There is a recurring motif in Michigan folklore in which people and things go missing in the waters around the state. The Singing Sands of Bettie Grise tells the tale of a young indigenous woman who lost her lover, who drowned after his canoe tipped on the waters, while the ghost haunting the Lilac Room in Marquette speaks of a woman whose lover disappeared while out on a merchant vessel. There are also a plethora of ghost ship stories about boats that are simply lost to history and those that pop up in the fog on the horizon from time to time (the Le Griffon, for instance). Another such story is that of Minnie Quay, who was a young girl who lost her lover (a sailor) on the waters of Lake Huron.
The Story of Minnie Quay
As the story goes, young Minnie lived in Forester Michigan, which is located out in the thumb and to the north of Port Sanilac. According to the Huron Daily Tribune, the Quay family moved to Michigan from New York in the 1860s. “Her father was an engineer for a local lumber mill in Forester that used to be one of the many bit shipping towns along Lake Huron,” writes Dominic Sevilla.
In and around 1876, Minnie fell in love with a sailor who frequently left for work on the waters around Michigan aboard various ships. Minnie’s parents forbade her from seeing this sailor for unknown reasons. These reasons may be related to sailor transience but Minnie (being 14-16 years old at the time) impetuously disobeyed her parents’ wishes.
On the day Minnie found out that her forbidden love died on the waters, she was already angry at her parents for keeping her from seeing him before he left on what would be his final voyage. Not long after the news shattered her world–a few days maybe–she walked into town, past some of the locals, boarded the dock, and jumped into the waters of Lake Huron, killing herself.
As reported, a news article from 1876 stated that Minnie Quay “committed suicide by throwing herself into the lake from Smith’s dock, at Forester,” and “was seen in the act of jumping by her little brother, who was on shore. A quick alarm was given, and men commenced at once to grapple for the body, but it was an hour before it was discovered … No cause is assigned for this rash act.”
Final Thoughts
Allegedly, one can walk out onto the beaches of Forester and occasionally find the ghost of the young girl waiting for her lover to come back to shore. Others have claimed that her gravestone in the local cemetery broke open and her ghost escaped; as such, one must place a token on the stone to keep her from following. What’s more, some have even claimed that she has tried to get young girls to join her in the water.
Whatever the story, the dangers of the Great Lakes and the trauma of lost love are strong in Michigan history.
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