The following is an excerpt from “Some Other Day: Remembering Empire” by the Empire Area Heritage Group, Second Edition, 1987. This excerpt features Dorothy Lanham’s visit with Sara Johnson and Jane Boomer.
The Dunn Farm Homestead deeds was approved in 1862 and was signed by Ulysses S. Grant. I believe it took five years of work on a homestead before it could be approved.
The area was taken away from the Indians and was opened up for homesteading just before the Civil War.
There were docks at Glen Arbor and Glen Haven. The Day Mill was at the pond near the present Sleeping Bear Dunes Climb. There was a railroad from the Mill to the Glen Haven dock.
Burdick had the first saw mill at Burdickville, but was sold after a few years. There were two sawmills at Burdickville and one at DeGrawville at the bottom of Burdickville Hill. I believe barrels were made there since the owners were coopers. There were lots of slabs removed from Glen Lake in that area by cottage owners, also at Burdickville. As a child I remember that huge stacks of slabs and knots were dried and burned by Burke; the property is now owned by Flerlage.
Sources say that there were two sawmills at Burdickville, but I knew the location of only one, the one off Flerage and the one at the bottom of Burdickville Hill. Burdick operated a sawmill and grist mill. Nessen operated one in Burdickville also.
D.H. Day also became involved in Burdickville. He owned two tugs. A tug pulled a scow was apparently held a smaller item of freight(?) Behind the scow was hitched a boom of logs. A boom was several logs chained together. These chains was passed around the logs, the spike ran through the ring, the chain tightened, and the spike hammered in the log. (Sarah sometimes calls the tug, a launch.)
Ralph Dorsey ran a passenger ferry on Glen Lake, Jane Boomer said the first Dorseys boarded with her mother, (Mary Fortin Haywood.) Her parents were over the Dune Climb now is. Mary Haywood is 78, and being close to the Day operation knows a lot.
Sarah Johnson is older (93), but was sent away to school most of her childhood. She said her father drove her in a wagon usually full of apples, to the Glen Arbor dock. There she took the boat to Chicago. The boat stopped at both Glen Arbor and Glen Haven.
Sarah said she was born in a house at the junction of present- day M-72 and Co. Rd. 675. Her parents rented from (I think she said the Payments.) The house is gone now. Later they moved down by her father’s parents, at the present Dunn Farm Resort.
The Dunns Farm became a resort; they picked up people in a wagon from the boat at the Glen Arbor dock or at a railroad station. Other resorters took the ferry.
She said, at the time there weren’t many resorts, chiefly Gregory’s and Ray’s. She thought possibly that the Glen Lake dock for Glen Arbor was at the location that Phil Krull used to own on the north shore of Glen Lake.
My brother, Fred Lanham, bought property on the Day Forest Road next to the public fishing site. On the property he owned on the north side of the road, he found remains of what had been a resort. (Note: Probably the Burke Resort) I have been unable to learn anything else about it.
Sarah said that men one their way to join up for the Civil War often stayed at the Dunn Farm.
My brother, John Lanham’s home is on a trail halfway between Empire and Traverse City. It was called the Halfway House. Travelers stayed there overnight.
The mail was carried by an Indian who walked the route. The Newmans (John’s wife is Nancy Newman) who first settled nearby, owned a store. It is now Duane Newman’s garage.
His farm is a Centennial Farm, homesteaded by Ira and Prudy Newman. They came by boat to Glen Arbor in 1863 and made their way into the wilderness, finally locating a farm that is now owned by their grandson, Duane Newman, and his wife, Mary Sullivan Newman. The homestead deed they have signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
Ira was a cooper by trade and made buckets and tanks. He tapped as many as 1,500 trees for maple syrup and maple sugar.
His son, Ira, Jr. continued farming, tapping maple trees, as well as being a carpenter. He married Bertha Gilbert and their children and Duane Newman Lanham.
