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The Hanson family – 150 to 200 of them – are coming home to Sturgeon Bay on June 28. They’re coming to a house no one alive knew existed until 2009 to hear about ancestors most of them never heard of, who left this area nearly 100 years ago.

They can thank George Evenson, president of the Door County Historical Society, and other society members for unraveling the “history mystery” that saved the house from demolition and located the descendants who will return to see it beautifully and authentically restored.

A dozen years ago, the Sturgeon Bay Educational Foundation, through the generosity of Ellsworth Peterson, purchased five acres near the Crossroads at Big Creek Environmental and Historical Center to be added to Heritage Village at Big Creek. There was an abandoned house on the property, which was to be sold as a tear-down. In 2008, shortly before the structure was to be razed, Evenson and Jim Maki decided to poke around for a bit.

Pulling loose a piece of siding, they found not 152-year old rotted logs, but mostly well-preserved “meddrag” joints, the work of a highly-skilled carpenter who used only an axe to hollow or groove the bottom of each log to fit tightly against the unworked top of the log below. They were matched so closely that no caulking was necessary, but sphagnum moss (still there!) had been tucked in to make the building airtight, a technique dating to medieval times in northern Europe. Corners were dovetailed in the traditional Norwegian style. Once plaster and laths were removed from the inside, whitewashed logs were revealed.

Evenson, a student of history – especially all things Norwegian, realized they had uncovered a rare treasure, and he knew who to call to verify what they had and to guide its restoration and preservation. By 2009, the property had been inspected by Alan C. Pape, a historic preservation planner from Greenbush, Wis., and Darrell O. Henning, curator emeritus of the Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum in Decorah, Iowa.

Almost immediately, Henning came to visit the property, which he described as “the most significant architectural find in Door County. You are extremely fortunate,” he said, “that the house sits on its original site. It is one thing to see the artifacts of history, but quite another to actually walk in the footsteps of those who made history, seeing what they saw from the very place they stood. All other museums strive to show the logs! But the real Wisconsin experience is a clapboard-sided over house. The Door County Historical Society will present a more accurate picture of what went on in the late 19th century.”

Hans and Bertha Hanson

Henning also noted that the Door County area holds the only Norwegian Moravian settlements in Wisconsin and stressed the importance of the Hanson House being connected to an existing educational program at Crossroads at Big Creek, and nearly five acres of land being available to recreate the Hanson Big Creek farm as a living history center.

“The Hanson farm house and site on Utah Road is one of the few examples of Norwegian scribe fit ‘sval’ log house construction to be found outside Norway, and only two have been saved through museum restoration here in the United States,” Pape wrote to Evenson that September. “It is amazing to me that the house survived at all and that the property was not sold for development. To have it actually connected to the Crossroads Museum Village is truly a one-in-a-million event.”

By December 2009, Henning had completed The Historical Architectural Analysis and Restoration Plan for the house. While the house had gone through a series of five additions and renovations, the historical society decided to restore it to its appearance in 1875-1885, because a great deal of physical evidence remains from this period. The plan was lengthy, thorough and very explicit in its guidelines.

For example, those who worked on the restoration were instructed to look for early stove, door and partition locations on painted floor surfaces. Instructions for reshingling the roof called for #1 edge grain 16” western redwood shingles with a 4” exposure and without any tarpaper. Inside, new paint for the walls, ceilings and trim was matched exactly to chips of the original butterscotch, olive gray and light gray chipped from the walls. Square-headed nails to match those originally used were tracked down from a source in Washington.

Period antiques have been donated to furnish the house. Two huge rag rugs nearly a century old and no longer used at the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse were installed after being rejuvenated by Armstrong Cleaners. “They are beautiful,” Evenson says. “It is all so beautifully restored and so authentic. I am most proud that we have worked so hard to put it back just the way it was more than 130 years ago.” Local donations of $125,000 covered a major part of the restoration cost.

So, nine years after the gem was discovered, Hans Hanson’s house and its historically accurate landscaping are ready for the family to come calling on June 28. The fact that those descendants have been identified is a tribute to Evenson’s deep interest in history, his own Norwegian heritage and his tenacity.

A bit of background on the Hanson family: Hans was born in Norway in 1815. He and his wife, Bertha, married in their 30s and emigrated to the United States in 1853, settling for two years in Chicago before purchasing for $250 the 80-acre farm on Big Creek in the recently-created Door County. The location had been identified on an 1834 map as the site of a prehistoric portage or trail for travelers crossing from Lake Michigan to Sturgeon Bay. (The first house in the town had been erected just five years earlier!)

Line drawing from “The Historical Architectural Analysis and Restoration Plan for the Hans Hanson House,” prepared by Alan Pape for The Door County Historical Society.

The family had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. They were close friends of the Rev. A. M. Iverson and attended the Moravian Church he established in Ephraim until he helped them form their own congregation in Sturgeon Bay.

Bertha died in 1899 and Hans in 1903. As times became harder in the early 20th century, the younger generation left Door County for Daggett, Mich. Through research in old records and newspapers, Evenson tracked their descendants down in Daggett and Stephenson, Mich., and – with help from those whom he identified early – others as far away as New Jersey. A few came to see ongoing work on the house. Thaddeus Nowak, a great-great-great grandson of Hans and Bertha developed an information- and photo-filled website, hanshansonhouse.org. Lynnette Thome, a great-granddaughter, has taken over the organization of the June 28 Hanson reunion.

Four large tents will be erected. There will be talks, tours, good food and lots of conversation – getting acquainted with one another and with the family history they share. And, as Henning foresaw, they will be able to stand in the front door of Hans Hanson’s house and gaze east toward Big Creek over the world Hans and his family saw, a landscape that looks much different from the modern world on Utah Street, 140 feet and 136 years away.

The house and grounds are also open to the public on Sunday, June 29, and on later dates to be announced.