Excerpts from “Settlers to Sidewalks in Boyne City” by Robert Morgridge
Steamboat to Boyne
Most of the early settlers of Michigan followed the pattern of migration that historians have long noted. Our stout hearted pioneers crossed the country from east to west following the latitudinal lines. Hence many frontiersmen from New York had their belongings pulled along the Erie Canal and ended up in the northwest territorial states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
An examination of records reveals that many pioneers who settled in the Pine Lake area (renamed Lake Charlevoix in 1926) came from New York State and Ontario, Canada. A few came from Maine and other New England and Mid-Atlantic states. They came to this locale because of the easy access afforded by the Great Lakes waterway. The first residents arrived aboard one of the twelve propeller ships owned by the Northern Transportation Line Company. The company was formed under the management of Philo E. Chamberlain. His steamers plied the water between Ogdensburg, New York and Chicago from 1851 to 1876.
In 1856, Chamberlain and his partner, a fellow named Crawford, contracted to buy cordwood from a vendor in Northport. It was from Northport, at the tip of the Leelanau peninsula, that our settlers booked passage upon ships that pointed their prows northeastward across the waters of Grand Traverse Bay to Pine River – now the City of Charlevoix.
Once in Pine River, the wandering pioneer boarded an available weather beaten sailcraft that would take them to their permanent resting place in Charlevoix County. In the 1860’s and early 1870’s those travelling to the “head of Pine Lake” (now Boyne City area) may have sailed off the wind under a sheet of sail in John Miller’s rustic sailboat – the Union Jack. During the 1870s and early 1880’s the channels connecting Pine Lake with Lake Michigan were dredged enabling steamers to make Charlevoix their port of call. From Charlevoix, steamers carried Civil War veterans and all the other people seeking a new life on Boyne’s virgin soil.
Steamships continued hauling people to Boyne until the waning days of the lumbering period. During the World War I years, steamboat traffic declined because of the increase of railroad transportation and the advent of the automobile. Finally, in 1919, the last of the steamers on the lake retired. The era of the steamboat ride ended.
Boyne’s First Permanent Settlers
It was late in the day on November 14, 1856, when a man and his wife beached their boat on the shores of Boyne. After walking up the hill, they found a dilapidated shelter – their “dream cabin” – which they immediately claimed as their home. These hardy pioneers were John and Harriet Miller, and they began a residency that marks the beginning of the history of Boyne. Their reason for coming to Boyne is one of the remarkable stories in Michigan history.
John Miller was born on October 10, 1811 in a land of small farms, pastures, and great peat bogs. He was the son of a Scotch-Irish father, Hugh Miller and his wife, Agnes. John’s birthplace was in St. Andres Town Land in the county of Down, Ireland. In 1823, John and his parents emigrated to the United States. Landing in New York, they pushed north and westward across the state, finally settling on a “tract of wild land” in upstate New York. On Christmas Day in 1840, John married a sixteen year old Canadian born girl by the name of Harriet Russsell. She had been born to Irish parents, and John met her while she was visiting relatives in St. Lawrence County New York. Two children were born into the Miller family: Hugh, on February 14, 1842 and James the following year. In 1943, the Millers bought a farm in Oswegotchie Township, St. Lawrence County.
For twelve years the Millers cleared their land, plowed their soil, hoed their garden, and apparently lived the contented life. It is said that on one morning in 1855, Harriet Miller awoke from a strange dream. In her dream she envisioned a lake to the west which was shaped like a bear and had an abandoned cabin at its eastern end. Convinced that she must seek out this mysterious place, Harriet persuaded her husband to sell their land, pack their bags and head westward.
It took them awhile to settle their affairs. Finally, they made their way a few miles northward to Ogdensburg where they booked passage on a Northern Transportation Line Company ship routed for Chicago. The steamer made its scheduled stop at Northport, Michigan to take on wood. Here on the dock the Millers stood when a decisive event occurred that would determine the course of their lives. Whether by accident or design, the Millers struck up a conversation with a gentleman by the name of John Sargeant Dixon. John Dixon persuaded the Millers to come to Pine River (Charlevoix). On October 26, 1856, the Millers and Dixon arrived at Pine River. The Millers stayed with John Dixon and his wife for several weeks. The Dixons pleaded with the Millers to make Pine River their home , but Harriet was reluctant and insisted on exploring the eastern end of the lake. So the Millers and Dixon set out in an old fishing boat. Late in the day on November 14, 1856 the boat struck the shores of Boyne, and they found the “dream cabin”.
The “dream cabin” the Millers settled in was one of several Mormon homes at the head of Pine Lake. A group of Mormons were brought to Beaver Island by James J. Strang a few years after the death of Joseph Smith – the founder of the Mormons. Some of the Strangite Mormons eventually spread out into Charlevoix County establishing homes in Pine River, Advance, Horton Bay and North Boyne. At the intersection of Groveland and Michigan Avenue, the Strangite Morman, Reuben T. Nichols Built his home.
Shortly after settling in the home Nichols built, John and his two sons explored the shoreline of Pine Lake. Soon they came upon a scenic stream that reminded him of a famous river in Ireland. He promltly christened it the Boyne River. One might conclude that the timing of the Miller’s arrival in Boyne was decisive to the naming of the area.
After settling in their home ,the Millers found unharvested potatoes under the snow covered ground which supplemented their provisions during that winter. In the spring, the Millers planted one-half bushel of seed corn, some potatoes, and two bushels of wheat. Fortunately, the summer of 1857 was a good growing season, and the crops did well. They harvested twenty-nine bushels of wheat in the fall.
For the first six weeks the Millers saw not a person. Then two Indians happened by and told them of the Indian Mission at Bear Creek (Petoskey) headed by Andrew Porter. John Miller snowshoed to Bear Creek to see Mr. Porter. He later returned “to work for Porter for sevenyt-five cents a day.” Starting in 1857, Hugh worked for Mr. Porter for a period of six years. On an average he earned $150 a year.
John Miller owned a sailboat called the “Union Jack”. For a number of years John sailed to Pine River to pick up supplies, and sometimes he returned to the Head of Pine Lake (Boyne City) transporting passengers until the early 1870’s when steamboats began making runs to Boyne. Sometimes bad weather prevented John from returning home. In June of 1858, while Hugh was working at Bear Creek, John and James sailed to Pine River to obtain goods. “The stress of weather compelled them to remain longer than had been anticipated.” For fourteen days Harriet remained alone tending to the cows. In that same year, Harriet went out after the cows one morning and got lost in the woods. For two days she drank milk and slept next to the cows at night until she was found by a search party of Indians from Bear Creek.
The Millers apparently lived in the Mormon cabin “until the fall of 1862, when they erected a more commodious log cabin, near the old cabin.” In time a few homesteaders straggled into the area, staked out their dominion, cleared their land, and survived on a diet of mush, milk, and gastric (sow belly) and fought back the tearful memories of forsaken friends left in the east. To them John Miller became known as “Uncle John”. In 1869, Uncle John became the postmaster and his living room was the post office. The mail was brought from Traverse City by way of Central Lake and the South Arm of Pine Lake by carriers. In later years, a trail was cut from Charlevoix to Boyne and Hugh Miller was one of the stagecoach drivers who delivered the mail. Hugh continued the family tradition when he later became Postmaster of Bay Springs, and his office was located in the grocery store he managed at the foot of what is now called Charelvoix Street.
As the years passed by, John Miller busied himself by clearing the land which is now the site of the trailer court. Long toward the end of his life he became deaf and spent much of his time reading. John Miller lived to see George Beardsley plat the Village of Boyne. He was alive when W.H White arrived and launched his lumbering enterprise. As Boyne City headed toward its peak as a booming lumbering town, John Miller passed away, dying of inflammation of the kidneys and rheumatism on May 8, 1896. Harriet followed John to the grave two years later. Today the Millers rest around a four sided gravestone in the Evangeline Cemetery located a few miles northeast of Boyne City. And so it was because of these two people a determined woman following a dream, and a gentle but nostalgic man, Boyne City was first permanently settled and named.
