A PACKED HOUSE. AND MANY TURNED AWAY. Mark Twain's Entertainment at the Grand Opera House Last Night. An audience which packed the Grand opera house from the orchestra railing to the top row of the rear gallery greeted Mark Twain when the curtain rose last night. Every seat was sold and over a hundred chairs were brought in to try to accommodate those who wished to see America's great humorist, and even then many were turned away. It was the largest, the most cultured, and the best audience ever seen in Petoskey, the receipts being $524.

Petoskey was the location of the extermination of the last huge breeding colony of passenger pigeon. A state historical marker commemorates the events, including the last great nesting in 1878. That summer, the breeding colony of Pigeons arrived near Crooked Lake. The flock covered 40 square miles and for three months yielded over 50,000 birds a day to hunters. One hunter reportedly killed 3,000,000 of the birds and according to one account earned $60,000. Records estimate between 10-15 million slaughtered.

The Northern Arrow was one of the named passenger trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad serving St. Louis, Missouri, Cincinnati, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, and Mackinaw City, Michigan. It used the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, a leased subsidiary of the Pennsylvania system. The train was frequented by northbound travelers to popular Northern Michigan destinations north of Grand Rapids, Michigan, such as Petoskey, Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island.

We came by steamer T. S. Faxton, of the Arnold Line. It was an ideal excursion among the islands. Although it was cold, none of our party would leave the deck until the dinner bell rang. 'Mark' said: 'That sounds like an old-fashioned summons to dinner. It means a good, old-fashioned, unpretentious dinner, too. I'm going to try it.' We all sat down to a table the whole length of the cabin. We naturally fell in with the rush, and all got seats. It was a good dinner, too ; the best ever I heard of for 25 cents.

" Friday, July 19th, Grand Hotel, Mackinac.

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Train No. 5, The Pacific Express, left Erie, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of December 29, 1876 in deep snow. Two locomotives, "Socrates" and "Columbia", were hauling 11 railcars, including two express cars, two baggage cars, one smoking car, three coaches, and three sleeping cars that carried 159 passengers.

At about 7:30 pm the train was crossing over the Ashtabula River about 1,000 feet (300 m) from the railroad station at Ashtabula, Ohio when the bridge gave way beneath it.

Charles Farrar Browne (April 26, 1834 – March 6, 1867) was a United States humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward. He is considered to be America's first stand-up comedian. At birth, his surname was "Brown"; he added the "e" after he became famous. Ward met Mark Twain when Ward performed in Virginia City, Nevada and the two became friends.

This railway is the result of consolidations of several smaller railways that have gone broke and or been taken over. One of the first in this region is the Franklin Canal Company. Chartered in 1844 the Franklin Canal Company built the original line from Erie, Pennsylvania to the Pennsylvania/Ohio state border.

The Holland Land Purchase and
Holland Land Company Records
Genealogical Research in
Western New York State