Family Fulfills Quest With Hamilton Cottage Purchase
By Leslie Rott

The Davey family (back row, from left) Lily Charkow, Jeff Charkow, Kristen Davey Charkow, and Ben Charkow from River Forest, Illinois, Joe Stuart, Maggie Stuart, and Sarah Davey Stuart from Winnetka, Illinois, John Miles Davey and Roshma Azeem from New York City; (seated) Mary Davey, Sophie Charkow, and John Davey.

John and Mary Davey of Bloomfield Hills have been on a quest for more than five years to buy a cottage on Mackinac Island. Mr. Davey has a lot of family history here, and when their grandchildren visited them at the end of July, they became the fifth generation of Daveys on Mackinac.

Davey Cottage

The Davey family first purchased property on the Island in 1916. A lot in the Mission District was purchased by John’s grandfather, Berten Miles Davey, and became the family cottage in 1923. It was named “Ballynahinch Cottage” after the family’s home village in County Down, Ireland. The cottage remained in the family until it was sold in 1955.

“I spent my growing up summers on the Island until 1955,” Mr. Davey said.

One of Mr. Davey’s earliest memories of Mackinac was when the Island came alive on August 15, 1945, on V.J. Day. Signaling the end of World War II, Mr. Davey remembers the church bells ringing and the whistles of the steam ships in the harbor blowing for 15 minutes straight.

“The Island was a great deal different then,” he said. “There weren’t as many people visiting the Island.” He grew up here before the days of Moral Re-armament, Mackinac College, and Mission Point Resort. Ballynahinch Cottage was the last building on Main Street, and the family had an unobstructed view of everything east of it.

While he has fond memories of days past, Mr. Davey said Mackinac Island still is a beautiful place to come and relax, and he hopes that his grandchildren will one day appreciate being so fully surrounded by nature.

In the 1970s, his father, Joseph Davey, served on the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, and during that time, the children of John and Mary Davey spent several weeks a summer at the Major’s Quarters behind Fort Mackinac. Mr. Davey still has family on the Island, as his uncle, Patrick Davey, who lives in Florida during the year, resides at Lesley Court in the summer months.

“It’s a place where all of our kids love to come,” Mr. Davey said the Island, and of his and his wife’s decision to find a new cottage here. Mrs. Davey, whose own family loved to vacation here, has also wanted a place.

“It was a joint dream,” she said.

Since 2000, Mr. and Mrs. Davey have rented cottages on both the East Bluff and the West Bluff, with the hope that one day they would own their own cottage. They even wrote letters to cottagers, hoping that someone was eager to sell. Their dream finally came true this May, when Hamilton Cottage came up for sale.

Coincidentally, their new cottage, on the East Bluff, is directly above where the family’s Ballynahinch Cottage once sat.

Built in 1888 by Montgomery and Gertrude Hamilton of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the cottage and the Island would help to inspire their enterprising daughters, Alice and Edith, and their three other children. Alice was a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, worked at Hull House in Chicago, and would go on to become the first female to hold a professorship at Harvard Medical School. Edith is known for her work and publications on Greek and Roman mythology.

The Lynn and Dora Williams family have owned the cottage for the past 35 years, and now the torch has been passed to the Davey’s.

The Davey’s hope the cottage will inspire greatness in their grandchildren, as it did in the Hamiltons.

Aside from the laughter that fills the air and the “gooh’s” and “gah’s” of happy grandchildren, the Davey’s have added small personal touches to make the cottage their own. Two cork boards line the front walls, left by the Williams family, which the Davey’s wasted no time in covering with pictures of their own family.

Photos of Ballynahinch sit on the mantel, a proud reminder of the family’s history here. Antique furniture covers the expansive wraparound porch, and children’s toys litter the front yard.

Plans for renovations are few, Mrs. Davey said. “It’s perfect as is.”

Mrs. Davey describes the seven bedroom cottage as “simple, classic lines” and “ peaceful and nicely done.” Mr. Davey describes it as a “Classic Mackinac Island cottage that hasn’t been changed much since the early 1900s.” Both of them agree, however, “This cottage was just perfect for us.”

“We just felt at home right away,” Mrs. Davey added.

Mr. and Mrs. Davey said that they plan to spend a month at their cottage during the summer and will come up on weekends during the summer and fall months, as well. Surrounded by woods in the back and the lake in the front, it is hard to tell where the outside ends and inside begins, giving Mr. and Mrs. Davey a place of refuge from the hustle and bustle of suburban life.

At the far end of their dining room there is a sign, created by one of their sons-in-law. The sign is handcrafted and sports a large sail boat, similar to one that the Davey’s might see when they look outside their living room window at the picturesque view of the Straits of Mackinac.

The sign is inscribed with the date 1888 and a name. It sits, waiting to be hung above the wraparound porch, ready to proclaim the dawn of a new era, “Davey Cottage.”