BEAVER ISLAND - The American Arranmore

By Hugh O'Hara
Donegal Annual, 1968

Every now and then, we read in the Donegal Annual about Arranmore Island. It might interest some readers to know that there is an island in the northern part of Michigan, U.S.A. known as Beaver Island, which was colonised by the Irish-particularly the people from Arranmore Island. The island lies almost due west from historic Mackinac-the famous summer resort. It is thirty miles from Charlevoix, point of embarkation for Beaver Island. It is thirteen miles long with irregular widths ranging between three and five miles. The greater part of it is still wooded. While originally populated by Indians and French trappers, the modern history of the island begins with the coming of the Mormons.

A split had occurred in the the Mormon religious group in Navoo, Illinois, and a man by the name of James Jessie Strang gathered a number of followers about him and withdrew to Kirkland, Ohio. A clever lawyer, who was subsequently elected to the Michigan Legislature, he managed to obtain a foothold on Beaver Island. He brought in a large number of Mormon families and declared the island was the Promised Land for his sect in 1848. By outnumbering the islanders, they took over all properties and forced the inhabitants to leave. However, complaints eventually developed among the Mormons regarding certain practices which were being introduced by Strang, who had declared himself King of Beaver Island, and the U.S. Government requested he be brought to trial. Strang was acquitted and returned to his "kingdom". Eventually another U.S. Government vessel came to investigate and while Strang was on his way to the boat, two of his own followers lay in wait and shot him. He did not die immediately but was taken to his parents' home in Wisconsin, where he succumbed.

Needless to say, the event was to change the course of the island again. A man by the name of Bonner, who came from Rutland Island, was fishing near one of the islands in the Beaver Island group, and he was approached by an Indian in a canoe. The Indian used the hand sign language to convey to John Bonner that "the King was dead". John gathered his fishing gear together and cautiously approached Beaver Island, landing at an area which had no settlers. The point at which John Bonner landed is known as Bonner's Landing. And his son Patrick-together with his wife Rose-still live on the island, caring for the farm which has been in the Bonner family for over one hundred years. Pat is about 83 years old and still plays Irish tunes on his fiddle.

With the passing of Strang, the original settlers-with reinforcements-returned to Beaver. The Mormons were obliged to leave and a battle ensued on the Pine River at Charlevoix Harbour, between the Mormons and the people who had originally suffered at their hands. And so the Irish came to the island after the evacuation of the Mormons. They were the second and last colonisers of the island. The change was indeed notable-similar in miniaturised form to the transformation of Ireland itself from a country pagan to the most Christian country in the world. The Catholic parish established within a few years after the Mormons departed, is still there. Despite the exodus of the younger generation to the other parts of the U.S. in pursuit of careers and occupations, the Church displays a great vigour. The Arranmore men and women brought a faith and Gaelic language as strong as the rocks that guard their island home. The religious and educational status of Beaver Island today bears this out. One hundred and six years after the establishment of the Holy Cross Parish, the school on the island is under Catholic direction, although supported by the government. The Dominican Sisters teach in the school and needles to say, there is complete satisfaction.

The first priest on the island was Father Zorn, a missionary, with headquarters at Harbour Springs on the mainland, some twenty miles east. Rev.Patrick B.Murray came there in 1862 and was called away in 1865, when the Rev.Peter Gallagher came to take his place for the reason, we are emphatically told, that he could speak the Irish language. It is firmly asserted that he was the answer to the prayers of one old lady who for three years poured forth her soul to God in the fervent hope and supplication that she might not die until an Irish priest could hear her confession in Gaelic. Many of the older men and women understood little or no English. It is worth mentioning that many of the second generation conversed in the Gaelic of Donegal as well as if they had been reared in the land of their forefathers.The Rev.Peter Gallagher was born June 24, 1835 at Menaborigar, Co.Tyrone. He left his native land with his father and mother and brother in June, 1852 and landed in Philadelphia the following August 4th. He attended the old St.Joseph (Jesuit) School for a time and then went from Philadelphia to Ottawa College, Ottawa, Canada and was ordained by the saintly Bishop Baraga of Marquette, Michigan. On July 29, 1866, he was appointed pastor of Holy Cross Church, Beaver Island, where he landed on August 9, 1866. He died November 13, 1889. He had as visitors and assistants for a time two of his nephews, priests who had come as children from Co.Tyrone in 1850, the Rev.Hugh and Rev.William Logue. Recently I spoke to Capt.Ben Gallagher, 87 years old, a former Beaver Islander now residing in Escanaba, Michigan, who was present when Father Gallagher was dying. Father Gallagher was taken back to Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, for burial in St.Dennis Cemetery, Calamound. His two nephews are also buried there.

The parish is in ;possession of a reproduction of a restored portrait of Bishops Baraga, the frame of which was made from oak taken from the schooner Rutland, owned and sailed by John B.Bonner from Rutland Island. The schooner carried the lumber from Traverse City to build Holy Cross Church and carried Bishop Baraga as passenger from St.Ignace on his last visit to Beaver Island about the year 1865. The frames were presented to the parish by M.J.Bonner. Mr.Lawrence Malloy, who should be called "Mr.Beaver Island", is a truly remarkable man. Born on Beaver Island, he is quite active for his 73 years, can set fish nets in the harbour, butchers for his family supplies, attends to the winter supply of wood fuel, etc. He was a teacher at one time on the island and has a tremendous store of knowledge of the people. He pointed out the old farms which had been owned and worked by the Malloys, Gallaghers, McCauleys, Boyles and Hamrocks (the latter apparently from Mayo stock). The Malloy family seems to have originated around Killybegs. The Gallaghers, McCauleys, Boyles and O'Donnells came from Arranmore. It might not be amiss to state that investigation would show the tendency to colonisation to be in direct ratio to the yearning for independence which people manifest and, excepting the converse of this proposition, we find that the people who came to Beaver Island belong to the class most devoted to their own sweet will. In other words, they show a tendency to become their own employers. Divide the County of Donegal into four districts and we find those f the southwestern end a hundred years ago and farther back, going into business for themselves, even though it involved such drudgery as carrying their pack of linen goods. Those from the northeast - Inishowen-we find many out in the states of Oregon and Washington controlling cattle and sheep ranches. A great number from northwestern and central districts of Donegal went into various lines of independent endeavour in New York, Philadelphia and many other cities of the east and west but it might be found the sturdiest of all were those who came to Beaver Island and there established themselves in the fishing and farming that the island affords.

The history of the coming of the Donegal Colony to Beaver Island is interesting. Beginning with the present situation, a visit to Holy Cross Church overlooking from a pleasant eminence the beautiful bay that is the harbour of St.James and the cemetery, brings us back to the good old days in Donegal when the O'Donnells ruled and the Gallaghers were the gallowglasses. In the church, and in the cemetery also, the Gallagher name predominates. They tell the story of the boat captain who pulled up to the dock at St.James' Harbour and throwing a rope called out, "Hey, Gallagher-catch the line!" and everyone of the group of men on the dock tried to catch it! In 1893 an exiled Russian nobleman by the name of Feodor Protar came to the island accidentally. He was on his way from Chicago to St.Ignace. The wind was blowing heavily and the ship was about given up for lost. He and his friend, Dr.Bernhardi, went below decks and exhausted, fell into sleep. When he awoke, the ship was rocking at anchor in peaceful Beaver Island Harbour. He thought the beauty and stillness of the area remarkable after the fierce gale. He completed his journey to Rockford, where he had a newspaper business, sold out and returned to the island the following year. He had been so impressed by the hard-working and simple, generous people, that he decided to make his home there. Although not a medical doctor, he had a pharmacist's degree and he administered to the people, never taking cash in payment, for thirty years. His old house still on the island and Dr.Protar decided to build a home on an ideal site which he had carefully selected, and thereafter began tø gather lumber towards this end. When he was about ready to build, the Widow McCafferkey's home burned down, leaving herself and brood of children shelterless. Dr.Protar sent all his lumber over to the widow, the man set to and shortly had a new home erected for the McCafferkey family. Dr.Protar never did get the home he planned. Pravda, the Russian newspaper, in reporting his death in 1925, refers to a letter he wrote home in 1894, stating that he "found an island that had only whitefish and Gallaghers".

In addition to the Gallaghers, one finds the names of O'Donnells, Greenes, Floyd, McCanns and McDonoughs (the latter two being of Mayo stock), Martins, Dunlevys, Mooneys, O'Briens, Colls, Earlys, McCafferty, Connaghans and more of the old Tir Chonaill stock. The first Irishmen who reportedly came to the island were eight in number-the four Martin brothers from Inishowen, James, John, Edward and Dan, and J.Bonner from Rutland Island to the northwest of Burtonport. According to Lawrence Malloy, the first people from Arranmore to settle on the island were the Boyles in 1883. They were followed by the the McCauleys and John O'Donnell, who came with the Martins. These men came to New York in 1851, where they heard of the good fishing in Mackinac Straits and came up there in 1854. The Mormons cast the adrift in a sail-less, rudderless boat but Providence carried the boat into another island and the Martins were saved, from the open waters of the lake. These men, with the Mackinac Irishmen, were of some influence in driving the Mormons from Beaver Island in 1856. Immigration from Canada took place from 1857 to 1860, with the thought of doing farming and fishing. The island colony had come from Arranmore, with the exception of the following three families: Captain Owen Gallagher, who was head of the Coast Guard Station for thirty years, his wife-whose maiden name was McCauley, and Mrs.Mary Gallagher from Iniscara. There were fifty-two Irish families on Beaver Island in 1866. They had their little farms and fished similar to the way life was lived in Arranmore. As the Atlantic claimed her toll of fishermen around the Donegal Coast, Lake Michigan also demanded the price from the men who go down to the sea in ships. You find a similar lament in the tradition of the sea as told in song and story. One song, "Lost On Lake Michigan Where the Stormy Winds Blow", written by Dan Malloy in 1873, concerned the tragic death of John Gallagher who, with two others, were shipwrecked and lost in an attempt to bring provisions for his own wedding. (See poem below).

The call of the outside world has reached the youth of the third generation and so, like a good many rural districts elsewhere, farming has lost its appeal and the glamour and glare of city life have taken many to their bosoms. The fishing to which their ancestors had come has lost its fascination. The lampreys have almost ruined the fishing as it was known in the days gone by. The emphasis today on the island is towards the tourist trade. There are two beautiful lodges, several hotels, and many tourist cabins and summer cottages. A new passenger boat was launched in 1964 with a capacity to handle seventeen cars and many passengers plying between the island and the mainland. The name of the boat is the "Beaver Island". On occasion it will display the Irish Tricolour. A large shamrock adorns the wheelhouse superstructure. The Captain is Lawrence McDonough, whose ancestors came from Mayo. The next in line is Johnny Andy Gallagher, retired U.S.C.G., whose forefathers were Mayo and Arranmore men. Then a new hand at the wheel is Ross Greene-whose family originated in Arranmore. It is remarkable to note resemblances between some of those descendants and their remote cousins still living in Arranmore.
The first thing you will notice on the Beaver Island dock is a large sign "Céad Míle Fáilte". Meals may be obtained at the Killarney Inn, refreshments at the Shamrock Pub, you may stay at the Erin Motel, etc.

LOST ON LAKE MICHIGAN

BEAVER ISLAND
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