This is part one of a brief history of East Leland and Porter’s Landing by Mark Smith, Omena Historical Society. Part two continues next week with a description of resort life.
A few weeks ago while doing some local history research I happened upon some photographs in the archive section of LHSM. One photograph showed a group of teen girls in East Leland walking up Horn Road, back when it was still sandy and prone to washouts. The caption indicates it is the 1920s and it is a beautiful summer’s day, about noon based on the shadows. Nine girls wearing loosely fitting, white, short-sleeved blouses with black sashes and knee length black bloomers are laboring up Horn Road in the heat, up the “view hill” from Porter’s Landing on Lake Leelanau. Most of the girls wear wide-brimmed white stetsons. The caption states that the girls were part of a camp, Camp Oshibwa, and they are on an excursion. This was the start of my investigation. This snapshot, this fascinating slice of life from over 100 years ago, inspired me to start digging. I wondered who these girls were, and what it was like to be young and alive under the sun on that beautiful day so long ago.
I knew nothing about Camp Oshibwa. But I knew that Porter’s Landing was named after John Porter of Omena. John Porter came to teach with Reverend Peter Dougherty at Grove Hill School in Omena in 1854, when he was 28 years old. He had been a teacher and a farmer in his home state of Pennsylvania. Porter’s uncle, Andrew Porter, was in charge of the Indian Mission in Bear Creek (Petoskey) in 1854. Mr. John Porter remained a teacher in Omena until 1861, then moved to Section 11 in Leland Township (East Leland), where he had accumulated 356 acres of prime farmland. (Surveyors always knew where the best land was for farming). John Porter, in his time, was township supervisor, justice of the peace, township treasurer, highway commissioner and county surveyor. Many of his legal records still survive.
