Morris Stockman House

After you cross State Street, you will be walking along Block 6 of Charlevoix. Most of the block was once owned by Jackson Ingalls, an early settler and community leader. Morris Stockman acquired the land on the corner in 1862 by land grant, and built his home there in 1869. It was the first home built after Charlevoix County was formed in 1869. The building still stands at 110 Park Avenue, has been beautifully maintained and restored, and is today the home of the accounting firm, Mason and Kammerman, PC.

Morris Stockman arrived with his brother-in-law Seth Mason, and their families, in October of 1857. They had sailed from Ohio on the small schooner Sonora, but had to transfer, with all of their belongings, to small boats in order to come ashore. At the time, the men and their wives were in their early 20s. Many of the Mormons who had settled the area had left by this time, and the only other white settlers there were the John S. Dixon and Medad Thompson families. Stockman and Mason found an abandoned log cabin left by a Mormon family, and moved in for the winter. Mason kept this homestead as a farm, reportedly raising a great crop of oats in the block bounded by Bridge, Antrim, Mason, and State Streets (where the Subway and the Beacon Center are today).

Stockman was a fisherman, and a hardware merchant. His wife Charlotte (Lottie) was the first teacher to receive compensation for teaching at the first school — a small log building. She was paid $1.00 per week.

Linus Seelye, one of the men who helped build the house, was the husband of Sarah Edmonds Seelye, who achieved fame as one of the several hundred women who successfully served in the Civil War disguised as men. To learn more about “Private Frank Thompson,” nurse and spy, see the following website:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/edmondsbio.htm

This is the home after extensive remodeling, almost as it appears today: