Hog Island

Summary

Hog Island is the fourth-largest island in the Beaver Island archipelago at 10.41 km², lying east of Beaver Island. It is entirely state-owned land managed by the Michigan DNR Wildlife Division, valued for its wetlands and as spawning ground for perch and small-mouth bass. A charted shoal off its southeast end, Hog Island Reef, was a recorded hazard to 19th- and early-20th-century shipping in the approach to Beaver Island Harbor. The December 1961 Beaver Beacon also places the 1883 stranding of the J. I. Case on that reef and the 1886 wreck of the LaFinire off Hog Island, but those are retrospective claims rather than contemporary casualty reports.

History

Hog Island appears in the documentary record almost entirely as a navigational landmark rather than a settlement. Elizabeth Whitney Williams’ 1905 memoir names it among the islands visible from “Mount Pisgah” above Beaver Island’s harbor, placing it “off nine miles to the east.”¹ No source held for this project describes a settled community, school, church or post office on Hog Island of the kind documented for Garden Island and High Island; its 20th- and 21st-century history, per the 2023 Beaver Island Master Plan, is that of undeveloped state wildlife land.

Geography

At 10.41 km², Hog Island lies east of the main island and northeast of Whiskey Island. Hog Island Reef, charted immediately off its southeast end in Scott’s 1902 Coast Pilot, extended roughly three-eighths of a mile east-west and 220 yards north-south, with a shoalest depth of 6 feet; it was marked by a buoy and figured in the standard 1902 sailing directions between Beaver Island Harbor and the Straits of Mackinac. The island is characterized today by extensive wetlands supporting rare plants and animals, and its shallows are recorded as spawning grounds for perch and small-mouth bass; it draws migratory birds. The whole island is state-owned, managed by the Michigan DNR Wildlife Division.

Names

No former or variant name for Hog Island is recorded in the GNIS data held for this project.

Significance

Hog Island’s significance in the sources held is primarily maritime and ecological rather than settlement history: a recurring hazard-and-bearing reference point in 19th-century sailing directions, and today a wetland and wildlife reserve.

Open questions

• Scott’s 1902 Coast Pilot uses “Hog Island” for at least three distinct, unrelated places in the same volume — this island in the Beaver Island group, another near Old Mission Peninsula/Bower’s Harbor in Grand Traverse Bay, and a third near the Rock Island/Fisherman’s Shoal approach to Green Bay. Only the Beaver-group hits, confirmed by co-occurring bearings to Skilligallee, Waugoshance and Beaver Island Harbor, are used here; this is exactly the kind of non-unique place name flagged in docs/data-quality.md and should be re-checked if more Coast Pilot material is added to this article later.
• No settlement, population or land-use history predating DNR ownership has been located for Hog Island specifically, unlike Garden and High Islands.
• The 1961 Beaver Beacon retrospective does not establish whether the LaFinire wreck occurred on Hog Island Reef or at another location off the island.

See also

• Beaver Island archipelago
• Beaver Island
• High Island
• Hog Island Reef
• Stranding of the J. I. Case (1883)
• Wreck of the LaFinire (1886)