Beaver Island Harbor Light

Summary

The Beaver Island Harbor Light stands on Whiskey Point, on the north side of the entrance to Beaver Harbor at Saint James, guiding vessels into the island’s principal harbor. It is a separate structure from the Beaver Island Light Station at the island’s south end, sometimes confused with it because both are called “Beaver Island” lights in different sources. In 1902 it showed a fixed red light of the 4th order, visible 13 miles, from a 34-foot white tower connected by a covered way to the keeper’s dwelling. The site — locally called Whiskey Point — was the pre-lighthouse rendezvous of the fishermen who opposed Strang’s Mormon settlement in the late 1840s and early 1850s, and it later held both this light and the Beaver Island Life-Saving Station, about 165 feet to the west.

History

Before any lighthouse stood here, the point was known as Whiskey Point, “the gentile trader[’s]” landing across the harbor from the Mormon settlement, where emigrant Mormons “generally had to land” and were repeatedly harassed by resident fishermen through the winters of 1849-50 and after.¹ Historian Milo Quaife’s 1930 study of the Strang kingdom identifies this same point as the later site of “the lighthouse and life-saving station.”¹ Peter McKinley, named in Strang’s own 1854 narrative as a trader at the point and “successor to Alva Cable,” later held the post of light-keeper here before resigning in August 1869.²³

Elizabeth Whitney Williams’s memoir gives a first-person account of the station from 1869: her husband, Mr. Van Riper, was appointed keeper that month, succeeding McKinley.³ In the spring of 1870 “a large force of men came with material to build a new tower and repair the dwelling, adding a new brick kitchen,” under a Mr. Newton; “a new fourth order lens was placed in the new tower and the color of the light changed from white to red.”³ This rebuilt, red-light tower is consistent with the fixed red 4th-order light that Scott’s Coast Pilot records in 1902 — by contrast, the earlier “Light Houses” table on the 1855/1861 Lake Survey chart lists an unspecified-color fixed “Beaver Harbor Lt. Ho.” at only 30 feet above the lake, visible 12½ miles, i.e. before this 1870 rebuild.⁴⁵ The 1870 date is independently given by lighthousefriends.com and northernmichiganhistory.com; a howderfamily.com page is reported in project research notes to give 1871 instead, but this project has not located or verified that page directly, so the dissent is recorded rather than adopted.⁶⁷

Van Riper drowned in the harbor attempting to rescue the crew of a sinking vessel, “with a companion, the first mate of the schooner Thomas Rowland.”³ Elizabeth Whitney (Van Riper) was herself appointed keeper “a few weeks after,” and continued in the post after remarrying (her official title becoming “Mrs. Daniel Williams”), until she requested and received a transfer to the newly finished Little Traverse light station at Harbor Point, first lit 25 September 1884.³ A modern secondary account in the island’s community newspaper gives her husband’s given name as Clement Van Riper and dates his drowning to November 1872 while attempting to rescue the crew of a wrecked vessel, and states Williams served as keeper here for twelve years — consistent with, though more specific than, her own memoir.⁸

By 1902 the light-station stood beside the Twelfth (Lake Michigan) District’s Beaver Island life-saving station, whose keeper was Owen Gallagher, post office Saint James, Beaver Harbor, Michigan — Scott’s Coast Pilot places the life-saving station “about 165 feet west of light-house.”⁵ See Beaver Island Life-Saving Station.

Geography

The light stands on the north side of the entrance to Beaver Harbor (Saint James harbor), on Whiskey Point. Scott’s Coast Pilot gives sailing directions: “with the light-house ahead, bearing N.W. by W., distant 1 mile, open the light a little on the starboard bow, heading about W.N.W., which will lead into the harbor. Pass the light-house, giving it a berth of about 200 yards.”⁵ Skilligallee (Île aux Galets) light bears E.S.E. ¾ E., 17 miles; the Hog Island Reef buoy bears E. ¼ S., 8¼ miles.⁵

Names

“Whiskey Point” is the operative former name for this site, not for the light itself: Quaife’s footnote and Strang’s own 1854 narrative both use it for the point and its pre-lighthouse fishing/trading rendezvous, decades before any tower stood there.¹² The modern community newspaper still refers to “the Whiskey Point Light” as a synonym for this station.⁸ OpenStreetMap separately records the alt_name “Saint James Lighthouse.”⁹

Significance

This light and its keepers connect three of the cluster’s other subjects directly: the pre-lighthouse Whiskey Point of the Strang period (a flashpoint of Mormon-fisherman conflict), the life-saving station Scott’s Coast Pilot places 165 feet away, and Elizabeth Whitney Williams, whose memoir is one of the few first-person Great Lakes lighthouse-keeper accounts to also describe the Strang kingdom as a childhood eyewitness.

Open questions

• The construction date of the original (pre-1870) tower is not established here; only that a fixed light of some kind stood on Whiskey Point before the 1870 rebuild (per the 1855/1861 chart table).
• Van Riper’s given name (Clement) and the November 1872 drowning date rest on a modern secondary source (the Northern Islander); Williams’s own memoir does not give a date or his first name. Confidence on those two specific facts is probable, not established, pending a primary confirmation (e.g. a Life-Saving Service or Lighthouse Board annual report).
• Current ownership is contested, not merely unconfirmed. lighthousefriends.com describes a 2000 renewable ten-year lease of the tower to St. James Township followed by a 2005 transfer of title to the Township under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000.⁶ A later beaverbeacon.com piece (title and date not held here, per project research notes) instead calls the light privately owned. The two are not reconciled by any source consulted; a current deed or township record would settle it.
• NRHP reference 78001495 belongs to the other light, not this one. Wikipedia’s article on this harbor light carries reference number 78001495, but npgallery.nps.gov confirms that number is the listing for Beaver Island Light Station (architect John McReynolds, period of significance 1850-1874) at the island’s south end — a different structure.¹⁰ This article’s nrhp_ref_num is deliberately left blank rather than copying Wikipedia’s apparent error, and no dedicated NRHP nomination for this harbor light was found. A future editor should not add 78001495 here.

See also

• Saint James Harbor
• Beaver Island
• Beaver Island Light Station
• Squaw Island Light Station
• Beaver Island Life-Saving Station
• Scott's New Coast Pilot for the Lakes
• North End of Lake Michigan Including the Beaver Island Group (1855 Lake Survey chart)

Sources