By Edna M. Otis, Iosco County Gazette, May 1933
The annals of Iosco would be incomplete did they not record the legend of Lake Solitude. This inland lake was first known as Lighthouse Lake because of its close proximity to the old lighthouse on Tawas Point. An early, map shows that it was known also, as Cranberry Lake. Still later it was termed Mud Lake and one will gainsay that the name did not fully describe it. In the 1890’s however, when the D&M R.R. Co. bought the land developed in Tawas Beach, the wild beauty of the place prompted someone to give the lake the euphonious name of Lake Solitude.
As for the legend. The spirit of LaSalle, the intrepid French explorer of the 17th century, pervades the Lake Solitude region. Methinks the ghost of his ungodly pilot still stalks the cranberry marshes nearby, forever mindful of the glory acquired while sailing the salt seas, never forgetting the humiliation of perishing, at last, the detested "le me douce" (the fresh water sea, Lake Huron).
Three generations of Tawas folk heard the tradition of Lake Solitude. They have listened to the story of how the earliest residents found a rotting hulk in the sand and silt at this inland lake, a half mile distant from the big lake. The legend reads that the size of the boat (probably 60 feet in length) precluded the possibility of entering Lake Solitude through the narrow creek that connects the lake with Tawas Bay, an arm of Lake Huron.
Those who claimed to have seen the boat in the early 1860's and 1870's wondered at its presence there, but they made no investigation to determine its origin. It was, to them, an unexplained reality about which to weave tales on a winter evening in lumber camp or village store. That it might have been a history making craft, they did not dream. Succeeding generations have conjectured much about the tradition, but they have never been able to tear away the shroud that surrounded this marine mystery. And so the years have passed.
Today, we believe we have solved the secret of the old boat's presence in the inland lake, by deducing that Solitude was, centuries ago, part of the big lake; that receding waters have left it what geologists call a newland lake. Forest experts have been able to determine the age of the pine fringing the lake shore and growing on the timbered ridge that separates the lake from Tawas Bay. They say that under the most favorable conditions it has taken more than a century of time for these trees to attain their present size. But science has not, as yet helped us to form a conclusion as to the number of years necessary for the, accretion of this land before pine seed could germinate in the soil.
We have turned back the pages of time and history to read the long list of ships that once sailed the Great Lakes, and never returned to port, in the hope of finding a clue to identify Lake Solitude's lost boat. The story of LaSalle's ill-fated Griffin claims our attention. The first boat to sail the lakes lost when homeward bound to Niagara in the fall of 1689, while making its maiden voyage, does Lake Solitude hold the key to that mystery? There are those who believe it does.
Some day we shall find Lake Solitude's phantom Some day we shall write the final chapter of the story that has intrigued us since childhood; but meanwhile Lake Solitude guards its secret.
The annals of Iosco would be incomplete did they not record the legend of Lake Solitude. This inland lake was first known as Lighthouse Lake because of its close proximity to the old lighthouse on Tawas Point. An early, map shows that it was known also, as Cranberry Lake. Still later it was termed Mud Lake and one will gainsay that the name did not fully describe it. In the 1890’s however, when the D&M R.R. Co. bought the land developed in Tawas Beach, the wild beauty of the place prompted someone to give the lake the euphonious name of Lake Solitude.
As for the legend. The spirit of LaSalle, the intrepid French explorer of the 17th century, pervades the Lake Solitude region. Methinks the ghost of his ungodly pilot still stalks the cranberry marshes nearby, forever mindful of the glory acquired while sailing the salt seas, never forgetting the humiliation of perishing, at last, the detested "le me douce" (the fresh water sea, Lake Huron).
Three generations of Tawas folk heard the tradition of Lake Solitude. They have listened to the story of how the earliest residents found a rotting hulk in the sand and silt at this inland lake, a half mile distant from the big lake. The legend reads that the size of the boat (probably 60 feet in length) precluded the possibility of entering Lake Solitude through the narrow creek that connects the lake with Tawas Bay, an arm of Lake Huron.
Those who claimed to have seen the boat in the early 1860's and 1870's wondered at its presence there, but they made no investigation to determine its origin. It was, to them, an unexplained reality about which to weave tales on a winter evening in lumber camp or village store. That it might have been a history making craft, they did not dream. Succeeding generations have conjectured much about the tradition, but they have never been able to tear away the shroud that surrounded this marine mystery. And so the years have passed.
Today, we believe we have solved the secret of the old boat's presence in the inland lake, by deducing that Solitude was, centuries ago, part of the big lake; that receding waters have left it what geologists call a newland lake. Forest experts have been able to determine the age of the pine fringing the lake shore and growing on the timbered ridge that separates the lake from Tawas Bay. They say that under the most favorable conditions it has taken more than a century of time for these trees to attain their present size. But science has not, as yet helped us to form a conclusion as to the number of years necessary for the, accretion of this land before pine seed could germinate in the soil.
We have turned back the pages of time and history to read the long list of ships that once sailed the Great Lakes, and never returned to port, in the hope of finding a clue to identify Lake Solitude's lost boat. The story of LaSalle's ill-fated Griffin claims our attention. The first boat to sail the lakes lost when homeward bound to Niagara in the fall of 1689, while making its maiden voyage, does Lake Solitude hold the key to that mystery? There are those who believe it does.
Some day we shall find Lake Solitude's phantom Some day we shall write the final chapter of the story that has intrigued us since childhood; but meanwhile Lake Solitude guards its secret.