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Ghosts in Douglas Cemetery

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Displayed graphics and text from a "Tales from the Crypt" SDHS meeting presentation, Oct. 2011. In the presentation, people dressed up as the "ghosts" spoke the text. Text was likely written by Kit Lane
INTRO- We were sorry when we decided that the bugs and darkness required that this celebration be held inside, but the venue is still a good one. The first cemetery in Douglas was located right across the street, on the hill. This may be why the lot across Center Street from the Masonic Lodge and across Mixer Street from the library has never been built on. We are expecting a number of ghostly visitors tonight and we will show pictures on the screen relating to them. Always their new home in the cemetery, sometimes their old home, and sometimes their living portraits. But best of all each will tell you some stories from the crypt. No applause until end, ghosts easily frightened.
1. MC DONALD- I am Robert A. McDonald. My mother and I came from Vermont to Singapore in 1837 when I was 17. I worked as a carpenter building Singapore then sailed on lumber schooners. My wife Cordelia, was the first schoolteacher in Douglas. In 1847 I bought land south of the river along with my step-father William Scoville. In January of 1849 we had a visit from my mother’s sister, who was in the area visiting her daughter Arvilla (Powers) Smith who ran the Old Wing Mission for Native Americans near Holland. My son, H. A. McDonald, later ran a general store in downtown Douglas.. [1820-1889] 2. SPENCER - I am Michael Brown Spencer, I lived here so many years my first stone crumbled and was replaced. I came to Saugatuck in 1845 and built a saw mill on Lake Street. Then I decided to take up farming south of the river. Others joined me and I was here in time to receive the first letter mailed to the Douglas Post Office. My youngest daughter, Lenore, was the village music teacher. After she died, our farmhouse on the west edge of Douglas was vacant for many years. It was cleaned once every two weeks and nothing was to be moved. In the 1930s it was considered as the area’s first hospital, but instead, in 1936 it became the first Tara restaurant, the structure burned in 1975. [1820-1889] 3. WADE- I am Frank Wade, the first settler’s child born in Douglas in 1853. The McDonald boy who later ran a general store, is three years older than me, but he was born on his father’s farm, before there was a town. My uncle, Jonathan Wade, came here in 1851 and built a boarding house and a mill. He’s buried around this cemetery somewhere, but no one knows quite where. I served as president of Douglas for five years, and was on the village board for 21 years. I died in 1947. How many of you might have known the first white child born in Douglas? [1853-1947] 4. DUTCHER- I am Lucinda Dietrich Dutcher, wife of William Dutcher. We left Pennsylvania for Chicago in 1852 and came to Michigan in 1855 and bought the north part of Jonathan Wade's claim. To give our new town a head start we arrived with lots of family including our two sons, one daughter in law, a daughter, and the widower, son and mother-in-law of another daughter; my sister, Maria Graham, and son, Hugh, who was a carpenter and built most of early Douglas, and my brother, his wife and the twins, Emma and Emmet. Later my sister’s son, Charles and family, and her daughter and her husband, Jonas S. Crouse arrived. I was the first Methodist in the area and was a member of the Methodist church in Douglas where the library is now . [1804-1881] 5. MAY- I am William A. May, the grandson of William Dutcher, the child of a daughter, Mary Anne who was married to Frederick H. May, but died before the family got to Douglas. Although others claimed the title of “First child born in Douglas” I am clearly the “First Boy of Douglas.” having arrived at the age of four. It was my father who named Douglas, after the capital of the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea between Scotland and Ireland, where he was born -- where the Dhoo and the Glas rivers meet. I left Douglas after the Civil War and worked for a telegraph company in New Jersey but then felt the call to become a Baptist minister. I wrote more than a thousand hymns. [1851-1935 ] 6. WILEY- I am D. W. Wiley, I arrived here as a lad of 20 bent on going into the fruit growing business and went into partnership with B. S. Williams in Douglas. We were among the first in the county to plant grape vines. Later I bought 80 acres of my own and planted, in addition to 15 acres of peach trees, pears, plums, apples, cherries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currents. I was a charter member and 25-year president of the Saugatuck and Ganges Pomological Society and elected a representative to the Michigan legislature in 1875 where I helped to pass a law to enforce inspection of peach trees for “yellows.” After I died in 1927 at the age of 90 they named a road after me. [1837-1927 ] 7. MCDONALD- I’m Crawford McDonald, who built the first flour mill in Douglas in 1868 following my return after the Civil War. The mill was located at the foot of Center Street. I sold it in 1871 to John S. Payne and died the following year at the age of 31. My son, L. W. McDonald later ran a general store in the brick building at the corner of Center and Spring Street. That is why when a Douglas mother sent a kid to McDonald’s store in Douglas, the kid would ask “Which one?”. The familys were not related, but the stores were just across Center Street from each other. [d. 1872] 8. BILLINGS- I’m Clara Brown Billings. We came to Saugatuck in 1843. The second wife of founder William G. Butler had just died leaving him with two small children and we moved in to help them out until Mr. Butler married again in 1846. James Butler, and Charles Billings and I were all about the same age, and lived downtown. When the Civil War began James enlisted in the 3rd Michigan Cavalry and came to town recruiting, the first person he buttonholed was Charles. Charles said he had some unfinished business, but he would sign the forms the next day, he proposed to me and we were married that very day. On the next day he enlisted and left for war. [1841-1932] 9. DUTCHER-. I’m George Dutcher, William Dutcher’s son. I had just gotten settled in Douglas when the Civil War started and I enlisted in the 5th Michigan Cavalry. I was wounded in the hand in April, 1863, returned to the regiment where I was promoted to captain, then seriously wounded in action at Littletown, Pennsylvania in June, as I recovered I was an aide an headquarters until October when I was again wounded at Brandy Station and was discharged. I went to help my brother-in-law built railroads in Missouri and was captured by the Rebels, but managed to escape. Afterwards I was still feeling poorly and a doctor recommended a sea voyage so I embarked May 23, 1869 on a trip around the world, by whaler, sailing craft and steamboat—I returned in September 1870 -- pretty fast work for the times. [1834-1909] 10. REID- I am Captain Robert Reid, an Irish sailor who arrived in Michigan in 1849 and sailed on many Saugatuck-area boats until 1872 when I retired to my farm on the lakeshore. I was one of the founders of Basket Factory in Douglas and helped establish the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I also helped the church in 1894 build the Morning Star, a missionary ship for ministry on the Mississippi River. Many people refused to live on “the bleak lakeshore” and complained about “howling winds,” but I liked being near the water. It wasn’t me, but my grandson, Captain Robert Reid II who was a federal inspector blamed, but eventually cleared of fault, in the sinking of the Eastland in Chicago harbor in 1915. [1827-1906] 11. SNAY- I am Fabian Snay. People think of the Snay family as Native American, but that’s only partially true. I am French-Canadian and came to Michigan in the 1830s as a fur trader. I helped Louis Campau with the settlement at Grand Rapids. Then we moved to Pigeon Creek, Ottawa County, where we made our living by fishing. Finally, before 1870, the whole family, my Native American wife and eight children moved to Saugatuck, where two of my girls married Shashaguay men. The Saugatuck Snays were known as Great Lakes sailors, and later ship’s engineers. [d. 1876 ] 12. MINTER- I’m Captain “Billy” William B. Minter, I was one of the area’s first Lakes captains. In1868 when the steamer Hippocampus sank between St. Joseph and Chicago. A passing schooner-scow picked up 15 survivors and brought them to Saugatuck. I took them aboard my tug and returned them to St. Joe where everyone had given them up for dead, and were quite excited to see them. I was in and out of Saugatuck and South Haven for many years. In 1891 at the age of 86 I had a fever that so deranged my mind that I jumped through the living room window cutting my foot, blood poisoning set in and I died a week later. [d. 1891] 13. PARIS- I’m Lila Woodall Paris. I grew up at the Felt Farm where my parents were caretakers. In 1922 we had a rather strange farmhand who later wrote about how a spaceship from another planet visited us, and how he came to the school room to take care of me. The spaceship cast some kind of light and two of our horses (or was it cows?) disappeared. Years later his descendents turned the account over to the U. S. government and someone was sent to investigate the story about 1998 and they called me in California. There was no truth to it at all, the crazy guy and his friend must have used the yarn to cover up the theft of a couple of animals. But I guess it does mean that he liked me a little. [?? 1906-2001] 14. HAMILTON- I am Captain Walter D. Hamilton. I began as a sailor on the Great Lakes as a wheelsman and was an officer at 21. By 1900 I was shore captain of the Edward Hines Lumber Co. sailing in the summer, and tending to repairs and upkeep in the winter when the boats wintered in Saugatuck. In 1915 I formed the Hamilton Transportation Company and had purchased most of the Hines boats, but even before the flagship, the E. C. Hart got to Saugatuck I had a heart attack on a train enroute to Buffalo and died. The local newspaper headlined my obituary “Useful Citizen Gone” – isn’t that a nice thing to say? [1862-1916 ] 15. SLACK- I’m Fidelia Bowman Riley Slack. My English ancestors were tea merchants and had invested in a cargo of tea in 1773 which arrived in the colonies just in time to be thrown overboard by revolutionists. My great grandfather changed sides and remained in America. My first husband, Thomas Riley who died in the Civil War, built our house in Douglas. Then I married Anthony Slack from Tom’s old regiment. My oldest child Josie, married William A. May, part of the Dutcher family. Another Riley daughter married Jesse Hutchinson and was the grandmother of Ed Hutchinson, who was a U. S. Representative from this area 1961-76. My youngest daughter, Blanche Slack, married Captain Ellis, who gave his name to the street where my house still stands. [1833-1906] 16. PURDY- I am Philetus (or Phleet) Purdy who came to Michigan with my brother Erastus in the 1850s. We first lived in an old traders shanty but I soon left for the California gold rush returning in 1861 and built a house called Riverside Farms, overlooking Mack’s Landing (later called Purdy’s landing) where the Riverside Road from Douglas meets the Hooter road to Fennville. I had extensive peach orchards and was one of the investors in the riverboat Alice Purdy, named for my young daughter. The boat ran from Saugatuck to New Richmond from 1881 to 1885 when she burned in a nighttime fire at her Saugatuck dock. [1835-1922] 17. DAWSON- I am Alice, better known as Allie Mae, daughter of Philetus and Susan Hogmire Purdy. I, married Henry Dawson, and for many years lived at Riverside Farms. After I died in 1946 someone put a life-sized figure of an angel on the family stone in my honor. It was rumored to be a sculpted likeness of me, but was not. Still I was sad in 1996 when my angel was toppled by vandals and spent the whole winter face down in the snow. The old Riverside Farms house sat deserted for many years after I died in1946 and finally burned in 1978. [1862-1946 ] 18. DEVINE- I am Patrick Devine. I arrived in this country from Ireland just in time to enlist in the Navy during the Civil War, but one day in port I “got on a spree” and was left behind. With that blot on his record Patrick Devine went missing and I enlisted a second time using the name John Manning. I served the year of my enlistment, but didn’t wait around for my proper discharge, so that record is blotted too. Afterwards my wife Bridget and I, moved to Douglas, and I sailed on the lakes. It was at my house that the first meeting was held in 1894 to organize St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Douglas. [1832-1909 ] 19.HAUBENREISSER - My name is Emilie Haubenreisser, and this tombstone is one of the widest in the Douglas cemetery. But what do you expect when your last name is Haubenreisser? When you pay to have names engraved on a tombstone, you pay per letter – 13 letters!. So we decided on a family tombstone, so we needed to pay for Haubenreisser only once. 20. PRENTICE- I am Joseph Prentice. I was a Saugatuck township officer and manager of the Saugatuck Fruit Exchange. We lived in a white house on Spring Street. All except, my young son Willard who contracted tuberculosis in 1922 and for four years actually lived (except in mid-winter) in a little screened in house in the backyard – at that time rest and fresh air were felt the only cures for the disease. Friends would visit him -- keeping their distance of course – and every afternoon in warm weather John Norton would bring him an ice cream cone. He was cured and when he visited Douglas in 1986 he found that his little fresh-air house was now the home to a collection of exotic pigeons. [1867-1961] 21. GERBER- I’m Daniel Gerber, who came to Douglas in 1864 and built a new tannery where a small creek runs into the Kalamazoo. We built a home just above the gulley. By 1880 the tan bark was gone and four of my sons and moved to Fremont. It was there that a grandson, Frank Gerber, who had been born in Douglas, in 1901 started the Fremont Canning Company which later became the Gerber Baby Food Company. A maid who had worked for us in Douglas started a rumor that babyfood had actually been invented in Douglas, one time when I was sick and the doctor prescribed soft foods. That’s not true but it WAS devised by someone with my name, Daniel Frank Gerber, a great grandson. [1820-1890 ] 22. ZEITSCH- I am Rudolph Zeitsch. I was a marine engineer and worked for the Georgian Bay company on the North American and South American. I was that one that had the idea of wintering them in Saugatuck, until 1924 when the owners rented dock space in Holland to avoid docking near large wooden buildings. Ironically the first day, the first boat got to Holland that fall, it was gutted by a terrible fire. In 1917 I started the Saugatuck Auto Co. and later owned the Ford garage in Saugatuck. [1874-1936] 23. PLUMMER- There are Plummers all over western Michigan and they came early. Daniel was the first supervisor of Saugatuck Township in 1836, Benjamin built a mill on Goshorn Creek in 1834, George H. Plummer was president of Douglas. Lots of the Plummers moved to Ganges township in 1850 and founded Plummerville. I am David E. “Skeet” Plummer. I ran a service station in downtown Douglas (and sometimes lived there). It sat diagonally across the corner of Center and Spring streets. I died in 1959, and my little gas station was used for nearly 10 years as a place to hold garage sales until it was razed in 1968 to make room for a new municipal building. [1895-1959 ] 24. VAN SYCKEL I’m Louise Van Syckel. My husband’s parents were storekeepers in New York City and before 1890 they moved to Chicago and started a hardware store. In 1908 the hardware stock was shipped to Douglas by boat and they opened on Center Street across from the ballpark. In 1915 my husband, Harold, opened a grocery store in part of the building. The store burned in 1941 and was rebuilt. We sold the business in 1950. Long after our deaths the new building burned when a car ran into the gas line and it exploded. I was very active in the community, I worked so hard on raising funds for the Community Hospital building that they asked me to turn the first shovelful of dirt when it was finally built in 1958. [1898-1975] 25. WARK- I am Mary Hans Wark My husband is G. Edward Wark whose family came to Douglas in 1887 from Diamond Springs. We were married in 1933, and bought a farm on 62nd Street. I continued to teach in the old Douglas school, occasionally in this very classroom. Sometimes summer cottagers would stay after school started, and their children would attend the Douglas school. One family was so pleased with our school that they stayed as late as they could stand it in an uninsulated cottage, but left when it started to snow. But they would be the first ones back in the spring, at least a month before school recessed. Later I taught for 18 years in Fennville retiring in 1963. [ 1905-2000 ] 26. O. R. JOHNSON - I am O. R. Johnson, people are surprised to see me in the Douglas cemetery because they know that the more famous O. R. Johnson, who owned stores and mills in Saugatuck and Singapore and tanneries elsewhere, moved back to Wisconsin when the mill left Singapore in 1875 --- AND his oldest son, Otis, was asked to leave the Saugatuck school after bringing sneezing powder to class. Even our names are different the lumber baron’s real name was Otis Russell Johnson, my name is Orle Richard Johnson. I lived in the Ganges-Glenn area for a while, but later moved to Douglas where I ran a grocery store from in the late 1890s. [1850-1902] 27. CAMPBELL- I am Inez Haven Campbell. I came to the Saugatuck area about 1910 and was married to the third Alexander Campbell. The first was born in Scotland and came here in the early 186Os. He worked on Lakes boats until 1869 when he became sick at Green Bay and was taken to the Sailor’s Hospital in Chicago, where he died. The family was surprised when his body arrived in Saugatuck aboard the Ira Chaffee. His widow left with several young children, purchased property on what would be called Campbell Road. One of those young children was the second Alexander Campbell and the father of the third Alexander, my husband, who sailed for a while then became a building contractor. He died in 1971, I died in 1997, a month short of my 105th birthday. 28. DEMPSTER- I am Hugh Dempster. I was born in Northern Ireland and in 1839 married Eliza Reid on Amherst Island, Canada. We moved to Douglas, and I continued to sail on the Great Lakes. I was in Chicago in the summer of 1880 when I fell through the old Lake Street bridge. I might have been saved if I had dropped straight through to the water, I CAN swim, but instead I struck a timber below. The finger pointing upward at the top of my tombstone is an old Christian symbol which indicates the direction my wife and four children prayed that my soul went, when my body fell through the bridge. [1839-1880] 29 GILLESPIES- I am Martha Slafter Gillespie, my husband and I have the most famous and frequently photographed tombstones in the Douglas Cemetery. When I died May 12, 1893, the day started out in the ordinary way, I did not feel ill, did the family washing, came inside, sat down and died. I had always been a devout Christian woman, and someone (but maybe not my husband) knew I would want to have my tombstone reflect that. The inscription begins “I die a Christian.” And after my name it continues: “I leave this earth, for the glory of heaven to draw nigh to God until we meet again at heaven’s gate.” [1836-1893 apron, gray wig, white hat?] 30. I am Clark Gillespie, Martha’s husband. All that Christian rubbish always rankled me, but I knew if I waited until after I died, Martha’s family would either not give me a stone at all, or one with a lot of religious claptrap so when I was 83 years and 8 months old, I bought and set my own stone. The verse below my birthdate reads: ​And the atheist above ​named at the end of life ​will sleep beneath here ​Beside his wife. And that’s just where they put me when I died October 19, 1916 at the age of 91 [1825-1916] 31. KIRBY- I am Sarah Gill Kirby. I don’t reside here anymore, I just came tonight to visit my husband, Frank, and a few old friends. After we were married he was a merchant in town but died in 1896. We had two children Faith (who became the local nurse), and Willard or Bud (who owned the Butler Hotel in the 1940’s). I built the Kirby House around 1890 and the first mortgage was in 1890 for $400, at 10 percent interest for one year. This was a time when it was unusual to lend money to a woman. I was a shareholder in the basket factory, but after it burned in 1927 for an income I turned my home into Hawthorn Lodge, “For those who are tired, or convalescing from an illness or wish just a home.” I also grew gensing on the back of my property. In 1932, driving a new sedan, I moved to California leaving my house with my daughter who turned it into a hospital which served the community from 1932 to 1960. Now it’s a bed and breakfast. I died in 1951 and was buried in California. But it’s still nice to visit. 32. CROWNER- I’m Martin Crowner. My mother died the day I was born, a little early, in Illinois in 1923. My father had no idea what to do with a baby, especially one as little as me, and there was no family around. So he wrapped me up snugly in a shoebox and jumped on the train to Fennville where my grandparents lived. They met the train, he handed them me in my little cardboard crib, and bought a return ticket on the next train to Illinois. Against all odds I lived, mostly in Douglas where I worked on farms and later for the village. [1923-1999] 33. WICKS- I’m Sadie Coxford Wicks. My husband’s grandparents were married in Germany, came to Douglas before 1885, and built a farm home on the Chase Road. With them was a son, Fernando Carl Ludwig Wicks who married Bertha Holtz shortly after his arrival in America. From this family came presidents of both Saugatuck and Douglas. They had four sons including, Frank, who owned the Maplewood Hotel and served as president of Saugatuck in 1950-51. He was the one who purchased Wicks Park. His brother, William Fernando married me and WE had four sons including Carl, who owned West Shore Golf Club and was president of Douglas 1965-69 and 1982-83. [1891-1968] 34. [ DEAM- I am Arthur F. Deam, an early burial in the annex across the street. I was head of the architectural design department at the University of Illinois, but summers we came to Saugatuck. After the mouth of the Kalamazoo was moved in 1906, the old lighthouse no longer was useful and was rented as a summer cottage. In 1936 the government decided to sell it and I won the bid. We used the old lighthouse, no light, no telephone, no electricity, as a summer cottage until 1956 when it was destroyed by a tornado. Then I designed and we built a new cottage, which looks a little like a lighthouse, and still has no electricity. My sons use the cottage now and decided to put both versions of our favorite vacation home on our tombstone. [1895-1974]

2023.10.433

SDHS EventsCemeteries and graves

Winthers, Sally

2023.10

Found in Collection

Digital data in CatalogIt

McDonald, Robert A. 1820-1889Spencer, Michael B. 1820-1891Wade, Frank W. 1853-1947Dutcher, Lucinda Dietrich 1804-1881May, William Augustus 1850-1935Wiley, David W. 1837-1927McDonald, Crawford c1841-1872Billings, Clerana G. "Clara" (Brown) 1841-1932Dutcher, George Newburg 1834-1909Reid, Robert Sr. 1827-1906Snay, Fabian -1876Minter, William B. "Billy"Paris, Lila F. (Woodall) 1906-2001Hamilton, Walter D. 1862-1916Slack, Fidelia Gleason (Bowman) (Riley) 1833-1906Purdy, Philetus "Fleet" 1835-1922Dawson, Alice May (Purdy) 1862-1946Devine, Patrick 1832-1909Prentice, Joseph Warren 1877-1961Gerber, Daniel 1820-1890Zeitsch, Rudolph 1874-1936Plummer, David E. "Skeet" 1895-1959Van Syckle, Louise C. (Craine) 1898-1975Wark, Mary (Hans) 1905-2000Johnson, Orle Richard 1850-1902Campbell, Inez (Haven) 1892-1997Dempster, Hugh 1839-1880Kirby, Sarah M. (Gill) 1861-1951Wicks, Sarah (Coxford)Deam, Arthur "Art" Francis 1895-1974Crowner, Martin Eugene 1923-1999

This information was copied from the pre-2023 SDHC website. The location of an original version was unknown at the time of cataloging.

05/26/2026

05/26/2026