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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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A History of the Northern Peninsula
and its People, Vol. 2
Alvah Littlefield Sawyer, 1911

        [962-963]

        JAMES W. BENNETT is incumbent of the position of harbor master on
     Mackinac Island, where he is also engaged in the hotel business, and
     he is numbered among the well known and highly esteemed citizens of
     the Upper Peninsula.  MR. BENNETT was born at Huron, Erie county,
     Ohio, on the 18th of March, 1856, and is a son of JAMES and FRANCES M.
     BENNETT, the former of whom was born in Susquehanna county, Pennsyl-
     vania, and the latter in Huron county, Ohio.  The father died in 1883,
     at the age of sixty-one years, and the mother now resides on Mackinac
     Island, where the family home has long been maintained.  JAMES BENNETT
     was for many years identified with navigation interests on the Great
     Lakes and he commanded steamboats plying between Buffalo and Chicago
     for nearly a quarter of a century.  Thereafter he was prominently
     identified with the fishing industry on the Great Lakes, in which con-
     nection he maintained an excellent fleet of fishing boats.  He was
     Republican in his political proclivities and was affiliated with the
     Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  He passed the closing years of his
     life on Mackinac Island, where he ever commanded confidence and
     esteem.
        JAMES W. BENNETT, the immediate subject of this sketch, was about
     ten years of age at the time of the family removal to Mackinac Island,
     in 1865, and here he was afforded the advantages of the public
     schools.  As a boy he assumed the position of messenger on a schooner
     and he rapidly made advancement in connection with navigation in-
     terests.  In 1874 he became captain of the "North Star," a steamboat
     that carried mail between St. Ignace, Mackinaw City and Cheboygan, and
     he was only seventeen years of age when he assumed this responsible
     position.  CAPTAIN BENNETT continued to be actively identified with
     the operations of steamboats on the lakes until 1902.  Thereafter he
     was captain of a pleasure yacht until 1906 when he retired to assume
     charge of the hotel conducted by his mother.  As manager of the BEN-
     NETT Hall he has made the same one of the popular hostelries of pic-
     turesque Mackinac Island and the house secures a representative pat-
     ronage on the part of the summer sojourners on the island.  MR. BEN-
     NETT is progressive and public-spirited as a citizen, has served one
     term as supervisor of Mackinac township and for the past four years he
     has been harbor master.  His politcal allegiance is given to the Re-
     publican party and he is affiliated with Au Sable Lodge, No. 243, Free
     & Accepted Masons at Iosco, Michigan, where he also holds membership
     in Iosco Chapter, No. 83, Royal Arch Masons.  He is identified with
     Pearl Lodge, No. 163, Knights of Pythias, in the city of Cleveland,
     and with Detroit Lodge, No. 34, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks,
     in the city of Detroit, besides which he holds membership in the
     Knights of the Maccabees and the American Insurance Union.  MR. BEN-
     NETT is a bachelor.

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