan Woman’s Press Association in the 1890’s.

Martha Bates was co-author (with Mary K. Buck) of two books, Along Traverse Shores (copies are available at Traverse Area District Library) and A Few Verses for a Few Friends.  The present article is taken from the first volume.  M.E.C. Bates died in 1905.