Mackinac States Historic Parks archival collections preserves thousands of items documenting all aspects of Mackinac history. In this ongoing series we highlight some of these treasures.
Protestant missionary William Ferry and wife, Amanda, arrived on Mackinac Island from New England in 1823. Here they established the “Mackinaw Mission” which included a boarding school for Indian and Métis children. Within a few years a church (seemingly lifted from New England and dropped on the Great Lakes shore) was constructed next to the school. Both the Mission House school building and the church are owned by Mackinac State Historic Parks and preserved as historic structures. In this record book Rev. Ferry recorded the progress of the mission’s Sunday school. It was discovered by the donor in a Massachusetts barn in the early twentieth century.
