Pittsfield Aims To Preserve Historic Farmstead As A Museum

In 2009, the historic Cody Farm near Textile and State roads was demolished. Not even the fact that the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody visited relatives there when he brought his Wild West Shows to this area could save this slice of local history.

 Township Historical Commissioners were determined not to lose another historical gem. And so the neighboring Sutherland-Wilson farmstead will meet a happier fate, becoming a farm museum under the tender care of the Pittsfield Township Historical Society and the Pittsfield Township Parks & Recreation Department.

  “Protection of the Sutherland-Wilson Farmstead and its eventual opening as a publicly-owned farm museum creates an anchor to the area’s history,” said Tom Dodd, chair of the township’s Historical Commission and secretary of the Historic District Committee.  Cobblestone Farm in Ann Arbor represents the period from 1800 to1850; Sutherland-Wilson Farmstead, 1850 to1900; and Saline’s Rentschler Farm, 1900 to 1950.  All three farms were once within the boundaries of the original township.

  “It’s still possible to traverse back roads between these three farms of the early settlers to observe the homes where they lived, the fields where they worked, their schools they attended, and the cemeteries where they are buried,” said Dodd, who gave a detailed presentation at the township’s June Board meeting. A public hearing about the proposed Historic District is set for August 8 at the Township Administration Building.

   The farm has been in the Sutherland-Wilson family for six generations. In 1832, Langford and Lydia Sutherland, with their first two children, arrived in Pittsfield Township from New York State. After first occupying a log house, they built a Greek Revival farmhouse.

  The Sutherlands were part of a broad movement of migrants to the area and in the 1850 census, were among 307 farm families in Pittsfield Township, owning one of the largest parcels of land.

  The pioneering family lived a simple life as farmers and members of the Baptist Church. A school built across from the farmhouse was named the Sutherland School and four of the couple’s eight children attended; three of them went on to play key roles in the development of local education.

  After Langford died in 1865, his son Tobias lived on the farmstead with his mother. Tobias and his wife Harriet had two children, Ernest and Bessie. Ernest married Delia Rheinfrank and they also lived on the farmstead. Ernest and Delia’s only child, Mildred, married Arthur Wilson, and their son, Harold, the sixth generation in Pittsfield Township, lived here with his wife Mary Roy and son Neil.

  With the death of the Wilsons in 2000, Pittsfield Charter Township became the owner of 4.6 acres of the farmstead and its buildings; the rest of the farm was swallowed up with residential development.

  The Greek Revival farmhouse is an almost pristine example of the New England one-and-one-half cottage type. The property includes a wood shed, carriage house, hog house, large barn, and icehouse buildings, all clustered along a horseshoe-shaped lane.

  “The farmstead may be unique in its many recognitions of the early settlers who lived there from 1840 until the property was purchased by the Township in 2000 – a Centennial Farm, Sesquicentennial Farm in 1987, National Register of Historic Places in 2006, and Michigan Barn of the Year in 2007,” Dodd said.

  Several trees include old sugar maples that family members may have tapped for maple syrup.

   According to family accounts, the house was used for Underground Railroad activity, and includes a “hidden room” where slaves hid. Since the Underground Railroad was an illegal activity, it is difficult to document primary sources, Dodd said.

  “What we have is a written recollection of a family legend that had been passed down through the generations,” he said. “Researchers will have to decide what it’s worth. The recollection was pasted to the wall of a closet hidden under the eaves in the ‘hired girl's’ room.”

  Members of the Historic District Study Committee – Tom Dodd, Janice Harwood Linda Klenczar, Betty LeClair, Al Paas, Helen Richards, Patricia Scribner, and Mary Ellen Wall – have taken photographs, conducted research, and prepared the preliminary report.

  “It is important to help maintain and continue to restore Pittsfield’s history,” LeClair wrote in the report.  “The Sesquicentennial Sutherland-Wilson Farm Museum is an important part of Pittsfield history which we are fortunate to have. Historic gems like this farm museum are becoming more and more rare, therefore everyone needs to take part in its preservation.”

     The Historic District Study Committee meets in the Pittsfield Township Administration Building at 5:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month; members of the public are welcome to attend. “We’d love to see younger people get involved in township history,” Dodd said.