Ice-Floe Drift and Beaver Island Coast Guard Search in 1936

Summary

On February 8, 1936, an ice floe broke away while fishermen were near the Charlevoix pier head. Clayton Brown, his father-in-law Claude Beardsley, and Coast Guardsman Earl Cunningham became stranded and drifted in an open boat; Beardsley and Cunningham died from exposure before Brown reached the mainland on February 10 with both feet frozen. Coast Guard boats from Charlevoix and Beaver Island searched the surrounding waters.

Evidence and limits

The February 14 report provides the Saturday-to-Monday sequence, names the three men who remained adrift, and names Gene Bearss, Cleo LaPeer, and Lloyd LaPeer among the fishermen brought ashore earlier. The dates are reconstructed from the issue date and the report’s weekday wording. The source gives no boat name, exact coordinates, formal case number, or detailed Coast Guard crew list; it says the party drifted toward the Fox Islands and later reached slush ice off Goodhart. The event is linked to the Beaver Island station because the report explicitly identifies Beaver Island Coast Guard boats in the search, not because the incident occurred at Beaver Island.

Open questions

• Can Coast Guard logs or local death records establish the exact times, boat, and recovery locations?
• What was Earl Cunningham’s station, rank, and service history?
• Can records identify the unnamed Brown household relationships and clarify the route from the ice floe to shore?

See also

• Beaver Island Life-Saving Station
• Beaver Island archipelago
• Clayton Brown (ice-floe survivor, 1936)
• Claude Beardsley (died in the 1936 ice-floe incident)
• Earl Cunningham (Coast Guardsman who died in 1936)
• Gene Bearss (ice-floe incident survivor, 1936)
• Cleo LaPeer (ice-floe incident survivor, 1936)
• Lloyd LaPeer (ice-floe incident survivor, 1936)