Looking Back

Compiled by Ryan Schlehuber

At left:Family members and friends of the late Commander E.M. Tellefson (at far right, sitting with sunglasses on) sit at the shoreline on Mackinac Island near Silver Birches to presumably watch yachts coming in from the Port Huron-to-Mackinac race during the 1960s or 1970s. His daughter, Lynn, is sitting just behind the dog. In the background, an unidentified person looks like she is keeping track of the incoming yachts on a standings board. Mr. Tellefson was the former owner of Silver Birches. He later purchased the Point Aux Pins estate on the western tip of the Island. (Photograph courtesy of Greg Main)

115 Years Ago

Saturday, July 12, 1890

Prof. Lyons, manager of the Island job printing office, located in the county building, reports business good, and steadily increasing.

There is one thing to which we would like to call the attention of the village “dads,” and that is the matter of finding a suitable place for a hack stand. Some days the front streets are so nearly blocked with rigs that it is almost impossible to drive through, or for a person to cross the street. Of course, it is too late to do anything about it this season, but we hope by next the nuisance will be done away with. We wonder why this most important matter has not been attended to long ago.

Advertisement –– The Grand Hotel Mackinac Island! Opened July 1st, For Season of 1890. For Rates and Other Particulars, Address Hayes and Osborne, Proprietors.

Miss Jennie Cable, of Mackinac Island, spent Friday in the city of St. Ignace.

Mrs. General Tom Thumb, with her husband, Count Magri, Baron Magri, and a company of first-class vaudeville stars, will appear at Feuton’s opera house, Mackinac Island, on Monday, July 31st, afternoon and evening.

The Fort ball club crossed bats with the St. Ignace nine yesterday afternoon and fairly mopped the earth with the visitors. Score, 22 to 5.

The troops here were paid off last Tuesday and are accordingly happy.

Monday evening, while a couple of dirty looking foreigners and a performing bear were amusing a large crowd of spectators near the Astor House, they were accosted by our young marshal, who demanded a license, and threatened to take the bear from them if they did not come down with the collateral. Of course they refused, whereupon our bold marshal proceeded to fulfill his threat, but the bruin also objected to the proceedings and, standing up to his full height, uttered such an unearthly roar that our daring official nearly jumped out of his boots, and letting go of the rope, ran as if Satan himself was after him.

90 Years Ago

Thursday, July 15, 1915

A bronze tablet honoring John Nicolet, interpreter, friend of Champlain, and the pathfinder of the old Northwest territory, was unveiled on Tuesday on Mackinac Island by the Mackinac Island State Park Commission.

Col. William P. Preston, mayor of Mackinac Island, gave the address of welcome to the large audience. In the absence of one A.D. Joplin, president of the Park Commission, who was unavoidably detained at home, the response was delivered by Hon. Edwin O. Wood, vice-president of the commission. The address of the day was delivered by Rev. Thomas J. Campbell, S.J., the eminent scholar and historian of New York.

The tablet will be placed at the left of Arch Rock on a vista to be known as Nicolet Watch Tower, surrounded by an iron railing and overlooking the water. The spot must have been passed by Nicolet when he first visited this section and made his landing at the Island.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Cushway entertained a party of 12 of their friends Saturday with a trip to Cheboygan on the yacht Pilot.

The City of Cheboygan brought a party of 50 excursionists here Sunday.

Miss Eleanor Bogan, this year’s graduate of The Pines, Chatham, Ont., arrived home Sunday afternoon.

The remains of the late Mrs. Winifred Webster Pond, daughter of Captain and Mrs. John McA. Webster, accompanied by her husband, arrived at the Island Tuesday. The deceased, who was born on Mackinac Island 34 years ago, was residing at Angel Island, California, where her husband, Captain George Webster Pond, U.S.A., is stationed, when taken suddenly ill and died from the shock of an operation undertaken to save her life.

Although weather conditions have not been favorable to lake travel, our hotels and boarding houses are filling up, with prospects good for an excellent season.

50 Years Ago

Thursday, July 14, 1955

Headline –– Island’s Oldest Resident Died Last Saturday; Mrs. Alice M. Smith, born in Essex, Canada, on Dec. 19, 1868, the Island’s oldest resident, died at the Island on July 9, 1955. Mrs. Smith, the former Mrs. Isaac Bunker, made her home at Mackinac for 58 years. Judge Smith preceded her in death in 1936.

Mrs. R.O. Camp has arrived from Chicago and has opened her summer home in the Annex.

Dr. and Mrs. Phil Porter arrived Thursday from Cincinnati, Ohio, to spend the summer at the Island.

The number of telephone directories required for Mackinac Island continues to increase. John W. Kolbow, area manager for the Michigan Bell Telephone Company, said that 625 copies of the new books were printed this year, 75 more than last year. They are ready, bound in gray covers, and being mailed to Mackinac Island telephone subscribers this week (July 12).

A cable arrived here today from the Moral Re-Armament Statemen’s Mission, which is now in Rangoon, Burma. The force of 192 from 26 nations left here five weeks ago and has since been in Washington, Honolulu, Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, Manila, Singapore, Saigon, and Bangkok.

15 Years Ago

Thursday, July 19, 1990

Evelyn Chambers, of Grand Marais, and her son, Patrick, of Muskegon, visited nurse Ed Chambers at the Mackinac Island Medical Center last weekend.

Jane and Mike Hegarty, Lou Hemingway, Judy and Marty Peterson, Harriet and Bill Terwilliger, and all their children invited guests to join them July 14 in the celebration of the 100th birthday of their three adjacent East Bluff cottages.

Three hundred sail boats, 27 to 78 feet long, will set out Saturday, July 21, from Port Huron in the 66th annual race between that city and Mackinac Island.

Patrick W. Chambers and his son, John, on July 15 saw the Norwegian freighter, Plitvic , which brought submarine cable across the ocean to be laid across the Straits of Mackinac for Michigan Bell Telephone Company and Edison Sault Electric Company. The Plitvic , in the Cheboygan River, was carrying two cables, each weighing 166 tons, for a total of more than 300 tons. She was unloading at the Durocher Dredge and Dock Company, which will lay the cable.