The Story of Frank's Fort (Frankfort)

No one has an ego like my husband's.

When we were kids together, Tom told me this big fish story about how Frankfort got its name. He said the town is named for his great grandfather Frank Martin who lived in a trapper’s cabin in what is now Elberta. 

I was so mad when I found out this was true.

According to Blacklock’s History of Elberta:

In the fall of 1855, Joseph Robar, sixty years of age, and Frank Martin, his son-in-law, arrived at the entrance to lake Aux Bec Scies in his small schooner the “French Girl” ….”Young Frank Martin and Amelia (Robar) took up temporary residence in Joe Oliver’s trapper cabin on the north side of the outlet from Lake Aux Bec Scies and spent the first winter there.”  (Blacklock, 1975)

Historic marker at Gilmore Township Cemetery on Grace Road

That was the cabin that was called Frank’s fort. What made it look like a fort? Well, the sand would blow in from the beach and drift against the house, which still happens in Frankfort on windy days. To fight the sand, Frank built up a wall around the cabin, which made it look like a fort.

Frank’s father –in-law built the very first frame house in Benzie County. Joseph Robar also gained son-in-laws Joseph Oliver, first settler, and George Greenwood, brother of the first businessman who was a blacksmith. Benzie County’s first wedding was in that same frame house. This family must have been something!

There are no photos of Frank Martin. These are the Robar  girls.

Another story Tom liked to tell is about how the Beaver Island Mormon folk stole his great, great grandfather’s cow.  Joseph Robar, with his son, William, Frank Martin, and John Greenwood brought home a team of oxen and four cows from Manistee. They saw a boat pass by as they wear headed for home. They got home in time for lunch, and turned the animals out to graze while they ate.             

“After dinner, Robar asked Martin to look after the stock to make sure they did not stray too far. Martin soon reported that one of the oxen and one of the cows were missing. They immediately began a search and found the grail leading across the river and to the north through the woods. About two miles north of the river mouth, the trail turned toward Lake Michigan. As they came near the beach, they came upon the ox’s head, and when they got in sight of the water, and interesting but disheartening scene burst into view.” (Blacklock, 1975)

Gilmore Township Cemetary

They had butchered the ox, but intended to take the cow home alive for good milk. They managed to get her on their boat and on Beaver Island. She was identified as Robar’s cow, but King Frank Strang never paid for the ox or the cow.

When I married Tom, my daughter was in a class where she had to talk about three war heroes of the past. Tom talked her into writing about Frank Martin, who entered the Civil War at age 38 October 27, 1864.  Frank’s unit went from Munroe, Michigan to Tennessee and then joined General Sherman, marching on foot all the way to Atlanta Georgia and engaging in many of the major battles along the way. After that, the regiment (marched over two hundred miles in a month following General Hood and fighting more battles. Frank received an honorable discharge, was not wounded in action, but did suffer from hearing loss due to the constant cannon and gunfire around him.  With the information provided by Tom and his sister Pat, Jess got some good marks on that paper and awe filled comments from the teacher as well! 

Frank and Amelia’s son Raliegh Martin continued the Martin legacy in this family line. Raliegh loved all kinds of sports. According to my sister-in-law Pat White, and he loved to play baseball and hunt. He loved women. This was his downfall. Raliegh was married three times. He had children by his first wife, Ethel Hensey, who he married in 1902. Their names were Robert and Mildred. Robert Martin was my father-in-law.

Raliegh used to drive snow plows for the county.

“ He told stories of drifts so high that he had to get a running start to tunnel his truck through them. His son Bob rode with him often and once ended up under the truck seat after hitting a huge snow drift.” (Pat White, 2010)

Raliegh kept a pet raccoon named Petey. Pat shares that one day Raliegh went out and when he came back there was toilet paper strung all over the house. Petey came to live with Raliegh’s grand children after that.

My mother had worked with Raliegh in a factory in Benzonia. She told me often that Raliegh was quite a  flirt! Raliegh was a little guy with a big sparkle in his eye. Apparently Raliegh also had a motorcycle, as did his son and grandson, although not the same bike. That would have been awesome.

This story will continue with the stories of Robert Martin.

Begin With What You Know

Well, I know my own story best, so I will share about Tom and I. We seemed to have been connected over the years no matter how I felt about it. Dr. Kamp delivered both of us, at Paul Oliver Memorial hospital on our respective birthdates. 

 

At age two and a half, I went to my first birthday party ever. Little Tommy Martin’s fifth birthday. The ties between the Maginity and the Martin families lasted for years. Tom’s big sister Debby was my baby sitter for a while. Dad and Bob made souped-up cars and dune buggies from VW Beatles. My sister was friends with Tom’s sisters Pat and Robin. Tom must have come over to play, but I don’t remember. I do remember Deb’s horse, Flash, though, that horse was a giant! I remember trick or treating at the Martin’s house on US 31. Candied apples! Yum!

We went to the same churches as little kids, first Grace Bible and then Blaine Christian.

We rode bus together some years. But it wasn’t until I was in eighth grade that we really met up again. As a lowly eighth grader, I got to sit at Tom and Board’s table at lunch. Sitting with upper classmen! Tom was real quiet and intense. I was just a dorky kid who hadn’t stopped playing with her Barbie dolls that long ago. 

Tom was a bass in choir, and I was soprano. He tells me that choir was where he first noticed me and thought I was cute. I was clueless. We were in musicals together. In Oliver, Tom was the poor orphan Oliver’s long lost grandfather. I was the traitorous nurse who gets shaken to death by the widow Corney. This was before the invention of white hair spray. I had dumped a fair amount of baby power in my hair and nearly choked to death after dying.

As a teen ager, I was kind of a loner while being able to fit into many different groups. I had friends who were smokers, friends who were band and choir people. The preppie people and jocks didn’t mind me. Tom was never one for being in groups at all except for his bunch that included Board, Bernie, Kevin, and himself. He was quite the brain, though, and was consistently on the honor roll.

I was always a church goer, especially since Mr Deemer would come around and pick us up to go to Frankfort Wesleyan Church. It was something to do. I didn’t think much of it until June 23, 1977, when things I was messing with got really scary and God sounded like a safe haven. I made a conscious decision to believe in Jesus as the son of God. I didn’t manage to keep out of trouble after that. I was just a teenager who loved rock and roll and disco and dancing. I didn’t have much good sense.

But I did make an impression.

After becoming a Christian, I approached life with the crazy zeal that sometimes follows such decisions. Tom describes my greetings to friends at this time as boingdy boingdy boingdy “HI!” I was different. More friendly, I think. Less dark and superstitious.

But not 100% good. Not by a long shot. 

Another friend, Pat, and I wanted to skip school. This was after Tom had graduated but we three were friends. Tom picked us up at the high school, and off we went in his old work pant green truck with the removable stick shift. After going swimming in Lake Michigan in our jeans and in November (told you I didn’t have sense, didn’t I?) Tom took us back to his house to dry off and prepare to go back to the school and catch the bus.

Not "the" truck, but a similar one.

As we were heading down the road to go back, something very nearly bad happened. On a hilly nearly one lane dirt road, Tom saw a utility truck coming our way. He put on the brakes. Nothing. The truck was getting closer and we weren’t slowing down much at all. He put on the brakes again, and the right side locked up. We went nose first down a pretty steep ravine narrowly missing trees and stumps.

Oh, golly it could have been so much worse. As it was, the truck was good and stuck but we weren’t bad off from the experience. Tom called a friend to take us back to school and the day concluded as planned with only one other person the wiser of or narrow escape.

Sometime after that, Tom accepted my invitation to come to my church. I don’t think it was because of this accident. Tom had survived much worse in his past. (being on fire, jumping off a moving vehicle, sword fights, you name it.) He went just because I asked. And he decided to become a Christian that day.

The same summer I had become a Christian, there was a music group from United Wesleyan College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. One of the fellows was a pilot.  I was determined to go to college at United Wesleyan College and enter their aviation program. I really stank at math back then because it scared me, so… You had to have good math skills to fly… and, well, even though I went to UWC, I didn’t go into their aviation program.

Mainly I went nine hundred miles away from home to get away from home. That never works. Tom came with me the first year, and another Benzie person came with me the second year.  I was still clueless about Tom’s feelings.

Then I quit college and tried a different direction. That path ultimately led me to meet my first husband, Doug, and have my wonderful daughter, Jessica. I would not trade her for anything in the world. Doug and I began all right, but I was a mental mess and still clueless about things. He had his own demons. We split up after 911, after the World Trade towers fell. The pain and horror and awfulness of that day still feels really personal to me.

On the day before my phone was scheduled to be shut off, in the time I was trying to keep my head on straight and find Jess and I a new home, Tom left a phone message out of the blue. He knew I had married, knew I had a daughter. I called him back, told him what was going on. He was sympathetic to me while inside, he told me later, he was doing a happy dance because he had been waiting for me since I was sixteen, in choir, and now he had a chance to get me.

We have now been married almost twelve years. Tom and Jess get along pretty well. We have been through a bit since then: The loss of Tom’s dad Bob and later of my mom Ruth. Saying goodbye to our beloved pets Bud, Piglet, Coffee. Losing the house that Tom built himself. Job changes, life changes. Almost losing Tom to bee stings.

You have maybe heard the song “The Broken Road”? That song suits Tom and I well. All these years, being friends and being in and out of touch, Tom and I have a good life together. We finish each other’s sentences. He understands me when I speak Linetteanese (otherwise known as gibberish). He lets me be a little girl, tries to understand me when I read books to cry or window shop. I trust him. There is so much us about our history that it confounds people who have known us for years. “What took you so long?” people would ask. After all, our first “wedding” was in 1979.