The following is an excerpt from “Meet Me At The Dock in Greilickville, Grand Traverse Bay” by author Kathleen Firestone.
Copies of her books are available at local book stores or directly from her.
Daniel Carter was a jeweler and watch maker who moved to Traverse City in 1866, having been a respected jeweler in Benzie and Manistee counties. Carter and his wife Core had sons, Lawrence and John. Dan Carter, or “D.E. Carter” as he usually listed himself, bought the dock of Reuben Goodrich. Carter also bought a woodworking factory in Greilickville, which may seem to show opposite interests — the delicate work of jewelry making and scrubby work of forming lumber into products. But Dan Carter was interested in fine living. He invited and patented the “Victory” reclining chair and manufactured it at his Elmwood Manufacturing Company plan. Present Carter Road gets is name from D.E. Carter and the Carter Dock which extended into Grand Traverse Bay at this location.
The Joseph Greilick mill in Traverse City continued even after the death of its founder. The “Traverse City Morning Record” of June 18, 1899 reported , “The schooner Harvey Ransom brought a cargo of pine lumber from the Beavers yesterday for the J.E. Greilick Co. and will take back a load of sash, doors, and building materials. The J.E. Greilick Co. has bought quite a supply of pine lumber on the Beavers and the Ransom will make several trips with it before it is all delivered.”
The third Greilick brother, Edward, died Aug. 2, 1899, at the age of 53. The years of pioneering the 1800s were almost over.
A New Century The schooner Harvey Ransom sailed the perimeters of the Leelanau Peninsula, contracting jobs from dock to dock. In spring, 1900, Captain Edgar E. Chase signed a contract to transport woods from the Bingham dock, down to Carter’s dock in Greilickville, a distance of about 12 miles. Mosier Brothers, with business in Lake Leelanau, Bingham, Glen Arbor, and Suttons Bay, had purchased the Harvey Ransom that year.
W.F. Edwards was the general sales agent for Charter’s Victory Chair, with plans to open an office in Chicago and to hire sub-agents in other places. Demand for the chairs grew rapidly, and Carter added more machines and employees to turn out chairs and other household furniture. Shipping tool place at the Carter dock, aboard hired vessels. But plans for Elmwood Manufacturing Company changed, and Carter soon bought out Edwards’ interest in the company. In 1901, when Einer Peterson’s mill in Suttons Bay burned down, Peterson bought the Carter mill, moving it to Suttons Bay.
The next year, 1902, the Greilicks sold their Suttons Bay mill to Erastus Dailey, who had been manager of the empire Lumber Company.
Daniel Carter made other changes in his life with he marries Mrs. Virginia Lull in Chicago, in December, 1906. The newlyweds spent the winter in New Orleans, then made their home in Traverse City.
No doubt, their home furnishings included a Victory Chair, Albert Norris died Feb. 6, 1902, at his home on Cedar Run, Grand Traverse County. He had been a lumberman and farmer in the area, after selling his Greilickville brickyard to James Markham.
The same year Albert Norris died, 1902, the Traverse City Leelanau & Manistique (TCL&M) opened its line from Traverse City to Northport, decreasing the amount of product leaving by boat. Much had changes since the Norris family had come to Leelanau some 50 years earlier.
In 1906 a group of Traverse City people formed the Traverse Bay Transportation Company. They were Anthony Greilick and his son Frank, Capt. Charles Webb, A.V. Friedrich, Elise Hannah, R. Floyd Clinch and Sam Garland. They bought the teamer Chequamegon from the Northern Michigan Transportation Company for $28,000, and the boat arrived in Traverse City on June 12, 1907, with Webb as the captain and Frank Greilick as chief engineer. In summer, the Chequamegon carried passengers to Marion island, Omena, Northport, Charlevoix and Petoskey.
The vessel was sometimes kept at Carter’s dock in Greilickville during winter when refitting and remodeling could be done. The boat was sold to the Pere Marquette line of steamers in 1911.
