Early Memories of Saugatuck, Michigan : 1830-1930
Author: Heath, May Francis
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Grand Rapids, Mich: 1930

JOHN DORNAN

Today the only person living in the village who worked in Wallin's Tannery is John Dornan. He was born in 1850. March 17, at Baseline lake. Allegan County, and at the age of one year came with his parents to Ganges where his father, Lemuel Dornan, bought a tract of land one and a half miles north of Glenn, (this now is the Episcopal Holly House). John went to the country school and at the age of twelve began working on farms in the neighborhood, clearing the land, all of which was pretty hard work for so young a lad and at the age of sixteen he learned the currier's trade at the Wallin tannery; he also worked in the Gerber, then Phillip's tannery in Douglas and later for S. A. Morrison till he closed the plant in the early nineties.

Mr. Dornan was married to Etta Harrington in 1876 and one daughter, Charlotte, was born, and today she lives at Signal Mountain, near Chattanooga. His wife died in 1879 and he then made a home for his widowed sister and three little children — Mrs. Robert Lackie — whose husband was drowned off a tug at night when they were towing a vessel up the river at Saugatuck.

In 1914 Mr. Dornan was married to Mrs. Wealthy Mead and they live in their pleasant home in Saugatuck, where Mr. Dornan, though fourscore, is very active.

He is an interesting historian and told the writer many boyhood memories of the early wild days when woods were everywhere — told of George Hughes who bought forty acres of A. N. Crawford in 1843 — this was on the creek at Glenn and he set up a small water-power saw mill; and William Packard also set up a steam power mill at Glenn cross roads, and here was quite a settlement and Webster built a pier from which vessels were loaded with lumber, cord-wood and bark, and the place was called Packard's Corners. George Clapp was the first storekeeper and he was succeeded by L. A. Seymour who still runs a successful, lucrative business in Glenn.