Barnum Island

Barnum Island

 “The fishing families were represented by first generation Scandinavian immigrants who came to America in search of a dream. The cottage families came mostly from the “new money” well to do, who earned their wealth in the grain, and mining industries. These two groups with different backgrounds of heritage, language and wealth learned the lessons of dependency  generated by the isolated, harsh and unpredictable environs of Lake Superior and Isle Royale.”

David C. Barnum in his introductory letter to the Isle Royale Original Families Association, 2002

Since the boat operator for the Rock of Ages Lighthouse Preservation Society spends most of his or her time standing by on Barnum Island, and since I was aware of the Barnum and Sivertson families in visits as a child, I looked forward to learning more about Washington Harbor history. 

Beyond the Rock of Ages lighthouse and its surrounding hazards of reefs and rocks lie several welcome islands at the mouth of Washington Harbor. These islands harbored the Isle Royale industries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - fishing and lodging. First came fishing by way of various fisheries, largest among them being Booth fisheries, which established a warehouse on Booth Island. Across from Booth was Johns Island, named after the English immigrant miner and fisherman John F. Johns, who had homesteaded it for fishing when the mining company he worked for in Washington Harbor closed. He provided space for several other fishermen to use as camp.

Johns Hotel

In the 1890’s, Johns removed those fisherman, including Sam Sivertson, who found his cabin  unceremoniously disassembled and piled on a dock after returning in spring, so he could build a hotel for tourists in 1892. That hotel, a log structure not much bigger then a log cabin, was recently restored by the current day Johns family in collaboration with the National Park Service, and is located in its original spot right next to the cabin I’m inhabiting as a ROALPS volunteer.

The luxury hotel Singer Island House, with 22 rooms and 10 cottages, followed on Washington Island, across from Booth and Johns Islands. By then, further down the shore, fishing families had established their fishing camps and cabins, and both fishing and tourism industries thrived through the first two decades of the century.

George Grenville Barnum bought Johns Island from (mining) Captain Johns at the turn of that century after spending a stay at his hotel. He asked Johns to build him a small log cabin nearby (it stands in replica just down from this cabin), starting an employment relationship with the family that would continue for decades. Renamed Barnum Island, Barnum built a new cottage on the west end of the island, opposite the Johns Hotel, and invited family friends the Ray’s, Dunwoody’s, and Andrews to build cottages on the island. All those cottages remain on the island, maintained by relatives and friends of the Barnum and Sivertson families.

The Barnum Cottage and Boathouses

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As I walk around and across the small island, I wonder what kind of man would think to establish his family private resort in such a remote, sometimes inhospitable place? 

George Grenville Barnum was born in Buffalo, New York to parents successful in the grocery trade. Never very comfortable in the conventional role of student, and after striking one of his disciplinary teachers, he found himself in the much preferred employ of his fathers store. Though everyone thought it to be a punishment, Barnum much preferred it to school. Not long after, in 1862 at age 17, he volunteered to join Company H of the 100th New York Volunteers in the Civil War, gaining his parents reluctant permission. 

For the next three years he fought, first as common infantryman fighting in battles for Forts Wagner and Sumpter, and rising in rank as regiment quartermaster from sergeant through brevet captain. 

Describing the battle for Fort Wagner, he wrote, “That carnage, that carnival of death, that slaughter of loved ones, that hell of terror and fire, that thunderous roar of heavy ordnance and din of small arms mingled with one of the most appalling storms of thunder and lightning ever seen or experienced, such as only a southern sky can hold, when the faces of the soldiery, as they advanced, could only be seen by the lurid glare of heaven’s lightning!”

I suppose the roar of the lake, the violence of a Superior squall, the battles against wind, waves and cold he would fight to get to, from, and around the royal Isle would not seem much set against that experience.

He demonstrated ingenuity, resourcefulness, and integrity as a quartermaster through skirmishes at Williamsbury, Deep Bottom, Dutch Gap, and Malvern Hill, among others, ending in Petersburg for the charge at Fort Grigg. Not long after, Lee surrendered at Appomattox. 

“At this time I was in charge of the baggage and supply train of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, which consisted of some 2,800 six-mule teams. General Lee said that his army was pretty hungry and asked General Grant if he could supply him some provisions. Grant asked him how many men he had, and he said about 20,000. General Grant then sent orders to me to take over and deliver to their quartermaster general rations for 25,000 men. This took about 400 of my wagons loaded with pork, beef, hard-tack, coffee, and sugar.”

The man responsible for the cabin in which I sit, the island on which I contemplate the natural beauty, was at the front lines of history at its worst.

*****

His answer to what to do after three years of never sleeping in a bed and marching hundreds of miles from home, finally allowed to re-enter civilian life, was to move to Minnesota to get away from the fever and ague he was troubled by for two years. From there he signed on as a driving  member of the company that built the first railroad from St. Paul to Duluth. And from there, he became a grain trader and founding member of the Duluth Board of Trade. And yet it was to his humble quarters on Barnum Island he came for peace and the challenge of good fishing, beginning in 1895 and continuing throughout the remainder of his life. 

G.G. Barnum, far left, at the family picnic table

Several successive generations of Barnums continued the family tradition, up until recently, when the uncertainty of continued access to the cabins - each year a separate decision by the National Park Service on whether to extend the lease for another year - made the commitment to bear the costs and effort of maintenance of the camp challenging. 

Volunteers of ROALPS contribute to that maintenance with small projects, in collaboration with the Washington Harbor Preservation Group, during any downtime they may have when weather keeps them from the lighthouse. In the process, you can’t help but feel the history and culture of this little corner of Isle Royale.