The Museum Church

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. A museum volunteer, the late Jack Passfield, was the project manager. He and his wife, Nancy, worked tirelessly raising funds that retired the debt that the church move and refurbishment had 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.