May 11 2008
Visit a SE Michigan Island: Orchard Lake
Apple Island in the center of suburban Detroit’s Orchard Lake. The Observer & Eccentric newspapers report that the area historical society will provide $10 boat rides and tours to the island this coming weekend. Excerpts and link:
Public tours of the island - located in the center of Orchard Lake - are set for noon to 4 p.m., Saturday, May 17 and noon to 3 p.m., Sunday, May 18, on a first come/first served basis.
Tours, which will be led by members of the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society, begin at the Orchard Lake Museum, at the corner of Orchard Lake and Long Lake roads.
Cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 years and under. For more information, call (248) 682-2279 or log onto www.gwbhs.com.
Around the time West Bloomfield Township was formed in 1833, horses and wagons or carriages were common as more roads were built. With the completion of the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad line in 1844, residents of Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and other areas could reach the lakes area, giving rise to vacationers who spent the summer here.
Win Hamlin, son of Apple Island’s caretaker, wrote a memoir of life on the island, beginning in 1903, that mentions the types of transportation he and his sister used to get to school.
Hamlin wrote, “We had to cross the lake, then walk a mile to the Old Scotch School. In the winter my mother would take us with the one horse sleigh. In the spring, summer and fall she would take us across the lake by boat and we would have the mile to talk to school.”