Constructed of local raindrop sandstone from the Jacobs Quarry, it was designed by Marquette’s premiere architect, D. Frederick Charlton, and landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead of Central Park fame.

The mansion contained 65 rooms, including an octagonal entry hall with a Tiffany-stained glass dome, a library, a music room, a billiard room, and even a bowling alley in the basement. The house and its property took up the entire block between Ridge and Arch streets and from Spruce Street down the hill to Lakeshore Boulevard.

Unfortunately, the Longyears’ son, 19-year-old Howard, drowned in Lake Superior in 1900, launching a series of events that led to the Longyears moving their house.

Mrs. Longyear, devastated by her son’s loss, wanted to build a memorial park to him along Lakeshore Boulevard below their house. However, the Marquette and Southwestern Railroad wanted to run a railway track through that area.

Here is the cover of Tyler R. Tichelaar’s new book, “Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel.” (Photo courtesy of the Marquette Regional History Center)

In the end, the city of Marquette sided with the railroad. Mrs. Longyear could not forgive the city and never resided in Marquette again.

The Longyears then went to Paris, France, on vacation. One day, while riding in a carriage down the Champs-Elysees, Mr. Longyear asked his wife what they should do about their house in Marquette which had failed to sell. Perhaps he was joking, but he suggested they move it to their new place of residence in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Mrs. Longyear agreed to this, and in 1903, the work began. My great-great-grandfather, William Forrest McCombie, was one of the workers hired to help take apart the house. In the end, 190 railroad cars were needed to move the entire mansion to where it would be reassembled.

Since then, some impressive homes have been built on the property in Marquette where the Longyear Mansion once stood.

I am honored that the Marquette Regional History Center has selected my book “Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel” for its community read this February.

This photo is of Howard Munro Longyear, who drowned in the waters off Presque Isle in 1900. (Photo courtesy of the Marquette Regional History Center)

As a lover and writer of local history, I have often wished I had a time machine so I could experience firsthand what Marquette was like in its early years. One day, I had the idea to do the next best thing — write a time travel novel with a main character who has that very opportunity to see Marquette’s past.

One of the primary plots of time travel fiction is that a person might inadvertently change the past. With that in mind, I considered what event in Marquette’s history I would change if I could. Many possibilities existed, but the one I kept coming back to was preventing the removal of the Longyear Mansion from Marquette. Imagine the pride Marquette residents would feel today if this historic home were still one of the jewels in the Queen City’s crown.

In writing “Odin’s Eye,” I devised a plot that resulted in the house not being moved. To make that happen, other events in history needed to be changed. When my main character, Neill Vandelaare, inadvertently causes those changes, he is not prepared for the astonishing results.

While I researched the year 1900 and the Longyear family to create the novel’s main plot, other time periods in Marquette’s history also come into play in the novel. Neill is from the recent past during the coronavirus pandemic.

The novel’s title is a reference to the Norse God, Odin, and plays on the theory that the Vikings may have visited Upper Michigan.

The mysterious dolmen, shaped like a stone altar and on top of Mount Huron at the Huron Mountain Club, is of pivotal interest in the novel’s plot and may be a Viking creation.

Given that time travel is also a form of science fiction, a look at what Marquette’s present and future might have been if the Longyear Mansion had not been moved provides another surprising plot twist.

My hope is that “Odin’s Eye” will offer readers an original opportunity to experience Marquette’s past in a more realistic way than can be gained from just reading a history book.

An additional plus is that Neill gets to communicate with his Marquette ancestors (the main characters of my previous series The Marquette Trilogy) and learn additional details about his own family history. What genealogist would not want to time travel if meeting their forebears were a possibility?

Book and history lovers are invited to read “Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel,” available in the MRHC’s gift shop and other local stores, and then attend the community read discussion at the Marquette Regional History Center at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7.