Footprints: A History of the Place We Call Palisades Park (Limited)

By Marge Roche, Bill Potter and Don Henkel

(from the original jacket) Palisades Park is a summer community of 200 cottages scattered throughout the dunes and along the shore of Lake Michigan, seven miles south of South Haven, MI. Since "the place we call Palisades Park" has encompassed a long and interesting story of its own, the book puts our small community into a broader context by including information on the area's geology as well as its Native American and Lumber Era days.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Jan 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781681624167

Book preview

The Place We Call Palisades Park

How easy to think a place is ours – to believe that this area we call Palisades Park has always been just that, our Park. Perhaps a certain hubris is connected with knowing and loving a place: familiarity may breed pride and possessiveness. No doubt, in the early days, things were a bit different, but deep in our hearts we may assume that the history of Palisades began in 1905, that things are pretty much as they have always been, that our affection for this spot (and our deeds to its property) gives us dominion. Footprints to follow? Complacently, we think of Arthur Quick and the Park pioneers.

The editors of this book, however, would take a longer view. That is why we chose, as part of our title: The Place We Call Palisades Park. We want to affirm that this area that has been a Park for almost 100 years has a vast earlier history. Geologically speaking, the dunes on which we stand were formed over thousands of years. Before the first European settlers, Native Americans roamed our shores and fished our waters. (Indeed, some Park members claim they have seen Indian spirits still sitting around their campfires on our shores.) As late as 1796, the area we know as Van Buren County was still considered Indian Tribal Land. Only 30-some years later did it become a County; 27 years after that, Deerfield Township (now Covert Township) was formed. The Park’s neighboring towns of South Haven and Covert began to develop. Fruit farming and lumbering became important industries and trees were stripped from the forests. By the late 1800’s, a young surveyor named Arthur Quick found and bought 205 acres on the lake, some of which had not been heavily lumbered, and decided to try a fruit farm. It was only with the failure of that venture, as the century turned, that Quick turned to another idea – tourism – and our partof the story of this place began.

So the footprints of our title predate the Park by many centuries. The place we call Palisades has had other names and other uses. The idea of this chapter is to remind us of some of the particulars of those earlier days – and to call us back to a humbler appreciation for what we hold so dear. We have been blessed to have the use of this place for 100 years. Its mystique – its essence – encompasses much more than our limited acquaintance. Hear, then, more of its story.

A Sand Dune

Child of many centuries –

Born out of the bosom of a Great Lake

And resting on her shoulder;

Sired by the waves and storms of the ages;

Driven, molded and shaped

By the winds of all the seasons;

Pounded by them into great heaps as high as ten houses;

And clothed around in a thick green shirt

Of trees, shrubs and vines –

Thou Mounting Child,

Old, yet ever young:

I seek the aloneness of your bald and curving top,

Tufted about with bunches of grasses and shrubs

Which manage to find some root

In your unanchored sands –

Through which I roll my weary fingers

And wiggle my toes.

Out on your giant sand-pile,

Far from all the din of civilization;

Away from phones, and talk, and everything –

Except your sand, and breezes, and views –

I play again!

I lay my body in the glow of your relaxing sun;

And,

Far beneath the shimmer of your long blue moons,

I forget every duty

But to rest,

And rest,

And dream!

"Written on a hot August day atop a 300

foot sand dune on the eastern shore of

Lake Michigan." Author unknown.

Discovered and submitted by Marion Keehn

to the September 14, 1974 Patter.

Michigan, a mitten and a shield. The nation’s only parcel framed in blue, the blue in turn by green. All carved by Nature’s hand. No geometric lines set her off; just miles and miles of shimmering seas and margins of white with sand. (1)

Our Dunelands

Compiled by Katy Beck

"The coastal sand dune formations that border portions of Michigan’s Great Lakes shoreline represent the largest assemblage of fresh water dunes in the world. The diversification of environmental elements – topographic relief, vegetation, wildlife habitats, and climatic conditions – found naturally occurring within these land forms represents a phenomenon unique to the State of Michigan. Complex natural occurrences … led to the creation of these ‘gentle’ giants made of sand.

"There are two basic dimensions for this remarkable spaceship we call earth – time and distance. Both are fantastically variable. Distance is the space between two spinning atoms, the length of a person’s arm, the span of a continent, the reach of human imagination. Time is the moon’s phases, the interval of an ice age, the duration of a sleepless night, the pause between two heartbeats.

To provide some idea of just how old the earth itself may be, let us set the ages of geologic time against the span of our own 12-month calendar year. By that comparison, if we assume the earth was first formed in the month of January and its crust finally formed about February, the primeval ocean came into being perhaps as early as March, certainly no later than June. By the same measuring device, we would say that ‘first life’ appeared in the month of August and the earliest fossils in November, dinosaurs had their day about mid-December, and human life did not begin until the last day of the last week of the year. It is humbling to note that the presence of modem society, as we know it, represents but one very small tick on the face of the geologic clock. (2)

Tracing the geological time line back to the retreat of the 4th and last great sheet to cover the Midwest – the mile thick four million mile square sheet of ice known as the Wisconsonian, one can begin to investigate the creation, over time, of the hills, marshes, prairies, and forests of Michigan. The glacier left ice deposited till, or glacial drift, composed of millions of tons of boulders, rocks, clays, and other mineral particles. Till not only carries a wide variety of sizes in the unsorted debris; the rock materials, having been carried from widely scattered places have great diversity in their mineral makeup. For example, jasper conglomerate fragments, or pudding stone, are scattered throughout Michigan, having originated from north of Lake Huron. Also to be found are erratic or boulder sized rocks from the iron and copper areas of the Upper Peninsula. After the glacial formations, or lobes, retreated, till covered southwestern Michigan at a depth of 200 to 300 feet. As the earth’s crust rebounded from the weight of the glacier, water and wind erosion worked on the tons of debris. Waves loosened and carried material into the Great Lakes while streams and rivers carried other glacial deposits into the lakes. A combination of all these forces resulted in the creation of the massive dunes along the Michigan shoreline.

"The Covert Dunes were formed in the period from 13,000 years ago until approximately 3000 years ago. Although some dune movements are still present today, the major dune formation took place when the lake level was 25 feet higher than it is today. Because favorable conditions existed – an abundant sand source, the ability of waves to transport sand, and westerly prevailing winds – the sand dunes which formed along the eastern and southern shores of Lake Michigan are unmatched in size, diversity, or complexity of form. The environmental conditions under which the dunes were formed no longer exist; once destroyed, these dunes are not likely ever to regain their present significant size and extent." (3)

Michigan dune and beach sand is made up predominately of quartz (90%) with other grains of epidote, garnet, magnetite (black sand), hornblende, calcite, ilmenite, orthoclase, tourmaline, and zircon. Human visitors who scuff their bare feet along the band of wet sand near water’s edge experience a high, clear ringing tone. It is caused by friction from a special combination of quartz crystals and moisture, activated by pressure from a hand or foot. Thus, the name ‘singing sands’ (4).

Wind and waves sorted and deposited the sand into dune formations. Strong winds of 25 miles per hour are needed to move the coarse grains; fine sand movement needs winds of only eight miles per hour and then can be carried long distances in suspension. Thus, wind becomes a good sorting agent.

Sand also moves along the surface of the land, one grain hitting another and causing it to bounce, collide with another grain, jar it loose, and so on – a chain reaction, or saltation, moving the sand inland. Ripples of sand found along the beaches result when the wind is high enough to crease the sand’s surface. These form patterns of a gentle slope on the lakeside with a steeper slope to the leeward side. These patterns are repeated on a giant scale in the shapes of the dunes themselves.

"Dunes did not form everywhere along the east coast of Lake Michigan. Even if forces existed to create dunes, the proper geologic formations on the shore had to be present. In Berrien and Van Buren Counties, the retreating ice sheet left many glacial moraines. One was a ridge that extends from near South Haven southerly to the village of Lakeside, Michigan. This gravelly, rocky, low profile ridge is named the Covert Ridge. When the Covert Ridge was deposited on the Lake Michigan shore, no dunes could form. When the ridge was deposited inland from the shoreline, dunes could form. From South Haven, the Covert Ridge goes inland and south. Covert is, of course, right on the ridge. The glacial ridge then travels southwest until, at Hagar Shore Road in Berrien County, it rejoins the lake. From there, to south of St. Joseph, the ridge is the lakeshore and no dunes could form. South of St. Joseph, the Covert Ridge again leaves the lakeshore, allowing the Grand Mere Dunes to form. Stevensville is on the Covert Ridge, and the Red Arrow Highway follows it south" (5)

When traveling by boat north from Palisades Park toward Saugatuck, one sees the transition from lake front dunes to the clay deposits of the Covert Ridge clearly delineated. Likewise, a boat trip south will carry one past the meeting place of dunes and clay ridge near Hagar Shore Road. It is well worth the trip to observe this geological phenomenon.

The size, shape, and texture of Michigan’s dunes are determined partly by the plant and animal life that is abundant. A short distance from the water’s edge is found marram grass, the primary stabilizer of sand in areas where sand is deposited rapidly. It is a rhizomal plant that regenerates from the root system, sending roots down to the water table and then back to the surface to begin new plants. These clumps of grass, with their intertwining root system, hold the sand in place.

The foredunes, or initial topographic rises, continue to foster the growth of marram grass with such added growth as sand cherries – a traditional Palisades Park fruit for jelly making – and little blue stem, milk weed, sand reedgrass, jack pine, ground juniper, goldenrod and cottonwood.

"Mounting the apex of the highest dune ridge places the visitor at the threshold of immense ecological diversification. With time, a rich forest continues to develop in protected areas where human influence has been minimal. In fact, ecologists are convinced that this process has been ongoing for several thousand years. Time has been ample for all types of climatic changes and alterations in the very shape of the land to create a thousand different communities of plants and animals. Each hilltop and depression, meadow, wetland, and wooded setting is its own small, self-contained ecosystem.

Deep, plunging interdunal valleys bordered by northerly and southerly exposing slopes create a ‘mini’ weather condition that has resulted in extremely unusual and unique communities perpetuating themselves. Scientists to this day ponder an explanation as to why such systems have developed under such unusual circumstances. The forest floor is rich with wildflowers and is an artist’s palette of color during spring months. The protection afforded in this area of the dunes is a haven for songbirds of all types. These niches provide protection from the elements during periods of peak migration, and habitat for the rearing and feeding of young. The naturalist can observe the scarlet tanager, several kinds of woodpeckers, redstarts, chickadees, nuthatches, thrushes, and many species of warblers during an outing to this part of the Lake Michigan scene (6)

The biological diversity created by the unique formation of the Covert Dunes’ unique topographical formation is fascinating. As Chuck Nelson reported in April 1986:

In a recent half-day, investigation Naturalist Rob Venner and I found seven protected, threatened, or endangered wildflowers in the area to be developed. They were flowering dogwood, climbing bittersweet, Michigan holly, trillium, pipsissewa, false pennyroyal, pitcher’s thistle, and lycopodium. The microclimates and undisturbed forest floor render a density and diversity of wildflowers which is outstanding. The most important aspect of the Covert Dunes is the wilderness quality it has retained. Deer, fox, and raccoon trails are more obvious than man’s activity in the dune complex. The noise encountered is of birds, winds, and waves. The driveways are few and narrow and are directed by the contour of the natural landscape. Nature is dominant here; it is the prevailing force. What exists now in the Covert Dunes is a very large and complete natural biologically-important dune ecosystem. It may well be one of the largest stretches of fresh water dunes without a major disturbance left anywhere (7)

The natural forces that created these magnificent resources can never be duplicated by humans. With all of the environmental values inherent in Michigan’s dunes, it is crucial that steps be taken to preserve and protect them for the use and enjoyment of this generation and those to come. The sand dune environmental system is a very special, fragile place – one that deserves our appreciation and protection as a truly unique resource. Michigan is truly blessed to offer such opportunities to those who seek a very special encounter (8).

Sources

Kelly, R. W. and Farrand, W. R., The Glacial Lakes Around Michigan: Geological Survey Bulletin 4

Nelson,Charles,Director/ NaturalistSarettNatureCenter, Benton Harbor, MI, presentation to Covert Township Planning Commission, April 12, 1986.

Roethele, Jon, Dunes: Pamphlet Reprint by the Division of Land Resource Program, DNR, July /August, 1985.

References:

1.  Beth Merizon as quoted by Roethele.

2.  Jon Roethele.

3.  Charles Nelson

4.  Jon Roethele

5.  Charles Nelson

6.  Jon Roethele

7.  Charles Nelson

8.  Jon Roethele

Evening Panorama

By Jeanne DeLamarter

The sky is spilled red wine

Beyond the dune

Between me and the horizon.

Insects hum

A small but earnest tune

And walk upon the sand

In strange design

Leaving an intricate pattern

To be fanned

Into oblivion

By evening wind.

I lie unmoving

On the tawny

Sand, and so shall lie

Until the coming of the moon

Above the running wine

That treak the ky

Stains the awny

Heads of grasses

Gold and saffron,

Citron,

Red,

Between the deepening zenith

And my head.

The above chart courtesy of the Field Museum in Chicago, IL.

Palisades Park – Geologically Speaking

By Anne Fuller

How does one encapsulate the history of this little bit of heaven which we call Palisades Park – the name given to it by our botanist-developer-dreamer, Arthur Craig Quick? Palisades, a tiny dot on the lower western edge of Michigan, a mitten-shaped peninsula capped by a roughly triangular hat pointed to the east at Whitefish Point and bordering Lake Superior with its high Precambrian Pictured Rocks until, running west, the Wisconsin border says, Stop, the rest belongs to us.

Michigan, our fair peninsula, has a history 2.7 billion years long. Before that we might as well turn to the poesy of the street urchin who was inadvertently dragged into Sunday School one day and heard the creation story. This is how he reported it: Well, you see, God He got lonesome, He didn’t have nothing to do, nor no place to go, so He took a bunch of nothing and He covered it with dirt and He slung it like an incurve, and He said, ‘Now dat’s de eart.’ (Anon.)

The street urchin was talking about an event eons before the 2.7 billion bottom line of Michigan. All we know is that somewhere in that dim past, the Canadian granitic shield, extending from Hudson’s Bay down into Illinois, and the oldest known rock in the world, was thrust up from the center of things. (European explorers really discovered an old world, rather than a new!)

Then there was a long period – millions of years called the Paleozoic (dawn animals) – when this spot on the earth’s globe was inundated by warm seas, usually from the east, but sometimes from the southwest – some 57 times, says one geologist – while to the north the volcanic peaks of the Keewenaw area were eroding away to their copper cores and iron ores, and now and then a bit of silver and gold, and perhaps even diamonds. And the eroded sediments were washed into these Michigan seas and piled up layers of useful goodies – limestone, sandstone, shale, salt, oil – for man who was to appear much much later on the scene. The seas were teaming with warm water forms of invertebrate life – sea lilies and corals, trilobites and snails and clams and the chambered nautilus, and finally even fish and then amphibians, and even the first land animal.

So, as many of us were getting beach-comber-bends from stooping along the gravelly sands of our Palisades beach back in the low waters of the 60’s to search for the circular segments of sea-lily stems, we were picking up antiques from a warm inland sea of probably 350 million years ago. And when during those same years, after a storm, a Palisades Parker came down to the beach from her high dune formed only yesterday, geologically speaking, to pick up any new Petoskey stones the waves had washed up, she was reaching back into those early seas for the fossilized remains of the colonial coral animal, Hexagonaria percarinata, designated today as Michigan’s state stone.

The time of those early seas came to an end in great earth convulsions and uplift. Then the pages of Michigan history left no records because everything above sea level was eroded away by wind and rain and waves; the sediments deposited elsewhere. We only know what Michigan must have been like and what lived here – elephants and mastodons and saber-toothed tigers – from records embedded in sediments in other areas lying low enough to escape erosion.

The record returns, however, in what the geologists term the Pleistoscene Epoch (Greek meaning most+ new) some 700,000 to a million years ago when, for some still unexplained cause, the earth turned cold and the ice sheets came down. Four times they came, great mountains of ice over a mile high, grinding, crushing, grabbing and pushing all before it – the mountain tops, the forests, the animals. We know the record best of the last, a Wisconsin ice sheet which had a lobed front crossing our area; it followed only river valleys, the predecessors of today’s Great Lakes. It was the scouring action of those frontal lobes, grinding out the old river valleys, which determined the position of this, the largest of all the world’s lake systems of today.

When the earth turned warm again and the ice front retreated, our Great Lakes were formed. It is a long and intricate story of advance and retreat as the temperature shifted up and down. In fact, the geologists don’t really know whether we are just now in a warm period with the makings of another ice sheet lurking in the north. They, the Pleistoscene geologists, are able to trace the shore lines of 20 or more lakes in the Lake Michigan bed, four of which we hear a great deal about. The first one was Lake Chicago, with its northern shore the ice front. Gigantic piles of glacial debris, called end moraines, confined the melt waters, with varying outlets, over time releasing them to the sea.

If you’d like to get a feel of that early Lake Chicago, some afternoon drive west along M43 from South Haven until you reach Glendale. Then turn either north or south and drive through the rolling country of the Valparaiso-Fort Wayne moraine, which impounded those melt waters of the receding glacier. Watch the skyline of the hills. Note its uneven contour, a good indication of a glacial-deposited moraine. That lakelevel was 640 feet, which means the shore line was about 62 feet higher than the 578.7 feet reported in November, 1985.

Two other famous lakes of the retreating ice sheet in the Michigan basin are Lake Algonquin, beginning about 11,500 years ago, when the water level dropped to 605 feet, and Lake Chippewa, with an extreme low of 230 feet about 9500 years ago when the ice sheet had retreated to the Hudson Bay area. I wish some geographer would figure out for me where the shoreline would have been, way out there in the deepest part of the lakebed. Yes, there might have been Paleo-Indians constructing their wigwams way out there on the Chippewa beach, fishing those Chippewa waters and hunting mastodons with their fluted points lashed to wooden spears.

In the ensuing 4000 years, when the waters rose again to 605 feet, the continuing generations of prehistoric peoples could simply retreat before the waves and construct their housing on higher ground. No polluting concrete seawalls or messy fill of auto tires or gabions of glacial boulders to save their dwellings!

Finally, with the ice sheet completely off the mainland of North American, about 4500 years ago, the land began to rise again, released from the great weight of the mile-high ice, and a fourth lake, Lake Nipissing was born.

Three outlets to the sea were exposed and there was great stability for perhaps 1000 years. Enough time, suggested R. W. Kelly, state geologist, to form the strongest and most spectacular shore feature in the entire region. In the eastern Lake Superior area, Nipissing features are found up to 700 feet above sea level. Down here in our area, Nipissing shore evidence is found at 605 feet.

This begins the part of our history which we know and love the best: the story of waves and wind and sand – the building of our famous sand dunes, Nipissing and modern – the longest and highest expanse of fresh water dunes in the world. Because we are in the path of the westerlies, because we are south of the hinge line from above Saginaw Bay to Grand Traverse Bay above which a crustal rebound (still continuing the geologists say, about 1/2 foot per century in the northern Lake Superior region), our southeast shore of Lake Michigan is particularly placed for fabulous dune building.

About 3500 years ago, the stage began leading to the birth of modern Lake Michigan. The geologists credit its birth to the lowering of the lake level. Lake Michigan is considered to be, then, about 2000 years old, when the modem level of 579 feet was achieved.

Each of those historic lakes built dunes of that beautiful wave-washed quartz sand, dried and lifted by the ever-blowing westerlies. Rising first as foredunes parallel to the beach, they then moved inland until new foredunes along the shore blocked the wind and stabilizing plants invaded to serve as sand fences. Always, as I walk the beach and climb the blow-out at the south end of the Park, I ask myself, Are these dunes moving inward from the present lake shore or are they dunes of earlier lakes? Most of the detailed studies have been made at the head of the lake in Indiana, a convenient research area for Ph.D. candidates from the University of Chicago, over the last 90 years or so.

But we have one detailed study from right here in the Park, made by our own Margaret Sauer while she worked on an intensive soil study in our dunes for her Master’s degree. In her research of the literature, she found that most of our dunes are a part of the Covert Ridge, which is about one-fourth to one and one-half miles wide and has an elevation of about 700 feet. It is part of the Lake Border Moraine and marks the final stand of ice in Van Buren County. She says our dunes are part of the high Nipissing-age dunes that skirt much of the eastern shore line of Lake Michigan.

Margaret’s studies of the dune sand development into soil brings us back to our beautiful wooded slopes and ravines, with their spring carpet of wild flowers which captivated our founder, Mr. Quick, near the opening of the 20th Century…. [Whatever size beach, always] we will have our beautiful wooded dunes, mostly of Nipissing origin, our nature trails, our wealth of ferns and wild flowers, and the woodland beasties so sensitively recorded in Anna Holmes’s Memorabilia, (As she pointed out, Palisades Park still offers much, so very much, toward the study of nature and education in all her forms, if only the eye is trained to see, and the ear to hear.

Our Inland Sea – Lake Michigan

By Don Henkel

From July 1995 Patter

For more than 30 years, my family and I have had the incredible pleasure (and, during extremely high water periods, sometimes pain), of having a cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan at Palisades Park. This body of water often defies adequate description. Its moods reflect our moods. At times calm and peacefully tranquil – often with a gentle lapping of waves – at other times, the awesome force of the storm.

For a greater understanding of the sea at our doorstep, I have appreciated the excellent geological insights of Park members like Anne Fuller. (Articles written by Ms. Fuller in the 1960’s were reprinted in the August and September, 1994 Patter.)

Recently, seeking more information, I had the privilege of interviewing Chuck Nelson, Director of Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor. Significant portions of this article come from that discussion.

Chuck observes that the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan contains the greatest accumulation of freshwater dunes in the world. He estimates that from nine to twelve separate dune areas exist up and down the shoreline – and Palisades Park is situated in one of these areas, the Van Buren Dunes.

Let’s back up a bit. We all know that glaciers formed what are now the Great Lakes, starting perhaps 1 million to 1.5 million years ago. Glaciers advanced and retreated continuously, cutting and filling. The last glacier retreat occurred some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Since then, lake levels have fluctuated greatly. 9000 years ago, those of us with riparian rights on the shore of Lake Michigan could have added eight miles of property to the front of our cottages (about the distance from Palisades Park to South Haven), for the lake level fell 120 feet below present levels. However, 4000 years later, after extensive periods of rain, people like Betty Householder would have owned a lakefront cottage, the lake being 50 feet higher than it is today. Only after some 1000 to 1500 years ago would the lake resemble what we now see.

Since 1918, the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers has measured Great Lakes levels. During that time span, Lake Michigan has fluctuated about five feet between the 1964 minimum and 1986 maximum.

Look closely at our shoreline – and even inland. When boating along the shores of the lake in our area, one sees stretches of clay-like cliffs giving way to sand dunes. Where the glacier deposited debris which formed a significant vertical ridge along the shoreline (called the Covert Ridge in our area, or lake border moraine), no dune could form. The Covert Ridge begins somewhere around Stevensville, follows the shoreline to about Exit 7 on I-196, then turns inland through Covert. Our Van Buren Dune picks up around Exit 7 and extends north through Van Buren State Park.

Chuck Nelson described his search for the exact transition from clay to sand near Exit 7. Walking along the beach, he explained his mission to a cottage owner. Oh yes, she exclaimed, I remember that Grandma went down to the beach over there (pointing) to get clay for her facial. And that is the spot. This transition can be noted from the highway when one heads south from Palisades Park along I-196. First one sees extensive dunes on both sides of I-196. When the dunes are no longer visible – around Exit 7 – one passes over the Covert Ridge.

The Palisades Park shoreline is uniquely situated to form dunes. We have the necessary three ingredients:

–  plenty of sand (mainly quartz which comes originally from river erosion);

–  prevailing westerly winds;

–  a flat shoreline where dunes can form.

The other four Great Lakes tend to be east-west in length. Only Lake Michigan has the extensive north-south axis that invites prevailing westerly winds.

Over time, as the lake level receded, shore dunes formed. These were then pushed back in a U shape as new dunes were formed. Our Sugar Bowl is an example of this kind of parabolic dune.

Every square inch of Palisades Park rests on a dune – our cottages, roads, tennis courts, trails, woods, and beaches. Our plant and animal life, our weather, and our dunes are all directly related to this inland sea we call Lake Michigan. It is easy to lose sight of the wonder of what we have here.

Imagine, Palisades Park happens to be located on the shores of the largest freshwater system in the world, on a shoreline that contains the greatest accumulation of freshwater dunes in the world. Not bad. How uniquely fortunate we are.

Think about it. Appreciate it.

History of Vegetation on the Lake Michigan Dunes

by Leslie A. Kenoyer, Ph.D.

From Quick, Arthur, Wild Flowers of the Northern States and Canada. 1939, p. 473.

Plants grow in societies. We find grouped together those which require the same amount of moisture, the same proportion of sun and shade, the same degree of exposure or shelter from exposure. Nowhere does this social grouping show to better advantage than in sand dune areas. Here we have striking contrasts ranging from deeply shaded ravines to bald sunny exposures. Here, due to the rapid shifting of the sand, new exposures are constantly being made for the occupation of vegetation and old occupied areas are, as constantly, destroyed.

The best development of sand dunes along the Lake Michigan shores is on the east border of the lake. Here the winds, which in our latitude are prevailingly from the west, pick up the sand grains after the waves have tossed them just out of their own reach, enabling them to get dry enough for movement by wind. They are carried to varying distances inland to be dropped as soon as the wind strikes an obstacle which checks its velocity. A piece of driftwood on the shore is sufficient to form the nucleus for a dune. After the dune is started it will itself break the wind sufficiently to enable it to grow. While growing it tends also to move with the wind, since the latter picks up grains on the windward side, carries them over the top, and, its velocity being checked, deposits them on the leeward side of the ridge.

In the course of a few years the wind may have moved our sand ridge hundreds of feet landward from the point at which it originally started. By this time another dune may have started near the shore, and a trough may separate the two. Thus the contour of the sand surface comes to be a series of crests and troughs, not unlike the surface of water waves but on a much larger scale.

As the dune passes through its unsteady formative period and settles down to a stable maturity, different plant associations, in turn, occupy its slopes. Here we might suggest that there is nothing more effective as a stabilzer of sand than a plant cover. Wind cannot get down through a mat of vegetation to lift and scatter the sand on which the mat is growing.

The early pioneer plant society comes on the beach, the fore-dune, and active dunes wherever they occur. This is the sand-grass and herb society. It consists of those hardy pioneers which are able to stake out their claim on unoccupied land and to endure the rigors that such land brings in the way of a shifting foundation and exposure to a hot sun. There are two grasses which are exceedingly successful early settlers in the Michigan dunes: Marram grass and Sand-reed grass….

When the pioneers have settled upon their claim and have given a reasonable degree of stability to the previously shifting sand, they begin to pass out of the picture, yielding to another society, the shrub association. The most numerous members of this group are: Sand cherry, Bailey’s dogwood, Glaucous willow, Broad-leaved willow, Hop tree, Climbing bittersweet, Poison ivy, and Wild grapes.

Now that the dune is settled sufficiently to allow slower growing plants to obtain a foothold, trees put in an appearance. The first to come are the poplars. At Palisades Park the prevalent poplar is cottonwood …. Poplars are trees which will germinate and become established only in sunshine. We may look for them always in exposed situations. They are forest outposts that come in to claim the open land for the forest. On some of the dune slopes the sassafras fills a role similar to that of the poplar.

Dune land that is a little older and has been a little longer settled is likely to display another type of plant colony known as the conifer association. The cone-bearing trees are essentially trees of the north. They come into the latitude of southern Michigan only along the lake shores, for it is here only that the summers are sufficiently cool and humid. The dunes of southern Lake Michigan have the following representatives of this interest group: White pine, Red pine, Jack pine, Arbor vitae, Red cedar, Common juniper, and Hemlock ….

Next in order of development we find the oak association. The leading species of oak encountered here are the red, the black, and the white. The oak forest is rather more shady than the conifer, but less so than the beech-maple. On its floor are various shrubs and herbs …. May apple, the true and false Solomon’s seal, the maple-leaved viburnum and the witch hazel.

Lastly we come to the most luxuriant of all of our eastern plant associations – the beech-maple forest. In the dune country, because of the favoring humidity from Lake Michigan, hemlock is associated with beech and maple. It is a magnificent forest. One can scarcely realize that these densely wooded slopes were at one time bare sand slides …

The development of a dune is not always a matter of continuous progress from sand-grass to beech and maple. Interruptions and catastrophes will occur. A weak spot in the plant-covered breastworks may be seized upon by the wind. Little by little the sand will be tom away from around the roots, causing herbs, shrubs, and even trees to slump over and die. At the south border of Palisades Park is a large blowout. Acres of woodland and shrub have been destroyed leaving a bare scooped-out place in the sand, a small Sahara for desolation. One can follow the course of the shifted sand and see where it is covering an old established beech-maple forest. So here the wind is proving doubly destructive to plant life, uprooting one area and burying another. The sand here denuded is being occupied in spots by the earliests pioneers, and must repeat the long train of successions.

Arthur Quick’s Discovery

Several hundred years ago there were elk in this part of Michigan. At that time one of them met his death in a valley just north of the farm of our good dairyman, Mr. Shepherd. At that time, most of this section was drifting sand, and eventually the sand drifted over this valley, not only filling it but building up quite a dune over the mighty antlers of this fallen elk. Years passed and eventually vegetation formed over this dune, then trees of all sorts sprang up, grew to maturity, and died, while others took their places and grew to large size, and which the writer has seen standing there. Later the trees were all eleared off, the ground planted to fruit trees, cultivated, and thus the wind got another excellent chance to level off the dune and expose the old-time valley. And that is how the writer happened to discover the mighty antlers of the old elk that fell at least a few hundred years ago. They are in excellent preservation, silver-gray with age, and with the skull intact. He is having it mounted and may decide to adorn the clubhouse with it.

-Arthur Quick in an early Patter

Dune Dweller Lives Alone and Likes It!

This article is courtesy of The Covert Historical Museum. Unfortunately, the original source has been lost, as has the date; even so, the story of Miss Baldwin is worth telling as we think about our dunelands.

To resorters and South Havenites themselves, the dunes and woodlands between Palisades Park and town are often just another accumulation of sand and trees. But not to Jessie Baldwin – for the dunes are her home and she loves every inch of sun-bathed timber and billowy terrain. To her, the dunes are constant and dependable, while the world and its people are ever-changing. She would do anything to protect her peace-filled sanctuary and preserve its rugged beauty. Now, she is fighting a single-handed battle to prevent the old stage coach route south of town from becoming a public road….

She came here 55 years ago from Evanston, Illinois, where she spent 3 1/2 years at Northwestern University in Liberal Arts School. Today, she wanders the dunes, studying wild life, beachcombing, collecting Indian relics, and enjoying the natural charm of the land surrounding her home, Hillcrest. A myrtle-covered Indian mound is located only a short distance from her home. The hump in the ground is due to a three-foot layer of burnt clay laid over the grave of the dead Indian, Miss Baldwin says. Other such traces of an abandoned Pottawatamie civilization are also in evidence. And deer, foxes, and chipmunk provide her with constant companionship…. She can tell in an instant that a soft barking noise is not the call of a mature dog or a small puppy, but that of a fox. Or that the high shrill sound that resembles a human giggle is the cry of a deer.

One of her favorite pastimes is watching the blue herons on the beach. They only come early in the morning, she says. She has a stuffed heron in her home with a wingspan of nearly five feet. Another bird she likes to observe is the white owl, a recent immigrant from Canada.

Miss Baldwin lives rugged style. She carries her water from a nearby neighbor’s well. Previously, she pumped her own water from an old red pump, but health authorities found her own well had gone bad when they tested it this spring. She figures she’ll have to go down almost to lake level to hit good water again.

Although she is getting up in years, she is still active. In fact, she rides her trusty bicycle the ten miles to town and back when necessary. Electricity has not yet found its way into her home, but a portable radio and old-fashioned lanterns provide as homey an atmosphere as anyone dreams of Sometimes she whiles away her time playing an old pump piano.

But why anyone would want to bring civilization to the dunes is one thing Miss Baldwin can’t see. One of my neighbors has got a television set up here … that’s what most people come here to get away from, she says. She, like other lakeside landowners, is rapidly losing her beach, but she can still remember the days when the beach extended far out and the lake froze over thick enough that it was possible to drive the horse and cutter to town along the slick, icy shore.

Other recollections of her childhood center around exploration of the deserted village of Paulville. There was one farm she and her playmates used to visit in particular, she says. There were peach orchards, old rusted horseshoes, wild blueberries, blackberries, dewberries, and even cranberries, but best of all, an ice-cold spring. Today it’s buried beneath the dunes.

Any intrusion on her privacy is a serious thing to Miss Baldwin. She likes people, but she doesn’t mind loneliness, and any threat to the hush and serenity of her outdoor cathedral is nothing to take lightly….

Although living with few modern conveniences may sound fatal to those who can’t live without knowing what the water temperature is or whether it’s going to rain tomorrow, Miss Baldwin finds it no hardship at all. If Thunder Mountain thunders three times and the locusts sing, she knows a hot day is ahead. And she can always tell by looking at the sun set over the lake when to get out the ol’ bumbershoot.

Storms on the lake are another thing of beauty to Miss Baldwin. There’s nothing more colorful or artistic than jagged streaks of lightning that unzip the sky and light up the beach for miles around, she says. However, she remembers once, when an aunt was visiting her, a freak line squall blew up and the lake was pounding against the shore – the thunder was almost deafening and lightning was crackling overhead. All of a sudden my aunt screamed and claimed she’d seen a ghost, Miss Baldwin says with a smile. The horses had gotten loose.

Jessie Baldwin, looking over Indian grave.

Two common problems with writing Indian history. On the one hand, there is a distrust of white historians among Native People; and on the other hand, there is a distrust of native histories on the part of many academic historians. — Walter Fleming, Missoulian

One of the problems with so-called Native American history is that it’s not really Native American history, it’s white history with Native Americans in it. — David Beck, Missoulian

Early Footprints

By Katy Beck

Creation stories and oral histories are important. These stories are the foundation for peopled philosophies. — Walter Fleming, Missoulian

Summarizing the history of Michigan’s Van Buren County Indian population runs into immediate difficulties. The two contexts of history differ, Europeans usually constructing theirs around geography and boundaries, emphasizing dates and battles, and American Indians around their oral tradition of legends and stories. Views of leadership hierarchy, land ownership, and laws differ. Oral history that is clear to Indians can be confusing to non-Indians. For these and similar reasons, European historical or missionary writers often have not reflected Indian viewpoints. This, in turn, has led to a lack of trust. Many traditional Indians are hesitant to share their knowledge. This paper hopes to bridge this cultural gap, attempting to give a balanced context while remaining true to Native American oral tradition.

To glimpse the Indian people who inhabited near the shores of the Brandywine Creek, one must remember their view of the continent was not the European view. Stable communities or tribes did not necessarily settle in one specific place. Indeed, Indian people of this region moved constantly, not only for resettlement, but also seasonally within any given area.

In the Palisades Park, Covert, Saugatuck, South Haven, and St. Joseph area, the most familiar Indian tribal name is Potawatomi. However the Potawatomi people, a number of whom still reside in the area, were not the earliest to walk these lands. Indian People have populated the Great Lakes Basin in what is now the state of Michigan since at least 12000 B.C. Paleo-Indians are thought to have migrated into the region as Ice Age glaciers receded.

The People Shall Continue. Many; many years ago, all things came to be. The stars, rocks, plants, rivers, animals. Mountains, sun, moon, birds, all things. And the People were born. Some say, "From the Ocean." Some say, From a hollow log. Some say, From an opening in the ground. Some say, From the mountains. And the People came to live in the Northern Mountains and on the Plains, in the Western Hills and on the Seacoasts, in the Southern Deserts and in the Canyons, in the Eastern Woodlands and on the Piedmonts.—Simon J. Ortiz

They were organized into groups of 10-12 people who survived by hunting and gathering. Large animals, including mastodon, roamed the area; smaller animals were plentiful.

The Archaic period of history began in the year 8000 B. C. when the hardwood forests appeared. The People continued to improve their tools and hunting weapons. As the mastodon became extinct, they hunted moose, deer, bear and caribou. People began to settle along the shore of Lake Michigan from 6000 to 3000 B.C.; nuts, berries and other fruit were plentiful and fish became important to their diet. By the late Archaic period, 3000 to 1000 B.C., extensive trade began. Shell products came from as far south as the Gulf of Mexico; copper products were traded from the Keewenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan.

Villages grew and became more settled. Rituals and ceremonies, as well as decorative arts, became a part of their lives. Because plants were plentiful in southern Michigan and the growing season substantial, life was good.

In 100 B.C., the Hopewell – or Mound Builders – reached southern Michigan. Their graves and earthworks can still be found preserved in the state. They left behind Indian mounds of up to 15 feet high and 102 feet in diameter. Many axes, pick axes, and arrowheads have been found in Van Buren County. They are thought to originate with the mound builders, buried in the mounds with the dead. The later Potawatomi and Ojibway buried their dead under tumuli or low banks of earth. The garden beds of the early people were very precise and artistic. Most were of a geometric design, some circular with spokes from an inner circle as in a wheel. Known sites of both mounds and gardens are seen on the archeological map of Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, and Allegan counties. Along the St. Joseph River, for example near Berrien Springs, locations of burying grounds are identified by a circle with a cross within, mounds by a dark dot, and a garden bed by parallel lines.

During the 650 years after 1000 A.D., the Hopewell Culture diminished. The life styles of the Ottawa, Potawatomi and Ojibway were established. Where the prehistoric Mound Builders went is not known, but conjecture is that they slowly migrated south and finally established the ancient Kingdom of Mexico. Cortes, the Spanish invader of 1519, declared them to be as far-advanced in arts and sciences as the Spaniards – except in regards to implements of warfare.

Indian Villages along the Brandywine.

From Hinsdale, Wilbert B., Archeological Atlas of Michigan, Michigan Handbook Series #4,

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1931.

The Native Americans who moved into the Great Lakes Basin in their wake, perhaps a hundred tribes, were all part of the Algonquian language group, the name of which was derived from the Algonkin tribe formerly living in Canada, east of the present city of Ottawa. The Ojibway or Chippewa, Ottawa, Menominee, Miami, Sauk, Mascoutin, Potawatomi, Fox, and many others were Algonquian speakers. W. B. Hinsdale suggests that the affiliation of languages is very important; it indicates that at one time in the past, one language was an offshoot of another. They, therefore, may have been derived from the same source. Tribal disintegration and affiliation probably went on constantly due to war among tribes or uniting against common enemies.

According to the traditions of the Potawatomies, as reported by R. David Edmunds, they and the Ottawas and Chippewas all originally were of the same group. They migrated to the Great Lakes area and separated at the Straits of Mackinac by the 1500’s. While the Ottawa stayed in that area and the Chippewa tribes moved east in what is now Michigan, the Potawatomi continued to migrate south in what we now call Lower Michigan. They stayed along the plains and eastern coast of Lake Michigan, retaining their roles as Keepers of the Fire for the three united tribes. One historical report dates this southern movement about 1450 A.D. Quite possibly the Potawatomi separated earlier and were settled as a prairie culture known as Dumwa in West Central Michigan. However, an Indian view dates the migration as 1100 to 1200 B.C., believing those early people to be related to the later tribal groups. Carbon dating supports the latter. Another date of the migration of the Nishinabe (the Indian word for Potawatomi, Chippewa and Ottawa people) to the Great Lakes Basin is "when food was growing on water." This refers to wild rice, a food staple.

The people of the Three Fires called themselves Nishnabek. Sometimes this is spelled Nishinabe or Anishinabe depending on the group and source. Historians ascribed the meaning "True Humans" or "First People to the name; an Indian definition is from when lowered the male of the species." (Female Indians, they believed, were already here.) Government-accepted words, Chippewa and Ottawa, are different than the preferred Indian names Ojibway and Odawa. Potawatomi is the same in all groups but there are many different spellings. Even today one Michigan Band varies from the rest by doubling the T.

Prior to 1768, epidemics spread through Indian communities; within some tribal communities 75% to 95% died as a result. In 1768 the total population of the Potawatomi was about 3,000. By 1830 they were up to 12,000, possibly reflecting a recovery number. Although villages overlapped, the Potawatomi generally held claim to Michigan lands south of the Kalamazoo River from Detroit west to Lake Michigan and around the shore into Indiana and Illinois, on up along the lake to Green Bay, Wisconsin. At one point in the mid-1600’s, the Iroquois, seeking more hunting grounds for fur trading with the French, invaded Michigan. As a result, the Three Fires peoples migrated north across the Straits of Mackinac and into northwest Wisconsin. All lower peninsula villages were completely depopulated. In 1641 the Potawatomi met up with the French and formed an alliance for fur trading. This alliance ultimately involved them in the war against the English. By 1701 the Iroquois were forced into peace and the Potawatomi began moving back to lower Michigan.

The villages of the St. Joseph Potawatomis were scattered. The Potawatomi extended as far north as Ludington, but the Band of St. Joseph itself had villages from Indiana north through Covert and on the Brandywine. Villages usually did not exceed 300 and usually averaged 100 persons, an effective size.

Some people fished; others were hunters. Some people farmed; others were artisans. Their leaders were those who served the people. Their healers were those who cared for the people. Their hunters were those who provided for the people. Their warriors were those who protected the people. The teachers and the elders of the people all taught this important knowledge: The Earth is the source of all life. She gives birth. Her children continue the life of the earth. The people must be responsible to her. This is the way that all life continues. — Simon Ortiz

Culture means modes of life. It is the sum total of all the activities of a community. All mankind has modes of living. They have motives and habits of thought. They produce and consume. They have family and neighborhood relations. Everything that pertains to existence in and among a group of persons is their culture. — W.B. Hinsdale

The Potawatomi had an advantage in the cultural pattern of their lives. Their skills of working with birch bark, coupled with their new-found competence in agriculture, enabled them to use the exceptionally fortunate elements of this area to their advantage. Using simple tools for horticulture, they were able to grow com, beans, squash and melons. They stored foods in pots, baskets, and skin bags. Rich soil along riverbanks and a significant growing season meant excellent crops. Lightweight canoes gave them the ability to carry quantities of trade goods long distances. Added to that was a ready supply of game — buffalo herds and other large animals; they became less dependent on fish and wild plants than they had been in the north.

Grandparents had a part in the extended family and a part in raising the children. Early in the morning or late in the day, they tended gardens, slowly working the earth. They talked to the children who accompanied them. They taught lessons of behavior by sharing legends. The children loved and respected their grandparents and parents seldom had to raise their voices when elders were present. — Leroy Wesaw

Since they frequently moved, they constructed both summer and winter shelters. The former was of poles covered with bark in a rectangular shape. The winter house, or wigwam, was of saplings fastened into the ground and brought together at the top where they were tied with skin bands. Saugatuck dwellings were described as small bark houses with a fire in the center for roasting game and cooking corn. Heated stones were cooking utensils. More permanent winter dwellings were made in a circular shape, with saplings curved to the center for a frame. The bark of birch, elm, cedar, or basswood covered the frame, as did woven cattails. The villages on the Brandywine were probably summer villages.

In the 1800’s both wolves and deer were plentiful; eagles fed on the slaughtered animals that they could find. In the days of Paulville (now Palisades), bears nested nearby in the swamps. In the spring, Indians from Mackinaw paddled down the coast in fleets of canoes, sometimes attached to one another with one main mast and one sail, the wind being right. They made their sugar in the area and captured bear cubs which they took back north. Successful in hunting deer, bear and porcupine, they preserved some meat in birch bark bags, called Mokokas, buried them in the ground and took the rest back north for the summer. When returning for the winter hunt, the crop was ready for harvest and food was available for their use.

Indians were frequent visitors to the area, moving up and down the shore, at times in groups of 100 canoes filled with families. Potawatomi Indians came to Cold Springs near South Haven every summer to camp. They picked blackberries and peeled basswood bark for basket making. One settler said her father and other neighbor boys visited the Indian camp, bringing watermelon and green corn. There they learned to build wigwams and make bark rope.

Tanned leather of deer hide was commonly used for clothing. Breech cloth and leggings replaced trousers. Moccasins and dresses were sewn by sinew and fringed by splitting. Bear and buffalo skins were used for winter comfort. Clothing was decorated with paint, shells and stone beads, fossils, and teeth. Porcupine quills were dyed and added. Slowly, colored cloth took the place of skins. Feathers delineated rank. Although they used natural materials, the Indian people had much the same ornaments as Europeans – earrings, pins, belt buckles, hair ornaments, lockets, silver, bows and fur trim. Women wore their hair in one long braid down the back, while men wore their hair long except during battles.

Leopold Pokagan, a chief from the St. Joseph River, signed three treaties and remained with his followers on small farms in Michigan after the Indians lost their lands. Weesaw was a sub-chief of the Potawatomi in a village on the St. Joseph River. He signed five treaties between 1821-1836. During Pokagan’s and Weesaw’s days, the girls and women manufactured split baskets. Their finest work was of birch bark, sweet grass, and porcupine quills. The quills were dyed, then woven into the bark in patterns of flowers and leaves. Sweet grass was used for its fragrance. Modem basket makers are working to preserve this traditional craft of black ash split-wood basket making.

Open baskets made in Potawatomi Basket Class. Below: Made by modern Potawatomi basketmaker.

Antique Potawatomi basket

The Great Lakes area has been referred to as the birch bark area. Lightweight bark canoes were of utmost importance in Potawatomi life. They were master builders, unlike the pedestrian tribes (such as the Miami, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo and Mascoutin) who traveled by foot to escape the Iroquois. The bark canoes were extremely navigable and safe; they were used for fishing and transporting people and goods over long distances. Other tribes had dugouts that were heavier and more unwieldy in the water. One of these can be seen at the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven.

Simon Pokagan, Leopold’s son, told of a sacred camp ground about a half mile north of South Haven, along the Black River, where the people celebrated the feast for the dead. For six days, they built bonfires along the shore that cast light over the waves. The people feasted and threw food into the fire singing, We are going around as spirits feeding the dead. The feast was to keep alive the memory of those who died, just as head stones do for white men’s graves.

During those days Nik-a-nong (South Haven) was a successful manufacturing town. White birch bark was imported in quantity by canoe and buried for trade or manufacture. Birch bark did not decay and was ready to be used for canoes, wigwams, dishes, and hats. It was also used to tie the knot in a marriage. Sugar maple, sold for wampum or buffalo robes,