Beaver Island Light Station

Summary

Beaver Island Light Station — commonly called the Beaver Head Light to distinguish it from the harbor light at Saint James — stands on a bluff about 60 feet above lake level at the south end of Beaver Island. It marks the 9½-mile-wide channel between Beaver Island and North Fox Island, one of the principal shipping tracks of northern Lake Michigan. The 1902 Coast Pilot describes a yellow brick tower 40 feet high, showing a fixed white light varied by white flashes every minute, of the 4th order and visible 18 miles, with a first-class steam siren as fog signal. The station (dwelling, tower and associated buildings) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 (reference 78001495, five contributing buildings). It is not the same structure as the Beaver Island Harbor Light, which stands at the entrance to Saint James harbor at the opposite end of the island.

History

The station was built under an 1851 contract: John McReynolds contracted in March 1851 for $4,480, and the tower and dwelling were reported complete on 1 October 1851 — the date the National Register treats as the site’s “significant year.”¹ First keeper Van Allen served 1851-52, which is likely why the Beaver Island Historical Society and other secondary accounts instead give 1852 as the light’s first year: probably construction-complete (1851, per the contract and NRHP) versus first full season of operation (1852), a distinction no source consulted here resolves explicitly.²

A light-house “at the head of the Island” already existed by the time Elizabeth Whitney Williams’s family returned to Beaver Island after the 1856 expulsion of the Strangites: her memoir names a Mr. Van Allen as “the first keeper when the light was first erected,” succeeded by Mr. Loaney — an Irish settler who had himself been driven off the island by the Mormons and came back once they were gone.³ The keeper succession she records continues with Capt. Appleby of Buffalo, N.Y.; Harrison Miller, who held the post about eleven years before moving to the newly created life-saving station at Beaver Harbor; and William Duclon, who succeeded Miller and was “at this writing” (1905) recently transferred to the Eagle Bluff light in Wisconsin.³

An 1855 US Lake Survey chart of the Beaver Island group — presented in 1861 by Capt. George G. Meade, later of Gettysburg, to the American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York (see North End of Lake Michigan Including the Beaver Island Group (1855 Lake Survey chart)) — already carries a “Light Houses” table listing “Head of Beaver Id. Lt. Ho.” as a revolving light, 110 feet above the lake, visible 19 statute miles.⁴ By 1902 Scott’s Coast Pilot describes the apparatus differently: a fixed white light varied by white flashes every minute, 4th order, visible 18 miles, on a 40-foot yellow brick tower, with a first-class steam siren sounding blasts of 7 seconds separated by 42-second silences.⁵ The change from “revolving” to “fixed, varied by flashes” between the two sources indicates at least one re-equipping of the light between the 1860s and 1902; no source in hand dates that change precisely (see Open questions).

The standing tower is usually dated to 1858, not 1851: lighthousefriends.com states the original tower “toppled over in 1857,” prompting construction of the current 46-foot brick tower in 1858. At least one other lighthouse-history site is named in project research notes as describing that same 1858 work as major repairs rather than a full rebuild; this project has not obtained that account directly, so the toppled-tower/rebuild reading is the only one verified here, and is not treated as settling the question.¹ Separately, lighthousefriends.com dates a change of illuminant — to incandescent oil vapor — to 17 April 1916, recording the resulting signature as a 1.3-second flash every twenty seconds.¹ That is a documented 1916 event, but it cannot be the undated revolving-to-fixed-flash characteristic change discussed above: Scott’s Coast Pilot already records a fixed-varied-by-flashes light in 1902, fourteen years earlier. Any source that dates the optical characteristic change itself to 1916 or 1917 is therefore either describing this later illuminant change or has simply mis-dated the actual transition.

After the light was decommissioned, the site passed to the Charlevoix Public School District through a surplus federal property distribution, and the district uses it as an outdoor and environmental education center; two additions to the dwelling — a two-story frame addition and a screened porch — are dated to around 1915 and around 1920 respectively.⁶

The station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 29 December 1978 (reference 78001495), with five contributing buildings, at an address given as “S of St. James on Beaver Island,” Charlevoix County.⁷ Modern preservation work by the Beaver Island Historical Society, described in the community newspaper as an ongoing “facelift,” continues as of 2024-2025; the lower level operates as a museum open to the public.⁸

Geography

The station sits on a bluff roughly 60 feet above the level of Lake Michigan at the south end of Beaver Island, marking the south side of the channel — 9½ miles wide per Scott’s Coast Pilot — between Beaver Island and North Fox Island. Bearings given in the 1902 Coast Pilot situate it relative to other regional lights: North Fox Island’s north point bears S.W. by W. ¾ W., 11½ miles; Grand Traverse light bears S. ¾ E., 25½ miles.⁵ Shoal water extends from the island’s south and southwest points for about three-quarters of a mile.

Names

19th-century sources uniformly call this “the light-house at the head of the island,” or “Beaver Island Light-Station,” to distinguish it from the harbor light near Saint James village. The modern informal name “Beaver Head Light” / “Beaver Head Lighthouse” preserves that same head-of-the-island distinction; OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia both use it (Wikidata Q4878099).⁹

Significance

As the light marking the principal deep-water passage past the Beaver Island archipelago, this station is a fixed point in the maritime history threaded through Scott's New Coast Pilot for the Lakes and the sailing directions on North End of Lake Michigan Including the Beaver Island Group (1855 Lake Survey chart). Its keepers overlap with the same small cast of Irish settlers and lighthouse families documented in Elizabeth Whitney Williams’s memoir, connecting it to the Irish fishing settlement that followed the Strangite expulsion.

Open questions

• Construction: 1851, with a first-season/complete-tower ambiguity. John McReynolds’ contract (March 1851, $4,480) reports the tower and dwelling complete 1 October 1851; the National Register’s own significant year is 1851. The Beaver Island Historical Society and other secondary accounts instead give 1852 — plausibly the first season the light actually operated (keeper Van Allen served 1851-52) rather than the construction date. Neither reading has been adopted over the other; both are recorded, in History above.
• The 1858 works: full rebuild, or repair? lighthousefriends.com describes a full rebuild after the original tower “toppled over” in 1857; at least one other lighthouse-history site is reported (per project research notes) to describe the same 1858 work as major repairs rather than a rebuild. This project holds and has verified the rebuild account directly; the repair account has not been independently located here.
• When and why the light’s characteristic changed from “revolving” (1855/61 chart) to “fixed, varied by flashes” (Scott 1902) is not established from the sources consulted. A documented 1916 illuminant change (to incandescent oil vapor, per lighthousefriends.com) is sometimes conflated with this characteristic change — see History — but post-dates Scott 1902 by fourteen years and cannot be it.
• The precise years each keeper (Van Allen, Loaney, Appleby, Miller, Duclon) held the post are not given in Williams’s memoir beyond relative durations; no Light List or annual report was consulted to fix them.

See also

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

Sources