Historic Fort Mackinac

While on Mackinac Island my husband and I visited the fort. It sits up on a hill. The fort has a few interactive activities that make it a fun and educational visit. It was founded during the American Revolution. The British built it in Mackinac City but moved it over to the island around 1780 because they thought it would be safer from attack. Americans took it in 1796. The British took it back in 1812. After the war of 1812 the U.S. got it back.
During the civil war the soldiers moved south to support the Union. When the war ended the soldiers returned to Fort Mackinac and civilians followed looking for a peaceful summer place to escape the tragedy of war.
Around 1875 the federal government made the island a National Park and U.S. soldiers were the federal personnel in place to care for it.

I found a book at a gift shop which was written from the diary of a boy in the 1880's who lived on the island with his parents. The boy's name was Harold Dunbar Corbusier. His father was an army physician stationed on the island. The diary begins in 1883 on the boy's tenth birthday in January. He describes the thick ice in the straits and says he and his family and some of the other boys skated on it. I try to imagine life in the 1880's for the women in their long skirts in all that snow and ice. These were wives and daughters of soldiers and civilians all living and working on the island.
This boy is 10 years old and he describes the weather pretty often and his penmanship is extremely mature.

An excerpt from the boy's diary on July 4th says "It has been a pleasant day. They fired a sulute of thirty-eight guns at noon we have had a very nice time today down town they had go-as-please races, walking maches, pony hurdle, row boat races, greased pole, tub races. Jumping matches. Mama, Mrs Sellers, Miss Duggan and Mr. Duggan went to the Point on the Algomah." The Algomah being a large ferry boat.
July 5th "Last night we set off many fireworks. Claude hurt his hand very badly last night"
Summertime during the Victorian age on Mackinac Island was a time for festivals, social dances, traveling back and forth from the mainland to the island, and full hotels.
Any misspelled words or grammar errors are quotes from the book.

In January 1883 Harold writes "I went to school today. Edwin, Dave and Paulding Sellers, Jeremiah and Ned Ryan, Claude, Phil, Frank and I go to the Post School Sergt J. Fred Grant, Co. C, 10th Infantry is our teacher. We all went skating with Papa today after school. The Algomah went back as she could not get over here."
After school ended in the summer and he returned that fall he evidently had a new teacher.
Excerpt from the diary says "Sept 10 We started school today. Our teacher is named Anderson Crawford. I study Spelling, Reading, Geography, History, Arithmetic and Writing."
Sept 23 "I have a very bad cold. Papa thinks it is because I had my hair cut on saterday"
Dec 4th "We have been sliding down hill in front of our schoolhouse. It has been a pleasant day."

In September 1884 Harold and his family left the island one evening on the ferry boat the Algomah.
From the spring of 1883 til September 1884 the Corbusier family lived at Fort Mackinac.
Then in the summer of 1892 Harold and his mother and siblings returned to the island for a summer visit. He was 19 at the time and he saw many changes on the island. Several cottages and many other buildings had been built. Also the huge Grand Hotel had been built. There were lots of carriages and saddle horses in the streets and yachts in the straits.

Now 119 years later there are still cottages and carriages and saddle horses in the streets and yachts in the straits and the Grand Hotel stands as big and beautiful as ever. There are still no motorized vehicles and it is still a serene place for a spring or summer vacation.