High Island

Summary

High Island is the third-largest member of the Beaver Island archipelago at 15.06 km², lying west of the northern end of Beaver Island. It carried a resident Native and settler population into the 20th century, including a Christian Israelite (“House of David”) colony. The operating span is disputed: a 2026 community-history source reports 1912-1932, while a 1967 local retrospective places the move around 1906-1910 and the end of the Israelite era after a 1930 court settlement. A 1963 report also places a House of David employee on High Island in 1936. The colony’s exact end date and the later abandonment narrative remain provisional rather than settled facts. It is now entirely state-owned land managed by the Michigan DNR Wildlife Division.

History

Strang’s own newspaper described High Island in the late 1840s as an expansion target: “a little larger […], and four miles from Big Beaver […] That has no improvements, but its pineries are very valuable, and the soil is good. It has a beautiful little lake within it, and has a beautiful harbor.”¹ Whether Strang’s followers ever settled the island in numbers comparable to Beaver Island itself is not established from sources held; the 1905 Williams memoir lists it only as one of the islands visible from the main island’s dune.²

By the early 20th century a Native village existed on the island, fishing being the predominant occupation, alongside a logging operation that continued until 1908. Welke’s 2026 secondary account dates the Christian Israelite sect known as the House of David (based in Benton Harbor, Michigan) to an “Israelite Colony” on the island between 1912 and 1932, running the existing sawmill until it burned and selling farm produce at Saint James and by shipment to Benton Harbor. A major storm in November 1940 destroyed the island’s fishing boats, and the settlement was abandoned thereafter.³ This narrative is not the only local account. A February 1967 retrospective says the Israelites began moving to High Island between 1906 and 1910, that a 1930 court settlement marked the end of their era, and that Claude Swafford’s family remained to manage the potato farm.⁴ A March 1963 report identifies Swafford as a House of David employee on High Island in a 1936 murder hearing and therefore demonstrates continued association with the community, without resolving its institutional status or population.⁵ The exact operating span remains contested pending a period newspaper, court file, or House of David record; the 1940 storm/abandonment account likewise remains dependent on Welke’s secondary summary.

The June 1945 feature offers a contemporaneous but brief description of High Island as deserted, including the former seven-sided House of David dormitory.⁶ It supports the existence of visible abandonment by that date but does not resolve the conflicting institutional dates or document every resident and building on the island.

Geography

At 15.06 km², High Island sits between Beaver Island and Garden Island. Scott’s 1902 Coast Pilot describes a good, well-protected harbor on its northeast end, with holding ground and shelter from all winds except southerly ones, and a flat on the harbor’s south side; approach directions run north from a point midway between Beaver Island and the south end of High Island. Per the 2023 Beaver Island Master Plan, the island’s name derives from a “mountainous sand dune” on its western edge, and it is entirely state-owned land under the Michigan DNR Wildlife Division, which maintains several cabins, now in disrepair, used by researchers.

Names

No former or GNIS variant name is recorded for High Island in sources held; its name is attributed to the prominent dune on its western side rather than to any person or event.

Significance

High Island’s documented history — Strang-era timber prospecting, a Native and mixed-settler fishing community, a Christian Israelite colonial venture, and abandonment after a single storm — makes it a compact case study in the archipelago’s pattern of settlement and depopulation on its smaller islands, distinct from the continuously inhabited main island.

Open questions

• Whether Strang’s followers established an actual settlement on High Island (as opposed to merely surveying it for timber, per the Gospel Herald passage) is not established from sources held.
• The House of David dates remain disputed between Welke’s 1912-1932 account and the 1967 local retrospective’s c.1906-1930 account; the 1936 employee report shows continued association but is not a population or institutional census. Period newspapers, court records and House of David institutional records are still needed, as is a contemporaneous account of the November 1940 storm.
• No population figures for High Island at any date have been located.

See also

• Beaver Island archipelago
• Beaver Island
• Hog Island