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Lebell’s Merchant House
Through the stately gate that looks out onto Strand Street, you step into an environment that echoes with an atmosphere of the distant past. Here, you can get a glimpse of the day-to-day life of an 18thcentury merchant’s family. The adjacent Felén House, which is a café in the summertime, is also part of the museum.
Casimir Subkowski was a Polish lieutenant who was brought as a prisoner of war to Gamlakarleby in the year 1704. There he met the councillor ‘s daughter, Anna Enholm from Kristinestad. After their wedding, they moved to Kristinestad and Casimir Subkowski took the name Casper Lebell.
They settled on the plot of land where the museum stands today, but the house the Lebells lived in at that time was much smaller than one that is here today. Casper Lebell earned a living in trade and in the shipping industry. It was his son, Casper Lebell Jr., who built the house that stands on this plot today. He earned a living as a spice merchant. Casper Lebell Jr. was the co-owner of several ships and made a fortune shipping out tar and timber, and bringing salt back into Finland on the return journeys.
Kristinestad was granted staple rights (control of goods) in 1792. From that point on, trade, shipping, and seafaring began to flourish in earnest. Export goods from the Finnish inland were part of the foundation of the town’s prosperity. Salt, tobacco, and iron were the predominant imported goods.
The busiest, most prosperous period of Ostrobothnian seafaring began in the 1820s, and Kristinestad experienced its gilded age as a maritime town just before the Crimean War.
