Architectural Walking Tour Stories
The PBS project really began with the research compiled for the architectural walking tours script. The tours are sponsored by the Pentwater Historical Museum and led by Pam VanderPloeg from 2019-2023. In 2022, experienced docent, Robin Martens, who’s background included leading tours sponsored by the Chicago Architectural Foundation, joined the team.
Text copyright Pam VanderPloeg 2022
PENTWATER HISTORICAL MUSEUM (1896) Where the Walking Tours Begin—
Note: The Pentwater Historical Museum is the former First Baptist Church.
Beginnings: Charles Anderson constructed this church in 1896. It replaced the first church dedicated on August 10, 1884, after a fire destroyed the original building. The janitor discovered the fire when he came to the church to ring the bell for evening services, and the fire spread from the basement to the attic. Members replaced that church building with the one you see today in the signature cream brick from Pentwater Brick Company. Mrs. E. G. Maxwell wrote, "Today our new house of worship was dedicated. It was the happiest day in our church history." The building cost $4649.83, and the congregation raised $1,300 on the dedication day alone. We will stop in front of Mrs. Maxwell's house at the end of this tour.
In 2012, the Pentwater Historical Society bought and renovated the building for the new museum that opened in 2014. Today, there is an ongoing fundraising campaign to expand the building on this site.
The first ten stops are Lowell Street and Wythe and Park: In the early 1850s, Charles Mears, Chicago entrepreneur, and native of Middlesex, Massachusetts, established five Lake Michigan harbors and shipping ports, including at Pentwater along the waterfront Middlesex. Mears named the streets for Massachusetts cities, for example, Lowell, Concord, Dover, streets we will walk on today. In 1867, the newly incorporated Pentwater Village included Middlesex.
SAMUEL ALEXANDER BROWNE HOUSE (1859) 379 Lowell (Nicknamed the Ida Jean)
Historical Significance: Logging operations were the principal occupation in the village at that time, but this house story demonstrates that lumbermen played multiple roles and created other unique businesses.
Beginnings: The Browne House began to be called the Ida Jean after the former owner Patrick Robert renamed it in 2003 for his grandmother. Patrick Robert described his Irish American great grandfather as the man who built the house. That may have been Samuel Alexander Browne (1833-1895), who married Jane (1835-1916) in Belfast, Ireland, in 1856.
The 1870 Census lists Samuel as a lumber manufacturer living with his family and an Irish domestic servant in Chicago. It’s interesting that he expanded his business about that time to Pentwater. Browne owned a "booming company" with Judge William Ambler. Booming companies worked the logs cut upstream, floated them into sorting pens by log marks, and rafted them together to go to the mills. These logs were waiting to be transported to market across Lake Michigan to Chicago after the Chicago Fire. Browne also served as the Pentwater Village president and like many others at the time, was a strong promoter of expanded railroad access. The C. & M. L. S. R.R. (Chicago & Michigan Lake Shore Rail Road) extended the rails as far as Pentwater in 1871 and built a station across the channel on the south side of the lake.
While in Pentwater, Browne developed a business breeding horses and eventually racing them at events across the state and the nation. Browne served as the President of the Michigan Breeders Association and a Director of the Michigan Trotting Association. His first horses of note were Indicator and Grand Sentinel. Grand Sentinel won second prize in the roadsters-stallions class at the Michigan State Fair in 1878 and brought a price of $30,000 in 1880.
Browne left Pentwater to manage the new Kalamazoo Stock Farm funded by the late U.S. Senator Francis B. Stockbridge. They bred and raced the fastest trotters and pacers. Fire destroyed the Browne lumber mill in Pentwater in 1884, but from his Kalamazoo business, Browne achieved national fame in the horse business. When he died of lung disease on March 4, 1895, in Los Angeles, papers all over the country carried the news. By 1902, his widow Jane Browne remained in Kalamazoo after she buried her husband in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. The Browne had at least three children Samuel, William, and Maggie.
Interesting facts: As Village President in 1879, Browne helped save the Grand Haven-based Schooner Mercury. The crew left Ludington carrying a load of pine planks to Chicago, and was wrecked near Pentwater during a terrible Lake Michigan storm. At that time, the Village did not have a life-saving station so Village President Browne sent a message to the Captain of Life Boats in Ludington with the words "Schooner Mercury on beach - send lifeboat at once, or men will perish. Will see that all expenses are paid. Answer." A courier carried the message because telegraph lines were down, and rescuers battled dangerous conditions to save the crew.
Specific sources: “The Ida Jean,” Pentwater Historical Society Fall Newsletter 2018. March 5, 1895. Notice of Death, New York Times March 4, 1895. “A dispatch from Los Angeles this afternoon announced the death of Samuel A. Browne, a noted horseman and manager of the Kalamazoo Stock Farm.”
MARTIN/MARIA PERKINS HOUSE (1871) 419 E. Lowell
Historical Significance: Many Civil War officers and soldiers settled in Pentwater following the war because of the potential to make their fortunes in the growing village.
Beginnings: Martin S. Perkins (1832-1915) was a Civil War soldier born in Rochester, New York, promoted in 1864 to 11th Calvary 1st Lieutenant. He married Maria in 1851 and had a lumber mill in Coldwater before the war. Returning home from the war, Perkins moved his lumber business to Pentwater at the Bass Lake/Lake Michigan outlet, which he enlarged for that purpose. Perkins built a dam to float the logs, bought mules to haul the logs, and hired many Native Americans to work. The family stayed in Coldwater, but Martin brought his oldest son (12) and daughter (10) Delia (Ardelia) to Pentwater, and they boarded in different homes. At the same time, he built up his business and a house. Perkins also ran a livery business and operated a ferry carrying mail and baggage on Pentwater Lake. And discovered coincidentally Perkins was a census taker. Perkins died in 1919 after a fall and is buried in the Pentwater Cemetery.
Interesting Facts: Perkins left four generations of descendants, including daughter Delia, a school teacher and charter member of the Woman’s Literary Club in 1898 who never missed a meeting. Delia and her husband William Webb, who owned a bus and baggage line and carried the mail to and from the trains, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 1936.
CANDLEWYCK INN (circa 1868) 438 E. Lowell
Historical Significance: The development of the newspaper and agricultural sharing between white settlers and native peoples. Conversion of older homes to village bed & breakfast lodging.
Beginnings: William J. Canfield owned this house and was the Secretary/Treasurer of the Oceana Horticultural Society and grew and sold vegetables and traded with the Native Americans. Born in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, Canfield owned the Pentwater News for many years. He also is credited with the establishment of the newspaper, the Mount Clemens Republican. Canfield died in Mt. Clemens in 1904.
The diary of Louis Birchard revealed that in 1872, Louis’s grandmother, just 19 and a mail-order bride, traveled from New Brunswick, Canada in a covered wagon to say her vows to Mr. Canfield on the porch of this house. Canfield was a widower at that time. The new bride took on the care of her new husband’s seven children, while Mr. Canfield added to the house to accommodate his bride and the children.
Within ten years, the family had grown by seven more children, and outgrowing the house, they sold the house to the local church. At that time, the minister’s wife insisted on an indoor bathroom and installed the first bathtub in Pentwater Village. She was generous and shared it with friends, according to one neighbor who recalled bathing there as a young girl.
John and Mary Jo Neidow bought the house in 1988 when it was a four-bedroom home with four bathrooms and turned it into a Bed & Breakfast. The 1992 renovations uncovered a 2-year-old time capsule dated 1972 and hidden by teachers who owned the house in 1962. The Neidows also found an original roof beam inscribed “June 18, 1868 A. Willie,” likely a reference to the actual construction date and local Native American carpenter.
The home changed hands in the past few years.
Interesting detail: The first bathroom and first bathtub in Pentwater were still in the home in 2018. The Candlewyck name refers to an embroidery and quilting stitch used by Mary Jo Neidow, who created over 350 quilts.
ALONG THE WAY: SOLOMON MINSHALL SITE NW Rutledge and Lowell (House is gone)
Beginnings:The original home is gone but this was the site of a horrible mass murder in April 1898. Chicago Attorney and insurance agent Solomon Minshall believed he had been cheated by leading businessman W.B.O. Sands and planned to go to him to ask for the money he thought was owed to him. Minshall in the end assassinated William B. O. Sands, President of the Sands & Maxwell Lumber Company.
Sands had been working in the office of the company, and started home about 9:30 o'clock. When within a few rods of his home when Minsall jumped out from behind a tree and fired at him. Sands broke into a run, the assassin following him closely and firing at his victim every few seconds. Five shots in all were fired from a Winchester rifle borrowed ostensibly for hunting from F.W. Fincher. Two bullets struck Sands in the arm and one in the leg. As Sands reached his door he fell, and his assailant, probably thinking he had killed him, turned and fled. Sands was discovered and to try to save his life his arm was amputated he went into shock after loosing so much blood and died. After leaving Sands for dead, Minshall went to his home and shot his wife and three children dead, and then committed suicide by shooting himself through the head. The gun used was a Hopkins & Allen 38 caliber revolver. The home was reported to be well-furnished with a piano where Minshall’s daughter, a student of the Akeley Institute in Grand Haven, gave piano lessons.
Meanwhile Sands' cries for help aroused members of his household, and a physician was summoned and the police notified. Sands' right arm was so badly shattered that it was found necessary to amputate it. Sands died at 10 o'clock this evening. According to one report, the police were unable to unearth any clues about the crime, and sent a messenger to the home of S. B. Minshall, Mr. Sands' attorney for help. Falling to arouse any of the family, he became suspicious that something was wrong, and forced an entrance. Entering a bedroom the messenger found the bodies of Minshall, his wife and three children. All five had been shot, and had been dead for some hours. It is supposed that Minshall, after having shot Sands, went to his house, shot his wife and three children and committed suicide.
Interesting Fact: It was later discovered that Minshall had sent two letters to friends in Chicago, the first telegraphing that Minshall wanted help for family after he committed a serious crime and the second revealed that he already planned to kill his wife and children following his murder of Sands. We will be walking by the landmark home of W. B. O. Sands.
DAN & SARAH HALSTEAD HOUSE (1869) 220 E. Lowell
Historical Significance: Lumbering and related industries were mainstays of the early Pentwater settlement. This house tells the story of manufacturing and industrial invention.
Beginnings: Sarah Chapman Halstead and Daniel Halstead (1870-1946) lived here. Sarah represented the women who made life better in the village through her involvement in the Pentwater Women's Club and served as an officer in the northwestern district of the National Federation of Women's clubs. Daniel Halstead came from Calhoun County and served as Village president, Township Clerk, and Postmaster during his lifetime. Daniel was also a business entrepreneur and, from 1893-1895, started the Halsted Table Company, where the Pentwater wire company is today. It was a family business that he operated with his father, Jonathan. 1910-1912 They reorganized as the Saunders & Chase Company, and Halstead invented an automatic net lifter for commercial fishermen called the "Pentwater Boy."
1916, Daniel Halstead launched the Pentwater Machinery Company retired in 1938 to sell insurance.
Interesting Fact: During World War II, the company converted the factory to a defense plant. Most recently the business was the manufacture of wire products.
JUDGE WILLIAM AMBLER HOUSE (1869) 180 E. Lowell
Historical Significance: Home of Judge William Amblerr, lawyer, investor in Pentwater's first bank, and political figure who served in the State Senate as the Senate President Pro-Tem.
Beginnings: William Ambler was born in Ohio in 1846. He attended Hillsdale College, graduated from Adrian College, and then Albany Law School in New York. Ambler became an Oceana County Probate Judge, a state senator, and Senate President Pro Tem 1881-1882. He served on the Hillsdale College Board of Trustees and garnered a large donation of books to the college library, including his own. Later, Ambler became a real estate agent. Ambler married Flora E. Lewis, a Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR), because her ancestors served in the Revolutionary War. They had two daughters and two sons. Ambler was Charles Mears' attorney and became a partner in the first bank with F. Nelson - it foundered and went bankrupt as many early American banks did.
Flora and William sold their home to Flora's brother in 1894 to Charles Freemont Lewis and Ethel Lewis, general store owners from 1870-1940. Lewis also served as a state senator in Lansing in the 1920s. In the 1970s, Janet Gunn, a retired army nurse, turned the home into a Bed & breakfast and called it The Pentwater Inn. Quintus and Donna Renshaw bought the Inn in 1994, adding a large family room and bathrooms in two of the bedrooms. In 2004 the Inn was closed, and it became a personal residence again. Interesting fact: Judge Ambler attended college with President William McKinley.
CAPTAIN CHARLES LAMONT’S HOUSE (1872) 174 E. Concord
Historic Details: Tugboats were essential in managing the waterways. The events shared in thiss story resulted in improvements tugboat cooperation and safety.
Beginnings: Captain Lamont was a tug boat Captain who discovered PWT on a trip around the Great Lakes and brought his family here. His tug was called the George L. Lamont and he had a smaller assistant tug called The Messenger. He had a monopoly towing schooners in and out of port and maneuvering logs to the mills.
Bitter rivalry developed between Lamont and a newer tug called “gem” leading to spreading of stories and lies around town. So to settle it all had a great tugboat race with a course laid out on Lake Michigan. Hundreds came to to the shore to watch and lots of betting. It was Sunday, March 1880 in heavy seas with whitecaps. Lamont was outmatched by the faster GEM.
Snow fell, the wind increased with severe storm conditions.
The Gem got back in the late afternoon but no sign of the Lamont. Search parties scoured the beach. The wreckage of the Lamont washed up on the shore north of the Pentwater Channel.The bodies were recovered a few days later including Lamont’s 12-year old son George and the engineer Palmer Hill.
Interesting Fact: This tragedy led to regulating of tugboats and competition on Lake Michigan ports.
JOHN H. BOUTON HOUSE 1871 177 N. WYTHE
Beginnings: John Bouton (1848-1920). Worked for the Pentwater Lumber Company and then the Pentwater Bedstead Company in 1893. In 1894 he was elected Sheriff of Oceana County. Another claim to fame is that he helped the Oceana County Historical Society preserve documents.
WILLIAM B.O. SANDS HOUSE (1877) 220 Park
Historical Significance: Home of one of the early women leaders who fought for women’s suffrage and was active early on in the Women’s Club in Pentwater. Also it was one of the grandest of the early homes and was owned by one of Pentwater’s two leading businessmen in W.B.O. Sands. His partner was E.G. Maxwell. Sands was chief engineer and started the Pentwater Fire Department— he ordered the villages first fire truck that was sitting on a Chicago dock waiting to be shipped to Pentwater when the Chicago fire struck and the truck was commandeered to combat the fire.
Beginnings: Post-Civil War Sands moved to Pentwater with his wife Carrie Carmichel. He partnered with George W. Maxwell and was President of the Sands & Maxwell Lumber Company. He was also President of the Village and Owner/Manager of the Pentwater Bedstead Company. He was planning a run for congress when he was killed was killed by lawyer Solomon B. Minshall in 1896. That was the same year His son Herbert married his wife Nina DeLong Sands and they lived in the house with children, mother and mother-in- law. In addition to running the family businesses, Herbert was a Captain in the Army during the Spanish American War. Nina fought her battles on the Homefront. She was a member of the Speakers Bureau of the. Michigan Equal Suffrage campaign. She was one of the founders of the Pentwater Women’s Club. One of the first ways women could vote in Michigan is in School Board elections and Nina DeLong Sands was elected to the board. Sands served as a VP and on the Board of the Federation of Women’s Club until she moved to Chicago in 1913.
Interesting Fact: William B.O. Sands funeral was the largest funeral ever in Pentwater. Over 2,500 people attended the funeral at the Baptist Church and all of the stores were closed.
GARDNER SANDS HOUSE (1898) 268 Park
Historical Significance: Owned by Gardner Sands, son of W.B.O. Sands.
Beginnings: This house was on land given as a wedding gift from W.B.O. and Caroline Sands, who lived next door, to their son Gardner Sands and his wife Olive Blanche Richmond. The house was owned by the family until 1956. The home’s state of the art chicken coop helped keep family solvent after Gardner’s death in 1929 and during the depression. Mrs. Gardner offered rooms to rent calling the home “Sands Guest House.“ She built a tennis court so that her children would learn. But it was the only one in town and so Mrs. Gardner let the villagers play tennis there too. In the last years they owned it, the family tried to hang on to the house, opening “Memory House Tea Room” and Gift Shop. That lasted about 3 summers and then they sold it.
JENSEN HOUSE (1867) 116 W. Lowell
Historical Significance: Built the year the village was incorporated. Owned by a Captain in the Pentwater life saving station, established 1887.
Beginnings: Owner Captain Peter F. Jensen from Denmark trained as a blacksmith and joined the Life-Saving Service. Jensen married Lucy Mahan and they had 3 children. In 1868, the Federal Government began a 20-year project to provide a wider, deeper channel than Charles Mears could with his "river" in 1855. A lighthouse was built on the south pier with a catwalk leading to it so that the keeper could tend the oil lamp. A life saving station was built on the north pier in 1887.
WRIGHT HOUSE (1860) 176 Green Street
Historical Significance: Looking at the photos provided by late owner Newell Wright, one can see that this home had a great vantage point being uphill from the channel and with a direct view to the ferry landing.
Beginnings: This is one of the first homes in the village and was constructed in 1860 on land in the plat of Middlesex Village developed by Charles Mears. In 2012 it was the summer home of Newell Ware Wright who shared historic photos of the home with the Pentwater Historical Society, one from across the channel showing the ferry dropping off passengers and one from Green street. Wright had a photo of the home’s 1911 and 1912 occupants, Andrew Jackson Davenport (1854-1929) and his wife Clara Hamman. Davenport lived at 176 Green while he was the Pentwater Lighthouse Keeper. He was formerly posted at the Calumet Pier Head Lighthouse on the South side of Chicago and the Twin River Point Light at Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Although a lighthouse keeper is not needed today, in those days it was critical to have a keeper tending the light which was a literal beacon to guide ships into Pentwater. Pentwater became an incorporated village in 1867, and during the period from 1867 to 1917, the Federal Government took over Pentwater Harbor maintenance.
Interesting: While the Davenports lived there, they held a wedding at the house for daughter Elsie who married Louise Emil Dietrich on June 28, 1911.
FLAGG HOME (1860-1862) 160 Green Street
Historical Significance: It is one of the oldest homes in Pentwater and is located across from the former site of the Pentwater Bedstead Company.
BeginningsL: This home was owned by Henry Flagg. Flagg was born in Hartford Connecticut, and reportedly worked as the right-hand man, or “eyes on the ground,” to Charles Mears. Mears was the Chicago entrepreneur that established at least five shipping ports on Lake Michigan. He developed lumbering operations, the port, and had other Pentwater business interests such as the brick works that created the famous yellow bricks. Mears brought fruit farming to Oceana County when he established fruit farming at the River House Farm (barn is still visible as you come into town on Monroe).
Interesting: Many generations of Flaggs lived in this house including Arthur B. Flagg, a pharmaceutical representative and his wife Annie Jepson Flagg. Annie Jepson Flagg became the first woman elected to the Pentwater Village Council. And chaired the first Pentwater Homecoming when the new Community Building was inaugurated (former Sands and Maxwell store) on Main Street. Members of the first high school graduating class were honored during the festivities. That class by the way was all women, and one of the women wrote her senior paper on why women’s suffrage wasn’t such a good idea. This house is part of the plat of Middlesex Village.
FORMER FACTORY SITES ON THE CHANNEL
FURNITURE FACTORY - PENTWATER BEDSTEAD CO. (GONE)
Once a furniture factory was located on the channel across the street from the two houses on Green Street where new houses now stand. By 1883 the timber was exhausted and lumber was no longer the way to make a fortune. Manufacturing was encouraged to provide employment. The Pentwater Furniture Company was formed and opened in a modern four-story factory building costing $12,000. However, the financing was a problem and the business was sunk by heavy debt. In 1887 Sands & Maxwell bought the buildings and launched the Pentwater Bedstead Factory. It was a successful enterprise and they added a two-story addition with a connecting walkway.
Two horrific accidents occurred. The first was in October 1898 when a boiler explosion at the Pentwater Bedstead Company killed 2 men and seriously injured a third and caused $8,000 in damages. The second occurred in March 1900 when the complex that employed about 300 was destroyed by a fire that started in the two-story machinery building and spread to the four-story brick finishing building. It was said that 4,000-5,000 bedroom suits were destroyed along with 1,000,000 board feet of lumber. The loss was $250,000 in damages. The company’s engineer died of burns one day after the fire, and according to the records, his wife committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid later. The Sands & Maxwell mill closed in 1904 and of course left many jobless. The buildings were torn sown in 1913.
Interesting Detail: From the channel boardwalk you can still see a portion of the foundations exposed in the ground.
SEARS & NICHOLS CANNING COMPANY (GONE)
BACKGROUND: In the early days of the nation, waterfront was not for recreation, it was for commerce and often provide a source of power and access to transportation. In the early days of Pentwater the best modes of transportation were by boat and by railroad.
BEGINNINGS: The Sears & Nichols Cannery opened a plant in Pentwater, Michigan. The company was formed in the 1880s in Chillicothe, Ohio and was owned by Charles M. Sears and Frances M. Nichols. They canned fruits and vegetables under the label Sugar Loaf Sue Brand Pears, Corn, Pumpkin and Michigan fruits. The canning operation was on the waterfront directly across from where we are standing. Today the spot is filled with summer and year round homes.
The Sears & Nichols Company first scouted the area before opening the cannery.They found the farmers to supply the vegetables and fruits before building the plant. The farmers would line their wagons up the streets waiting to unload their cargos. The company also set up stations out in the farm areas to receive the raw goods. The noon whistle called the workers in when a shipment of fruit or veggies was received. Company owner Sears lobbied in Washington for monies to keep the channel dredged. He had another issue and that was the price to ship the fruits by water. He brought a law suit when he thought the transportation companies were not playing fair with their shipping prices. What had happened is that the Hill shipping company, one of two companies providing lake shipping, was forced out of business by the Pere Marquette Steamship Company’s price cuts. But once the competition was gone, Pere Marquette raised shipping rates forcing hardships on the canning companies.
The other issue was the dredging of the port. According to newspaper accounts from 1867 to 1917 the government spent over $356,000 on the harbor but then abandoned the project to the community. By the year 1910, the Pentwater Boosters organization was formed to fight a slump in business and to remind the Federal Government that the Pentwater port was crucial to lake commerce. Early members of the Boosters included Frank S. Verbeck, Charles Nickerson, W. H. Sears, G.T. Sands, D.Simmering and E.B. Clark, Dr. J.F. Rennert, E.W. Lewis, M.D. Girrard. By the late 1920s, the Depression and the cost of dredging and the cost of shipping drove the Sears & Nichols Pentwater canning operation out of business. The larger company in Ohio stayed in business. During its heyday, the company employed about 400.
ANDREW ROUND HOUSE (1865) 90 W. First
Beginnings: 1865 Canadian-born Andrew Turner built the house on property purchased from Charles Mears for $100. William A. Rounds and family were the first owners. They owned a livery and feed stable and ran a stage line between Pentwater ad Ludington in the winter when the boats couldn’t run. Round became Deputy County Sheriff, Township Treasurer, and Constable, and Marshall of the village. In 1888, Henry and Mary Runnels purchased the house for $500. They operated it as a boarding house called the “Cozy Corners” and later called it the Forest Lodge. Henry was also a sheriff. He drove a coach to the ferry to pick up passengers and luggage and kept horses in barn next to the house. After realizing the horses disturbed the boarders, he moved the barn behind the house. Today it is a busy rental cottage.
SEARS ROEBUCK HOMES Kit homes first ordered by the Ray and William DeYoungs and built here on these lots in Pentwater.
149 Dover St. (around 1931) and 121 Dover St. possibly 1941).
These two houses on Dover were built with kits from the Sears Roebuck Company. These kits were sold from 1908 to 1940 and the company offered 447 architect-designed home models from "a modest little home to a mansion," priced from about $725 to $2,500. Some of the larger models like the Verona sold for more than $4,000. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Sears homes were sold in the United States.
THE ABBEY (1868)
No architecture details shared for this large home was built for Thomas Collister by a carpenter named W.S. Dumont. Collister was worked the furniture factory and as the person who designed the village water system in 1888. He lived in the house until 1903 when it was purchased by the Nichols family. W.H. Nichols was a partner in the Sears & Nichols Canning Company across the street known for their “Sugar Loaf Sue” brand. At the time the house was referred to as the “Buckeye Burr.” Later the home would become “the Abbey” in 1924 when it was the home of a retired missionary, Ella. Buel. Later owners found signs for “The Abbey” even though it was a private home when Buel owned it. Those signs helped keep the name alive. It became a guest house when Jim and Judy Fleck owned it. Judy was apparently the sister of the owner of the Nickerson Inn.
CENTENARY METHODIST CHURCH (1875)
Historical Significance: First church formed in Pentwater
Beginnings: Sometime in 1856, in an upstairs room of an early boarding house, a group of lumberjacks came out of the woods and huddled with settler families to hear the sermons of a Methodist circuit-riding preacher named Joseph Elliot. According to reports, this was Pentwater’s first official sermon. As the congregation grew, they built their first church on this site, but it was destroyed by an 1875 fire that devastated other buildings on Pentwater’s main street. In 1875-1876, the old church was replaced with this new one constructed of Pentwater yellow bricks.
Interesting Fact: The early circuit-riding preacher Joseph Elliot was an American Indian educated at Harvard.
E. G. MAXWELL HOUSE (1867) 136 S. Wythe
Historic Significance: First owned by early Pentwater settler E. B. Clark. Later owned by E. G. Maxwell, a partner with William B. O. Sands in a large lumber mill, the Pentwater Bedstead Company, and as well as other businesses. The partners owned a lake steamer named for them.
Beginnings: This lovely house with its modern but compatible addition was built by prominent citizen E.B. Clark, who was the village assessor in 1889 and had a photography shop in a wood frame building on the main street lost to fire. Clark was one of the founding members of a Pentwater Boosters Club in 1910 with Gardiner O. Sands and General W. H. Sears. The goal of the Boosters Club was to promote the village as a fruit growing region and a tourist destination. They wanted to build a fine hotel (Nickerson Inn began in 1913), provide daily steamer service, maintain an improved harbor, build an auditorium and design a municipal wharf. Charter Booster members included Frank S. Verbeck, Charles Nickerson, W. H. Sears, G.T. Sands, D.Simmering and E.B. Clark, Dr. J.F. Rennert, E.W. Lewis, M.D. Girrard. Clark also helped to organize the Masons that met in the Gustafsons Building. Clark was the village clerk from 1878-1880.
Prominent Pentwater citizen Edgar G. Maxwell, born in New York in 1842 was also an owner. Edgar married Melinda Maxwell in 1879 and they lived in this house which is now associated with their name. Melinda was a founding member, and first president, of the Pentwater Women’s Club. The prominent couple spent their later years in Grand Rapids in a large home on Madison Street in the Heritage Hill Historic District. E.G. died in 1915 and was buried in the Pentwater Cemetery.
Interesting Facts: The quality of this home reflects the fact, that in the context of the times, E.G. Maxwell was a very rich man, earning an income of $300,000 in 1882. In addition to their lumbering business, Maxwell and Sands owned a steamer with their name, and the Pentwater Bedstead Company. Maxwell and his partner Sands also erected a store that later was sold to the Village as a Village Hall by Gardner Sands widow and was, until recently, the Village Hall,
ANDEW RECTOR HOUSE (1870) 174 S. Wythe (HOME DEMOLISHED SEPTEMBER 2022)
Historical Significance: This was the home of one of the early settlers Andrew Rector. The old-style siting of the home on this large lot, gives it an early rural feel.
Beginnings: This was the Andrew Rector House. Rector was born in 1816 and came to Pentwater as a carpenter. He and Edwin Cobb built a sawmill and had 30 men working for them. The also built a boarding house. They purchased about 80 acres of land in the village to develop but due to financial and legal title issues, they lost the land. After the Civil War, Cobb moved to Grand Rapids and brought a lawsuit to regain title of the land. Rector was considered a good man but kind of a hot-head as you would say—with a temper. When he got angry and killed a pig for some unknown reason, some thought the local Judge Jimmy Dexter brought may have over-sentenced him - giving him 99 years in jail.
Friends found him a lawyer and apparently “sprung him with a writ of habeas corpus.” Not too much later apparently Rector met his end when he formed a vigilante mob to go after a man accused of assaulting of a young Hart girl. The accused man fatally shot Rector.
This home changed hands over the years, and in 2020, I was able to interview the owner Cynthia Maguire who bought it with her mother in the 1980s after her father died. Mother and daughter invested in gradual restoration work, a bit at a time. Apparently it was a rental for a long time and the house had been mistreated including BB guns fired at the walls by renters. One early project was the restoration of the beautiful window trim, replicating it using the remaining pieces as a guide.
Interesting Fact: Cynthia Maguire’s father Marvin Beerbohm taught painting here in the summers in the 1930s. During the 1930s he taught at the Detroit School of Art and also was employed part-time as a muralist for the Federal Art Project. He also designed and executed murals commissioned by the Public Buildings Administration, U.S. Treasury Department. Among his projects were murals for the Detroit Public Library and post offices in the Michigan towns of Knoxville and Belding. His works were exhibited in major museums across the country including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beerbohm’s mural study Pioneer Group at the Red Rock Line—1845, oil on fiberboard, 1940, is part of a book Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian.
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH (1883)
St. James Episcopal Church held its first service in September, 1883. The pointed Gothic Revival-style windows reflect the tradition of many mid-to late 19th-century American churches were designed in the Gothic style.