Last updated: February 18, 2025
Place
Alexander & Catherine Goffar Farm
NPS Photo
The farmhouse is a private residence - please respect the privacy of those who live here.
The Goffar Farm is one of the most scenic properties in Port Oneida, and it traces its roots to the early days of the community. Alexander (born Alexis) Goffar Jr. and his parents came to the United States from Belgium in 1856. They settled in Chicago, where Alexander began working as a shoemaker. He married an Irish woman named Catherine O’Brien in 1861. They moved to the Sleeping Bear Dunes region the following year.
The Goffars started their first farm near the dunes, but the sand made farming difficult. They moved to a more fertile location near Narada Lake in 1868, where they built a log cabin and a large barn. For Alexander, farming often took a backseat to his other jobs as a shoemaker, clerk, superintendent, and postmaster.
He and Catherine raised one son and two daughters, who married into other families around Port Oneida and began their own farms. Catherine fell ill in 1893, so the couple sold the farm and moved to Traverse City. She passed away after moving, and Alexander spent the rest of his days on the west coast.
Julius Prause bought the house, and it remained with his family until 1919. Since it was close to the North Unity Schoolhouse, many teachers were boarded on the farm at that time. It was later owned by Olive and Milton Manney, who were popular local teachers. Many Port Oneida school children from that time have fond memories of them. Olive and Milton owned the Goffar property longer than anyone else did.
After the Manneys passed away, the farm was rented out and then came to be owned by the National Park Service. The house was restored and is now an integral part of the Port Oneida Rural Historic District.
Saving the Goffar Barn
The large sliding doors on the side of the building are a trait of the English barn style. English barns were common at the time and mostly used for threshing grain and storing hay, not housing livestock. They were also called the “thirty by forty” barn, since most had those exact dimensions. A barn needs to be dry to store hay effectively, and the Goffar Barn was great at this for most of its history.
Alexander Goffar Jr. initially built the barn over 100 feet (30 meters) from the shore of Narada Lake. The decline of fur trapping in the 20th century meant that more beavers would call the lake home. New beaver dams prevented water from draining into Shalda Creek, and the lake level began rising. By 2022, the Goffar barn was on the very edge of the water and at risk of collapsing into it. It is a protected historic structure, so action was taken to preserve it.
In October 2023, Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear began a project to move the barn to a more stable location. Contractors lifted the barn onto steel beams and rollers, then slid it about 50 feet (15 meters). The barn was set on its new concrete foundation on December 13, 2023. Large stones will be attached to the foundation in the future to match its original appearance.
SOURCES
“Clapboard.” Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, 2022, https://phsb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PHSB-2022-Newsltr-FINAL.
“English Barn.” Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, 2015.
https://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/agriculture/field-guide/english-barn.html“Preserving the Goffar Barn.”
Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, 2023. https://phsb.org/preservation/goffar-barn-project/“
The Traverse Region, Historical and Descriptive, with Illustrations of Scenery and Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers.” H. R. Page & Co, 1884. https://archive.org/details/bad0776.0001.001.umich.edu/page/236/mode/2up