Summary
The Garden Island Indian Cemetery is a burial and archaeological resource on Garden Island, also identified as archaeological site 20CX12. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places under reference 78001494 in 1978. The National Register finding aid establishes the listing, but the nomination text, exact boundary, burial count and chronology are not yet held in this project; those details should not be inferred from later summaries.
The listing’s reported historic context is Indigenous/Aboriginal, with a period of significance spanning 1850-1949. That designation is a statement about the resource’s evaluated significance, not a claim that the cemetery was founded in 1850 or that all burials fall within that period. Its relationship to the Anishinaabe community documented elsewhere in the archive is clear at the level of place and cultural history, while specific cultural-affiliation and archaeological claims require the nomination and consultation records.
Open questions
- Acquire and ingest the National Register nomination and any Michigan SHPO archaeological documentation.
- Confirm the cemetery’s mapped boundary and relationship to the state-managed Garden Island parcel.
- Determine whether a current tribal, state or local source documents continued use, stewardship, access protocols or the number of marked and unmarked graves.
See also
Sources
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Michigan single-property finding aid, Garden Island Indian Cemetery, reference 78001494.Official finding-aid entry confirms the resource name and National Register reference; the nomination text and exact location are not held in this project.
- National Register of Historic Places, Michigan, Charlevoix County, Garden Island Indian Cemetery, reference 78001494.Convenience index used to record the listed resource's reported areas of significance, historic function and periods of significance; verify against the official nomination when acquired.
- Beaver Island Master Plan (Beaver Island, Mich., 2023), pp. 9, 91.Places Garden Island's surviving structures and Indigenous settlement history in the island-management context, but does not supply the cemetery nomination.
- "A Trip to Garden Island," *Beaver Beacon*, July 1965.Local visit describes the Indian burial ground, moss-covered wooden spirit houses, a latest grave dated 1938, the nearby Indian Village and school/church remains. It is an eyewitness travel account from 1965, not an archaeological survey.