Exploring America State by State

Category Archives: Michigan

The Strange Story of Wellington Burt’s Fortune

Posted on by Posted in Cemetery, Michigan Leave a comment

In the back of Saginaw, Michigan’s Forest Lawn Cemetary, is a massive stone mausoleum where lumber baron and railroad tycoon Wellington R. Burt is entombed.  At the time of his death in 1919, he was the 8th wealthiest person in America and the second richest person in Michigan with Henry Ford holding that title.  He is the only one who knew why he had one of America’s strangest last wills. It had a “spite clause” where he stated his money was to be given out 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild who was alive at the time of his death. No one knows why he had such a strange request in his will.  He left money for some of his servants who had worked for him at his Mansion in downtown Saginaw.  He must have really hated his family. Burt’s last grandchild, Marion Lansill died in November of 1989. 21 years later his trust, valued approximately 100 million dollars, was split between 12 descendants in 2010.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, if you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

Michigan’s Oldest School House

Posted on by Posted in Michigan, schools Leave a comment

Nestled along the winding road between Ionia and Saranac, Michigan stands a weathered cobblestone building, a relic of Michigan’s pioneering past. To the casual observer, it might appear as just another antique structure, but this unassuming building holds a significant place in the state’s history. It is, in fact, the oldest standing schoolhouse in the entire state.

The architect of this historic landmark was Alanzo Sessions, a man of vision and determination. Born in New York in 1810, Sessions’ passion for education ignited early in life. After completing his own studies, he dedicated himself to teaching local children. In 1833, he embarked on a daring adventure, trekking through the untamed wilderness of Michigan. After exploring the state’s vast expanse, he settled along the Grand River, clearing 800 acres of land for farming. In 1847, he built this enduring schoolhouse to provide education to the children of the community.

Sessions’ contributions extended far beyond the classroom. He served as a Michigan State Representative in 1872 and twice as Lieutenant Governor under Governor Charles Croswell. The schoolhouse, a testament to his dedication to education, remained in operation until 1898, when the growing community necessitated a larger facility. A new schoolhouse was constructed across the street, while the historic cobblestone building stood as a reminder of the past.

Today, the farmhouse and barns have vanished, but the two schools remain, intertwined with the landscape. The historic cobblestone schoolhouse, now a part of the Ionia State Recreation Area, continues to captivate visitors with its timeless charm and rich history.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, if you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

Michigan’s Alcatraz

Posted on by Posted in Michigan Leave a comment

The unofficial motto of the U.S. Lifesaving Service was “You have to go out; you don’t have to come back.” Vermillion Point that was the most remote and desolate lifesaving station around the Great Lakes. Located on the shores of Lake Superior in Whitefish Point the station was situated between Crisp Point Lighthouse and Whitefish Point Lighthouse. The men and their families stationed in the remote outpost referred to it as the Alcatraz of the Lifesaving Service.

The station began operation in 1876 and received supplies by boat. In the wintertime, supplies were delivered by dog sled to the isolated place far from any town.  The station remained in operation until 1944 when it was abandoned. The buildings were left to defend themselves from the harsh northern Michigan weather. In the early 1970s, the Vermilion Life Saving Station and the surrounding 1.5 miles undeveloped shoreline was privately purchased for preservation and restoration. Many of the buildings’ exteriors have been restored. The one in the photograph is one of the remaining buildings to be restored by the non-profit group S.O.S. Vermillion.

The property is open to the public for quiet recreation. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the preserve and the areas around piping plover nests and bird-trapping nets are restricted. It is about a 10 mile drive down sandy forest roads to reach Vermillion Point. It’s worth the trip, but I suggest doing it in the summer or fall when it is dry. The first trip I tried to make to the point the road was flooded over about a mile from the parking lot and I had to turn around.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, if you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

 

Tyrone Sunken Gardens

Posted on by Posted in Michigan, Nature Leave a comment

Stonehenge in England is one of the most well known stone monuments, and it still remains a mystery as to who and why it was built. Michigan has it’s own mysterious stone monument and unlike Stonehenge we know who built it. Behind the Tyrone Memory Gardens Cemetery on White Lake Road, southwest of Fenton, is a small valley that is home to the Tyrone Sunken Gardens. It contains rocks from all fifty states. Some of the stones were quarried over two hundred years ago, and are proudly displayed protruding out of the tall grass and arranged in a Stonehenge type configuration.   The rock garden was built in 1930 by Charles Eugene Smith. On the back of the large stone that welcomes visitors he had carved:

 

After having traveled around the world four different times and visited parts of Europe, Asia, North America, South America, North and South Africa, Australia and the islands of New Zealand, Tasmania, St. Helena, Canary, Fiji, Ceylon, Iceland, Hawaii, Philippine, New Foundland, Faeroe and many others and considering the famous rock gardens of Iceland and the sunken gardens of London, England, and Mexico City the most beautiful I contribute this memorial in my memory to this small garden.

The garden has stones from each state with the state motto and flower carved on them. They are arranged in a circular pattern around a central pedestal that once held a sundial. Some of the stones date back to the 1700s. I am not sure how he came about acquiring the stones, I can only imagine they were given to him by friends he had met on his journeys. Along with the garden was a little park with picnic tables for travelers to eat on. He also had a small zoo with deer and peacocks to entertain visitors. Before Smith died in 1948 he sold his little park and garden to Basil Beck.

The new owner built a little train for children to ride. He also constructed a log cabin that he used as a museum which housed a collection of dinosaur fossils and an antique shoe collection. The zoo and train are gone and the area is now part of the cemetery. The log cabin can be seen near the pathway that leads to the Sunken Gardens. I was not able to find any information about Smith, I don’t know where or when he was born. I also don’t know why he chose Fenton for the location of his mystical stone garden. I think he wanted to inspire other explorers and wayward souls. Many rocks have inspiring proverbs and sayings, some by Smith himself. You will have to visit this wonderful little spot to read them for yourself.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

The Michigan House Built by a Broken Heart

Posted on by Posted in Houses, Michigan Leave a comment

Henry Richardi moved to Bellaire, Michigan with his father in 1881 after moving the family business from Missouri. They made wooden utensils and the hardwood forests around the Bellaire area made for the perfect location. Henry Richardi purchased the business from his father in 1895. The successful company had over 100 employees making wooden utensils and bowls.

The same year Henry purchased the business, he fell in love with a young woman in Germany. In an attempt to get her to move to the United States and marry him, he built this ornate house just north of downtown Bellaire. His employees skilled at woodworking, created all the ornate woodwork outside and inside the house. It featured a hand-carved staircase and different types of wood adorn each room. As beautiful and grand as the home was, for reasons lost to history, the woman Henry loved did not come to this country and marry him. She stayed in Germany marrying another man. With a broken heart, he sold the house and never lived in it. Tragedy struck in 1905 when Henry’s factory burned down. He never rebuilt it and moved to California leaving behind the mansion had built. The house has changed owners several times over the years, and now operates as a Bed and Breakfast called the Grand Victorian.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

The Man On The Cross

Posted on by Posted in Churches, Michigan Leave a comment

The Man on the Cross” by the renowned Michigan sculptor Marshall Fredericks stands in northern Michigan. It is made of bronze 3/8″ to 1/2″ thick. It weighs seven tons, is twenty-eight feet tall from head to toe, and the outstretched arms span twenty-one feet. The figure of Christ is attached by thirteen bolts 30″ long and 2″ thick that were made when the figure was cast in Norway.

Fredericks wanted to portray Christ in a peaceful way. It was his dream to “give the face an expression of great peace and strength and offer encouragement to everyone who viewed the Cross”. Christ is symbolized just at the moment when He commends Himself to His Father. The sculptor received special permission from the Vatican to omit the crown of thorns and the wound on Jesus’ side.

Fredericks was commissioned to sculpt a 6-foot-tall crucifix, but instead designed this 28-foot, full-scale model, for a bronze to be placed at the Indian River Catholic Shrine in Indian River, Michigan. The bronze Corpus is mounted on a 55-foot-tall redwood cross. When erected in 1959, it was believed to be the largest crucifix in the world. Since then, a 65-foot crucifix was erected in the cemetery of St. Thomas Catholic Church near Bardstown, Kentucky however the Corpus on this work is only 14 feet in height.

The Indian River figure required only three years to complete, however the plaster model on which it was based required seven-years of restoration before being put on permanent display at the Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State University. It suffered from neglect during the two-decades it was in storage at the foundry in Scandinavia after the bronze was cast. In his depiction, Fredericks chose not to depict the pain and suffering of Jesus and omitted the crown of thorns and the wound in the figure’s side. Instead, he shows the powerful body of Jesus at peace in the moment after death.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

The Haunted Michigan Ghost Town of Shelldrake

Posted on by Posted in Ghost Towns, Haunted, Michigan Leave a comment

Whitefish Point sticks out into Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The town of Shelldrake, named after a duck common in the area, is a ghost town at the mouth of the Shelldrake River on Whitefish Point. By the late 1890s, Shelldrake had a sawmill, houses for workers that were equipped with bathrooms, a hospital, a school house, a post office, and an icehouse that could store enough meat to feed a population of 1,000 through the winter months.

There are stories of the area being haunted by an old sea captain who stands on the dock near Shelldrake. He has a pipe and a cape, and he is usually seen from the lake. As boats approach the shore, he fades away and disappears. The tugboat Grace, which was towing a barge in October of 1879 through Whitefish Bay was headed for Goulais Bay in Canada. During a storm in the early morning, the tugboat broke down and drifted onto a sand bar about 200 feet offshore from Shelldrake. The tug filled with water and broke to pieces. The crew made it to shore, and after climbing the bank to safety the captain proclaimed, “Thank God, we are all safe.” and then suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack. This may be the captain’s ghost that has been seen on the docks.

Please note that Shelldrake is privately owned and not accessible to the public.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

The Two Story Outhouse

Posted on by Posted in Buildings, Michigan Leave a comment

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “as dumb as a two-story outhouse.” Among the trees, in Cedar Lake, in central Michigan, is a tall historic two-story wooden outhouse. It is a replica of an historic outhouse that sat on the property but had collapsed a few years ago due to decay and neglect.

The original two-story privy and house were built by William Nelson, a wealthy lumber baron who had seven daughters. The girls lived upstairs and the lower part of the home served as Mr. Nelson’s office and a general store that was frequented by lumberjacks. The lumber baron wanted to keep his daughters separated from the men so he built the outhouse with a bridge (which collapsed in the 50s) to the second floor of the home.

The outhouse had four different size holes to match four different size derrieres. The holes on the top are off-set from the holes on the bottom. A wooden panel behind the bottom set of holes separates the waste from the occupants at the bottom, giving a whole new meaning to the term “poop chute”

It is funny to see the new outhouse standing with an upper door and floor but if you know the history of it, the unique privy makes sense.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

The Old Church in Michigan

Posted on by Posted in Ghost Towns, Michigan Leave a comment

This old wooden church stands quietly next to the road south of Saginaw, Michigan. A couple of hundred yards to the east is where the crosses over the Fairchild Creek, and that is where the town of Luce once stood. The town was given a post office in 1890 and it closed in January of 1914. The small community was named after the 21st governor of Michigan, Cyrus G. Luce who was the governor from 1887 to 1890. Besides the town, Luce County in the Upper Peninsula was named after him, and he was the last Michigan governor to have a county named in his honor. I am not sure how old the church is, or if it was built by the citizens of Luce, but it is near where the town once stood. Further down the road is a cemetery. The church and cemetery are probably all that remains of the old town.

Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In The States, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.

enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, it's just an automated email that lets you know there is a new post to read

 

 

The Silent Night Chapel

Posted on by Posted in Churches, Michigan Leave a comment

Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan is the largest Christmas store in the world.  The Silent Night Chapel stands on Bronner’s property and it is a replica of the original chapel in Oberndorf/Salzburg, Austria, which marks the site where “Silent Night” was first sung on Christmas Eve in 1818. Wally Bronner visited the original chapel in 1976 and after receiving permission he constructed this replica in 1992.