Tank Cottage is the oldest standing house in Wisconsin. There are varying reports on when it was actually built, but we know it’s at least 219 years old. Some reports date it back to 1776 – the same year the United States became a country. The Wisconsin Historical Society has two separate reports on its age – one of them claiming it was built in 1776 and the other estimating that it was erected in 1785 . Other sources date it to as late as 1803. Even if it was built in 1803, that would make Tank Cottage 219 years old. At its most, the historic home is nearly 247 years old.
Tank Cottage is also called “The Roi-Porlier-Tank Cottage”. Let’s take a closer look at its history.
History of the Tank Cottage
Let’s assume that the cottage was built in 1776. We chose this as the original date based on a recorded personal testimony by the original builder. The house was originally built by French-Canadian voyageur and fur trader Joseph Roi, who came to Wisconsin in the 1700s. Unfortunately, we don’t have much information about Joseph Roi outside of his work on this house. We do know he was the first of seven settlers in Green Bay, which is impressive enough! He built his house along the Fox River in what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin.
He lived in the cottage for several years after its completion, and then sold it to Jacques Porlier, a judge and fur trader. We believe he spent the rest of his life living in Tank Cottage. He passed away in 1839 after living an incredibly rich and storied life. In 1850, the cottage’s namesake would purchase the house. A Norwegian man by the name of Niels Otto Tank purchased this cottage and used it to found a Moravian Church Settlement .
Niels Otto Tank
Unlike the fur traders that had previously built and occupied the cottage, Niels was a wealthy missionary. Tank purchased several hundred acres of land, including Tank Cottage, in order to try to build a religious colony for Norwegian immigrants. According to the inventory of the house taken by the National Register of Historic Places , Tank’s religious communal society failed when disputes over leadership arose. He and his wife would continue to live in the house until their deaths. Tank passed away in 1864. His wife survived him by several more years and passed away in 1891 after living a life devoted to continuing the missionary work of herself and her late husband.
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