Loop-Harrison Mansion
In the early 1870s, Dr. Joseph Loop, Port Sanilac’s original horse-and-buggy physician, decided he was going to build a house that would impress his wife’s family and blow everyone else in town out of the water. The Loop-Harrison Mansion was the result.
The Loops: Dr. Joseph, wife Jane, and daughter Ada had lived in a log cabin down on Sand Street (now Lake Street) and in a clapboard house, which still stands directly east of the Loop home.
The house, with its French-inspired mansard roof and shuttered windows, took three years to complete and was built at a cost of $11,000. The original white/yellow brick, unusual in this part of Michigan but common in eastern Canada, was barged across Lake Huron from Ontario. Because this brick has a tendency to blacken and requires a massive amount of maintenance to retain an attractive façade, the Loop home is routinely painted a pleasing shade of yellow. We are told that the house’s distinctive chimneys were added by an itinerant Irish mason who just happened by during construction.
The entire house, including the summer kitchen, a separate cooking area used to avoid heating up the house during Michigan’s already hot summers, and the coal and wood storage room at the very back, were all built at the same time. A separate brick outhouse/smokehouse burned down at some point and was replaced with the two-room Victorian privy that still stands behind the house.
Despite more than one hundred and fifty years of cutting edge architecture and design, and many beautiful, incredibly expensive, new houses popping up all over Port Sanilac, even today, none of them can hold a candle to the impressive grandeur of the Loop family’s Second Empire home.
The Loop-Harrison Family
Dr. Joseph Loop 1811-1903 (age 92)
Dr. Loop was born in Elmira, MY in 1811. He was a store clerk until 1833. He sought his fortune in New Orleans in 1833, Wisconsin in 1834 and Illinois in 1836, where he was apprenticed to a Doctor. In 1843 married Jane Marie Gardner of Hancock County, Massachusetts, in Novi, Michigan. He built a home and entered a long lumber business relationship with Jane’s brother-in-law, Thomas McGraw. In 1849 Dr. Loop went to the gold fields in California, making ends meet by taking care of men injured on the claims, or in brawls. When he returned from California, he was on a schooner that stopped at what was then Bark Shanty (now Port Sanilac) he was looking for lumber and was told they didn’t need any more lumbermen, they needed a Doctor. A man had been injured in the Oldfield saw bill and needed some attention. In 1852 he moved his wife and new daughter, Ada, to Port Sanilac. October 1854 through March 1855 he attended the University of Michigan, he graduated, after this six month course of study, as a Medical Doctor. Dr. Loop was Port Sanilac’s first doctor. He died in 1903 at the age of 92 and is buried in the Port Sanilac Cemetery.
Jane Gardner Loop 1828-1895 (age 67)
Jane was born in 1828 in Hancock County, Massachusetts. She was the sister of Sara McGraw, a prominent Detroit family. Her ancestor Richard Garner came over on the Mayflower and was an original signer of the Pilgrim’s Compact. Dr. Loop and Jane were married in Novi, Michigan in 1846. They moved to Port Sanilac one month after Ada was born. It was Jane’s Money that purchased the land. Jane was of a delicate condition but still worked very hard; she died in 1895 at the age of 67 and is buried in the Port Sanilac Cemetery.
Ada Loop Harrison 1854-1925 (age 71)
Ada was born in 1854, the only child of Joseph and Jane Loop. She attended grade school in Port Sanilac at a one-room schoolhouse. Ada was sent to Ann Arbor to complete high school and there she met Julius Harrison. Jane Married Rev. Julius Harrison, a Methodist Minister from the Thumb of Michigan. They had two sons, Stanley and Frederick. During World War I, she did volunteer work with the American Red Cross. She inherited the Mansion upon the death of her parents. Tragedy struck on December 12, 1925 when she was hit by a Model T while crossing the street in front of the Mansion. Ada was brought back into the home where she succumbed to her injuries at the age of 71 and was buried in the Port Sanilac Cemetery.
Some drivers say they have seen the figure of a woman in green in their rear-view mirror when driving past the Mansion at night.
Reverend Julius Harrison 1851-1933 (age 82)
Reverend Julius Harrison came from Tuscola, Michigan. Julius met Ada Loop while she was attending high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Although his family owned a business, his true calling would be as a public speaker and minister. Ada and Julius were married in 1882 in Port Sanilac. After Julius “got religion” it posed a problem with his boys as they grew older. Both Fred and Stanley were no strangers to alcohol as adults and left home early. Dr. Loop was also living contrary to the reverend’s “straight and narrow” teachings and this brought additional family discord. After Ada was tragically killed, Rev. Harrison’s health declined and Stanley suspended his career so he could care for his ailing father. Julius passed at the age of 82 and is buried in the Port Sanilac Cemetery.
Captain Stanley Harrison 1884-1977 (age 93)
Stanley was born in Port Sanilac in 1884. He went to sea at the age of 17. Stanley held a master pilot’s paper and spent 40 years on the ocean and the Great Lakes. He also served in the U.S. Navy during World War I. One of the things he brought from home with him from his travels was a tattoo of a compass on his right forearm. While he was away at sea, he would rent out the house and farm. In 1948 after half a century on the sea, he retired from sailing. He recognized the historical and personal value of the Mansion and in 1964 donated the Mansion and 7 acres to the Historical Society. Captain Stanley lived in the west wing, what is now staff offices, of the house until his death in 1977 at the age of 93, he is buried in the Port Sanilac Cemetery.
Dr. Frederick Harrison 1887-1986 (age 99)
Fred was born in Tuscola in 1887. Fred went to elementary and high school in Port Sanilac. With the help of his wealthy aunt, Sarah McGraw, he went to medical school. He graduated from the Univ. of Michigan as an ear, nose, throat specialist. He served in France and Germany during World War I. While in Europe, he met his future wife, Dorothy Vivian Fischer, a Red Cross ambulance driver at the time. They were married in 1929 in New York City. Fred practiced medicine in Pittsburgh, Pa and retired in the late 1960’s. Dorothy and Fred had no children. Dorothy died in 1976 and Dr. Fred died in 1989 at the age of 99.
