Minnesota Point – KIIHN ART MAPS

August in Park Point is green and full of raspberries and jewel weed. A completely different world from the snow-dune blanketed peninsula of my last visit in April. This time I followed the map from my most recent drawing of Park Point to the location called Peabody’s Landing to confirm what I suspected from the research completed at my kitchen table earlier. The narrow sidewalk that runs from the trail to the shore of the Superior Harbor is a remnant of Peabody’s Landing, named for the ferry service run by Charlotte and John Harry Peabody, who lived on the Point.

In 1853, George Stuntz, deputy U.S. surveyor, established a trading post, warehouse, dock and transfer company at the Landing. He ferried people and goods between Wisconsin and the Point and was granted exclusive rights of usage by the Territorial Legislature for a period of fifteen years. Stuntz traded with the Anishinaabe people for whom the Point was still a seasonal home and sacred site of their burial grounds. The 1854 Treaty of La Point established the Fond du Lac reservation and while the treaty was to maintain the Anishinaabe’s rights to hunt and fish freely outside the reservation, treaties were broken.

As early as the 1850s, vacationers made the short trip across the harbor to Park Point. By 1900s, the Peabody’s were ferrying the wealthy citizens of Duluth and Superior across the harbor to summer cabins built on federally-owned land. Superior’s Mayor Charles O’Hehir kept a cabin there from 1900-1927, and that Pine Knot Cabin was the last cabin on the site, razed in 2010.

References:

Duluth’s Pine Knot Cabin on Minnesota Point: Its History, its Removal and the Future of the Land

The Barrens of Minnesota Point

Minnesota Point Lighthouse – Photo credit to Minnesota Historical Society

A little more than half way along the Park Point, you pass the ruins of the first lighthouse in the Duluth Superior area. The map below is from my drawing Park Point, you can see the lighthouse location near the bend of the peninsula.

The red brick tower is a husk of what was the Minnesota Point Lighthouse, affectionately called “the Old Standby”. When the canal at Sault Ste Marie opened in 1855, Congress appropriated funds for its construction in anticipation of the logging and mining boom to come. The lighthouse served from 1858 to 1885. A replacement light was built on the northwest side of the Superior Entry in 1878, but the Old Standby functioned through 1885 as the kinks of the more modern light were worked out.

Samuel Stuart Palmer was the second lighthouse keeper of the Old Standby, from 1861 to 1871. He turned 66 the year he moved in with his second wife Roxanna .

His obituary read: Mr. Palmer was a native of Jefferson county New York. He came to the head of the lakes Superior in 1856 and for many years was keeper of the Minnesota point lighthouse. He leaves a widow, a large family of grown-up sons, of whom Jothan, Vose, Loren and Roswell reside in Duluth, and many grandchildren to mourn his loss. His funeral on the 3rd inst. at Nemadji cemetery Superior, was attended by many from Duluth and Superior, the Reverend Dr. Rice officiating. Thus one after another of our old settlers pass away. (From Superior Times 06 April 1878.)

KIIHN ART MAPS

Tag: Minnesota Point

Peabody’s Landing

The Old Standby