A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BEAVER ISLANDS.

The Beaver islands include 12 islands situated at the northern part of Lake Michigan and were at one time a part of Manitou county, but are now comprised in Emmet. The largest island is called Big Beaver, Garden coming next in size, then High, Hog, Gull, Virgin, Trout, Rabbit, Hat, Harbor, Le Galet, and Holy. The latter was set apart by the "Saints" as a place for holding the "Feast of First Fruits," in the summer of 1855. At that time it was an isolated spot where the feastings and revelries could go on undisturbed by Gentile settlers. These feasts commenced on the first Sabbath after the full moon in August each year, and generally continued several days. One of the principal articles of food was a roast ox or other animal, large enough to feed the multitude assembled.

These islands are valuable fishing stations, and in the season, within a circle of 50 miles, the surface of the lake is flecked with the white sails of the mosquito fleet, often numbering 150 of the open, overgrown, and staunch double-enders, known as Mackinac boats. The most important of the whole group is Beaver island. It contains several thousand acres of arable land, broken by small lakes and streams, and rising in rolling surface to the height of over 40 feet above the level of the lake. At its northern end a bay of much natural beauty opens like a horseshoe to the east, inviting a navy to a safe anchorage. North of the entrance rises the graceful tower of a light-house, with a few buildings clustered about its base. A mile distant, and half way around the curving shore, an irregular row of low buildings straggles along a single street of deep and drifting sand. Here a few dwellings, three or four stores and warehouses, and several cooper shops form a hamlet, once the seat of the "royal palace," the home of "King Strang," and the monarchy he tried to establish. The nomenclature of the island is all that remains of this kingdom. The excellent road leading into the interior is still the "King's Highway"; the largest lake is Galilee, and the largest stream is the River Jordan; but the king is dead and his kingdom destroyed. Strang, in Ancient and Modern Michilimackinac, published in 1854, thus describes this island: Big Beaver is the largest in Lake Michigan, and one of the finest in the world. The harbor at Saint James is the best in the lakes, having an entrance 80 rods wide, with 60 feet of water, a perfectly

land-locked cove, of great depth, with clay bottom, sufficiently extensive to accommodate a thousand vessels.

Saint James is the county seat of Emmet, the seat of the fishing trade for Lake Michigan, and the headquarters of the Mormons east of the Rocky Mountains. It is a small but flourishing place, and cannot fail of getting a rapid growth. It is scattered in groups amidst old forest trees, on rising ground, having a landscape of matchless beauty spread to the north and east, which the hand of improvement will rapidly develop. The principal articles sold are fish and wood; and the purchases are dry goods, flour, salt, cordage, and hardware. Small quantities of lumber are made, and a great number of fish barrels. Some attention has been given to boat building, and a few small schooners have been constructed here. There is one saw-mill. Three large wharves are devoted to the wood business. There is a post-office at St. James, the only one in Emmet county. A printing press has been in operation there for four years, and a weekly paper is issued. At the southeast extremity of the island is the new village of Galilee. The only business yet opened is that of getting out wood for steamboats. A large wharf has been built for that purpose. At the southern extremity of the island is a light-house.

Most of the island is well adapted to agriculture, and farms have been opened in every part. It produces all the crops usually cultivated in New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa, in perfection. Stock of every kind usually raised in the northern States have been introduced, and thrive. The climate is adapted to grazing. Pastures are green till Christmas. Wheat does not winter kill, and corn is never cut off with frost. In short, it has all the advantages of climate which islands in broad, deep waters usually possess; less cold in winter, and less heat in summer, and an exemption from extreme and sudden changes.

Beaver island is well watered. It has seven lakes, varying from a quarter of a mile to two miles in length, and brooks without number, several of which are large enough for mill streams. Big river runs into Lake Michigan at Big Sand bay. It is eight or nine miles long, and affords water-power for several mills. There are a dozen other streams discharging out of the east side of the island, possessing some value. Jordan, discharging the waters of the Lake of Galilee into Lake Michigan, is the largest stream, and has a fall of 26 feet in one mile. At a very slight expense it can be turned into a new channel, and bring this fall at one point, and furnish a most valuable water-power in the new village of Galilee. One of the inlets of Lake Galilee affords a good power

for a saw-mill. There is a brook one mile west of the light-house, with a good mill site on it, near the lake shore.

Lake Galilee is the largest lake in Beaver island, being two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. It lies back of Galilee, parallel to the shore of Lake Michigan, and only a quarter of a mile distant. It is elevated 26 feet above Lake Michigan, and has a depth of 140 feet. This lake was once a bay of Lake Michigan, and the ridge between, is a drift formation of the period when Lake Michigan was some 30 or 40 feet higher than it is now. Font lake, lying in the rear of Saint James, and separated by a plain a quarter of a mile wide from Saint James' channel, at the north end of Beaver, is the second lake in size, being a mile and a quarter long, and half a mile wide. It is elevated 35 feet above Lake Michigan. The outlet is a beautiful little brook, sufficient for a small water-power. This brook is lost in a sand plain, and breaks out in several large springs in the bottom of the harbor of Saint James. It is not improbable that this lake was also formed by the drift. The other lakes are smaller, varying from 50 to 100 acres in extent. They are generally well stocked with fish, though none of them have outlets. They have fine wooded shores, with handsome, dry beaches, and give a wonderful charm to the scenery.

The face of the island is gently rolling, and elevated generally from 40 to 80 feet above Lake Michigan. Along the western shore is a long range of downs and sand bluffs, but partially covered with timber. Two principal roads have been opened through the island, one extending from Saint James due south to Galilee, and the other to a bay one mile west of the light-house. Nearly the whole island is laid out in farms, abutting upon these two roads; the general farm being from 50 to 80 rods wide, and from one to two miles long, and usually from 150 to 200 acres in extent. By this arrangement there is an important saving in the amount of road making necessary to accommodate the country, and will give the country, when well improved, a wonderful appearance of wealth and thrift.

EARLY SETTLEMENT OF BEAVER.

The French of Champlain's colony at Quebec were at Beaver before the Puritans reached Plymouth, or the Dutch New York. Utensils left by them at different early periods are frequently found. Extensive fields which they cultivated are grown up to woods, and some remain in grass. But there are strong indications of the presence of civilization at a still

earlier period. The French settlement in Canada dates in 1608, but there are extensive fields on Beaver which have been thoroughly cleared and cultivated; and some very fine garden plats remain with the beds, paths, and alleys as well formed as the day they were made, and laid out on an extended scale, on which trees have been cut of 204 years' growth. Consequently these places have been abandoned, and grown up to timber, at least since 1650. But cultivated fields are generally several years abandoned before they grow to timber. These were too extensive and show too much signs of wealth and ease to have been the work of a few adventurers.

There is room at least to believe that of the numerous European colonies which were planted in America and lost without their fate ever being known, some one was carried captive to this recess of the continent, and allowed to remain in peace. The existence of such a fact is almost necessary to account for the rapid extension of Champlain's colony in this direction. For it is certain that within three or four years after Champlain commenced the colony of Quebec it had extended to Beaver island, and had a trading house at what now is Saint James.

In 1688 Baron La Hontan, Lord Lieutenant of Placentia, passed this way on a voyage to and up the Saint Peter's river, of Minnesota, near the head of which he found captives from the country around a salt lake beyond them, having beards and the appearance of Europeans, whom he took to be Spaniards, though they, being slaves and in the presence of their masters, called themselves Indians. These captives described their country as the abode of civilization (how could savages from the interior of the continent give such a description, unless there was such a nation in their country?), and since the country has been better known we find the other Indian tribes spoken of by La Hontan, but none bearded and resembling Europeans. It can hardly be otherwise than that some considerable settlements of Europeans came into the very heart of the continent, and brought with them the industrial arts; whose history is unknown, and have been quite destroyed, or have melted away in the mass of mankind, leaving but some faint and fast-passing memorials.

A MOSES OF THE MORMONS.

STRANG'S CITY OF REFUGE AT VOREE AND HIS KINGDOM ON AN ISLAND IN LAKE MICHIGAN.

BY HENRY E. LEGLER.*

Nestling between hills east of the city of La Crosse, Wis., is the pleasant little valley known as Mormon coulée. Industrious Swiss and German farmers, who rigidly adhere to the severe orthodoxy of the Calvinistic creed, have reared on its wooded hillsides and beside the quiet little brook that meanders through, their comfortable cabins and farmhouses. Only the name of the coulée and a few crumbling ruins of masonry remain of what 50 years ago was a flourishing Mormon colony.1

Half a century ago a prosperous community of 2,000 persons inhabited the city of Voree, on the edge of a prairie skirted by White river, in the fertile county of Walworth. It was a stake of Zion, heralded to fugitive Mormons as a city of refuge. Today the site of this city of promise is as bare as if its soil had never borne the weight of human habitation."

*This article was prepared by Henry E. Legler, of Milwaukee, Wis., and published by The Parkman Club of that city in 1897. Much of the material was furnished by Charles J. Strang, a son of James J. Strang, and a resident of North Lansing, Michigan. Through the courtesy of Mr. Legler we have been allowed to add to our volume this history so carefully and recently collected.-Editor.

[1] "Not many years ago the buildings erected by them were still standing, among which a lime-kiln which had been used by them was discovered."-"History of La Crosse county," p. 355.

[2] On the Old Geneva Road, in Walworth county, in the midst of a large corn field, is the only Mormon church in Wisconsin. The worshippers who congregate there belong to the Iowa Saints, known as "Young Josephites." They abhor both the Brighamite and Strangite doctrines. The church is situated at a cross-roads, almost within view of beautiful Geneva lake, six or seven miles south of Elkhorn. Glancing to the four points of the compass, one sees great fields of waving corn, interspersed here and there with a strip of yellow barley glinting in the sunlight, or a clump of trees through which peers a substantial looking farmhouse. The little church is a plain building with belfry, neatly painted white, and bearing on a tablet above the wide front door this legend in raised letters of wood:

LATTER DAY SAINTS' CHURCH.

Much prejudice exists among the country people of the neighborhood against the forty or fifty Mormons who attend this church. Several years ago I spent a few days in the vicinity, for the purpose of gathering data relative to this community. I was told, with bated breath, several instances of witchcraft attributable to the elder of the community. The narrators evidently believed the stories implicitly, the grotesqueness and impossibility of the performances alleged to have occurred scarcely parelleling in extent the credulity of the country folk.

In the neighboring village of Springfield there were, at the time of my visit, a few Mormons who used the schoolhouse as a meeting place. When the Saints were to be called together, the clangor of the school bell apprised them of the fact. Yielding to popular pressure, the trustees of the school had the bell removed. Thereupon the Mormons expressed their indignation by placarding the town with notices of their meeting, these words appearing in large, black type: "Curfew must not ring to-night."