Plat of the south end of Beaver Island, 1930s

Summary

The southern third of Beaver Island — the part of Township of Peaine lying in T.37 N. — drawn to name the owner and the acreage of every parcel from French Bay and Cheyenne Point round by Iron Ore Bay, the light house and the signal station to Cable Bay, McCauley Bay and Martin’s Point, with Lake Geneserath at its centre.

It is the counterpart of the northern sheet Plat of the north end of Beaver Island, 1930s; between them they cover the whole island, which the 1901 edition fitted onto a single double-page spread.

The sheet

The heading is set across the top in plain capitals, with no cartouche and no compass rose:

T.37N. PART OF BEAVER ISLAND R.10&11W.

LAKE MICHIGAN is lettered in the water off the south-west shore and Charlevoix Co. Mich. in a small hand at the foot. There is no scale statement, no explanations panel and no date — none of the three appears anywhere in this atlas.

Section numbers run 1 to 24 across the sheet in heavy figures, and the letters of PEAINE are set one to a section through the middle of it, which is how the civil township is named.

Ownership, as the compilers recorded it

Read what follows as names the county’s records carried when Hixson compiled, as Hixson drew them. It is not evidence of title, occupancy or residence — see the volume’s article for why, and note that this volume, unlike the 1901 one, does not even state where its names came from.

W. S. McCrea still dominates the island. The name carries the whole of section 8 at 640 acres and, around it, blocks of 480 in section 4, 440 in section 5, 400 in section 18, 320 in section 7, 280 in section 12, 214.04 in section 20 and 178.90 in section 19, with 160- and 80-acre parcels besides. Nothing else on the sheet is close. The same name, on much the same ground, dominated the 1901 sheet Plat of Big Beaver Island, 1901 thirty years earlier.

Other holdings, working round the sheet (spellings verbatim):

• North-west, French Bay to the range line — Maple Block Co. 160, R. Mulloy 158.40, A. Fochtman 160, J. Austin 160, and shore lots against N. Saunders.
• North, sections 1 to 6 — Tom. Gallagher, C. A. Hammond 160, State 240, F. Jacobs, J. More, Jno. Pieffer 120, M. Brown 40, W. S. Burt.
• Centre, north of Lake Geneserath — C. A. Hammond 320 and 120, G. Cole 80 and 40, J. Piepper 80, Realty Co. 80, N. Lafrenie 160, Grace Lbr. Co., H. P. Boyle 40, J. Cable 40, C. P. Gallagher, P. Malloy 40, J. Tweddle.
• West and Iron Ore Bay — C. A. Hammond 200 and 240, Maple Block Co. 120, E. Sparrow, J. M. Longyear 167.39, State, and the SIGNAL STA. and LIGHT HOUSE on the point with a school symbol beside them.
• South and east of the lake — J. W. Green 200 and 160, G. Cole 40, Realty Co. 160 and 40, E. Dougherty, D. Peiffer Est. 40, E. Green & McCann 40, J. Green 56.25, Rev. P. Gallagher, McDonough Bros. 160, M. Piepper 48.70, L. Elliott, A. E. Peters, G. Cole 74, D. Peiffer 57.85.
• East shore, McCauley’s Bay to Martin’s Point — O. Corrigan, C. A. Hammond 119.73, A. Fen, W. F. Burk 40, W. S. Burt, J. Gallagher, State 40, W. S. McCrea 160.

State appears far more often, and on far larger inland blocks, than on the 1901 sheet. Tax reversion in the 1920s and 1930s is the obvious explanation and is only an explanation; nothing held here supports it.

One number on this sheet is not an acreage

A small hooked mark drawn like a figure 6 sits beside a great many parcel labels — Tom. Gallagher, C. P. Gallagher and Rev. P. Gallagher all carry it, and reading it as part of the number would give each of them a 680-acre parcel inside a 640-acre section, which is impossible. Each of those three parcels is drawn at about 80 acres, and the figure printed beside the mark is 80.

The atlas explains neither the mark nor the short arrows that point from a name into an adjoining parcel. The 1901 volume’s legend defines a hook as connecting lands owned by the same party, which fits — but that is another publisher’s legend and is not evidence about this one. Acreages on this sheet should be read with the mark separated off, and any figure here that looks larger than its section is a misreading of it.

No person on this sheet is identified with an article here

Every plausible match fails the test this archive uses. An initial and a surname are not an identification on an island where a single sheet carries half a dozen distinct Gallagher initials, and none of the people articles carries a land record that could confirm a join. The names above are recorded as leads.

What is drawn, and what is not

No railway appears anywhere on this sheet. There is no cross-tied symbol on it. The Beaver Island Lumber Company was organised in December 1902 and began moving timber by narrow-gauge railway in June 1903; the accounts this archive holds put its end somewhere between 1915 and 1917 and disagree about which, so the railway was gone at least thirteen years before the earliest date this atlas can carry. Its absence here is therefore ordinary — and the 1901 sheet, drawn a year before the company existed, does not show it either.

What is drawn is roads, as two solid parallel rules. One runs the width of the sheet along the section 5/8 line; another cuts diagonally south-east from the north edge to the north-west corner of Lake Geneserath; a third follows the south-east shore from around section 22 north-east past Cable Bay and McCauley’s Bay towards Kelty’s Point, with a branch west along the foot of the lake. All are the same weight and the same style: this atlas prints no legend, so it defines none of them.

Names on the sheet

CABLE BAY — spelled with a C, on the south-east shore between the outlet end of Lake Geneserath and McCauley’s Bay. The 1901 plate lettered the same water GABLE BAY. with a G, and Cable Bay carries Gable as a variant. This is an independent dated attestation of the C spelling, and of the bay’s position, which has been mis-stated before.

KELTY'S PT. — spelled Kelty, as it was in 1901. Which cape the label denotes is unresolved: the sheet has not been georeferenced and this archive holds two nearby capes, Kilty Point and Kelly Point.

Also lettered, all matching existing articles: FRENCH BAY, IRON ORE BAY, MC CAULEY'S BAY, CHEYENNE PT., MARTINS PT., LAKE GENESERATH, LAKE MICHIGAN, SIGNAL STA. and LIGHT HOUSE.

Sources

1. W. W. Hixson & Company, “T.37N. Part of Beaver Island R.10 & 11W.”, in Plat Book of Charlevoix Co. Mich. (Rockford, Ill., between 1930 and 1939). Read at native resolution from the 6,600 x 5,100 px sheet master held at the local_path above; Michigan State University Digital Repository item 958, ARK ark:/85335/m5m042z88.
2. The volume as a whole, Michigan State University Digital Repository item 946: the evidence that this atlas prints no legend, no scale statement and no date.
3. kb/articles/documents/big-beaver-island-plat-1901.md for every 1901 reading compared above.

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