- Dates
- 1904-02-28 – 1904-02-29
- Kind
- Rescue
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- maritimeheritagecommunity
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
Frank Sherman, a cobbler of Saint James, attempted to travel from Hog Island to Charlevoix on foot in late February 1904. After a fair-weather start, he chose to walk directly across the lake and was overtaken by a blizzard within about five miles of Charlevoix. He spent the night lost on the ice and was found near Emmet Beach, where farmers resuscitated him before he continued to Charlevoix by rail.
Evidence and limits
The March 5 weekly issue says Sherman started on Sunday morning and was on the lake for twenty-four hours; the February 28–29 dates are calendrical reconstruction from that issue date and weekday sequence, not numerals printed in the report. The source does not identify the rescuing farmers, give a precise route or coordinate, or document Sherman beyond his name, occupation, and Saint James connection.
The event is recorded as a survival and rescue report rather than a drowning, shipwreck, or disappearance: the held source explicitly says Sherman survived and continued his journey by rail.
Open questions
- Can Saint James parish, census, directory, or business records identify Frank Sherman more fully?
- Which bay and shoreline did the report call Emmet Beach, and where did the farmers find him?
- Are there contemporary Charlevoix or Beaver Island follow-up reports about his recovery?
See also
Sources
- Charlevoix County Herald, March 5, 1904, “Lost in a Storm.”The report names Frank Sherman as a Saint James cobbler, describes his attempted walk from Hog Island toward Charlevoix, and says farmers found and resuscitated him near Emmet Beach after a blizzard. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
- The held raw OCR preserves the same named-person survival report independently of the normalized Markdown rendering.
Added 1 August 2026 · revised 3 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Rescue of Frank Sherman in a 1904 Blizzard”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/rescue-of-frank-sherman-in-1904-blizzard/, accessed [date], citing Charlevoix County Herald, March 5, 1904, “Lost in a Storm.” (and 1 further source listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-03. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Rescue of Frank Sherman in a 1904 Blizzard”RIS for “Rescue of Frank Sherman in a 1904 Blizzard”