Farm Progress

Axel and Hilja Abrahamson, like other “Finlanders,” settled in the Upper Peninsula where lumber and mining camps were abundant.

Jan Corey Arnett

December 18, 2017

3 Min Read
A BARN FOR ALL: The Abrahamsons were the sole owners of the farm, which is part of the Grand Sable Visitor Center, Grand Marais, prior to its acquisition by the National Park Service.

In search of new opportunities, immigrants to the United States have historically settled in areas that offer work and remind them of home. Travel throughout our state and you can still find communities that in their character, the surnames of residents and architecture of buildings speak of their Dutch, Swedish, German, English, Italian, Russian, Norwegian and Finnish influence, among many others.

Sometimes, it takes close study and the eye of someone knowledgeable in vernacular architecture and a region’s layers of history to reveal a barn’s full story because sheathed in sawn wood siding may be an original log barn. An entire small ethnic barn may be nestled inside a barn, built as an immigrant family could afford.

Some immigrants, depending on when they arrived in Michigan, were able to build big, impressive barns. After Michigan’s extraordinary pine forests were harvested, other virgin trees remained, and they became the lumber of which such barns were built with one interesting fact coming into play. As maple, hemlock and other trees were cut, quality standards were so high that boards with flaws could be bought very cheaply. A load could be purchased for $2. Barns were built and farming began with the barn at the heart of it all.

Axel and Hilja Abrahamson, like many other “Finlanders,” settled in the northern Upper Peninsula, where lumber and mining camps were in abundance, acquiring land near Lake Superior in 1915 through the Homestead Act of 1862. There, the couple would carve out a farm, likely from “cutover country,” left behind by loggers, building their home, two barns and several outbuildings over the years until 1948.

While regarded as a subsistence farm as many were at that time, the Abrahamsons were able to help supply the town of Grand Marais and area lumber camps, with potatoes, corn, oats, wheat and other crops. Their apple and plum trees provided nutritious fruit, and their herd of Holstein cattle was the source of milk for many Grand Marais families.

Their role and the part played by their barns in helping their community survive is like that mentioned in the book, “Home Farm,” by Michael Webster, as he writes, “The farmer is a stress remover. … We remove the stress of weather by providing a nice warm barn. We remove the stress of bad feed, dirty water, disease, crowding, all that. Taking away all that stress allows the cow to produce, and that’s what it’s all about.”

The Abrahamsons were the sole owners of the farm, which is part of the Grand Sable Visitor Center, E 21090 County Road H58, Grand Marais, prior to its acquisition by the National Park Service after 1966, when Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was created. The family home became the Visitor Center itself.

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A LOOK BACK: Axel and Hilja Abrahamson supplied Grand Marais and area lumber camps with milk, potatoes, corn, oats, wheat and fruit. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

Other outbuildings no longer exist, but work has been done to replace windows in the main dairy barn, which is now used for storage by the Park Service. The magnificent Siberian elm beside it is said to have been brought from Finland by the Abrahamsons as a reminder of the country they left behind to seek a new life in America.

Patti Hughes, a ranger for the National Park Service, is researching the history of the Abrahamson farmstead and welcomes information and photographs others may have of the farm and its founders. Information can be sent to her at [email protected].

 Arnett writes from Battle Creek.

 

 

 

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