The following is an excerpt from “Meet Me At The Dock in Greilickville, Grand Traverse Bay” by author Kathleen Firestone.
Copies of her books are available at local book stores or directly from her.
The schooner Harvey Ransom sailed the perimeters of the Leelanau peninsula, contracting jobs from dock to dock. In spring, 1900, Captain Edgar E. Chase signed a contract to transport wood from the Bingham dock, down to Carter’s dock in Greilickville, a distance of about 12 miles. Mosier Brothers, with business in Lake Leelanau, Bingham, Glen Arbor and Suttons Bay, had purchased the Harvey Ransom that year.
W.F. Edwards was the general sales agent for Carter’s Victory Chair, with plans to open an office in Chicago and to hire sub-agents in other places. Demand for the chairs grew rapidly, and Carter added more machines and employees to turn out chairs and other household furniture. Shipping took place at the Carter dock, aboard hired vessels. But plans for Elmwood Manufacturing Company changed, and Carter soon bought out Edwards’ interest in the company. In 1901, when Einer Peterson’s mill in Suttons Bay burned down, Peterson bought the Carter mill, moving it to Suttons Bay. The next year, 1902, the Greilicks sold their Suttons Bay mill to Erastus Dailey, who had been manager of Empire Lumber Company.
Daniel Carter made other changes in his life when he married Mrs. Virginia Lull in Chicago, in December, 1906. The newlyweds spent the winter in New Orleans, then made their home in Traverse City. No doubt, their home furnishings included a Victory Chair.
Albert Norris died February 6, 1902, at his home on Cedar Run, Grand Traverse County. He had been a lumberman and farmer in the area, after selling his Greilickville brickyard to James Markham.
The same year Albert Norris died, 1902, the Traverse City Leelanau & Manistique (TCL&M) opened its line from Traverse City to Northport, decreasing the amount of product leaving by boat. Much had changed since the Norris family had come to Leelanau some 50 years earlier.
In 1906 a group of Traverse City people formed the Traverse Bay Transportation Company. They were Anthony Greilick and his son, Frank, Capt. Charles Webb, A.V. Friedrich, Elsie Hannah, R. Floyd Clinch and Sam Garland. They bought the steamer Chequamedon from Northern Michigan Transportation Company for $28,000 and the boat arrived n Traverse City on June 12, 1907, with Webb as the captain and 1907, with Webb as the captain and Frank Greilick as chief engineer. In summer, the Chequamedon carried passengers to Marion Island,, Omena, Northport, Charlevoix and Petoskey. The vessel was sometimes kept at Carter’s dock in Greilickville, during winter when refitting and remodeling could be done. The boat was sold to the Pere Marquette line of steamers in 1911.
The Markham Brickyard closed down in 1907, after cement blocks became popular construction material. Bricks continue to be unearthed on the grounds of Pathfinder School property, where the brickyard had been. The same year the brickyard closed, the Greilick mill burned down, so that was the end of the Greilick Bros. lumber in Elmwood Township. The last Greilick brother, Anthony, died in February 1912. Mary Greilick Brosch passed away in 1933, having outlived her parents and all of her brothers. The legacy of the Greilick family to Elmwood Township, Leelanau County, and to Traverse City is one of the most notable in the region.
Martin Norris departed this earth on Jan. 28, 1915. He had worked as a tanner in Elmwood Township through the 1870s and, possibly, the 1880s. By 1900 he had moved to a Grand Traverse County farm. In the 1870s, ‘80s and ‘90s, John Norris had continued working in the Norris grist mill but spent his last days in Traverse City and died there on February 8, 1917, shortly before his 80th birthday. Just a few days later, on February 14, Charles Norris also died. The oldest of the Norris brothers in Leelanau, Charles, had worked as a tanner and a farmer in Elmwood Township and died at the Michigan Soldiers Home Hospital in Grand Rapids from complications of his injuries during the Civil War. In 1852, when the Norris family first came to Elmwood Township, Charles Norris had been part of the very beginning of white settlement, and he had seen enormous changes from then until he passed away at the end of World War I.
The founding Norris people didn’t end up with a Leelanau settlement named after them, but the early days along West Grand Traverse Bay changed wilderness into business sites, paving the way for the Greilicks and other new families.
