 NORTHPORT - circa 1920 |
Deacon Joseph Dame and his son, Eusebius, platted the land north of Waukazooville in 1854 and named the property Northport. When the United States recognized the Grand Traverse Ottawa and Chippewa reservation on the Leelanau Peninsula in 1855, Northport was excluded from the reservation boundaries.
The perseverance of these and all Leelanau settlers, as they sculpted communities and homesteads, is a source of inspiration. Starvation was a constant threat, and the planting and growing seasons were full of hard labor. Food preservation was a priority, and chunks of winter ice were chopped from the bays and inland lakes and packed into root cellars and sheds to help preserve the precious food supplies. Better cutting tools were developed later, and ice cutting often became a community project, bringing able-bodied men together in this late winter task. The heavy ice blocks were hauled across the frozen waters by horse and sled and put into ice houses for use in meat markets, hotels, commercial fisheries, and private homes.
Because Northport was located near the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula and at the first harbor into Grand Traverse Bay, it grew rapidly and was the focal point of Leelanau for some time. The early families of Smith, Wolfe, Thomas, Morgan, White, Dame, Gill, Scott, Garthe, Middleton, Kehl, Nelson, Porter, Charter, Waukazoo, Nagonabe and Bigelow were joined by other families of German, English, Swedish, and Norwegian descent. Farming, fishing, lumbering, the first county seat, and the first newspaper provided employment to the pioneer families. Hotels and tourist lodges brought seasonal visitors, and Northport Point became a permanent summer mecca for many big-city families.
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