- Dates
- 1905-09-26 – 1905-10-07
- Kind
- Disaster
- Participants
- Jack Thomas (captain)
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- maritimecommunityanishinaabe-odawaheritage
- Within
- Garden Island
Summary
A fishing boat carrying four Garden Island families left Charlevoix for Beaver Island on September 26, 1905. The October 7 Charlevoix County Herald said the boat had not reached the island and was about given up as lost. It estimated about 20 people aboard, including women and children, and named Jack Thomas as the boat’s owner and sailor.
Evidence and limits
This is a reported-missing event, not a confirmed wreck or death record. The source says Thomas had gone to the mainland to sell the boat, then started back in the sailboat after failing to sell it; it does not identify the four families, provide a boat name, describe weather or route conditions, or report the eventual outcome. The dates bound the departure and the newspaper’s unresolved report, not a proven loss interval.
The report uses “Indians” and describes the Garden Island community as largely Ottawa and Chippewa. Those are attributed source terms; no additional ethnic, family, or civil identities are inferred here.
Open questions
- Did the boat and passengers eventually reach Garden Island, and where is the follow-up report?
- What was the boat’s name, and can a registry, census, or shipping record identify it?
- Who were the four families and the unnamed women and children aboard?
- Can Garden Island parish, census, or community records identify Jack Thomas fully?
See also
Sources
- Charlevoix County Herald, October 7, 1905, report on a missing Garden Island fishing boat.Reports that a fishing boat carrying four Garden Island families, about 20 people including women and children, left Charlevoix for Beaver Island on September 26 and had not arrived by publication; names Jack Thomas as its owner and sailor. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
Added 1 August 2026 · revised 2 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Report of a Missing Garden Island Fishing Boat in 1905”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/missing-garden-island-fishing-boat-1905/, accessed [date], citing Charlevoix County Herald, October 7, 1905, report on a missing Garden Island fishing boat..
Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Report of a Missing Garden Island Fishing Boat in 1905”RIS for “Report of a Missing Garden Island Fishing Boat in 1905”