Early northern Michigan pioneer history comes alive at Hesler home

We love visiting lighthouses and learning about their history, but visiting the little log Hesler home adjacent to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse north of Traverse City, Michigan, offers a unique opportunity to learn about the earliest pioneers in the region.

Joseph and Mary Hesler settled along the eastern shore of the Old Mission Peninsula in the mid-1850s, clearing the land of dense forest and building a simple log cabin with the timber they harvested.

The snug little cabin featured outside walls joined with modified dove-tailed joints and served as shelter for the couple until they sold it in 1866.

Joseph, a Canadian, and Mary, born in Ireland, were typical of the Irish, English, Canadian, and Scottish immigrants living and farming in the Old Mission Peninsula region by the 1860s. Their cabin was also typical of the sort of homes built in the region during that era.

I was unable to discover what happened to the Heslers after they moved from their little log home, but the cabin served as a private home, shelter for migrant workers coming to the area to pick fruit like northern Michigan’s famous cherry crops, as a school, and, intriguingly enough, as a shelter for a bull!

By the early 1990s, the little cabin was empty and slated for demolition until area residents spent several years rallying to save, restore, and move the home to a site 14 miles to the north and next to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse.

In 2001, the State of Michigan erected an historical marker telling the story of the home, which is a rare surviving example of the log homes from the early settlement of Old Mission Peninsula. Visitors can peek in the cabin’s windows or, in the warmer tourist season, look through a glass partition and listen to a recorded history of the cabin, to see how northern Michigan’s earliest pioneers lived.

The wooded area next to the lighthouse is the perfect site for the Hesler home, giving visitors a real sense of how the home might have looked tucked into the northern Michigan forest.

Families and avid geocachers might also enjoy searching for a couple easy caches at the park (one physical cache box and one virtual cache), both of which are still active as I write this story.

 

Be sure to come back to Midwest Guest later this month to learn more about the Old Mission Point Lighthouse.

 

Check out the book Traveling Through Time: A Guide to Michigan’s Historical Markers for the complete text of the Hesler home marker and to find other interesting sites marked by the State of Michigan in Grand Traverse County and the surrounding area.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Traverse City

Comments

[Kirsten]

Very cool! I love preserved buildings and am always in favor of preservation over demolition. Whenever possible.

[Dominique King]

Kristen-Thanks for stopping by! I thought the setting the picked for the relocation was great in this case, as well. It is sort of tucked into a wooded area, so it does give you a sense of how the cabin appeared in the northern Michigan woods years ago.