Waterlines 21 August v2

Waterlines, August 2021
maintain contact with his fellow veterans
over the next forty years, returning to visit
them in Iowa and hosLng them on his where
he made his island home on Grand Traverse
Bay.
LiGle is know about how BasseG spent the
years between the end of the war and 1877
unLl he arrived in Grand Traverse County. By
one account, Dick returned to the grassy
plains to worked as a cowboy and fronLer
guide like his father. The same source rather
dramaLcally implies that a failed or tragic
romance inspired his move east while
another profile claims that the moLve was to
get away from the alLtudes of the high plains
troubling his wounded lung.
In 1877, BasseG arrived on Grand Traverse
Bay, possibly at the invitaLon of a warLme
comrade. His first summer was spent
camping on the beach at the base of the bay
near the mouth of the Boardman River on
what was called "Indian Point" or the more
familiar (and derogatory) "Squaw Point". The
point of the barrier peninsula leading to the
river's mouth, extended from Traverse City's
waterfront of sawmills and lumber piles to
the mouth of the river, had long been the
tradiLonal seasonal camping grounds for the
resident OGawa peoples when they traveled
down the bay to hunt and forage in
Boardman Valley. From here, Dick BasseG
first gained an understanding of Grand
Traverse Bay and the opportuniLes it
provided.
"Island No. 10" by government cartographers
and was officially surveyed in 1852, making it
available for homesteading. Among the small
number of seGlers and travelers in the area,
the big island was called by many names --
Eagle Island or Hawk Island for the resident
birds of prey or Hog Island for its hog's back
profile and/or resident populaLon of pigs
who were let to graze on the island. By at
least 1862, the name of the island had
officially shi[ed to "Harbor Island" on
government maps. In the early 1860s, a
partnership of local real estate
speculators laid claim to the island, gained
Ltle, and encourage its iniLal seGlement.
By 1865, the island was already a stop for the
Hannah & Lay steamboats that plied the bay,
including excursion boats during the summer.
By 1872, a[er a succession of ownership
changes the island property was consolidated
under the ownership of Frederick Hall of
Ionia. That year, Hall renamed "Harbor
Island" to "Marion Island" in honor of his
daughter Marion, a name which survives to
this day on nauLcal charts.
Marion Hall Fowler — Nameake of Marion Island (now
Power Island)
A[er a winter most likely spent in a lumber
camp, Dick BasseG went about seGling the
close to two acre "island" of land separated
by a watery isthmus from what was then
named "Marion Island". The larger and more
familiar island gained its first name in 1850 as
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