Despite failing to gain a majority following, Strang remained the self-appointed leader of a Mormon splinter group, who were known colloquially as the Strangites to distinguish them from the much larger and mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After Strang's assassination that year, dispossessed Irish American fishermen from the County Donegal Gaeltacht returned, expelled the Strangites, and retook the island, which is now a popular vacation and tourist destination.

The site is located on the northwestern side of the island bisected by Mrs Reddings Trail, south of Angeline's Bluff Lookout, near Peshawbestown, a historic Native American village.

It is considered a sacred site by the Anishinaabemowin and Anishinaabe culture, as explained in 1990 by Frank Ettawageshik, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBBOI) Tribal Chairman.

It was further investigated in 1988 at Bussey's request by Dr. Donald P. Heldman, Mackinac Island State Park Commission archaeologist, and Dr. Elizabeth B. Garland, Western Michigan University Anthropology professor.

The site is astronomically aligned with the midsummer solstice,[12] the center stone positioned under the North Star, and appears to chart constellations like the Big Dipper.

[13] The validity of the site has been scrutinized and disputed since its discovery as being a misinterpreted common geological phenomenon,[14] such as a random scattering of rocks or glacial deposits by other archeologists like Dr. Charles Cleland, Michigan State University Anthropology professor, and Dr. Christian Feest, Austrian ethnologist and ethnohistorian that specializes in the Native Americans of Eastern North America and the Northeastern United States.

The Odawa, who speak a dialect of the Ojibwe language, lived on Beaver Island for at least 300 years prior to its settlement by more recent immigrants.

Despite Federal legislation criminalizing the sale of alcohol to Native Americans, the former location of the trading post is still known, revealingly, as "Whiskey Point".

[24] Although Beaver Island is known today mostly for its beaches, forests, recreational harbor and seclusion, previously it was the site of a unique Latter Day Saint kingdom.

Most Latter Day Saints considered Brigham Young to be his successor, but many others followed James J. Strang, who argued his own claim using a letter that he said Smith had written and mailed to him.

The Ojibwe and Odawa population, on the other hand, fled to nearby Garden Island, where they sided invariably with the Strangites' enemies[27] to the point that Strang later alleged that the Indians had been, "armed and hunting me for my life.

After meeting and falling in love with 17-year-old Elvira Field during a mission trip in 1849, Strang declared that God had commanded him to become a polygamist,[30] contrary to his previous opposition to polygamy.

James J. Strang proclaimed himself "King of Heaven and Earth", and was crowned on 8 July 1850 inside a large log "tabernacle" that his adherents erected, in an elaborate coronation ceremony.

[32] On him was bestowed a crown that a witness described as "a shiny metal ring with a cluster of glass stars in the front",[33] a royal red robe, shield, breastplate, and wooden scepter.

During Strang's rule and for decades afterwards, allegations of Mormon acts of piracy, wrecking through the use of false light beacons and the cutting of anchor cables by Strangites on skiffs, the mass murder of male shipwreck survivors, and the subjecting of attractive female shipwreck survivors to forced marriage, continued to be commonly told by Beaver Island residents, as well as by Great Lakes sailors and fishermen.

One of the men was married and his wife took care of her and the fellow who wasn't married went to the nearest Mormon house and with two loaded pistols, stole a horse and rode as fast it could run right up Strang's big palace and went in and made them all put their hands up except the girl, who he told to go out and get on the horse and as soon as she did he backed out still keeping their hands up.

"[35] According to Strang's biographer Miles Harvey, there are numerous well-documented cases of groups of Strangites, who saw non-Mormons as the enemy, making marauding raids in settlements around the shores of Lake Michigan.

While claiming dominion of only his church, Strang tended to exert authority over non-Strangites on the island also and was regularly accused of forcibly seizing their property and ordering physical assaults against them.

Meanwhile, the island and surrounding County were ruled with Strang as the political boss, while the Strangites imposed both a monarchy and theocracy upon local government that violated both the American system of Republicanism and the separation of church and state.

When two Mormon women refused obedience, Strang punished them by having their husbands flogged, an act that was rendered less unpopular after one of them was discovered in flagrante delicto while committing adultery.

On June 16, 1856, the United States Navy gunboat USS Michigan entered the harbor of St. James and Strang was invited aboard.

The shooters, Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth, then boarded the gunboat, which refused to surrender them to the Mormon Sheriff and instead sailed away and disembarked both men in Mackinac Island.

By the middle of the 1880s the Island became the largest supplier of freshwater fish consumed in the US, yet overfishing and technological change ended this dominance by 1893.

Court sessions and elections were rarely held, county offices were often left vacant, and the region acquired a reputation for lawlessness.

[45] In 1938, John W. Green (1871–1963), a resident of Beaver Island, was recorded by folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax singing traditional songs, which can be heard on the Library of Congress website.

The flight to the island takes approximately 20 minutes, are available multiple times a day throughout the year and reservations often are accepted with only brief notice.

Fresh Air Aviation's airplanes depart from Charlevoix to the public Beaver Island Airport (KSJX), which is on the Western side, a little over 4 miles (6.4 km) from St.

[citation needed] Beaver Island Boat Company operates a scheduled automobile ferry service from Charlevoix during most of the year.

Some of the well-known performers of the festival include Sponge, an American rock band founded in Detroit; Lipstick Jodi;[65] The Burney Sisters;[66] etc.