The Mackinac Blog

Beginning Friday, January 14, the diary of 10-year-old Harold Dunbar Corbusier, started on the same date in 1883, will be tweeted every day by Mackinac State Historic Parks from the feed @BOYatFtMACKINAC.

The diary, published by The Corbusier Archives and Mackinac State Historic Parks as A Boy at Fort Mackinac: The Diary of Harold Dunbar Corbusier, 1883-1884, 1892, recounts the daily fun, chores, work, and adventures of the second of five sons of Fort Mackinac Post Surgeon Dr. William Corbusier and Fanny Dunbar Corbusier.

In the 1880s, when Harold kept his diary of life at Fort Mackinac, the island was a Victorian traveler’s paradise.  Visitors from across the Great Lakes journeyed to the island on elegant passenger steamboats, and the soldiers at the fort were the caretakers of Mackinac National Park, the second national park in the United States. It was a time of exploration, elegance, and entertainment for visitors.

Harold and his family lived in quarters on the west end of the fort, today’s “Major’s Quarters.” It was here where Harold began his diary on his tenth birthday, which gives us a unique and illuminating view of children’s lives in a late nineteenth-century military post.

Harold’s two-year stay on the island ended on September 30, 1884. He and his family returned to Mackinac Island in the summer of 1892 when his father accompanied a detachment of the 18th Infantry from Detroit during a target practice encampment. Even during this time, he kept his diary close at hand, but now the entries were longer and focused on young ladies and dances rather than the amusements of a ten year old. He left the island for the last time on August 6, 1892.

One hundred years later, in August 1992, Harold’s grandson, Warren O’Brien, visited Fort Mackinac and piqued the interest of fort historians when he spoke of the diary. In response, A Boy at Fort Mackinac was published, revealing the clever insights of a child on Mackinac Island.

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Via Mackinac State Historic Parks

At 10:00 this morning, November 17, 2010 at the Post Cemetery on Mackinac Island, a headstone was placed at the gravesite of infant Robert D. Walsh over 117 years after his death at Fort Mackinac. The stillborn son of Private Walter J. Walsh and his wife, Fort Mackinac Hospital Matron Caroline Walsh, was buried at the Post Cemetery on Mackinac Island after his death on August 17, 1892 at Fort Mackinac.

“By properly marking this gravesite, we are able to honor the wishes of the family and bring greater historical accuracy to this cemetery,” said Mackinac State Historic Parks Director Phil Porter.

Until recently, the unmarked gravesite was thought to be a stillborn daughter of the Walsh family, who died sometime between February and September of 1892. However, a letter from Walter and Caroline Walsh’s great-grandson, James Hudson of Lake City, Michigan, shed light on the 117-year-old mystery. After reading Mackinac Island’s Post Cemetery, a vignette by Porter, which mentioned the Walsh baby’s unmarked grave in the Post Cemetery, Hudson searched for and found old documents given to him by his mother, the granddaughter of Walter and Caroline Walsh. Written in Hudson’s grandmother’s writing was an entry for Robert D. Walsh in the births and deaths sections of the family record, both showing the date of August 17, 1892.

Hudson wrote to Porter, “My wish is that a headstone, with a now known name and date, be placed on the gravesite. I feel this should be done for the memory of this baby and for Walter J. Walsh, who was a Civil War Veteran, retired with 30 years of honorable service in the army, and for Caroline Walsh, who served as the Post’s Hospital Matron.”

The headstone was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, which has provided guidance and financial assistance to maintain the cemetery since 1990. Because of this funding, tribute has been paid to the small child who didn’t have a chance at life, but will now be forever remembered.

In the future, Mackinac State Historic Parks hopes to continue to install accurate headstones at other unmarked or improperly marked gravesites within the Mackinac Island Post Cemetery.

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