When I was looking through the many haunted tales on Michigan in Pictures the other day, I realized that one of the many things I enjoy about Halloween is how it draws you into history since so many of our spooky tales are rooted in the long ago. A number that I’ve shared are from our friends at Mysterious Michigan including the brief tale of Crying Mary of Oak Hill Cemetery:
Established in 1844 and over 160 years old, Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan has a lot of history. It’s the final resting place of famous people such as Sojourner Truth, C.W. Post, W.K. Kellogg, his brother John Harvey Kellogg, Bill Knapp, Ellen & James White, founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and others. Among the many famous people slumbering within the grounds of Oak Hill, another famous person exists above ground. While Crying Mary may not be a living, breathing person, she does happen to be a beautiful statue of a Greek goddess at the grave site of Johannes Decker and is well known by the residents of Battle Creek.
The legend of Crying Mary says that at the stroke of midnight every Sunday, the statue cries. People have claimed to have seen and felt her tears. Some say she only cries at night and never during the day.
Crying Mary of Oak Hill Cemetery
The photo makes it appear to be a natural effect of water on the greening bronze, but whatever the cause, I doubt she’s crying about the view – what a gorgeous little cemetery.
White River Light in Whitehall was built in 1875. It is now home of a maritime museum, but as this 2012 article from Michigan History Magazine that I shared years ago relates, the light station seems to have a keeper who never retired:
When Karen McDonnell is alone she sometimes hears footsteps on the stairway of the former White River Light. But she isn’t afraid. She says, “I like the comfort it gives me. It’s like a watchman, just making sure everything is okay before it’s too late at night.”
McDonnell is the curator of an old lighthouse that has been turned into a museum. She takes care of the light and gives tours to visitors. Sometimes early in the morning or late at night she hears what sounds like somebody climbing the stairs and walking around on the upper level. She wonders if it might be the spirit of the light’s first keeper.
When the White River Light opened in the mid-1870s, William Robinson and his wife Sarah moved in. Over the years, the English couple raised their family at Whitehall. Sarah died at a young age, but William remained the lightkeeper for 47 years. When the government forced the 87-year-old keeper to retire in 1915, William’s grandson became the next lightkeeper at White River. William helped his grandson run the light, but the rules said that only the lightkeeper and his “immediate” family could live at the lighthouse. William would have to leave. But he refused, telling his grandson, “I am not going to leave this building.” He was right. The day before he had to move out, he died. His grandson buried him in a small nearby cemetery.
Besides Karen, others have heard the unexplained sounds when visiting White River. Karen once asked friends to care for the light while she was gone. She did not mention the unexplained visits. When she returned, her friends asked, “Do you have some kind of ghost walking around upstairs?” They described the same sounds Karen often heard. Although Karen has “never felt fear” when she hears the footsteps, she has never gone up stairs when she hears it. As she explains, “I feel it is a ritual and that I shouldn’t disturb it.”
Today is the 55th birthday of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Normally, I would lead with a photo of the Dunes, but the creation of the National Lakeshore on October 21, 1970 preserved a whole lot more!!
Here is the tale of the tape on Michigan’s magnificent national lakeshore as of August 1, 2024!
Annual Visits – 1,589,248
Employees – 46 permanent, 83 seasonal
Volunteer Hours – 58,389 from 1,659 volunteers
Natural and Cultural Resources
Area – 71,318 acres
Lake Michigan Shoreline – 65 miles (35 miles on the mainland)
Inland Lakes – 26
Miles of rivers and streams – 12
Terrestrial plant species – 908
Bird species – 246
Federally threatened or endangered species – 6
Historic structures on List of Classified Structures – 369
Sites on National Register of Historic Places – 8
Cultural Landscapes – 9 (4,500 acres)
Prehistoric archeological sites – 150
Historic boats – 21
Lighthouse – 1
Historic artifacts – 70,158
Archived documents – 21,325
Infrastructure
Buildings – 370
Employee housing units – 38
Campgrounds – 9 (357 sites)
Picnic Areas – 5
Visitor Centers – 3
Outdoor ampitheaters – 2
Miles of roads – 23
Covered bridge – 1 (Pierce Stocking Drive)
Miles of trails – 105
Lake access ramps – 9
Signs and wayside exhibits – 3572
Major photovoltaic power systems – 3
Motor vehicles in fleet – 54
Large boats – 8
James took these in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore back in fall of 2023. See lots more great shots in his Top 100 gallery on Flickr!
Be sure to read all the way to the end for a super cool song about this from Michigan’s own Mustard’s Retreat!
In 1715, the French founded the fortified community of Michilimackinac on the south side of the Straits of Mackinac in what is now Mackinaw City. Michilimackinac became an important center of the Great Lakes fur trade where thousands of Native Americans and French-Canadian voyageurs gathered at the post every summer, a pattern that was unchanged until the British took over the post. Lissa Edwards of Traverse Magazine details how the commandant of Fort Michilimackinac was invited to watch a game of baggatiway (lacrosse) between the Ojibwe and Sauk June day in 1763 writing (in part):
Under an unusually hot sun on a late spring day on the Straits of Mackinac, British Major George Etherington, commandant of Fort Michilimackinac, was suffering from an acute case of cultural blindness. And there was no excuse for it. Relaxed at the sidelines of a rousing game of baggatiway (similar to lacrosse) outside the fort, the major should have seen the danger signs in this Ojibwe versus Sauk contest of sweaty, half-naked bodies painted with white clay and charcoal.
…Though well armed, his garrison of 35 or so soldiers was vastly outnumbered by the hundreds of Indians encamped around it, there to exchange furs for wares—steel tomahawks and knives included—from French Canadian traders. That there’d been a run on tomahawks of late didn’t seem to worry the major. And he was only irritated by warnings from the many French Canadians who lived at the fort that the Indians were planning an uprising. He threatened to have the next person who spread similar gossip locked up down at Fort Detroit. The unwitting Etherington had not yet heard that Fort Detroit was under siege, attacked several weeks before by a coalition of tribes led by Pontiac, the Odawa chief. Foreseeing that English domination spelled the end of his people’s lifestyle, Pontiac had just begun his famous rebellion.
…It happened in seconds. A frenzy of sweaty, painted bodies clamoring for the leather-wrapped chunk of wood that was the ball as it fell at the mouth of the open gate. The women opening their blankets and handing off knives and tomahawks to the athletes-turned-warriors. Shrieks, screams and blood. Etherington and his lieutenant, William Leslye, whisked off to the woods—as the other fort officer and likely the only soldier armed that day, Lieutenant Jamet, was killed. The plan so carefully laid by Minweweh and Madjeckewiss, cohorts of Pontiac, was executed flawlessly. The attack and the events that followed were recorded in the painfully descriptive memoirs of Alexander Henry, who—at the time of the attack—was a young English fur trader staying at the fort. “Going instantly to my window I saw a crowd of Indians within the fort furiously cutting down every Englishman they found,” Henry wrote.
Joel noted Pontiac’s victory & that the British constructed the more serious Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island as a result of this when he posted this back in 2011. See more below & in his Colonial Michilimackinac gallery on Flickr and follow him there. You can also see his photos in the Michigan in Pictures group on Facebook and explore his archive on Smugmug.
Established in 1860, Brush Park is one of the oldest historic neighborhoods in Detroit. Today it encompasses twenty-four blocks, bounded by Mack Avenue on the north, Woodward Avenue on the west, Beaubien Street on the east, and the Fisher Freeway on the south. In the late 1700s, the land was part of a ribbon farm owned by the Askin family, prominent fur traders and British loyalists.
Askin did not approve of American independence, so in 1802 he and his wife moved to Canada, leaving control of the farm and the enslaved people who worked there in the hands of his son-in-law Elijah Brush, husband to Adelaide Askin. Brush was active in civic affairs, serving as the second mayor of Detroit, the Michigan Territory United States Attorney, and Michigan Territory Treasurer. As a lieutenant colonel in the territorial militia, Brush was taken prisoner during the War of 1812 when the British captured Detroit.
Edmund Brush inherited the estate when his father died. He was also an influential figure in Detroit – a volunteer with the fire department and president of the water commission. In the 1850s, Brush began dividing and selling his land to wealthy families. He named the streets Alfred, Adelaide, Edmund, Eliot, and Brush after family members. Brush had many building restrictions, some which required expensive, large homes for the neighborhood, leading Brush Park to be called “Little Paris” for its mansions. Many famous Detroiters lived in the area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century including Joseph L. Hudson, Albert Kahn and Grace Whitney Evans, daughter of David Whitney.
Read more and/or see related historical photos & from the Detroit Historical Society, and as someone who used to live on Adelaide, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see these wonderful buildings return to life!
When a friend of her twin sons Howard and Dudley visited their home, Mabel noticed the biscuits in the boy’s lunch were flat and unappetizing. She set out to find a way to create a pre-made mix which would assist the boy’s single father in the kitchen.
In 1930, with the support of her husband Howard Samuel Holmes, Mabel’s home-grown project became the first prepared baking mix sold to the public. The convenient, simple to use mix only required the addition of milk to produce perfect biscuits every time. By keeping their “JIFFY” brand baking mixes affordable, the Holmes’ new venture was able to help many families who were recovering from the effects of the Great Depression.
Read lots more from Jiffy & cheers to everyone who looks at a child’s lunch with an eye towards making it better!! There’s a poster from the Chelsea Area Chamber of Commerce below with info about the festivities on tap today that include games & prizes, a treasure hunt, food trucks & a visit from Detroit Lions Mascot Roary.
mLive shares that the decision to start the school year before or after Labor Day has long been a point of debate in Michigan due to the need for student workers in the hospitality & agricultural sectors. Even though the law requiring schools to start post-Labor Day passed 20 years ago, most Michigan schools are still starting before summer’s end:
…The Michigan Department of Education only tracks districts that are granted Labor Day waivers, but not which districts use their waiver or their start dates, according to spokesman Ken Coleman. There are currently 185 waivers held in the state, covering more than 500 school districts and public academies.
Forty-eight of those are held by intermediate school districts (ISDs) or area educational agencies and their waivers almost entirely cover all districts within their regional boundaries. Additionally, 102 individual charter schools or public academies have their own waivers, as well as 30 school districts outside of ISDs. A few hundred more schools and districts, including several ISDs, are not waiver eligible that automatically start after Labor Day. Still, more Michigan schools than not are starting before Labor Day despite the mid-2000s law.
Steve passed on a couple years ago, but his photos and his love of history remain (click for his Michigan in Pictures features). He took these back in 2018 at Greenfield Village, Henry Ford’s outdoor living history museum in Dearborn. The Model AA school bus was acquired from Florida and visitors can use the historic bus for transportation around the Village (for a price). See lots more in his Classic Busses Old & New gallery on Flickr.
FRANK CARTER, local resident who had been in Chicago and Grand Rapids during the summer, returned Monday night being ill from the poisonous effects of a spider which walked over his arm, leaving a poisonous track at every step. Last week, while lying on the ground at Grand Rapids, an immense yellow spider jumped on his arm near his elbow and ran down to his wrist. Mr. Carter smashed his poisonous body on his arm and it immediately began to swell from the poison. The arm was inflamed and swollen with white spots. Under the advice of a physician, Mr. Carter went home to care for his arm.
It’s been a minute since I’ve featured a photo from Gowtham. He shares that while driving through the back roads of Huron Mountains from Houghton to Marquette, “I took a few wrong forks in succession and one of those forks had a plethora of Blue Vervains (the flower in the picture). Taking one wrong fork after another, driving slow and paying attention paid off – as one of those blue vervains had an uncommon yellow tinge. I stopped to look carefully and much to my surprise was this tiny little Golden Rod Spider.”
…These spiders may be yellow or white, depending on the flower in which they are hunting. Especially younger females, which may hunt on a variety of flowers such as daisies and sunflowers, may change color “at will”. Older females require large amounts of relatively large prey to produce the best possible clutch of eggs. They are therefore, in North America, most commonly found in goldenrod (Solidago sp.), a bright yellow flower which attracts large numbers of insects, especially in autumn. It is often very hard even for a searching human to recognize one of these spiders on a yellow flower.”
I want to be very clear that this spider is not venomous (and no spider has “venomous tracks”). Only the Northern Black Widow and the Brown Recluse have bites that endanger humans. The rest are out there happily dispatching harmful pests. My guess is that it was a Brown Recluse as their bites have sort of a bullseye pattern with a white center.
The Woodward Dream Cruise will be celebrating its 30th year tomorrow (August 16, 2025). It is the largest one-day automotive event in North America, drawing nearly one million people & 40,000 classic cars every year.
pk got this shot of a 1971 Superbird dressed in Sassy Grass at the 2023 Woodward Dream Cruise. Here’s a few they have shared – see more great shots in their Wheels gallery on Flickr!
