Mackinac Island

PlaceNRHP 66000397

Coordinates

45.8647° N, 84.6250° WGoogle Maps: Mackinac IslandDownload KML

Eras

Irish eraModern era

Concepts

communitymaritimemigrationIrish era

Summary

Mackinac Island is an island at the Straits of Mackinac, between Lakes Huron and Michigan. This article is limited to Mackinac Island’s documented ties to the Beaver Island archipelago: Beacon retrospectives describe it as the point of origin for Irish settlers who resettled Beaver Island after James Jesse Strang’s 1856 assassination and the expulsion of his followers, and later Beacon issues record a recreational and ferry-network connection between the two islands. It is not a general article about Mackinac Island.

History

Two Beaver Beacon retrospectives, a March 1972 first-person family reminiscence and a January 1982 island-history piece, both state that after Strang’s followers were driven from Beaver Island in 1856, some of the Irish who resettled it came from Mackinac Island. The 1972 account, attributed to oral history from Willy Boyle, son of one of the settlers, names the Martin, Kilty and Boyle families (and “I believe the McCanns”) among those who came from Mackinac Island “to drive the Mormons away.” The 1982 piece states more generally that “the first settlers came from Mackinac Island but soon others came from Canada, New York, and Pennsylvania.” Both accounts are later retrospectives rather than contemporary 1856 records, and neither names a primary source; they are treated here as a probable, not established, origin for part of the post-1856 Irish resettlement, alongside the documented Arranmore, County Donegal emigration recorded elsewhere in the corpus.

In the twentieth century the two islands appear connected chiefly through Great Lakes ferry operations and recreation. A chartered vessel named the Mackinac Islander carried oil-drilling equipment and supplies from Charlevoix to Beaver Island in 1960-61. In 1962, when the Beaver Island Boat Company retired the ferry Emerald Isle in favor of the new Beaver Islander, the Emerald Isle was sold to Arnold Transit Lines and placed on the Mackinac Island run. Beacon issues from the 1970s and 1980s record recreational exchanges between the two island communities, including a 1975 baseball excursion by the Beaver Island team to Mackinac Island aboard the Beaver Islander, with a return match later that season, and later inter-island sports tournaments.

Significance

The settlement claim, if it stands, would make Mackinac Island part of the documented origin story of Beaver Island’s post-1856 Irish community alongside the better-attested Arranmore migration. It rests on two Beacon retrospectives rather than a contemporary source, so it is recorded here as probable. The later ferry and recreational ties are well documented but comparatively minor, reflecting the two islands’ shared position in the same Great Lakes ferry network rather than an institutional relationship.

Added 2 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes