Looking Back: Railroad connections, Captain Walter Clifford and more

CHARLEVOIX — Ladies, brace yourselves. 150 years ago, the times they weren’t as enlightened as they are today.

Charlevoix Sentinel, Oct. 25, 1873:  “A sensible lady says the female suffrage (vote) question simmered down, is simply a quarrel with the Almighty, because they are not men.” Feel free to vent.

Petoskey, or Bear River as it was called then, stood on the brink of receiving its long-anticipated railroad, which would change things over there in an instant and forever. “COMPLETED—The iron on the G. R. & I. R. R. (Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad) is now to Little Traverse Bay. The work ballasting (reinforcing and strengthening the rails and ties with packed stones, a highly labor-intensive and time-consuming process that required a small army of workers) is progressing rapidly. We might say that the road is enthusiastically finished from Fort Wayne (Indiana) to Little Traverse Bay.”

And “A grand dinner was given the contractors and employees of the G. R. & I. R. R. at Bear River yesterday, in honor of the completion of the road.”

A train had been making stops at Boyne Falls already, with Bear River to be reached very soon. Those wishing to branch off to Charlevoix transferred to a stagecoach at Boyne Falls to travel the seven miles to Boyne City, where they boarded a small passenger steamer for the last leg up Pine Lake to Pine River, as Lake Charlevoix (until 1926) and Charlevoix (officially named such in 1879) were then known.

Same edition: “E. (Edward) W. (Walter) C. (Clifford) Newman is among the things that were. He is now W. Clifford. So decided the Judge of Probate at a recent sitting of his august and pompous majesty.”

E. W. C. Newman was one of the family of Newman brothers who had settled here, and after whom the now subsidiary Newman Street was named. A brilliant man, gentleman farmer, expert marksman, urban landowner, businessman, builder and inventor, he joined the army in 1860 using only his two middle names and rose through the ranks. Without a West Point education, Clifford became a highly respected if somewhat bullheaded captain often at odds with the military academy contingent. Why he decided to shorten his name to Walter Clifford, then legalize it 13 years later in probate court here, is not known.

Subscribe: Check out our offers and read the local news that matters to you

From Bob Miles’ "Charlevoix II": ”Walter Clifford resided in Charlevoix between military assignments. As a respected Indian agent, stationed at Fort Buford, the Dakota Territories, he was the officer to whom Sitting Bull surrendered his people (after five dreadful years in Canada to which he and his people fled after Little Big Horn), in July, 1881. (Clifford was accompanied only by a soldier and an interpreter.) A letter to the Sentinel recounting the event expressed Clifford’s outrage at the near-starvation conditions to which these natives had been reduced. But he was a soldier and carried out his orders. It was ironic that two of the most important white men Sitting Bull encountered were both Michiganders — General George Armstrong Custer of Monroe and Captain Walter Clifford of Charlevoix.

“Clifford died at Fort Bridger, Wyoming on February 23, 1883 from the consequences of a campaign undertaken in bitter freezing weather. The Traverse Region, 1884 (book) paid him tribute: ‘He considered Charlevoix his home and his death occasioned general sorrow in this place.’”

Captain Clifford amassed a huge amount of Indigenous artifacts from his interactions with several different tribes during his Indian agency. He brought them back to Charlevoix where they were displayed as late as 1889 at the A. T. Washburne & Co. dry goods store on Bridge Street, currently the Maison & Jardin gift store near the stoplights. It is unknown what became of them. Those wishing to read fuller accounts of Clifford’s life and times are welcome to do so at the Charlevoix Historical Society’s Museum at Harsha House, 103 State St.

Also same edition: “The schooner Caledonia has been in the harbor during the week, gathering a cargo of potatoes. The vessel was built 17 years ago and is noted for having three times crossed the Atlantic to Glasgow, in the fur trade, and (illegible) to the West Indies.”

How could an oceangoing boat reach Charlevoix back then? The answer appeared in another item further on, about two couples about to sail from here to Florida, “ ... crossing to Green Bay, thence by the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, and down the Father of Waters to the Gulf.”

For four years now, Pine River/Charlevoix County had been connected to the world.

Editor Willard A. Smith even announced the hoped for introduction of something new to town, whose streets were known for their “sand and sawdust. With commendable pride, one of our citizens has set an example by building a sidewalk in front of his premises; let others follow his example.”

Two weeks ago, Looking Back reported on the dynamite safecracking at the local Pere Marquette railroad station at Depot Beach. Charlevoix Courier, Oct. 24, 1923: “PERHAPS THE SAME GANG WE HAD HERE. Alpena Ticket Office Robbery Shows Similar Features. The safe in the ticket office of the D. & M. depot in Alpena was taken from the office last Friday night and opened with high powered explosive and about $400 in cash and checks taken. The same was taken to a shady location across the tracks ... (where) the job is believed to have been the work of outsiders who came in Thursday night all planted for the job.” Same m.o. as happened here.

“Arrests are about to be made of suspicious characters who have been noticed in the city, it was announced.”   Stay tuned.

Lastly, and 50 years later, the Charlevoix Couriers of the latter weeks of October 1973 reported that the LaCroft and Dunes condominiums overlooking Lake Michigan, and the La Havre complex on Round Lake were all in various stages of construction, with the first La Croft residents expected to be able to move in in January. Charlevoix had gone condo crazy.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Looking Back: Railroad connections, Captain Walter Clifford and more