New Time Travel Novel Reimagines Marquette’s Past and Future

Award-winning author Tyler R. Tichelaar has released his twenty-fourth book, Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel. The novel takes readers on a journey from the coronavirus pandemic of 2021 into Marquette’s past and forward into its future.

A stand-alone novel, Odin’s Eye also incorporates characters from Tichelaar’s previous eight Marquette novels, which include The Marquette Trilogy, The Best Place, and When Teddy Came to Town, along with historical people, including Peter White and the Longyear family.

Odin’s Eye begins when the main character, a young man of nineteen, wakes up with amnesia in an unfamiliar place. He is befriended by the Allen family of Marquette who assure him it is the year 1900. They begin calling him “John” since he can’t remember his own name.

John tries to regain his memory with the help of his teenage friend, Hugh Allen, but while much of Marquette looks familiar to him, some parts seem vastly strange. John also has memories of unexplainable modern devices he can’t quite name. As John tries to remember his identity and his past, he sets in motion a chain of events that could have consequences for Marquette’s very existence.

“I have often wished I could invent a time machine to visit Marquette’s past,” says Tichelaar. “So, I did the next best thing—I wrote a time travel novel. Most historical fiction, when well written, is like a time machine, and blending science fiction with history makes for an intriguing tale.” The novel’s title, Odin’s Eye, plays on theories that Vikings visited Upper Michigan centuries before Columbus.

Tichelaar is a seventh-generation resident of Marquette with many connections to its past. His ancestor Basil Bishop worked with Amos Harlow in his forge. Another ancestor, William F. McCombie, helped disassemble the Longyear Mansion. His grandfather, Lester White, was the caretaker at the Longyears’ Ives Lake home at the Huron Mountain Club when Tichelaar was a child. The Huron Mountain Club, the Longyear family, and the Longyear Mansion, which made Ripley’s Believe It or Not for being moved on 190 railroad cars from Marquette to Massachusetts, all play a key role in Odin’s Eye.

Tichelaar’s writing has won numerous awards, including the Reader Views Historical Fiction Award in 2008 for his novel Narrow Lives. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Writer Award in the Marquette County Arts Awards, and the Barb H. Kelly Historic Preservation Award for his book My Marquette. In 2014, the Marquette Regional History Center produced his play Willpower with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council. In 2021, Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, the Man was named a UP Notable Book.

Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel is available locally in Marquette at Snowbound Books, Michigan Fair, the Marquette Regional History Center, and Touch of Finland. Paperback and ebook editions are available from online retailers and Tichelaar’s website www.MarquetteFiction.com. Retailers can order via Ingram at www.ingramcontent.com (ISBN-13: 979-8-9872692-1-3). Publicity contact: tyler@marquettefiction.com. Book review copies available upon request.

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New Book Highlights U.P.’s Most Prominent Architect

D. Fred Charlton is not a household name in the U.P. or even in Marquette where he lived, yet he deserves to be as well known as Peter White, John M. Longyear, Louis G. Kaufman, and many other notable U.P. figures. Perhaps more than any other man, Charlton was responsible for creating beautiful late Victorian and early twentieth structures in Upper Michigan, ranging from churches, courthouses, and commercial buildings to palatial residences, company cottages, and theaters. His styles ranged from Richardsonian and Romanesque to English Gothic, Classical, and Colonial. No list of famous U.P. buildings can possibly omit several structures he built from the Marquette County Court House and Longyear Mansion to Cliffs Cottage in Ishpeming, Newberry State Mental Hospital, and the original buildings of what are now Michigan Tech and NMU. All are buildings well known to Yoopers, and they have Charlton to thank for them.

Steven C. Brisson has done a commendable job in writing this book that will be the definitive work on Charlton for generations to come. He begins by discussing Charlton’s early life in England, family background, and what inspired him to come to the United States and become an architect. In the second chapter, he discusses how Charlton worked for other architects before setting up his own firm in Marquette. In the process, we get a better understanding of architect training in the late Victorian period and how Charlton was on the cusp between carpenters and contractors who built buildings and called themselves architects and those professionally educated as such. We also get an understanding of the pressures architects endured in trying to obtain commissions, compete with other architects who were often from outside the area, and satisfy clients as well as work with landscapers (including Frederick Law Olmstead and Warren H. Manning), interior designers, and other colleagues, including the first women in these fields. In several places, Brisson quotes from Charlton’s letters to his colleague Charles Van Iderstine where the stresses of his job and his sense of humor come through, making him likeable and human.

Brisson discusses different architectural styles that Charlton employed during his thirty-year career from the late 1880s until the end of World War I, and how changing tastes influenced the styles he used as well as the tastes and needs of his clients. Beautiful, artistic designs Charlton made were sometimes rejected due to cost and a more utilitarian desire, while in other cases, he was allowed to let his imagination have full rein, such as with Marquette’s Froebel-Howard School. At the same time, he was apparently a good businessman who was always practical. Brisson notes that while lack of documentation makes it impossible to know exact numbers, of the 284 identified works of Charlton, 97 are known to still exist and 78 to have been destroyed. Destruction of buildings was sometimes due to uncontrollable events like fires, but at other times, the result of changing tastes and needs. However, that so many of the buildings he designed or had a hand in designing are still in use, including the Marquette County Court House and the Marquette Branch Prison, speaks to the practicality of his designs.

Brisson tirelessly surveys all the buildings he could identify as Charlton’s, although a detailed discussion of each building would be impossible. He devotes one chapter to what he considers Charlton’s three signature works, the Marquette County Court House, the Longyear Mansion (both the original structure and the remodeled one after it was moved from Marquette to Brookline, Massachusetts), and the Newberry State Mental Hospital. Brisson goes into full detail about each structure from initial plans through completion and its successive history to the present day.

Many other buildings are surveyed by type of structure, and photographs are included of most, as well as floor plans and watercolor paintings Charlton did of many proposed buildings. Brisson documents his sources, and the endnotes are worth reading for additional information. A few errors exist, but they are fairly minor—misspelling Heman Ely’s first name and naming Morgan W. Jopling as Peter White’s son-in-law rather than grandson—but these are far outweighed by the tremendous information that will leave every reader feeling enriched in their knowledge of the U.P.’s cityscapes. A complete list in the back of the book clarifies the locations of all the known buildings by Charlton, including which still exist, which have been destroyed, and which architectural style(s) they were.

As an enthusiast, though not an expert, on Victorian architecture, and a longtime Marquette resident and local historian, I feel that this book has greatly increased my understanding of architecture in my hometown. While I have long known about Charlton and even written a bit about him in my own books, the depth of Brisson’s research astounded me, and it makes me want to tour the U.P. to see every building Charlton ever designed; many of the buildings just in Marquette I did not know were the result of his skills. The list in the book’s appendix is incredibly helpful in this regard, and I guarantee every resident in the U.P. knows and likely loves several buildings in their vicinity that Charlton created.

One final comment is worth making. This is a larger size paperback—7 x 10—and 265 pages. It should probably be priced at about $25 to $30. However, the price is about $46.95 depending on where you purchase it. It appears overpriced, but given the information inside, it is worth every penny. For me, the discussion of the Longyear Mansion alone, the most thorough I have ever read, makes it invaluable. To my knowledge, the book has received little notice, but it deserves to be on the bookshelf of every U.P. history lover. We have Charlton—and some of his rival architects—to thank for how beautiful our cities look today. Even Hollywood would agree since Otto Preminger chose to film Anatomy of a Murder at Charlton’s Marquette County Court House.

— Tyler R. Tichelaar, award-winning author of My Marquette and Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man, www.MarquetteFiction.com

Local Author Tyler Tichelaar Publishes Biography of Chief Charles Kawbawgam

November 6, 2020—Award-winning author Tyler R. Tichelaar is about to release his twenty-first book, Kawbawgam: The Chief, the Legend, The Man, a full-length biography of Upper Peninsula Ojibwa Chief Charles Kawbawgam, who was rumored to live in three centuries from 1799-1902.

A one-hour zoom presentation and slideshow about the book will be presented through the Marquette Regional History Center on Wednesday November 18, at 6:30 p.m. and online registrants will automatically be entered into a drawing for an original painting of Kawbawgam, by Dan Cook. This live online presentation will include time for questions. A $5 donation to the History Center is required to join this program. Register ahead of time or during the online program at marquettehistory.org/things-to-do or scan the QR code.

Following the presentation, Tichelaar will have a book signing at the History Center on Saturday, November 21 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. to allow the public to purchase books and get them signed while maintaining social distancing. No registration necessary for the November 21st book signing, come anytime 10-1:00 pm. Kawbawgam (ISBN 978-0-9962400-7-9) will also be available locally after the event at the Marquette Regional History Center, Snowbound Books, Michigan Fair, and Touch of Finland, and in paperback and ebook editions at online bookstores and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

Chief Kawbawgam is well known for having lived at Presque Isle Park in Marquette and being buried there, as well as for his friendship with Peter White and for his wife Charlotte’s famous lawsuit against the Jackson Mining Company, commemorated in the novel Laughing Whitefish by John Voelker (Robert Traver).

However, most details about Kawbawgam’s life have been overlooked and a lot of misinformation has been printed about him, including during his own lifetime. Tichelaar’s book explores not only the legend of Kawbawgam’s longevity but also his family origins among the most prominent clan of the Ojibwa. The largely unknown years of Kawbawgam’s childhood and early adulthood are discussed, including his living at the Sault and in Canada, and his role in Marquette’s founding.

Kawbawgam’s fascinating family is at the heart of the story, including two uncles who fought for the British in the War of 1812, a sister who married a US Congressman, a brother who lost his nose in a card game fight, a brother-in-law who visited the President of the United States as an interpreter, and another brother-in-law who committed Marquette’s first murder.

Tichelaar also places Kawbawgam in the context of his time, including the Ojibwa ceding parts of the Upper Peninsula to the United States government, their lamenting their sacred burial places being destroyed to build the Sault canal and locks, and continual fears of their removal. Tichelaar shows how Kawbawgam learned to walk a fine line to keep peace between the Ojibwa and white Americans, including befriending prominent white citizens in Marquette.

“I think people will be amazed,” said Tichelaar, “by Kawbawgam’s story. He is always mentioned in local history, but his influence and prominent role in Upper Michigan’s history has been largely ignored. He was just as significant in Marquette’s founding as Harlow, White, or Graveraet. By telling this story, I hope to correct the historical record, making more people aware of the Ojibwa’s contributions and sacrifices, often through coercion. Kawbawgam’s story reflects a forgotten side to U.P. history that needs to be told and reassessed, especially in this time of greater racial awareness and revisionist history.”

A seventh-generation Marquette resident, Tichelaar is the author of twenty-one books, including When Teddy Came to Town, Haunted Marquette, and My Marquette. His novel Narrow Lives won the 2008 Reader Views Best Historical Fiction Award. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Writer Award in the Marquette County Arts Awards and the Barb H. Kelly Historic Preservation Award. In 2014, his play Willpower was produced by the Marquette Regional History Center with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council. He also owns his own editing company, Superior Book Productions.

Publicity contact: tyler@marquettefiction.com. Review copies available upon request to reporters and professional book reviewers.

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Constance Fenimore Woolson, the Mathers, and a Marquette Literary Mystery

Few people who visit Mackinac Island today ever see Anne’s Tablet or even know it exists. It’s a large plaque in the woods by Fort Mackinac, overlooking the lake. The main plaque contains the image of a young girl and has a quote on it from the novel Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson. In a half-circle around the main plaque are three benches with the titles of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s novels and nonfiction works engraved on their seats.

Although little known today, Constance Fenimore Woolson was a popular American author in the late nineteenth century who was often compared to Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Eliot. Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux reminds us that Woolson was far more than just a writer and a lover of Mackinac Island. Because she was a friend of the great novelist Henry James, she has often been reduced to a footnote in his story, but her own story is fascinating, including the role she played in the development of regional Great Lakes literature. Not only did she write about Mackinac Island, but she also wrote about Marquette County, a fact not so surprising since Anne’s Tablet was placed on Mackinac Island in 1916 by Woolson’s nephew, Samuel Mather Jr., one of the major players in the early iron ore industry in Upper Michigan. In fact, Woolson was probably the first author to write fiction set in Marquette, more than three decades before Carroll Watson Rankin published Dandelion Cottage in 1904. The question remains, however, whether she ever visited Marquette.

Constance Fenimore Woolson was one of the best-selling authors of her day and a close friend to Henry James. She traveled the Great Lakes extensively in the 1850s and wrote about them in her later fiction.

Woolson was born in 1840 in New Hampshire, but the family soon moved to Cleveland. Her mother was the niece of James Fenimore Cooper, author of Last of the Mohicans. Woolson’s middle name of Fenimore would later help her break into the literary world. In the 1850s, the family frequently visited Mackinac Island and had a summer cottage there. During this time, it is likely she also traveled widely on Lake Superior. Woolson and her family lived in Cleveland until her father’s death in 1869. She then turned to her pen to help support her mother. They also moved to St. Augustine, Florida, and spent summers in North Carolina. During this time, Woolson began writing and publishing stories about the Great Lakes. After her mother’s death, Woolson moved to Europe in 1879 and lived a wandering life, setting up households in Oxford, Florence, and eventually Venice, where she died in 1894. During these years, she wrote novels and stories set in the American South and Europe, and she published her most popular novel Anne (1882), partly set on Mackinac Island, which sold over 300,000 copies.

Whether Woolson ever set foot in Marquette, Michigan, is unknown, but the evidence suggests it is likely. Woolson’s interest in the area probably began as a result of her sister Georgiana marrying Samuel Livingston Mather in 1850. Mather would later be president of the Cleveland Iron Mining Company (which eventually became Cleveland Cliffs) with interests in Marquette County. Georgiana was the mother of Samuel Mather, Jr. and Katherine Livingston Mather. After Georgiana’s death in 1853, Samuel Livingston Mather married Elizabeth Gwinn, the mother of William Gwinn Mather. Despite her sister’s untimely death, Woolson remained close to her brother-in-law’s family all her life. She likely visited Marquette in the 1850s either during or shortly after her sister’s lifetime, as evidenced by the stories she wrote. In all, Woolson wrote at least three short stories set in Marquette as well as scenes in two of her novels.

Woolson’s first short story set in Marquette is “On the Iron Mountain,” which appeared in Appleton’s Journal on February 15, 1873. The story is about a young woman, Helen Fay, who journeys with a small party of visitors from the East to Marquette. Once there, they decide to see the Iron Mountain, which was a large pile of iron ore located at the mines. Woolson describes the setting as:

Marquette, on Lake Superior, is now a busy town, soon to be a city; it has railroads on shore and fleets of steamers and vessels on the water, people to do business and business to do, all coming from the Iron Mountain behind it. But, in 1853, it was a lonely settlement in the woods, with one little stamping-mill stamping on the ore with wooden legs; a few houses of those hopeful pioneers, who so often sow the seed in the West and so seldom reap the harvest; and a swampy, rocky, sandy, corduroy road, inland to the mine. The Iron Mountain stood there, great and wonderful, waiting for capital. Capital has come, and dug and blasted into its sides for years; but it remains great and wonderful still.

A second story, “Peter the Parson,” appeared in Scribner’s magazine in 1874 and was later reprinted in Woolson’s story collection Castle Nowhere, which includes other stories set on Mackinac Island and in the Great Lakes, including Beaver Island. This story takes place in a mining town named “Algonquin” on the southern shore of Lake Superior. It includes a furnace, stamping mill, and saloon. The story tells the tale of a preacher who is killed by the miners, being struck on the head with a piece of iron ore while the “Iron Mountain” rose behind him. The story received complaints about its ending, but it showed Woolson was striving to do more than create conventional story endings.

The third story, “The Old Five,” was published in Appleton’s Journal in 1876. It is set in a mining town named “Dead River” on the southern shore of Lake Superior. The title refers to the name of the mine in the story. The story includes references to Cornish miners, blueberries, a birch-bark box of Indian sugar, beach agates, and other items of local color. Since the Dead River is just north of Marquette, the fictional town is clearly meant to be Marquette.

Woolson’s novel East Angels (1886) is set in Florida, but the main character, Winthrop, invests in an iron mine on Lake Superior and goes to visit it, seeing a “mountain” of iron ore. In Woolson’s novel Jupiter Lights (1889), part of the setting is in a town called Port aux Pins on Lake Superior, which also seems a likely candidate for Marquette.

One additional piece of Woolson’s published writing that leads to the conclusion she may have visited Marquette is an essay she wrote entitled “Lake Superior,” published in 1876 in Picturesque America, edited by William Cullens Bryant. In this essay, Woolson takes the reader on a circle tour of Lake Superior, describing everything from Sault Ste. Marie to the Pictured Rocks, Keweenaw Peninsula, Apostle Islands, and the north Canadian shore. Of Marquette, she writes, “Marquette comes into view, a picturesque harbor, with a little rock islet, the outlet for the Iron Mountain lying back twelve miles in the interior, a ridge of ore eight hundred feet high, which sends its thousands of tons year after year down to the iron-mills of Cleveland, Pittsburg, and Cincinnati, and scarcely misses them from its massive sides.” The essay is written in third person and is solely descriptive without Woolson offering any hint of personal experiences with the places described, but the descriptions are so detailed, especially of the Pictured Rocks, that it is hard to believe she did not view everything about which she wrote.

Other evidence that Woolson likely drew upon personal experiences for her fictional treatments of Marquette can be found by reading a fragment of a journal that her sister, Georgiana Woolson, wrote (published in the first volume of Five Generations Past, a family history, by Woolson’s niece Clare Benedict). Georgiana kept the journal from June 8 to 29, 1853, during which time her husband, Samuel Livingston Mather, left her in Marquette on her own for two months. The journal includes mention of the Carp River, the forges, and Presque Isle, which she calls “an emerald upon the blue water!” She also mentions two residents, a Miss B— who went with her and an Indian for a ride in a birch-bark canoe, and Ellen who “went in the afternoon to the Carp River with the children of the house.” Ellen may have been Ellen Hewitt, Peter White’s future wife, who would have been sixteen and like Woolson’s family, was from Cleveland, or Ellen Harlow, daughter of town founder Amos Harlow, who was eight at the time. No mention of Woolson is made in the journal, but is it a coincidence that “On the Iron Mountain” is set in 1853, the same year Georgiana visited Marquette?

While Woolson no doubt read Georgiana’s journal, it does not contain descriptions that equate to those in Woolson’s short stories. This distinction suggests Woolson did not rely on family documents but her personal experiences in writing her stories. That said, Woolson must have learned much about Marquette from her Mather relatives. She certainly knew about Peter White from them, which isn’t surprising since her brother-in-law Samuel Livingston Mather’s brother, Henry Mather, lived in Marquette and was married to Mary Hewitt, the sister to Ellen Hewitt, Peter White’s wife. What is surprising is that the one time we know Woolson met Peter White was when she was living in Florence, Italy. In The Complete Letters of Constance Fenimore Woolson, edited by Sharon L. Dean, Woolson writes to her nephew Samuel Mather, Jr. on March 20, 1880:

We saw the Peter Whites before leaving. I was in a book store one day when a gentleman came up and said smilingly, “Is’nt [sic] this Miss Woolson?” I answered that it was, but of course had no idea who he was, as I have never seen Mr White. What follows will be hard for Kate to bear; but tell her to brace up. He then said “I knew you at once from your resemblance to Kate Mather!” I met him again a day later, this time with Mrs Senter, who had just arrived. So Clara and I went over to call upon them, because of their being friends of yours. They were staying in the West Bay two miles and more from our Bay. We saw Mrs White, all the others having gone on some excursion. She looked very delicate and said she was not able to walk at all. She had just received a letter from her sister Mary, and was rejoicing over it. She seemed to us a little homesick, but perhaps that was temporary. She was very pleasant; I have not seen her since I was Clare’s age; I see she has the same fine eyes, and gentle voice she had as a child. They drove over to return our call, but we were unfortunately out, and so did not see them again.

At the time of this letter, Woolson’s niece, Clare Benedict, was eleven, which would suggest Woolson last saw Ellen Hewitt White about 1851. Ellen Hewitt, of course, grew up in Cleveland, so she and Woolson might have known each other as children, or Ellen might have visited Cleveland again after moving to Marquette, or they saw each other in Marquette. Since Woolson had not met Peter White before, her previous meeting with Ellen was in all likelihood before the couple married in 1857. That said, the Whites probably visited Cleveland many times, given that they were spending time with Mrs. Senter, who is likely Delia Wheaton Senter, the widow of George B. Senter, a former mayor of Cleveland.

Some of Woolson’s other letters offer additional clues that she likely visited Marquette. On May 1, 1875, she writes to Paul Hamilton Hayne about her first book, Castle Nowhere, “as I had lived in the Lake-country I wrote of what I knew; the descriptions are all from reality, written down as exactly as possible.” Since “Peter the Parson” was included in Castle Nowhere, does it verify that she visited Marquette?

Another letter to Samuel Mather, on January 17, 1893, testifies that she must have traveled on Lake Superior as far as Minnesota. “I did see prairies in all their splendid wildness; (you were with us,—a baby a few months old). And I did see thousands of wild Indians gathered at La Pointe for their payment a few years later.” The prairies Woolson mentions are likely in Minnesota while La Pointe is in Wisconsin where there was an Indian agency. If Samuel Mather was a baby at the time, this trip to the prairies must have been in the fall of 1851 since Samuel was born July 13, 1851 and autumn was when the government typically made annuity payments to the Native American tribes. Woolson would have only been eleven at the time. The second trip to La Pointe a few years later likely was to the Indian agency in either Sandy Lake, Minnesota, or Superior or Bayfield, Wisconsin. The agency moved around a lot in the 1850s, and despite its name, it was not always in La Pointe. If Woolson traveled so far west on Lake Superior with her sister and baby Samuel, she likely would have stopped in Marquette as well.

If Woolson did not visit Marquette—and it’s important to note she never said that she didn’t—the other probability is that her fiction was inspired by stories the Mathers told her. The Mathers seem to have been storytellers themselves since in an April 25, 1875 letter, Woolson suggests to her nephew Samuel that he write his own stories, saying he has “every qualification” to do so. She certainly encouraged her Mather niece and two nephews in their love of literature. In a letter dated September 13, 1888 to Mary Mapes Dodge, author of Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates and editor of a children’s magazine, she writes, “all of my life—long before I began to write—I have been a teller of stories to children. Endless stories; stories that went on for months & years,—oral serials. One of my nephews, a man six feet high, with a black beard, re-told to me one of my serials (in outline) at Sorrento, some years ago, so that his young bride could also hear it!” This nephew is Samuel, who visited her in Italy on his honeymoon.

Samuel Mather, Jr. also must have mentioned Marquette in his letters to his aunt because on January 22, 1888, Woolson asks him, “Did the Marquette Fay really discover a gold mine?” This comment probably refers to James S. Fay, President of the Lake Superior Iron Company, who found a vein of gold and silver on the Ishpeming gold range in the summer of 1887.

But perhaps most fascinating of all is when Woolson writes to Samuel on January 9, 1893, sending him part of the draft of her last novel Horace Chase (which not surprisingly also has a passing reference to Marquette) and asking him to give her advice and make corrections to it. Her primary concerns are whether the conversation is natural and whether the threat that one character makes to another is realistic. She asks Sam to read the novel aloud so “Will” (William Gwinn Mather) can give his advice also. Sam apparently did as requested because on March 14, 1893, she writes to thank him for his “excellent corrections” and says “They went to N.Y. an hour after their arrival here.” Sam’s corrections could not have been too extensive since Woolson made them so quickly, but the situation makes one wonder what other literary advice or material Mather provided for his aunt.

Less than a year after this letter, Woolson died on January 24, 1894. At the very end of her life, Woolson had been very ill, having spent many years suffering from hearing loss, chronic depression, and insomnia, but she also came down with a major illness after Christmas, for which her doctor gave her laudanum. Scholars still debate whether her final illness was influenza, a gallbladder inflammation, a bowel obstruction, or pancreatitis. In any case, perhaps drowsy or dizzy from the laudanum, she got out of her bed in her apartment in Venice that last night and opened her window. She then either accidentally fell out of the window or intentionally committed suicide, landing three stories below on the pavement.

Following Woolson’s death, her sister and niece, Clara and Clare Benedict, went to Venice to clean out her apartment, and they were helped by Henry James. According to Sharon Dean, the editor of her letters, Woolson probably burned many of her letters for her own privacy and that of her correspondents, but the Benedicts and James may have also burned letters. Those letters might have included some from the Mathers that would have offered more information on Woolson’s treatment of Marquette in her fiction.

Woolson’s death made international news and was not unnoticed in Marquette. On Tuesday, January 30, 1894, the Mining Journal carried a small story stating that Samuel Mather, Jr. had heard of her death two days before in Cleveland. The newspaper noted “Her death has caused great sorrow among her many admirers in this vicinity.” While the article goes on to mention several of Woolson’s books, it does not state whether Woolson ever visited Marquette. Perhaps the source of Woolson’s information about Marquette will never be solved, but regardless, Woolson can be considered Marquette’s first author.

More information about Woolson can be found at the Constance Fenimore Woolson Society’s website at https://constancefenimorewoolson.wordpress.com/, including links to the three short stories referenced here. Woolson’s novels are all still in print and a new collection of her short stories has just been published.

Special thanks for their help in researching this article are due to Woolson scholars Anne Boyd Rioux and Victoria Brehm, to Beth Gruber at the Marquette Regional History Center, to Dawn Gallo at Peter White Public Library, and to Anne St. Onge at the Mackinac Island Public Library. Thanks is also owed to Jennifer Lammi for editing an earlier version of this article which appeared in 2016 in Harlow’s Wooden Man, the quarterly publication of the Marquette Regional History Center.

Tyler Tichelaar at Anne’s Tablet on Mackinac Island, Summer 1999

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Tyler R. Tichelaar is proud to be a seventh generation resident of Marquette. He is the author of eight novels set in Marquette, including The Marquette Trilogy and When Teddy Came to Town; the history books My Marquette: Explore the Queen City of the North and Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City; and the play Willpower, about Will Adams, Marquette’s ossified man, which was produced by the Marquette Regional History Center at Kaufman Auditorium in 2014. His next book Kawbawgam, a biography of Ojibwa Chief Charles Kawbawgam, will be released in November 2020. For more information on Tyler and his books, visit www.MarquetteFiction.com.

New Book About George Shiras III Is a Triumphant Look at Man Who Changed Wildlife Conservation and Photography

James H. McCommons’ new biography, Camera Hunter: George Shiras III and the Birth of Wildlife Photography, is a stunning look at a man who helped to change the world through his use of photography and his belief in wildlife conservation. This biography is long overdue and has been splendidly assembled by McCommons, who looks at all aspects of Shiras’ life from his family background, to his personal and family life, his political efforts, his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, his conservation efforts, and perhaps most importantly, his groundbreaking efforts to photograph wildlife, which eventually led to developing National Geographic into the magazine it is today.

While I felt I already knew a lot about Shiras from having read his biography of his father, George Shiras II, who was a US Supreme Court Justice, and his famous book Hunting Wild Life with Camera and Flashlight, I was impressed by McCommons’ extensive research into Shiras’ life. McCommons not only teaches us about Shiras but about the political and social climate of the time and how Shiras was both affected by it and was an influencer of it.

While one cannot deny the importance of Shiras as a wildlife photographer, having taken the first nighttime photographs of wildlife and taken some of the first photographs of wildlife in their natural environment, I was most interested in Shiras’ role in creating legislation to help protect wildlife, specifically through the waterfowl bill he got passed in Congress. We also learn a lot about his conservation efforts and how he worked with others like Roosevelt to protect wildlife nationally and even throughout North America.

McCommons’ substantial research informs every chapter. For example, as an author of a historical novel about the Roosevelt Libel Trial that took place in Marquette in 1913, during which time Roosevelt stayed in Shiras’ home, I was impressed by some of the details McCommons presented that I had not heard before that he gathered from many newspapers across the country.

Of course, all the details are also here about Shiras’ photographic processes. McCommons communicated with the descendants of John Hammer, Shiras’ right-hand man, to shed additional information on their mutual efforts. We also learn about Shiras’ excursions to places like Panama and Alaska to take photographs, often under difficult conditions.

Personal aspects of Shiras’ life explored in the book include his relationship with his father; the loss of his son, George Shiras IV; his relationship with his father-in-law, Peter White; and his personal friendship with Roosevelt. Finally, we learn what a wonderful benefactor he was to Marquette, Michigan, deeding land for Shiras Park, beginning the Shiras Zoo at Presque Isle Park, and establishing the Shiras Institute, which funded the Shiras Planetarium.

Anyone interested in wildlife photography, National Geographic, conservation, Theodore Roosevelt, or the history of Upper Michigan will enjoy this book and come away with an enriched understanding of both Shiras and his times.

The Prologue of My New Book “When Teddy Came to Town”

My new novel When Teddy Came to Town was published recently. It’s a novel about the 1913 libel trial in Marquette when former President Theodore Roosevelt sued the Ishpeming newspaper editor, George Newett, of the Iron Ore, for calling him a drunkard. Here is the prologue:

Prologue

On Wednesday, October 9, 1912, former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who now styled himself Colonel Roosevelt, based on his past military experience, arrived by train in Marquette, Michigan. He was there to campaign as the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party candidate for the presidency of the United States.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Libel Trial began on May 26, 1913 in Marquette, Michigan.

An estimated six thousand people turned out to see Roosevelt—most would not be able to hear him because the crowd was so thick. Throngs of people squeezed into the train yard surrounding the depot and on both sides of Front Street near the makeshift platform erected for him in downtown Marquette.

Among Roosevelt’s listeners was George A. Newett, editor of the Iron Ore, a newspaper published in the city of Ishpeming, some fifteen miles west of Marquette.

Because Newett and his paper were staunch supporters of the Republican Party, Newett was already inclined to have an unfavorable view of Roosevelt’s speech. Newett was angry that Roosevelt had broken with the Republican Party after it had nominated incumbent U.S. President William Howard Taft over himself for its presidential candidate. Roosevelt had then decided to form his own Progressive Party and be its candidate. The result had been division within the Republican Party since many of its members chose to support Roosevelt.

No doubt many other Republicans present were not fans of Roosevelt, but regardless, the enormous crowd was thrilled to see a former U.S. president. The only other president ever to have visited Marquette had been President Taft the year before, so regardless of Roosevelt’s politics, the community saw it as a day worth celebrating.

Although Roosevelt had never before visited Marquette, he knew several of the local politicians, including George Shiras III, who summered in Marquette and had served as a congressman for Pennsylvania in Washington, D.C. Roosevelt and Shiras had developed a friendship because of a bill Shiras had introduced to protect wildfowl. Roosevelt shared Shiras’ conservation interests, and since they had met, he had taken great interest in Shiras’ efforts to photograph wildlife. Now seeing Shiras in the crowd, Roosevelt shouted to him, “Did you get your beaver picture yet?” Shiras shouted back that the glass plate had not yet been developed. Then Roosevelt’s attention was diverted away from his friend, and in a few more seconds, he was ready to give his speech.

A presidential candidate’s speeches are notorious for pointing out what is wrong with his opponent’s position on various issues, and Roosevelt’s speech that day was no different. He spoke out boldly against the steel trust, which he blamed for taking over the Republican convention and preventing him from getting the presidential nomination. But today Roosevelt was in steel country. Marquette County’s economy relied on its iron mines, which shipped ore to the great cities of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo, where the ore was turned into steel. In fact, George Newett’s newspaper, the Iron Ore, was named for the community’s bread-and-butter.

Roosevelt did not let Marquette’s interests in steel dissuade him. Instead, he addressed the situation directly. Speaking without hesitation, he declared, “The steel trust is here in Marquette County, and its attorney, the congressman against whom—”

“That is not true!” a man interrupted him.

The man was John Van Evera, former warden of the Marquette Branch Prison, and a strong supporter of the Republican Party.

Roosevelt, without blinking an eye, shot back, “You stand for theft and you stand for lying and false witness bearing. Another thing I will give you a chance to deny: that every paper influenced by the steel corporation in Marquette and by the standpatters is against us in this county.”

Van Evera replied, “I am not afraid of a Bull Moose.”

Roosevelt continued, “It is perfectly natural that you should object to hearing the truth told about the side you are championing; and it is perfectly natural that you should come here to try to interrupt a meeting in which I am exposing the falsities and misinterpretations of your side.”

“Then tell the truth,” persisted Van Evera.

Roosevelt continued, naming local politicians, including Horace O. Young of nearby Ishpeming, who was currently a member of the United States House of Representatives. “Mr. Young is the ex-attorney of the Steel Trust, and his law partner is attorney for the Steel Trust now. I understand, sir, that I am telling you the truth; I speak here from the information given me; but when I speak of the Chicago convention of last June, I speak of what I know. You are supporting the receivers of stolen goods, and a man engaged with the theft; and if you are a man of intelligence and education, you are acting as dishonorably as if you were supporting a man who had stolen a purse. Now you ask to hear the truth. You have heard it. A man who approves of the commission of theft, or who brazenly defends it, is no better than the thief himself.”

Roosevelt continued his speech without any further interruptions. When he was finished, the crowd applauded, and soon the former president was off to his next stop on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the local newspapers’ headlines declared:

‘Big Bull Moose’s’ Tour a Continual Triumph

Upper Peninsula Turned Out More Than 40,000 People Wednesday to Welcome the Great Progressive Chieftain

He Was Seen and Heard in Marquette County by Larger Throngs Than Ever Before Had Greeted a Great National Leader

All that said, Roosevelt had already given several speeches that day, and his voice had been somewhat raspy, which caused some people to wonder, especially when he became so animated while responding to Mr. Van Evera’s charges, whether he might have been intoxicated.

George Newett did more than wonder. He went home and wrote the following editorial, which appeared in the Iron Ore on October 12, 1912.

The Roosevelt Way

According to Roosevelt, he is the only man who can call others liars, rascals and thieves, terms he applies to Republicans generally.

All that Roosevelt has gained politically he received from the hands of the Republican Party.

Had he won in the Republican convention in Chicago, then the Republican Party would still be a good party, and all others would have been made up of liars and thieves and scoundrels generally.

But if anyone calls Roosevelt a liar he raves and roars and takes on in an awful way, and yet Roosevelt is a pretty good liar himself. Where a lie will serve to advance his position, he employs it.

Roosevelt lies and curses in the most disgusting way; he gets drunk, too, and that not infrequently, and all of his intimates know about it.

What’s the use mincing things with him when he maltreats everyone not for him?

Because he has been president gives him no privileges above other men and his conduct is just as deserving censure as is that of any other offender against decency.

How can Roosevelt expect to go unlashed when he maliciously and untruthfully strikes out at other people?

It’s just as Mr. Harlan said, he’s the greatest little fighter in the country when he’s alone in the ring, but he acts like a madman if anyone dares criticize him. All who oppose him are wreckers of the country, liars, knaves and undesirables.

He alone is pure and entitled to a halo. Rats! For so great a fighter, self-styled, he’s the poorest loser we ever knew.

Two days later, October 14, would be a doubly fateful day for the former president. Roosevelt was continuing his campaign, traveling that day from Chicago to Milwaukee. He was already experiencing a sore throat from all the speeches he had given, but he planned to give another that evening. That same day, he would be handed a copy of Newett’s editorial by Oscar King Davis, his party’s secretary. After reading the article, Roosevelt whispered to Davis, “Let’s go after him.” Then, while en route to Milwaukee, the former president sent instructions to Henry M. Wallace, the Progressive national committeeman from Michigan, to retain a lawyer and file a libel suit against Newett.

Once Roosevelt arrived in Milwaukee, he went to the Gilpatrick Hotel, where the hotel owner, a supporter of Roosevelt, provided dinner for him. Word quickly got out that Roosevelt was dining at the Gilpatrick. When he prepared to leave the hotel for Milwaukee Auditorium, where he would give his speech, he found a crowd outside, clamoring to see him.

Roosevelt got into the open convertible waiting for him at the hotel entrance. At first, he sat down, but when the crowd cheered for him, he stood to acknowledge and wave to his supporters.

Suddenly, a gunshot was heard. A man, standing just seven feet from Roosevelt, had drawn a revolver from his vest and shot the former president.

The bullet struck Roosevelt in the chest and knocked him back down into his seat.

The would-be assassin was John Flammang Schrank, a former saloonkeeper from New York who had become profoundly religious. He had followed Roosevelt from New Orleans to Milwaukee. Schrank would later claim he had been writing a poem in the night when the ghost of President William McKinley appeared to him. McKinley had asked Schrank to avenge his death and pointed at a photograph of Roosevelt.

Schrank was immediately arrested. He would later maintain that he had nothing against Roosevelt and he had not intended to kill “the citizen Roosevelt,” but rather “Roosevelt, the third-termer,” claiming that President McKinley had told him to shoot Roosevelt as a warning to other third-termers. Schrank would be diagnosed by doctors as suffering from delusions and insanity. He would then be committed to the Central State Mental Hospital in Waupun, Wisconsin, for life.

As for Roosevelt, the bullet had lodged itself in his chest, but first, it had penetrated his steel eyeglass case and passed through the folded fifty pages of his speech in his suit pocket. Being a hunter, Roosevelt had a good knowledge of anatomy; because he was not coughing up blood, he knew the bullet had not sunk far enough into his chest to hit his lung, so he refused to go to the hospital until after he gave his speech. His motorcar proceeded to the Milwaukee Auditorium.

When Roosevelt took the stage in the auditorium, he began to address the crowd by saying, “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But, fortunately, I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

The former president went on to deliver his speech, and although at times his voice was hardly more than a whisper, he spoke for ninety minutes, and when he had finished, he was cheered by the crowd. Only then did he agree to be taken to the hospital.

At the hospital, Roosevelt was attended by his personal physician, Dr. Terrell. An x-ray showed the bullet lodged in Roosevelt’s chest muscle; the bullet had also broken his fourth rib. Dr. Terrell determined that because the bullet had not penetrated Roosevelt’s pleura, it would be less dangerous to leave it in place. The former president would carry the bullet inside him for the rest of his life. Because it would hinder his ability to exercise, it would cause him to gain significant weight in his later years.

Roosevelt remained in the hospital for a week. During that time, one highlight of his stay was receiving a photograph from his friend George Shiras. On the back was inscribed the note, “Here is the answer to your question!” It was a nighttime photograph of a beaver gnawing on a tree trunk.

Although the election would be held on November 5, only three weeks away, Roosevelt’s opponents, President Taft of the Republican Party and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, both halted their own campaigns out of a sense of fair play while Roosevelt was hospitalized. Once Roosevelt was released from the hospital, all three candidates resumed their campaigns, although Roosevelt himself would only make two more speeches before Election Day.

Roosevelt would not garner enough votes to be elected president, although his 4.1 million votes surpassed the 3.5 million of his Republican opponent, Taft. Because Wilson’s 6.3 million votes won him the electoral vote, he would be sworn in as twenty-eighth president of the United States.

With the election over, Roosevelt would quickly turn his attention to his lawsuit against George Newett.

Newett’s charge that Roosevelt was a drunkard had not been the first accusation made to that effect. Several reasons existed for these accusations. First, Roosevelt had a very animated presence when he spoke. His voice boomed and he liked to wave his arms about. He did this largely so the people in the back of the crowd could see and hear him, but it often led to people thinking his behavior somewhat erratic and possibly influenced by alcohol. Second, Roosevelt usually gave multiple speeches a day on the campaign trail and he had to speak so loudly to be heard by the massive crowds that his voice often became quite hoarse and, sometimes, it even sounded like he slurred his words. Finally, the prohibition of alcohol was being hotly debated across the country, but Roosevelt remained uncommitted on the issue. When he was asked for his opinion on prohibition by reporters, he often shrugged off the question or muttered a barely audible response. This attitude made people speculate that he was not in favor of prohibition, the reason being that he was a heavy drinker himself. None of these speculations, however, had sufficient support to prove Roosevelt was a drunk.

Tired of all the accusations about his drinking, Roosevelt decided he would make an example of the Iron Ore and its editor. On October 25, 1912, his lawyer, James H. Pound of Detroit, filed an extensive Declaration of Intention in Marquette County, and four days later, Pound filed the following formal and detailed complaint:

That the said defendant, George A. Newett, did upon October, the twelfth, A.D. 1912, publish the following false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory words…“The Roosevelt Way.”

That the entire article is libelous. But that Theodore Roosevelt waives all claims for damages for any of the libels contained in said article, except the words, “Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way. He gets drunk, too, and that not infrequently and all of his intimates know about it.”

That Theodore Roosevelt does hereby begin an action of Trespass, in the Circuit Court for the County of Marquette and claims as his damages, the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars.

Newett then hired his own lawyer, William P. Bedell, of Ishpeming, and filed the following response to Roosevelt’s allegations of libel:

Take notice, the defendant will give in evidence and insist in his defense that the words charged in the plaintiff’s declaration, were published in good faith, without any malice, and under circumstances creating a qualified privilege, vis.: That at the time the plaintiff was a candidate for the office of the President of the United States, and that as such candidate his public conduct and his fitness for said high office were properly subject to discussion as matters of common and general interest.

And the said defendant will further give in evidence and insists in his defense, the plaintiff had been and was guilty of the facts and acts charged and imputed to him in the publication.

Newett and Bedell now set out to prove that what Newett had printed was true. They began by collecting depositions to support the statement that Roosevelt often became drunk. Upon hearing of their actions, Roosevelt convinced the court to order that the depositions not be made public until the time of the trial, scheduled to begin at the Marquette County Courthouse on May 26, 1913. A great deal of media attention and interest would build throughout the nation as the trial approached.

When Teddy Came to Town is available locally in Marquette at the Marquette Regional History Center, Snowbound Books, Michigan Fair (downtown and Meijer’s) and Touch of Finland. It is also available online at Amazon and in ebook editions at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google Play. Copies autographed by the author can be purchased at www.MarquetteFiction.com.

New Novel Features Historical, But Relevant Libel Trial Involving Theodore Roosevelt

July 24, 2018—Award-winning author Tyler R. Tichelaar has released his nineteenth book, When Teddy Came to Town, a fascinating look at the Roosevelt libel trial of 1913—a story as relevant today as it was more than a century ago.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Libel Trial began on May 26, 1913 in Marquette, Michigan.

On October 12, 1912, George Newett, the small town newspaper editor of the Iron Ore, in Ishpeming, Michigan, published an editorial after he witnessed Theodore Roosevelt give a campaign speech in nearby Marquette. Newett was unhappy both with Roosevelt’s speech and that the former president had broken with the Republican Party to form the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party. When Roosevelt learned of the editorial, he took offense to a particular statement he termed libelous: “Roosevelt lies and curses in the most disgusting way; he gets drunk, too, and that not infrequently, and all of his intimates know about it.”

Many other newspapers had already spread rumors about Roosevelt’s drinking, but Roosevelt chose to make an example of Newett by proving the statement untrue. The trial, held in Marquette County, Michigan, in May 1913, made national headlines and was one of the first times someone famous sued for spreading libel and what we would today call “false news.”

Now novelist Tyler R. Tichelaar, a longtime chronicler of the history of Marquette, Michigan, brings the trial back to life through his fictional treatment of it in When Teddy Came to Town. Not only does the novel chronicle what happened at the Roosevelt Trial, but it highlights the influence Roosevelt had upon the citizens of the small city, who were star struck by the famous politicians who came to testify on Roosevelt’s behalf.

Beyond the history, When Teddy Came to Town is a love story, featuring Matthew Newman, a reporter from New York who also happens to be a native of Marquette. Returning to his hometown to report on the trial, Matthew finds himself continually thrown together with George Shiras, the internationally famous wildlife photographer, with whom Roosevelt is staying. This situation is a bonus in terms of Matthew’s professional need to report on the trial, but awkward because he and Shiras had once been close friends—until Shiras married the woman Matthew loved.

When Teddy Came to Town recreates an era not much different than our own. Tichelaar states, “I wanted to chronicle this important trial which most Roosevelt biographers have ignored because I believe it caused newspapers to realize they could not get away with ‘yellow journalism,’ or ‘false news.’ The period’s concerns about sobriety, women’s rights, and journalistic integrity remain concerns today. This is a story that speaks to our time, and in it we may find solutions for dealing with our current crises.”

Tyler R. Tichelaar is a seventh generation Marquette resident. He is the author of nineteen books, including Haunted Marquette, My Marquette, and The Best Place. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Writer Award in the Marquette County Arts Awards, and the Barb H. Kelly Historic Preservation Award. His novel Narrow Lives won the 2008 Reader Views Historical Fiction Award. In 2014, his play Willpower was produced by the Marquette Regional History Center at Kaufman Auditorium with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council.

Tichelaar will officially launch When Teddy Came to Town at the Outback Art Fair at Shiras Park in Marquette on July 28 and 29, Saturday, 10-6 and Sunday 10-5. In Marquette, it is also available at Snowbound Books, Michigan Fair, the Marquette Regional History Center, and Touch of Finland. Online retailers, selling paperback and ebook editions, include Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google Play.

When Teddy Came to Town (ISBN 978-0-9962400-5-5) is available in paperback and ebook editions at www.MarquetteFiction.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through local and online bookstores. Publicity contact: tyler@marquettefiction.com. Review copies available upon request.

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The Introduction to “Haunted Marquette”

In case you’re not yet intrigued enough by my new book Haunted Marquette, here’s the introduction to the book:

Introduction: The Ghosts of Marquette

Let me begin by stating that I have never seen a ghost. I cannot personally say for sure whether they exist or not. I do, however, know several people whom I believe to be reliable and honest who claim to have seen one. And for this book, I interviewed many people who struck me as both completely sincere and having a hard time grappling with the possibility that they had seen a ghost.

“Haunted Marquette” highlights more than forty places in Marquette that may be haunted.

My interest in the supernatural has always been strong ever since I was a young boy fascinated with Dracula. For my doctoral dissertation, I wrote about nineteenth century Gothic novels, exploring how we use the supernatural as a metaphor for our real world difficulties and concerns. But there is more than metaphor to the supernatural. There are many things we simply cannot explain. As humans, we remain both the most intelligent species on this planet and largely clueless about the universe’s many mysteries.

I do not intend this book to provide any answers as to whether or not ghosts exist. It is a question that is impossible for me to answer and remains open to debate. I will simply provide the evidence of those I interviewed, and I will relate the stories I have gathered from other people—in many cases, stories that have been passed down in Marquette’s history and cannot always be verified, although I have tried my best to document sources and suggest what the truth behind a story might be. Some of the stories have clearly been made up for reasons I cannot fathom other than to shock, entertain, or possibly trick the gullible. Others I believe are very likely true.

As someone deeply in love with Marquette and its history, I have often wondered what it must have been like to have lived during Marquette’s early years. What I wouldn’t do to be able to spend just one day walking around Marquette, perhaps circa 1865, so I could talk to Peter White, Chief Kawbawgam, Bishop Baraga, Amos Harlow, and some of my own ancestors—what I wouldn’t give to know these people personally and to see what Marquette was like then.

We have not yet perfected the ability to time travel, but wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could do the next best thing and communicate with those who came before us? The concept of ghosts suggests that some of the dead may also wish to communicate with us. It opens up a whole new realm of possibility for what we might term Marquette’s history. What might we learn if the ghosts of Marquette’s past could tell us what that past was like?

The same is true of any place, for ghosts are found all over the planet. Therefore, I do not think there is anything particularly special about the ghost stories I have compiled about Marquette compared to stories from other cities. I will admit, however, that I never expected to find enough stories to write a whole book on the subject. And I do think Marquette’s history itself is remarkable, so while it may not explain why so many ghosts apparently choose to remain here, a little summary of Marquette’s history may help us better understand whom its ghosts are.

Long before Europeans came to what would become known as Iron Bay and the city of Marquette, the Ojibwa had settled this land. They had their own legends, religion, and beliefs that included various supernatural spirits. While some of these stories were recorded, notably at the end of the nineteenth century by Marquette resident Homer Kidder, who interviewed Chief Charles Kawbawgam, his wife Charlotte, and his brother-in-law, Jacques LePete, for what would later be published as the book Ojibwa Narratives, they do not specifically qualify as what we would term ghost stories today. Native Americans believed in human spirits that could remain behind after a person’s death, but none of these stories associated with the Marquette area appear to have come down to us.

All the stories I have traced surround people of European descent who began settling in the area predominantly in the 1840s and after. In 1844, iron ore was discovered west of Marquette in what is today the city of Negaunee. A port on Lake Superior was needed so that the iron ore could be shipped to cities like Buffalo and Cleveland where it could be turned into steel; as a result, Marquette began in 1849 as a harbor town from which to ship the ore. Amos Harlow, the town founder, came from Worcester, Massachusetts, to establish the town as an agent for the Marquette Iron Company. Originally, he named the city Worcester after his hometown, but the tradition that Father Jacques Marquette, the seventeenth century Jesuit missionary, had visited the area was already strong among ship captains, and so, eventually, Marquette became the city’s permanent name.

Over the succeeding decades, the small harbor town grew until by the late nineteenth century, it became known as the Queen City of the North. That growth continued at a much slower rate throughout the twentieth century. Today, Marquette is a small but bustling city of just over twenty-thousand people, the largest city in Upper Michigan, and one known nationally as one of the most desirable cities to live in and a popular biking and winter sports destination.

Despite Marquette’s prosperity, however, life here has not always been easy. People have died in cave-ins in the nearby mines; they have died in logging accidents in the nearby woods; they have drowned in Lake Superior or been lost in shipwrecks. They have worked hard to tear the iron from the ground, to survive through brutal winters, and to feed themselves during difficult economic times. And like anywhere else, they have loved and married and had children, and they have fought and argued with one another, been greedy, lied, cheated, committed adultery, and even occasionally committed murder. Any degree of tragedy, passion, anger, or accident could cause a ghost to linger and haunt a place or other people because of unfinished business or a guilty conscience over past misdeeds. Therefore, it is not surprising that Marquette, like every other place where humans have settled, has its fair share of ghosts.

Some people have theorized that Upper Michigan has a large number of ghosts compared to other areas because of some special energy source in the land, perhaps resulting from the rich mineral deposits of iron, copper, gold, and silver. Others believe that ghosts have an affinity for water, so the Great Lakes have caused a larger number of ghosts to manifest here than in most other regions. I have to dismiss both of these ideas because, although I was surprised by how many ghost stories I found in Marquette, I am sure the number of ghosts in larger cities like San Francisco and New York far surpasses the number in Marquette. Furthermore, ghost stories appear to exist in every culture and in every country in the world. I don’t think Marquette is somehow special because of the number of its ghosts.

But I do think Marquette’s ghosts are special. They are another link for us to our past, and each of them has a story to tell, just like each person does, and each of those stories matters. Perhaps some of these ghosts do not rest because they are still waiting for someone to tell their stories, to witness that they, too, lived significant lives. Perhaps we can give them some comfort and help them rest by hearing their stories, trying to get at the truth of those stories, or just witnessing that yes, they do exist, and they are as real as we are.

At the beginning of this book I quote the great eighteenth century British author Dr. Samuel Johnson. Another great British author, Thomas Carlyle, wrote in the nineteenth century of Dr. Johnson:

Again, could any thing be more miraculous than an actual authentic Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind’s eye as well as with the body’s, look round him into that full tide of human Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; well nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the three-score years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? Are we not Spirits, shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air, and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific fact.

Carlyle wrote this passage in his famous book Sartor Resartus in a chapter titled “Natural Supernaturalism.” According to Carlyle, the supernatural is natural, and we ourselves are ghosts just like those who may appear to us—we are just ghosts in fleshly form while they are fleshless. By this definition, I believe we can see ghosts as our human brothers and sisters, our ancestors, too, so perhaps it is time that rather than fear them, we embrace them. They are no more “the other” than people of another race or culture. We are all human—even if we are not all still in human form.

In these pages, we will get to know our ghostly brothers and sisters. We will meet some spirits who were the victims of tragic and sudden deaths. We will meet people who have had surprising paranormal experiences they never expected, and we will also meet paranormal investigators and mediums who purposely search for ghosts or have had ghosts choose to contact them. Hopefully, all these stories will help us individually make up our minds about ghosts and broaden our understanding of them.

I ask my readers to peruse these pages with open minds. Ultimately, I did not write this book to scare anyone—if I wanted to do that, I would have written a horror novel. Admittedly, some of the stories are a bit scary. Others are very entertaining, and still others contain many unanswered questions. I hope my readers will read them with the intent to understand our existence a little better, perhaps to come to new spiritual understandings of the afterlife, and, ultimately, to admit to the wonder that is the mystery of life—a mystery we all share in, even as we have yet to solve it.

Haunted Marquette is available at www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is a seventh generation resident of Marquette, Michigan. He is the author of Haunted Marquette, My Marquette, The Marquette Trilogy, and numerous other novels and nonfiction books. You can visit Tyler at www.MarquetteFiction.com

My Newest Book: Haunted Marquette-Ghost Stories from the Queen City

October 2, 2017—Local author Tyler Tichelaar will be giving his readers a treat this Halloween season. On Wednesday, October 11 at 6:00 p.m. at the Marquette Regional History Center he will be releasing his newest book, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City. The book contains more than forty stories of ghosts and paranormal activity within the city of Marquette.

Tyler Tichelaar, 7th generation Marquette resident, has spent years collecting stories of Marquette’s hauntings.

“For years I’ve heard stories of various hauntings and collected them,” says Tichelaar. “I never thought I’d have enough for a book, but as I interviewed people, one story led to another. I’ve found sufficient evidence to make me believe several buildings in Marquette may be haunted or have experienced hauntings in the past.”

Haunted Marquette is divided into several sections on hauntings in Marquette’s churches and cemeteries, the downtown businesses, the lakeshore, various houses, and Northern Michigan University. Tichelaar researched each location to determine the likelihood of a haunting there and whether any historical evidence existed to make the haunting plausible. He also interviewed numerous people about their personal experiences with ghosts.

“I was afraid I would end up talking to a bunch of crazy people when I set out to write this book,” said Tichelaar, “but everyone I talked to was very sincere. Not one of them was seeking attention; most had not believed in ghosts before until they had a strange experience they could not explain logically.”

Numerous city landmarks are highlighted in the book as locations where ghosts have been sighted, including the former Holy Family Orphanage, Park Cemetery, the Marquette lighthouse, the Landmark Inn, the Peter White Public Library, and the Thomas Fine Arts building at NMU.

“Haunted Marquette” highlights more than forty places in Marquette that may be haunted.

“Only a couple of the hauntings can really be described as frightening,” says Tichelaar. “Most of these stories are about unexplainable phenomena; a few are heart-wrenching when you realize the tragedies some of the alleged ghosts experienced while still human, which has caused them to linger on this earth.”

Tichelaar will release Haunted Marquette at the Marquette Regional History Center on Wednesday, October 11. A presentation will begin at 6:00 p.m. and last about an hour, followed by a book signing. Partial proceeds from the book signing will be donated to the history center.

Tyler R. Tichelaar is a seventh generation Marquette resident. He is the author of The Marquette Trilogy, My Marquette, and numerous other books. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Writer Award in the Marquette County Arts Awards, and the Barb H. Kelly Historic Preservation Award. His novel Narrow Lives won the 2008 Reader Views Historical Fiction Award. In 2014, his play Willpower was produced by the Marquette Regional History Center at Kaufman Auditorium. You can learn more at Tichelaar’s website www.MarquetteFiction.com and at the MRHC’s website www.marquettehistory.org.

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Visiting Sault Sainte Marie

Few cities are more closely connected to Marquette’s history than Sault Sainte Marie. Just as Negaunee and Ishpeming play a key role in Marquette’s history because they are the source of the iron ore shipped out of Marquette’s harbor, so the Sault is where the ore has to pass through the locks to reach its destination in the major cities on the lower Great Lakes. As a result, in 1855, the Sault locks began construction under the guidance of Charles Harvey, who would also found Marquette’s neighboring city, Harvey, Michigan.

Sault Sainte Marie’s history is long and fascinating. Marquette is not even half as old since it was founded in 1849, while the Sault dates to 1688 when Father Jacques Marquette established a mission there, making it the first permanent European settlement in Michigan. The Sault remained a significant gathering place for the Chippewa (Ojibwa) whom Father Marquette came to convert to Christianity throughout the eighteenth century, but its real history begins in the nineteenth.

I recently visited Sault Sainte Marie for a book fair at Island Books and Crafts where I got to spend time with ten of my fellow Michigan authors. I also used this trip as an opportunity to see the sites and do some research for an upcoming book I plan to write.

China from Ireland owned by the Johnstons.

One of the places I visited were the historic homes on the waterfront. The first of these homes belonged to John Johnston, an Irishman who settled in the Sault in 1796 as a fur trader. Johnston married Oshahguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a local Chippewa chief. She took the English name Susan and went to live in Johnston’s home but all her life she retained her Native clothing and she would only speak her native tongue, although she understood French and English. She and Johnston would raise a family of four sons and four daughters.

Johnston, being British, sided with the British in the War of 1812, leading a group of men from the Sault to Mackinac Island to aid the British. In retaliation, the Americans went to the Sault and burned down his home as well as the Northwest Fur Company offices. After the war, Johnston tried to receive compensation, but since the Sault became American territory and he had fought against them, he never received compensation. Not surprisingly, he also never applied for American citizenship.

Dining room of the Johnston home.

The Chippewa were not pleased by the Americans moving into the Sault and were planning to attack General Cass who was sent to Fort Brady to claim it for the Americans. He took down the last British flag to fly on American soil there. Fortunately, Susan Johnston was wiser than the Chippewa men and she persuaded them not to attack the Americans, thus saving many lives on both sides. Cass, who would later become Governor of Michigan, always afterwards said he owed her his life.

Spinning wheel in the Johnston home.

The Johnston’s daughter, Jane, was highly educated and made trips to Europe with her father. When Henry Schoolcraft came to the Sault as the Indian agent, he became familiar with the Johnston family and eventually married Jane. Schoolcraft had a job to do in treating with the Chippewa, but Susan Johnston took him under her wing, making him sympathetic and interested in the Chippewa and their culture. Schoolcraft would eventually write down many of the stories he heard from his wife Jane about the legends of Hiawatha, a book that would influence Longfellow’s famous poem of the same name.

Henry Schoolcraft’s Office

Of course, Bishop Baraga also resided in the Sault and would have known the Johnstons and Schoolcrafts. Baraga had come to Upper Michigan as a missionary to the Native Americans from his native Slovenia. He became known as the snowshoe priest because he would travel across the Upper Peninsula and even into Wisconsin and Minnesota by snowshoe to preach the gospel. After many years of missionary work, he was appointed the first Bishop of the Marquette diocese. The diocese’s see was Sault Sainte Marie, and there a house was built for Baraga which he called his palace since he had long slept in rude little huts or lived with fellow priests, but now he had his own house. He resided there for only two years, 1864-1866, before it was decided to move the see to Marquette as a more central location for the diocese. Baraga would die in Marquette in 1868 and be buried there in St. Peter’s Cathedral.

The Bishop Baraga Home as viewed from the Tower of History.

Overall, Sault Sainte Marie is full of history. There are many other museums to visit including the Valley Ship Museum, the Tower of History, the River History Museum, the Chippewa Historical Society, and the campus of Lake Superior State University, built where once Fort Brady stood.

I’m sure I’ll be making many more trips to this place where three Great Lakes meet and history is very much part of the present.

St. Mary’s Church as viewed from the Tower of History. This church is on the same property where the proto-cathedral stood – the first cathedral of the Diocese of Marquette before the see was moved to Marquette and St. Peter’s Cathedral there.

View of the Saint Mary’s River taken from the Tower of History

Interior of the Baraga Home

Interior of the Baraga Home