Assinins () is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

consisting of several buildings that were originally a school and orphanage, located in Assinins, Michigan. The district was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1972.

History

Assinins was founded in 1843 by Bishop

Frederic Baraga Irenaeus Frederic Baraga (June 29, 1797 – January 19, 1868; ) was a Slovenian Catholic missionary to the United States, grammarian and author of Christian poetry and hymns in Native American languages. He was the first Bishop of Sault ...

,Assinins
from the State of Michigan, retrieved 12/30/09 who came to the area at the invitation of Chief Edward Assinins.Assinins
from Hunt's Guide to the UP, retrieved 12/30/09 Assinins was the first person to be baptized at the site. Baraga built the Old St. Joseph Orphanage and School on the site in 1860; wings were added to the building in 1866 and 1877. After the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, Baraga gave the complex's land and buildings to Chief Assinins and the Keweenaw band of the Chippewa Native Americans. The

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusi ...

housed both Native American and European children; a larger orphanage was built on the site in 1929. In 1957, the complex was rededicated as the Sacred Heart Friary by the Capuchin Fathers as their

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

until the late 1960s. The site was then used as the KBIC tribal Center and was later torn down.

Significance

The complex at Assinins is one of the earliest

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

mission Mission (from Latin 'the act of sending out'), Missions or The Mission may refer to: Geography Australia *Mission River (Queensland) Canada *Mission, British Columbia, a district municipality * Mission, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * ...

s in the

Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula b ...

associated with Bishop Frederic Baraga, and served as an important link for establishing rapport between the local

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

and Chippewa tribes and settlers arriving from the east. Baraga helped the local tribes to establish recognized self-governance, and to purchase land in their own names, establishing the tribe's members as local citizens. The site holds some of the oldest structures in the area, and Bishop Baraga wrote some of his best-known works, including a book on Chippewa grammar and a Chippewa dictionary, while staying in Assinins.

Description

The site at Assinins originally consisted of multiple buildings, including over 15 log cabins, spread over approximately . It currently consists of a school building (now used as a warehouse) and several orphanage buildings. The largest structure is the Old St. Joseph Orphanage and School, which stands three stories tall, and is built of rubble with a

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

gable roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof c ...

. Nearby is a cemetery holding the graves of missionaries Father Gerhard Terhorst, Monsignor Melchior Faust, Father John Henn, and Father Anthony Vermare.

References

External links

Historic photos of Assinins
{{authority control Michigan State Historic Sites Unincorporated communities in Baraga County, Michigan Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Populated places established in 1843 Unincorporated communities in Michigan 1843 establishments in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Baraga County, Michigan Michigan populated places on Lake Superior

History

Significance

Description

References

Further reading

External links