Est. 1887
A town with a long memory.
Copperbell Bay has been here long enough to have stories it doesn't fully understand. Some of them are history. Some of them are something else.
The Founding
How the Town Got Its Name
The Kellerman brothers — August and Heinrich, from Dayton, Ohio — came north in the spring of 1863 looking for timber. They found it, and they found the bay, and they found that the water at dusk turned a particular shade of greenish-copper that neither of them had a word for in English or German.
August wrote home to their mother that it looked like the inside of an old penny held up to the light. Heinrich said it looked like the bell on their grandfather's farm — the one that had gone green with age but still rang clear. They argued about it for the rest of their lives. The town was named for the bell.
The bell itself came later — salvaged from the wreck of the schooner Annalise in the winter of 1869, when the ship went down in a November storm three miles offshore. The crew survived. The bell was pulled from the ice the following spring and hung in the first lighthouse. When that lighthouse burned, the bell was the only thing recovered from the ashes.
It has hung in the stone lighthouse since 1879. The keeper rings it by hand on foggy nights, the way her father did, and his father before him. The town has never voted on whether to automate it. Nobody has ever suggested it.
The harbor at Copperbell Bay, circa 1890s
A Brief History
Timeline
First recorded settlement on the bay — a single trapper's cabin belonging to a man named Elias Cobb, who wintered here alone and left no further record.
The Kellerman brothers arrive from Ohio and establish a small logging operation on the north shore. They name the bay after the color of the water at dusk.
The first lighthouse is built — a wooden structure that burns down in its second winter. The copper bell, salvaged from a wrecked schooner, survives.
The current stone lighthouse is completed. The salvaged bell is installed in its tower. The town begins to take its name from it.
Copperbell Bay is officially incorporated as a township. Population: 214. The first town meeting is held in the Kellerman warehouse on the harbor.
The general store opens on Main Street. It has not closed since.
A family arrives from the Upper Peninsula. Their matriarch is the first to fish the bay commercially.
A child is born in the lighthouse keeper's cottage during a winter storm. Her father keeps the lamp burning by hand through the night.
A woman takes over as lighthouse keeper — the first to hold the position.
The Harborside Bakery opens on Main Street. The cinnamon roll recipe remains undisclosed.
Stories & Legends
The things the town can't quite explain.
The Light That Wasn't There
In the winter of 1902, a fishing boat called the Ida May came into the harbor on a night when the lighthouse lamp had gone out — the keeper had taken ill, and the mechanism had failed. The crew reported navigating by a second light, lower and steadier than the lighthouse, that appeared on the north shore and guided them in.
There was no second light. There was nothing on the north shore in 1902 but forest. The crew of the Ida May were sober, experienced men who had fished the lake for decades. They filed a report with the harbor authority. The harbor authority noted it and filed it away.
The light has been reported four more times since then, always in winter, always when the lighthouse was dark or obscured. The keeper says she has never seen it. She says this in a way that does not entirely close the subject.
The Bell That Rang Itself
The copper bell is rung by hand, always has been. There is no mechanism, no automated system, no way for it to ring on its own. And yet there are three recorded instances — in 1891, in 1934, and in 1978 — of the bell ringing when no one was in the lighthouse.
The 1891 instance was attributed to wind. The 1934 instance was attributed to a loose clapper. The 1978 instance was not attributed to anything. The keeper in 1978 wrote in his logbook: 'Bell rang at 3 AM. No cause identified. No ships in distress. Lake calm.'
The keeper keeps the logbook on the shelf in the cottage. She will show it to you if you ask. She will not speculate about what it means.
The Walker on the Ice
In the coldest winters, when the ice shelf extends far enough from shore to walk on, people have reported seeing a figure moving across the ice at night — too far out to be safe, moving steadily toward the open water. No one has ever reached the figure in time. No one has ever found evidence of anyone falling through.
An old fisherman says he saw it once, when he was nineteen. He went out after it and found nothing — no tracks, no hole in the ice, no sign that anyone had been there. He does not talk about it often. When he does, he says the figure moved like someone who knew exactly where they were going.
The older residents say the figure is Elias Cobb, the trapper who wintered here alone in 1847 and left no further record. Nobody knows what happened to him. The lake, they say, keeps its own accounts.
Living Traditions
The Traditions That Remain
Some of Copperbell Bay's traditions have official origins. Most of them don't. They simply persisted, year after year, until they became the kind of thing that would feel wrong to stop.
The First Bell of Spring
When the ice breaks in the harbor — usually in April, sometimes late March — the lighthouse keeper rings the bell three times. The whole town stops to listen. It means the boats can go out. It means winter is over. It has meant this since 1879.
The Harvest Cider Press
Every Saturday in October, the owner of the general store runs the cider press in the town square. The press is a 1938 model, repaired so many times there is almost nothing original left in it. The cider is the same as it has always been. People come from towns up and down the shore.
The November Count
On the last day of November, the keeper rings the bell eleven times at dusk — once for each month of the year that has passed. The whole town stops to count. Nobody organized this tradition. It simply began, sometime in the 1920s, and has continued since.
The Midsummer Bonfire
On the longest day of the year, a bonfire is lit on the beach below the lighthouse. There is no ceremony, no speeches. People bring food and stay until the fire goes out. The tradition is believed to predate the town's incorporation, though no one can say for certain.
The Winter Table
Every year on the first hard freeze, the baker sets a long table outside the bakery with coffee and bread for anyone who wants it. She does not announce it. People simply know. It has happened every winter since 2011, the year after the bakery's first hard season.
"The lake keeps its own accounts."
— An old saying in Copperbell Bay. Origin unknown.