Through the following time, that land wasn't an island at all but an appendage of the mainland. Then the Lake went up to 30' over its current level, submerging all of Beaver Island except the middle plateau. Then, it lowered about ten ft, creating a slightly more compact variant of our current Island. The edge of this configuration was layered with shore stones. As soon as a logging railroad was built in 1904, it was located on this firm bed.
Most people know that Native Americans passed by Beaver Island as long ago as 2,200 years. There is no proof that these people lived here, although the common tradition belonging to the Odawas, who have resided here for around three hundred years, is that there were small fishing villages in most of the bays when they got there. Arrowheads, spear heads, along with fragments of Woodland time pottery show that at least these people came ashore. Fire-crumbled bolders mark their food preparation fires along the bluff.
In 1871 the archeologist Henry Gillman opened some from the mounds in the harbor, as well as was surprised at the uncommonly skilled craftsmanship of the artifacts he discovered.The Odawas (Ottawas) migrated westward inside the ripples of Native American movement which retreated out of contact together with the whites, arriving on Beaver Island in the middle 1700s.
From time to time these people have been recruited to help in skirmishes between the English and the French, but very little was known about their lives till Father Baraga came from L'Arbre Croche in 1832 to convert the Indians, living on the north shoreline to Catholicism. He baptized 22 Native Americans, although those living within the settlement near Whiskey Point stayed questionnable. A few years after, a few of the 199 Native Americans residing on Garden Island, two miles north (along with the site of over 3,000 Native American graves), were converted by other missionaries that came on Beaver Island later on.
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