The Catholic cemetery, which is open to all faiths, was moved to its present-day Garrison Road site in the 1850s. Gates installed in 1924 designate it St. Ann's Cemetery. A proposal to change the names of the Catholic and Protestant cemeteries on Mackinac Island to North and South for deeds and on other internal documents failed to get the support of the city council Wednesday, October 21.

The proposal, made by the city's Cemetery Board, was designed to remove the connotation that the two city cemeteries are denominational, but Alderman Armin Porter said the cemetery's names have historic value and roots.

"These are historical designations going back, I don't know how many years," said Mr. Porter. "I like them the way they were."

Alderman Jason St. Onge said he agrees with Mr. Porter and that the names are not reflective of their use, but significant historically, just like the Italian Hill Cemetery, commonly referred to as the old Italian Cemetery, which also is in Mackinac County.

The city's ordinance, however, refers to the cemeteries simply as "city cemeteries" and, at Mayor Margaret Doud's recommendation, now will be revised to specify the commonly-used names, St. Ann's and Mackinac Island cemeteries. The ordinance revision will be drafted by the Ordinance Committee and presented to council for future approval. No meeting time was set for the Ordinance Committee to begin the process.

For more than 159 years on Mackinac Island, the cemeteries have been called by residents the Protestant Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery, even though Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are buried in both.

St. Ann's Cemetery and Mackinac Island (or Protestant) Cemetery are on state land along Garrison Road north of Fort Mackinac. Graves were first moved there from the downtown area in 1850, forced by overcrowding and development. The Catholic Cemetery was near the old Catholic church on the corner of Market and Hoban streets and the Protestant Cemetery was behind Mission Church, and both were out of space.

The federal government allowed the city to move the two cemeteries to their present location in the military reservation (now the state park) in 1855, according to Phil Porter, director of Mackinac State Historic Parks.

Edwin O. Wood, in his 1918 "Historic Mackinac" volumes, refers to the Protestant Cemetery as Glenwood Cemetery and to the Catholic Cemetery as Bonnie Brae Cemetery, although Mr. Porter speculates that they might have been proposed names and, at any rate, never caught on.

The Cemetery Board voted to change the cemetery designations to North and South on plot purchase documents during its Friday, October 9, meeting, citing concerns that religious connotations should not be associated with the city-operated cemeteries. Any such changes, however, also would require approval by the city council, the city attorney, Tom Evashevski advised, which is why the matter came before the council.

The Cemetery Board, said board secretary Kelly Bean, thought any religious designation for a cemetery is not appropriate for a municipality. There were no plans by the board to remove or convert current signs, nor were there plans to install any new signs, she told Council Wednesday evening. The only place the Cemetery Board planned to use the north and south designations was on the application for a cemetery lot, she explained.

Concerns were raised over the names last summer when home owner Robert Spitzer sought to establish a Jewish section in one of the cemeteries.

At its October 9 meeting, the board set asside 22 lots for a Jewish section in the Mackinac Island Cemetery on land already set aside for cemetery expansion. To ensure the lots don't remain unsold, the committee will hold the section for Dr. Spitzer for one year.

Jewish rabbinical law requires designated land be marked off. The area is consecrated in a ceremony performed by a rabbi. The site then is designated Admat Kodesh, or sanctified land. The cemetery board, however, said it would not approve erecting a dividing section such as a hedge, according to Jewish law, but rather the board would allow the Jewish community to designate the area with in-ground markers.

The decision to make the section available passed in a 2-1 vote. Cemetery board members Kathi Wightman and Dale Gallagher were absent from the meeting, while board members Clayton Timmons and Armand "Smi" Horn approved the move.

Board member Candy Smith voted against the allocation. Members of the Jewish faith already are buried in both cemeteries, she later told The St. Ignace News. Dr. Spitzer, she said, could purchase his lots and have them consecrated by a rabbi without the need for the board to hold the lots.

A third cemetery on Mackinac Island, the U.S. Post Cemetery at Fort Mackinac, just down the road from the two civilian cemeteries, was used from the 1820s to about 1900, but no longer receives burials. It is maintained by the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which contracts upkeep with the Mackinac Island State Park Commission.