![]() ![]() This light-house, when located, was considered perfectly secure, but the extraordinary rise of the waters of the lake, in 18, brought the water to its base and in 1837, for the first time, Mr. Stephen Pleasonton, who was in charge of the nation’s lighthouses, described the early years of Bois Blanc Lighthouse in an 1842 report: lighthouse to be built on Lake Huron, into service in the spring of 1830. On May 23, 1828, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a lighthouse on Bois Blanc Island, and on March 9 of the following year, a $4,695 contract was awarded to Philo Scovill of Cleveland for building a “light-house and dwelling-house” on the island and “fitting up the light-house with patent lamps, reflectors, &c.” The outer end of a peninsula extending from the northern side of Bois Blanc Island was selected as the site for the lighthouse, which would serve as a guide for mariners sailing through the Straits of Mackinac.Ī circular stone sixty-five-foot-tall tower and a detached dwelling were completed in 1829, and Keeper Eber Ward placed Bois Blanc Lighthouse, the second U.S. ![]() Bois Blanc is French for “white wood,” and likely refers to the island’s stands of basswood tree whose white underbark was used by Native Americans and French fur traders as cordage for sewing up canoes and making webbing for snowshoes. Located along the eastern approach to the Straits of Makinac, twelve-mile-long and six-mile-wide Bois Blanc Island was ceded to the United States on Augby Chippewa chief Matchekewis as part of the Treaty of Greenville.
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