Beaver Island

IslandGNIS 1625037Q813485

Coordinates

45.6647° N, 85.5573° WGoogle Maps: Beaver IslandDownload KML

Eras

French eraStrang eraIrish era

Concepts

environmentgeologysoilsforestsvegetationtreeswetlandswildlifebirdsconservationtoponymyStrang eraIrish eraforests

Within

Beaver Island archipelago

Media

Access and infrastructure of the Beaver Island archipelago · Beaver Island access and infrastructure · Beaver Island coasts, harbors, and navigation context · Beaver Island environmental detail — Northeast · Beaver Island environmental detail — Northwest · Beaver Island environmental detail — Southeast + 30 more

Summary

Beaver Island is the largest island in Lake Michigan and the largest member of the Beaver Island archipelago, with a land area of 150.96 km² computed in EPSG:3078 (Michigan GeoRef) — roughly three-quarters of the archipelago’s combined 199.62 km². It lies in northern Lake Michigan within Charlevoix County, Michigan, and is the seat of both civil townships that cover it, Township of Saint James and Township of Peaine. The island was the site of James Jesse Strang’s Latter Day Saint settlement (from 1847) and self-declared kingdom (from 1850 until 1856), and afterward became predominantly an Irish fishing community, largely from Arranmore, County Donegal — a history recorded in the island’s principal harbor village, Saint James.

History

French-era charts recorded the island as Isle du Castor (“Beaver Island”), the origin the GNIS record’s former_names field preserves. In 1847 the Michigan legislature organized the whole archipelago — not the main island alone — into the Township of Peaine, per a contemporary account of the Mackinac–Mormon controversy.¹ James Jesse Strang landed with the first recorded Mormon settlers in 1847. His followers expanded the settlement from 1848, renamed the harbor village Saint James, and held a coronation in 1850; the settlement ended with Strang’s assassination in June 1856 and the expulsion of his followers. Post-expulsion settlement was increasingly dominated by Irish immigrants, largely from Arranmore, County Donegal (era-irish), alongside the pre-existing Irish presence, and by commercial fishing and, later, lumbering of the island’s hardwood forest.

St. James and Peaine townships together are exactly coextensive with the island, so their combined census counts are the island’s: 551 residents in 2000, 657 in 2010, and 525 in 2020.² Earlier counts, back to 792 in 1900, are set out in the demography survey.

The 2019-2023 American Community Survey gives a higher combined figure, 752, alongside 578 of 966 housing units recorded as vacant. The two do not contradict each other. The decennial census counts usual residents; the survey is an estimate with wide margins at this population size; and the vacancy figure reflects a large stock of seasonal and summer houses rather than depopulation on that scale — the island’s winter and summer populations are different populations, and no single number describes both. The same survey puts the median age at 59.5 in St. James and 66.1 in Peaine.

Wildlife-management reports show a later history of deliberate stocking and seasonal regulation. A July 1938 report says deer hunting reopened after a decade-long closure, following the placement of 17 deer in 1927 and 1928 and a game-division investigation that estimated about 500 deer without signs of over-browsing.³ An October 1950 report describes a strong St. James perch run, a renewed bird-hunting season for introduced sharp-tail grouse, closed seasons for some other game, and a planned state observation and survey to guide the next year’s regulations.⁴ These are contemporary newspaper reports and management intentions, not complete population or harvest series.

A June 1945 feature adds a contemporary glimpse of the island’s wartime-era community and conservation work. It describes a scheduled fish-net inspection patrol from Charlevoix, a 75-foot diesel craft, the Saint James dock and Shamrock Inn, and a South Bend ex-newspaperman named George Stephenson who was reported to have a log cabin on Sandy Bay.⁵ The feature is a travel and human-interest account; its population, ethnic, climate, and fishing descriptions are not treated as complete quantitative history.

Agricultural extension work is also documented in August 1932. P. J. Rood and county agent B. C. Mellencamp collected 21 soil samples, examined subsoil, and planned five alfalfa fertilizer trials with five cooperating farmers. The report also says a soils map plotting farms and soil types was left with Father McLaughlin.⁶ This is evidence of a field project and planned experiments, not a surviving yield or soil-analysis series.

A July 1937 county-agent report describes a related dairy-improvement visit to four bull-association animals on Beaver Island. It says four purebred Shorthorn bulls had been placed there in 1935, that their offspring already showed more type and quality, and that the associations planned to rotate the bulls to extend their service.⁷ The source does not name the associations, farmers, or animals, and the planned rotation is not treated as a completed transaction.

The June 1941 county newspaper announced the second County Agents Summer Conference on Beaver Island for June 23–24. It expected about 60 extension workers and their wives, with an island tour and a St. James Town Hall party; the King Strang Hotel was named as headquarters.⁸ The report preserves the planned conference, not its attendance or proceedings.

The April and May 1955 Beaver Beacon document the launch of a new island ferry, the Emerald Isle. It arrived from Sturgeon Bay on April 21, made its maiden voyage to Charlevoix that afternoon, and was publicly christened at Saint James on April 23.⁹

A May 1945 report records a weekend East Jordan FFA outing on Beaver Island. Seven boys and teacher L. B. Karr camped there May 6–7, playing baseball, seeing a picture show, fishing, and cooking; the party returned on the Mary Margaret.¹⁰ The report names the participants but does not supply their full identities, the campsite, or the vessel’s technical history.

A November 1951 report announced that Governor G. Mennen Williams would present the Beaver Island Game Club a National Conservation Award at the annual Hunters Ball on November 17. The same report retrospectively dates the club’s wildlife stocking program to 1922 and lists pheasants, squirrels, deer, sharp-tail grouse, ruffed grouse, and cottontail rabbits through 1950.¹¹ Its deer count and chronology differ from the July 1938 report, so the two accounts remain separate rather than being silently reconciled.

The held orders also preserve the regulatory side of this history: a five-year deer closure beginning November 15, 1938; a two-year sharp-tailed-grouse and prairie-chicken closure beginning October 1, 1941; and a one-year cottontail rabbit closure beginning October 1, 1952.¹² These are legal orders and effective dates, not complete evidence of enforcement, harvest, or stocking outcomes.

A January 1969 report gives a later winter snapshot of island dependence on the Charlevoix ferry: the Beaver Islander completed its 299th 1968 trip on December 27 with food, building materials, deer salt blocks, and supplies for a new telephone building and Catholic sisters’ home. The article estimates the year-round population at about 225, but that contemporary estimate is not a complete census.¹³

Geography

The island’s area, 150.96 km², was computed from the OpenStreetMap relation boundary (osm_id relation/2202949) in EPSG:3078; published figures elsewhere give roughly 56 square miles (≈145 km²), a close but not identical estimate reflecting a different boundary definition or measurement method. Scott’s 1902 Coast Pilot places the main light-station, a yellow brick tower 40 feet high, on a bluff about 60 feet high at the island’s south end, guiding vessels through the 9½-mile-wide channel between Beaver and North Fox islands; a separate harbor light, a white tower 34 feet high, marks the north side of the entrance to the harbor at Saint James, on the island’s east side.

Six named inland lakes are recorded on the island, including Lake Geneserath, the largest; Williams’ 1905 memoir names it alongside Fox Lake, Green Lake, Font Lake, Long Lake and Round Lake, and describes Font Lake, near the harbor, as the site of Strang-era baptisms. Donegal Bay (formerly recorded on maps as Mount Pisgah Bay) lies on the island’s shore near the dune the same memoir calls “Mount Pisgah.” Pre-settlement vegetation reconstructed from General Land Office surveyors’ notes classes 140.69 km² of the 189.2 km² mapped within the wider AOI as beech-sugar maple-hemlock forest — evidence of what 19th-century surveyors recorded, not a direct modern observation.

Neighboring islands in the group visible from the island’s high points include High Island, Trout Island, Ojibwa Island (recorded historically as Squaw Island), Garden Island and Hog Island, per an 1905 eyewitness description from the dune above the harbor.¹⁴

Ecological profile

The Seven-island ecology connectivity matrix, 2026 makes Beaver Island the best-covered but not automatically complete row in the archipelago comparison. It preserves 1,634 tree/woody evidence records, 1,410 plant evidence records, 17 MNFI natural-community occurrences, 48 animal/bird records, 424 public DNR forest-inventory stands, a 65.50% mean 2023 tree-canopy value, and 33 SSURGO map units. These are different evidence units and scales; they are not counts of trees, plants, species, or habitat occupancy.

The Michigan DNR public forest inventory stand covertype crosswalk, 2026 supplies the most granular current forest baseline. Its Beaver query returned 424 clipped public-inventory stands, led by Northern Hardwood, Lowland Coniferous Forest, Lowland Deciduous Forest, Lowland Mixed Forest, and Aspen cover groups. The inventory also includes wetland, shrub, sand/soil, water, and openland groups, which helps connect forest edges to the island’s wetland and dune settings. It does not cover private land completely, establish ownership, or replace MNFI natural-community occurrences.

The tree and GLO records provide the historical counterpart: beech, sugar maple, hemlock, cedar, fir, spruce, tamarack, birch, aspen, ash, pine, oak, maple, ironwood, and cherry appear in source-bounded survey and stand evidence. The circa-1800 reconstruction is dominated by beech–sugar maple–hemlock forest, but that layer is a reconstruction from surveyor notes rather than a direct modern observation. Current tree-canopy values likewise do not identify species, age, height, or natural-community boundaries.

The MNFI Natural Community Surveys of Beaver Island Archipelago, 2017 and Soil, substrate, hydrology, and landform evidence crosswalk connect named forests, wetlands, dunes, cobble shores, soils, disturbance, deer browse, plants, and wildlife observations. The bird and animal records include management, survey, and incidental evidence rather than a complete fauna census. SSURGO, geology, NWI, canopy, and DNR polygons are island or regional context unless the source explicitly supplies a narrower survey unit.

The companion Beaver Island Archipelago wildlife and bird species evidence index, 2017–2024 currently preserves 48 linked wildlife/bird evidence records spanning 47 taxa for Beaver Island. Those are source records and taxon labels, not individual counts, abundance estimates, or proof of absence.

Names

The oldest name is Anishinaabemowin: Amikogenda — “Beaver-Island, in Lake Michigan” in Frederic Baraga’s 1853 Ojibwe dictionary (p. 25, repeated in the 1878 edition), from amik(wag) “beaver(s)” + a dwelling verb, “where the beavers dwell.” Wood’s Historic Mackinac (1918, II p. 625) prints the same name as A-mic-wug-ain-dod (“Where the beavers live, their home”), and modern reflexes are Amikwag-endaad (Lippert 2015) and Amikwaganda (Northern Islander, 2025). The 1836 Treaty of Washington reserved “The Beaver islands of Lake Michigan for the use of the Beaver-island Indians,” and “the Beaver Islands” remain one of the LTBB’s nine constituent bands.

The held Ojibwe People’s Dictionary entries for amik (“a beaver”) and minis (“an island”) provide modern lexical context for component-like readings of some historical forms. They do not establish the morphology, spelling, pronunciation, or community use of those historical names, so the entries are kept separate from the name attestations above.

The name has both a faunal and an ethnonymic documentary history. Charlevoix’s 1721 journal connects les Isles du Castor to the Amikoues/Amikwa, the “Nation du Castor” whose families had formerly lived on the islands; this is evidence for a name derived from the Beaver People, not only from the animal. Williams’s 1905 settler tradition supplies the competing faunal explanation: beaver-dam traces were still visible around the inland lakes when her family arrived, “and this is why the island was named Beaver.”¹⁵¹⁴

The French called the group les Isles du Castor: first in narrative in Cadillac’s Relation (c. 1695, describing families with corn fields there), then in Charlevoix’s 1721 journal (passed 1 August 1721, “fort bien boisées”), and on engraved charts from Bellin 1744 (“I. du Castor”) and d’Anville 1755 (“I. au Castors”); earlier maps (Franquelin 1688, Delisle 1703) draw the group unlabeled, and Coronelli 1688 labels it for the Ottawas (“Outtâou-uactz”). The English “Beaver I.” appears as early as John Mitchell’s 1755 map — before the British occupation — while Alexander Henry still used “the Isles du Castor” of his 1763 captivity. American usage ran “Beaver Islands” / “Big Beaver” (Blois 1838; GLO plats “BIG BEAVER I.”, 1847–49; Farmer 1853), until the U.S. Lake Survey chart of 1854–57 fixed the modern “Beaver Island.” GNIS records “Great Beaver Island” (from the SDUK 1833 sheet, engraved “Gr. Beaver I.”) and “Big Beaver” as variants; the official name (feature 1625037) is unchanged since the Phase I GNIS compilation (1976–1981). Unlike its northern neighbor Ojibwa Island, Beaver Island’s own name has not been subject to a modern renaming order. No Irish-language name is attested despite the island’s Gaeltacht history, and none is supplied here.

Significance

Beaver Island anchors the whole archipelago both geographically (three-quarters of its land area) and administratively (the seat of both townships that cover the group). Its 19th-century history — French fur trade, Strang’s Mormon kingdom, subsequent Irish Catholic settlement — is the central narrative of the island’s recorded history, and the island’s other named features (Saint James, Lake Geneserath, Donegal Bay) are each part of that same story.

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Added 28 July 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes