Background
Rasmus Rasmussen was born in Denmark in May, 1850.
merchant maid businessman of Manistee
Rasmus Rasmussen was born in Denmark in May, 1850.
He operated a Great Lakes schooner and was in the lumber business transporting lumber related material around Lake Michigan. He also owned and operated a boardinghouse and saloon. He immigrated to the United States in 1870.
He first went to Manistee, Michigan.
She worked as a maid in a boarding house. Neither knew English, only Danish.
Rasmussen was president of the Danish Aid-Society and was supervisor of the Fourth Ward in Ludington for 3 terms. Rasmussen also served the ward as alderman and city assessor for many years.
The ward not only had a large population of Danish, but Polish and Germans as well.
Many of the men worked in the lumber industry in one capacity or another. Rasmussen operated a schooner called and was in the tanbark trade business for several years. The schooner was 87 tons and built in 1886 on the site later occupied by the Abrahamson-Herheim Company on Lake Street in Ludington.
The 2-mast 83 ton schooner was 88 feet long by 22 feet wide and 6 feet deep.
The schooner that traveled the Great Lakes was named after a nineteenth-century Ludington postmaster"s wife in exchange for a windsock for the vessel. The merchandise shipped consisted of local Native Americans" collection of hemlock bark in Oceana County, Michigan.
The bark was used for tanning leather. This bark along with wood was shipped with the schooner from Ludington to Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The schooner with a cargo of bark was totally wrecked 9 miles north of Manistee near the entrance to Portage Lake in Onekama on November 8, 1905.
There was no loss of life. The four on board were saved by a light keeper and the Manistee Life Saving Service. Rasmussen built in 1877 a boardinghouse and saloon in the Fourth Ward of Ludington called "", also known as the Lake View hotel.
lieutenant was located on South Madison Street near Sixth Street.
A Ludington Daily News newspaper article mentions that one third of the voting population of the city in 1892 was Scandinavian and that it was a safe bet that the head of every one these families was processed through the The article explains that the Scandinavian migration was then at its peak to Ludington and that most of the Scandinavians stayed at the as their first place in Ludington. The hotel contractor believed to have built it was the firm of Tiedeman & Boerner, Contractors and Builders.
The interior woodwork was just like their homes on Washington Avenue in Ludington. The hotel was demolished in September of 1989.
Rasmussen"s wife Ane Nelson (1851-1917) was born in Denmark.
Martha – born 1876
Carrie – born 1879
Hannah – born 1881
Rasmus – born 1883
Mark – born 1887
TWINS v
Mary – born 1887
Andrew – born 1890
Hans C. – born 1893
Russell – born 1896
Rasmus Rasmussen died on August 26, 1921 at age 71. He are buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Mason County, Michigan
Rasmussen was referred to as "Old Denmark.".