Mission Point is located on the southeast side of Mackinac Island, Michigan. It is approximately in size between Robinson's Folly and the jetty terminating near Franks Street. The Island has a history of documented European development beginning with French Jesuit missionaries landing at the point in 1634, less than two decades after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on the East Coast of North America.

Since that time, development at Mission Point has included a Mission House, summer house, several summer Victorian cottages, conference center for an international group, theater, film studio, college campus, and vacation resort. Mission Point looks out toward Round Island (Michigan) over the Straits of Mackinac, the principal waterway between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. In the early 21st century, Mission Point has been developed as Mission Point Resort, a full-service facility including guest lodging, three restaurants, putting greens, a museum, and a theater.

Prehistory of Mackinac Island For millennia before the arrival of Europeans, Mackinac Island was home and meeting place for Chippewa (Anishinaabeg), Huron, Menominee, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Ottawa, and other Native American Indian tribes. They enjoyed aurora borealis displays, pure fresh water, ice-locked winters, quiet snow storms, spring trees and birds, pleasant summers, and autumn leaves. These were described in a reminiscence by an Indian chief: “Great Spirit allowed a peaceful stillness to dwell around thee, when only light and balmy winds were permitted to pass over thee, hardly ruffling the mirror surface of the waters that surrounded thee; or to hear by evening twilight, the sound of the Giant Fairies as they, with rapid step and giddy whirl, dance their mystic dance on thy limestone battlements. Nothing then disturbed thy quiet and deep solitude but the chippering of birds and the rustling of the leaves of the silver-barked birch.” Jean Nicolet and Father Barthélemy Vimont were the first Europeans known to pass through the Straits of Mackinac (1634–1635). They were guided there by a small group of Huron Indians 14 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Other French colonists had settled in eastern Quebec. In 1642, Fr. Vimont documented the trip in ‘The Jesuit Relations’ (Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France). Near Mackinac Island, Nicolet and his companions encountered members of the peaceful Ho-Chunk Nation (Winnebago Tribe).

Jesuit fathers Charles Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded Catholic missions on Mackinac Island, St. Ignace, and Mackinaw City. Fr. Dablon built a birchbark chapel on Mackinac Island in 1670. In 1671 Fr. Jacques Marquette moved the mission to St. Ignace on the Upper Peninsula. Thereafter it was transferred to Mackinaw City. The British took it over in 1763, after defeating the French in the Seven Years' War - their government ceded their territories in North America east of the Mississippi River to the British.

Finally, in 1780 the mission was relocated to Mackinac Island, where the British had purchased property from the Indians for £5,000. Fort Mackinac was also moved from the mainland to the Island, and Major Sinclair became its first commander. That winter the associated town residents relocated to the Island, becoming the first permanent "white" settlement on Mackinac Island.

Mission Point development

Robinson’s Folly (1780s) In 1782 British Captain Daniel Robertson (1733–1810) became the commander of Fort Mackinac. Captain Robertson built a small summer house on a high limestone outcropping less than a mile away from the Fort at the southeast corner of the island (today's Mission Point). This little building was the first recorded structure at Mission Point. It was frequented by Robertson, his son, and fellow officers. Reportedly, no hospitality or entertainment there was complete without pipes, cigars, and wine. Robertson was served by his household slaves, Jean and Marie-Jean Bonga. Among their children was Pierre Bonga, who became a noted fur trader with the British Northwest Company and later with the American Fur Company. Robertson freed these slaves when he was reassigned from Fort Mackinac. They stayed and the parents opened a small hotel.

Robertson commanded Fort Mackinac through 1787, when he left for a posting as major in the British army in Montreal, Quebec. Eventually he became a colonel in the army and amassed 5,000 acres in land grants for himself and his four children. After some years the cliff collapsed, dropping the summer house 127 feet down to the road and lake below. The remaining blunt, precipitous cliff came to be called ‘Robertson’s Folly’ and later (for unknown reasons) Robinson's Folly. Many tales have been attached to the site. This part of Mission Point is the easternmost point of the Island.

Mission House (1825) See also Mission House (Mackinac Island)

Christian missions were often the first outposts of European colonization of the North American frontier. The United Foreign Missionary Society founded a Protestant mission on Mackinac Island in 1822. The objective was to train Indian youth as teachers of English, Christianity and majority American ways, and as interpreters. To support this mission, the US government transferred 12 acres at the southeast end of the island to the Society. The Connecticut Missionary Society sent Rev. William Montague Ferry to the island, and he opened the school with twelve Indian children on November 3, 1823. He was assisted by his wife Amanda White Ferry and Elizabeth McFarland. The school building was framed and enclosed by workers from Detroit, using timbers obtained from a sawmill on Mill Creek (6 mi SE of current day Mackinaw City). By 1825, construction of the 2-story ‘Mission House’ was completed by Martin Heydenburk, one of the school's teachers. Because the island had no Protestant church, the east wing of Mission House was fitted with a movable partition so that on Sundays it became a chapel. Enrollment soon averaged 150 Native American pupils per year with >100 receiving free board, room, and clothing from the mission family. The southeast point of Mackinac Island became known as Mission Point.

Designed as a residence and boarding school, Mission House was also home for the mission families. Pupils at the school were gathered from tribes around the upper Great Lakes and headwaters of the Mississippi, as well as from more than 1000 miles away. A total of more than 500 Indian girls and boys plus children of mission families were educated at the school. The area was a peaceable gathering place for many tribes, with as many as 1500–2000 individuals trading and engaging in friendly companionship. Mackinac Island was also the headquarters of John Jacob Astor's monopoly, the American Fur Company.

Mission House operated successfully for a decade. After the American government began deporting some of the tribes to reservations west of the Mississippi River in the 1830s, the school had difficulty recruiting students. In 1834 Rev. Ferry moved to Grand Haven, MI and, in 1836, the missionary society sold the acreage at Mission Point. Astor retired from the fur trade to invest in New York City real estate to great success. In the later 19th century, European-American visitors began using the island as a summer resort. The mission was formally given up in 1837 when the State of Michigan was admitted to the United States. Edward Franks bought the unused Mission building in 1845, added a third story, and reopened it as Mission House Hotel in 1849.

Mission House was owned and operated by the Franks family until 1939. They sold it and the hotel was converted to a rooming house. In 1946 the Hon. Miles and Margaret Phillimore bought the property, and provided quarters for summer visitors at Moral Re-Armament meetings. In 1965 it was deeded to Mackinac College (1966–1970) and used as a ski hut. After Mackinac College closed in 1970, it was briefly owned by the Cathedral of Tomorrow. In 1977, Mission House was acquired by Mackinac Island State Park, which restored it and uses it to house summer employees of the park.

Small Point and Cedar Point cottages (1882)

In 1882, Alanson Sheley (1809–1892) had two cottages built on Mission Point east of the Mission House (then the Mission House Hotel). A cottage was built by Robert Doud; today's Mission Point Theater was built to the west of its site (below). The second was Cedar Point cottage, located in the courtyard just northeast of today's Great Hall (below). When Sheley died, Cedar Point cottage, which had served as a summer cottage for the family, went to the Brooks family. The cottage built by Doud went to the Clark family, who later sold it to the Faren family, when it became known as the Faren Cottage. In 1948, Rev. Norman Schwab purchased Faren Cottage. He had recently sold his family's Small Point home in Maine, and called the cottage Small Point. Small Point became the family's principal residence year round. In 1959, the Schwab family donated the land on which their cottage stood to the Moral Re-Armament (MRA) group. It planned to use the land for construction of a film studio. The cottage was winterized and transported to a site west of Robinson's Folly. Small Point cottage served as a residence for the Schwab family and several other families for many years. In 1971, John and Lois Findley moved to Mackinac Island to teach at the local school. They rented Small Point and purchased it in 1973. They operate Small Point as a bed and breakfast.

Cedar Point cottage was constructed in 1882 on Mission Point. It was occupied seasonally during the summer especially by wealthy families from Detroit. and was occupied through subsequent years: —1917, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Brooks and Mr. and Mrs. Alanson Brooks of Detroit arrived Sunday to look over the improvements being made by Contractor Doud on their beautiful summer cottage on Cedar Point.—1917, Mr. David Whitney Jr. and family of Detroit arrived Wednesday and are occupying the Brooks cottage located at Cedar Point—1918, Brooks, Alanson S. (Zaidee Hubbard); Brooks, Stanley (Louise B. Patterson) ‘Cedar Point Cottage’, Mackinac Island MI.

In the early 1950s MRA obtained the land on which Cedar Point cottage was located. An aerial photograph from 1955/1956 shows Cedar Point cottage in the midst of the construction of the Great Hall Complex. This photograph is on display in the MRA Exhibit, which is located on the fourth floor of the former film studio (below) at Mission Point Resort. Cedar Point cottage was later demolished.

A third cottage owned by Jimmie Francis was also located at Mission Point. This cottage was between the Studio and the Great Hall complex (below). In late 1965 it was torn down. The site was excavated with the intent to build a thrust stage theater. This theater was not built. Eventually an outdoor swimming pool was constructed on the site.

1915 map

In 1915 Mackinac Island was mapped by Morgan H. Wright, E. M. of Marquette, MI (copyright Edwin O. Wood, 1915). Identified by name on the map are both Robinson's Folly and Mission Point. Along the Mission Point shoreline, the south-south-east shore is labeled Ferry Beach and the east-south-east shore is labeled Peshtigo Beach. This map also shows the jetty leading to present-day Frank's Street at the west end of Mission Point. Comparing this map with a present-day Google Maps image, the field at Mission Point has apparently doubled in size due to the deposition of excavated limestone from building construction on the Point.

MRA arrives (1942)