In 1823 Reverend William Ferry and his wife Amanda established a Protestant mission on Mackinac Island. Two years later, they oversaw construction of Mission House which provided a dormitory and classrooms for boarding students and a small chapel on the second floor of the east wing. Rev. Ferry’s work spurred a spiritual revival among island Protestants, and they constructed Mission Church in 1829-30 to serve as a permanent home for their worship services.

Built with lumber cut on the mainland at Mill Creek, the church reflects the New England architectural heritage of the Ferrys and the other mission teachers. The basement was used for classrooms and on Sundays the congregation worshipped in the simple, unadorned sanctuary with its enclosed pews and raised pulpit.

The mission closed its doors in the late 1830s as the fur trade declined. The church passed into private hands and was used for a variety of secular and religious functions over the next sixty years. It served as a hall for festivals, meeting place for organizations, and a theater for dramatic productions. In 1874 parishioners of Ste. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church worshipped here while their new church was under construction.

By the 1890s the church was badly deteriorating. Mackinac Island summer cottager Reverend Meade C. Williams led a successful effort to purchase and restore the building which reopened for a commemorative religious service on July 25, 1895. This was Mackinac Island’s first historic restoration project. The church was transferred to the state of Michigan in 1955, and Mackinac State Historic Parks continues to restore, maintain and interpret Michigan’s oldest church building as a public museum.

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