228
S. Ridge Street 
For more than 150 years, our Museum Church stood quietly on a corner just west of downtown Forestville in northeast Sanilac County. Originally a general store, followed by some years as a saloon; the building gained a steeple and was transformed into a community church around 1911.
For most of the remainder of its life in Forestville, the clapboard structure served one religious community after another, until 2003, when a dwindling parish population made the building available for sale. Joan and Jack Potts, a Forestville couple with longstanding family ties to the church, purchased the structure and opened it as an antique shop in 2004. Concerned for the structural integrity of the building and hoping to save it from an uncertain future, the Potts' donated the building to the Sanilac County Historic Village & Museum.
In August of 2006, the Forestville Church was moved to Port Sanilac. Museum volunteer, Jack Passfield, was the project manager. He and his wife, Nancy, continue to work tirelessly raising funds to retire the debt that the church move and refurbishment generated. The church is now available for rent for weddings, baptisms, showers, concerts, and all manner of other events. The Museum Church has a beautiful tin ceiling, stunning stained glass windows, and original wood flooring. It can accommodate 65 people at tables or 125 seated.
The Ward Cottage was originally a hunting cabin that predated the 1870's and was located on South Lake Street in Port Sanilac-barely two blocks from the museum.
When Sarah Ward decided to build a bigger home on her property, she and her mother, Grace Frassrand, offered the building to the historic village. As it looks today, the Ward Cottage is typical of the little Lake Huron shore cottages that one would have found in the 1940's. These were originally uninsulated structures without inside plumbing, many without kitchens or porches. These structural changes were often made later. Each cottage had its own outhouse and well pump. Folks cooked outside, took their soap and towels, and bathed in Lake Huron.
The installation of the Ward Cottage is not yet complete and the purpose to which the building will be put has not yet been decided.
