![]() After the current slackened and Van Allen’s buoys and nets returned to the lake’s surface, the keeper was arrested and subsequently forfeited his bail by fleeing the island.Īs nearly all non-believers had left the island, the next two lighthouse keepers were Strangites. Keeper Van Allen had secreted eighteen nets belonging to a Mormon at the lighthouse, and when twenty-four of Van Allen’s nets and attached buoys were pulled underwater by a strong current and thought lost, Van Allen offered to return the eighteen nets in exchange for his twenty-four. James Strang had led his Mormon followers to Beaver Island in 1848, and by the time Beaver Island Lighthouse was built, there was open hostility between the Mormons and “non-believers” on the island. ![]() Ten lamps, backed by fifteen-inch reflectors, were used in the tower’s lighting apparatus that revolved every minute to produce a flashing light, and Henry Van Allen was hired as the light’s first keeper. ![]() According to the contract, the lighthouse was to consist of a brick tower and a one-story dwelling, measuring thirty-four by twenty feet. Avery, Collector of Customs for the Michilimackinac District, to build a tower and dwelling for $4,480 and to have it completed by October 1, 1851. In March 1851, John McReynolds of Detroit signed a contract with Charles E. Representative for Michigan’s third district, submitted a “petition of citizens of the western lakes, praying for the erection of a light-house on Beaver island.” This time, Congress quickly responded, appropriating $5,000 for a lighthouse on September 28, 1850. The disaster to this vessel is ample testimony of the necessity of a light for that point.ĭespite Homans’ compelling recommendation, a lighthouse wasn’t built on Beaver Island for more than a decade. The steamboat De Witt Clinton, in the month of September last, with a full and valuable cargo, struck in the night on a shoal near the Big Beaver, and was obliged to throw overboard nearly $20,000 worth of her lading, including the fixtures for the lantern of the light at Milwaukee, before she could be got off. The loss of property from shipwrecks on the Beaver island has been considerable this season alone, and in value to exceed the cost of building many light-houses and maintaining them. It lies in the direct route of vessels passing from the straits of Michilimackinac to Green bay, and other parts of the northwestern section of Lake Michigan. The only points in my district not named for survey and examination, upon which I would report favorably for light-houses, are two: the most necessary of the two is the southern extremity of the island in lake Michigan, known as the Big Beaver. Navy, wrote the following to Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury:
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