Summary
The Township of Saint James is one of two civil townships covering Beaver Island — together with Township of Peaine, the two cover the whole island and no mainland territory. It takes its name from the harbor village of Saint James, the island’s principal settlement and, under James Jesse Strang’s Latter Day Saint settlement (1847–1856; kingdom from 1850), the seat of his self-organized county government.
History
The whole archipelago was first organized as a single civil township, Peaine, in 1847.1 The Township of Saint James, covering the harbor and the northern part of the island, represents a later division from that original unit; its exact separation date has not been traced in sources held for this project (see Beaver Island archipelago’s Open questions). Its name derives directly from the harbor village: per a settler’s-daughter memoir, “the county seat and post office was at the harbor, named in honor of the King ‘Saint James’” — James Jesse Strang, who took the title King James at his 1850 coronation.2
Census figures held for this project — the retrieved county-subdivision series begins in 2000, while earlier federal and state records remain a research gap — show the township’s population at 307 in 2000, rising to 365 in 2010, then falling to 259 in 2020.3 The 2023 American Community Survey 5-year estimate reports a higher total population (374) alongside 263 of 436 housing units recorded as vacant and a median age of 59.5 — figures that should be read as a rolling estimate with wide margins for a population this small, not as a literal count comparable to the decennial census (see docs/data-quality.md).
Geography
Saint James Township covers the harbor area and the northern portion of Beaver Island, per its GNIS coordinate centroid (45.788°N, 85.587°W), north of Township of Peaine.
Names
No former or alternate name is recorded for the township in sources held; its name has been stable since its (undated) separation from the original Township of Peaine.
Significance
As the township containing Saint James harbor, this is the island’s seat of government and its principal point of contact with the mainland — the location of its post office, its Life-Saving Service station in 1902 (see Saint James), and, today, its ferry and airline services.
Open questions
- The exact legislative date and mechanism by which Saint James Township was separated from the 1847 Township of Peaine is not established from sources held.
- The lower 2020 population (259) relative to 2010 (365) has not been explained
from any source held — whether it reflects genuine depopulation, a Census
methodology change (2020 used a different decennial instrument,
dec/dhc, than 2010’ssf1), or another cause is an open question.
See also
Footnotes
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System, Domestic Names (Michigan), retrieved 2026-07-28.GNIS feature 1627029; feature class 'Civil'.federal · gnis · gnis_names
- [Anonymous], Ancient and Modern Michilimackinac, Including an Account of the Controversy Between Mackinac and the Mormons (1854), p. 15.'In 1847 the Beaver Islands were erected into the township of Peaine' — the whole archipelago's first civil organization, before the later division that produced this township. See place/township-of-peaine for the fuller account.
- Elizabeth Whitney Williams, A Child of the Sea; and Life Among the Mormons (Harbor Springs, Mich., 1905), p. 82.'The county seat and post office was at the harbor, named in honor of the King "Saint James."' The harbor village that gives this township its name.
- U.S. Census Bureau, decennial census (2000, 2010, 2020), retrieved 2026-07-28.St. James Township population 307 (2000), 365 (2010), 259 (2020).demographics · township_population_series
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2023), retrieved 2026-07-29.St. James Township total population 374, 436 total housing units (263 vacant), median household income $66,806, median age 59.5, median home value $286,400.demographics · acs2023_townships