Kraitz Cabin

The Kraitz Cabin is a small, 1½-story log house set back among trees east of Bohemian Road (CR-669). Stop if early North Unity history interests you, but plan for a short exterior visit: visitor information doesn't say whether you can go inside. The cabin is about 0.8 mile south of M-22, between School Lake access and School Lake Road. No cabin pullout or approach path is identified, so don't assume the nearby School Lake access is its parking.

Francis (Frank) Kraitz built the 16-by-20-foot cabin around 1856. Its logs were hewn on two sides, fitted close together and joined with dovetailed corners. The 1½-story structure has a full-length loft and a steep stair along one wall. No fireplace was found; it was probably heated by a wood stove. From outside, notice how the dovetailed corners lock the horizontal logs together. A broad view that includes the front gable and a corner shows both the cabin's compact shape and its construction.

Frank and Antonia Kraitz came from Pelhrimov, Bohemia, in 1855. Their ship ran aground off Racine, Wisconsin; the Lady Elgin rescued the family and carried them to North Manitou Island on the way to North Unity. When food ran low during the winter after their arrival, Frank Kraitz, Vaclav Muzil and others crossed breaking Lake Michigan ice by sled to the Manitou Islands and returned with a few bushels of potatoes. The trip nearly cost them their lives.

The cabin was the first permanent dwelling on the Kraitz homestead, about three miles from Lake Michigan, and hosted the area's first Catholic masses before St. Joseph's Church was built across the road from the original homestead. Later it served as a separate grandparents' house for the extended family. John Kraitz moved it beside School Lake in 1945, then across Bohemian Road to its present site a few years later, so this isn't the original homestead location.

An oak fell on the cabin in 2013. A multi-year restoration rebuilt its roof, gable ends and floor, replaced nine logs, repaired the windows and restored the dovetailed joints. The work was completed in 2021, with the wood shingles still to be restored.