McMullens of Cheboygan Portray 1820s Family
Historic Mill Creek Exhibit To Open in May

The McMullen family of Cheboygan will play the part of an 1820s family in Mackinac State Historic Parks’ newest exhibit, the Millwright’s House at Historic Mill Creek, scheduled to open in May 2005.

The family, Shawn, Carrie, Lexi, and Zach, completed a video shoot for the project and sat for a portrait earlier this spring.

The Millwright’s House will join a reconstructed water-powered sawmill and a workshop on the 625-acre site, considered one of the first industrial complexes in northern Michigan.

Historic Mill Creek was originally developed in the 1790s, primarily to supply lumber for construction on Mackinac Island. It was rediscovered in the 1970s by amateur archaeologists Margaret Lentini and Mary and Ellis Olson of Cheboygan.

David Kronberg is the Millwright House exhibit designer.

“Based on historic and archaeological records,” he said, “we’ve imagined a family that lived here in the early 19th century. This family [the McMullens] will help our guests bridge time and feel how vibrant, how different, and yet how similar life on the frontier was in that period.”

One way Mr. Kronberg will accomplish this is by having the family “materialize” in front of the millwright family’s fireplace. This spring, the McMullens dressed in 1790s-style clothing and sat for a portrait, painted by artist Brian Kirschensteiner of Ovid. The portrait is now being photographed and reproduced on theatrical scrim in Toledo.

“We want to convey details about life on the frontier of northern Michigan,” said Mr. Kronberg. “Eight short video vignettes, organized by season, illustrate these details as Shawn, Carrie, Lexi, and Zach portray the millwright family.”

“We had a lot of fun getting dressed up and acting like the millwright’s family,” said Shawn McMullen. “We were a little nervous when Dave sent us the scripts, and we realized we were now going to be actors, but then it just turned out to be real fun.”