Churches
Charlevoix’s churches may be said to have begun with the Greensky Hill Indian Mission Church located about three miles northeast of town. The first meetings here were held in what the Native Americans called a “Wag-nog-ang,” a small bark structure with a dirt floor. A growing congregation necessitated a larger church. Started in 1851 and finished ten years later, it was built of hand-hewn white pine logs notched and secured using no nails or metal of any kind. Today, hymns, even Christmas carols, are occasionally sung in the Ojibwe/Odawa language
The land on which the Greensky Hill church sits had long been a meeting place for Native Americans. Legend tells that at one meeting the chiefs of each tribe planted a young maple as a symbol of mutual trust. Each swore that as long as the trees bore leaves they would remain in a state of peace. Said to number just over thirty, each tree was bent and tied with basswood thongs, with the hope the distended trunks would never be taken for lumber. The original number has dwindled to eight. Some visitors to the still remaining trees have reported being filled with an intense feeling of calm and harmony.
The first religious training classes in town were held in 1859 in second settlers John and Phoebe Dixon’s log cabin overlooking Pine Lake north of the upper channel. After 1867, Sunday School classes took place in a converted fish shanty near the channel. The first church structure, the Methodist Church on State Street, had its cornerstone laid on August 12, 1874 on property which its Ladies Aid Society had purchased the previous July for $65. The congregation built only as it obtained the funds and finished the imposing structure with this 100-foot spire in February of 1878.
In 1883, the First Congregational Church purchased a lot for $800 on the southwest corner of Main Street (Park Avenue) and State Street across from and to the north of the Methodists. Most of the building materials and labor were donated. A constant round of social functions kept the coffers partially filled. In the spring of 1884 a three-quarter-ton bell was installed. Finally, on a stormy January 18, 1885, parishioners braved the blowing snow to fill the sanctuary and dedicate the debt-free church. Total construction cost: $5,541.71. It is one of the most beautiful structures in Charlevoix.
The Baptists laid the cornerstone of their church in 1888 a block south of the Methodists where the fire department, a wing of City Hall, is now. Charlevoix Resort Association members (the Belvedere Club), mainly Baptists from Kalamazoo, helped amass the $600 needed to purchase the property. The church was dedicated in August of 1889. It was razed in February, 1988. The church rebuilt on M-66 south of town, taking the original bell with them. Two summer worshippers during the earlier years of the 20th century were American poet Sara Teasdale and automobile pioneer Ransom E. Olds.
Charlevoix received its Catholic Church in 1889 on south Bridge Street. The sanctuary was blessed on May 31, 1894. In November of that year, the church bell was dedicated in a solemn ceremony. It weighed 521 pounds, and was secured through the efforts of James Gellick, owner of the local saloon, as a memorial to his deceased daughter Gracie. Her name appeared in raised letters upon the bell’s surface. The present church, just to the south of this one, was constructed in 1964, and old St. Mary’s came down.
Begun as a campground in 1892 on the South Arm of Pine Lake, the Church of God moved to Charlevoix in 1906. It received a land donation on West Hurlbut Street in 1917 where this church went up, a sturdy compact structure faced with area fieldstone transported into town by teams of horses. The men in the congregation did the stonework, producing a house of worship unique in appearance until it was renovated in 1975
Organized in 1883, the Episcopal Church eventually purchased a lot for $550 on the southeast corner of Clinton and State Streets. The cornerstone was laid on July 30, 1894 and the first service held eleven months later on June 30, 1895. In 1902 member Martha Smith wrote to Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt asking if she could contribute a handkerchief to the Charlevoix Ladies Episcopal Guild to be used as a fundraiser at their handkerchief sale. On March 30 Mrs. Smith received the desired item and a “pleasant note” from the President’s wife.