Patterson, John and Eliza Barr, House

This excellent example of vernacular Greek Revival architecture was built c.1844 and helps illustrate the building types brought from the Eastern states during Canton's period of settlement. It has been well maintained over the years. The Patterson family initially engaged in subsistence agriculture, then continued to contribute to the growth and economy of the township using more modern methods and equipment. The farm was owned by the same family until 1999. The property at 6205 N. Ridge Road was first recorded as a land patent from President Quincy Adams to Albert G. Fellows on October 31, 1825. It once consisted of 160 acres in the SE 1/4 of section 7. The house is now located on 48.9 acres in the southeast corner of section 7 facing Ridge Road. Mr. Fellows, from Monroe County, New York, appears on the first tax rolls and in the 1830 Michigan census. His brothers, Festus A. Fellows and Roy S. Fellows, bought the adjacent property in section 8. Fellows Creek, named after the brothers, once ran across their farms. It is still part of the landscape today, running across much of Canton and into the Lower Rouge River. An abstract indicates that the property was sold by Albert and Sally M. Fellows to Linus Potter on July 7, 1841. The tax rolls indicate that 53 acres on the east side of the SE 1/4 was owned by Linus Potter and the remaining part of the SE 1/4 was owned by Phelps Philemon. Though an 1855 atlas shows A. Fellows on the property, tax rolls and deed confirm Potter's ownership. Three years later the property was sold to John Patterson and has stayed in the family until the present. Patterson (July 23, 1804-October 3, 1856), who came to Michigan from Connecticut, also had an original land patent in the southeast quarter of section 8, though he was listed in the 1827 tax rolls as a non-resident. Family members say Patterson built the Greek Revival house, with log beams in the basement. It was probably built c. 1844. John Patterson's first wife, Pamelia, died at age 28 on July 4, 1834. Cornelia Patterson was born at about the same time as Pamelia's death. John Patterson then married Eliza Barr (10/17/1810-4/7/1885) from New York, and they are found in the 1850 census along with their children Mortimer, Alphonzo, Charles, and Cornelia. Other children of Eliza and John who died at a young age were Julia A., Minerva, and Roxana. When John Patterson died in 1856 at age 52, he left the land to Eliza with the stipulation that it should pass to their son Charles after Eliza's death. Eliza Patterson married George W. Peters, a farmer from Massachusetts. Eliza Peters' name appears on the 1860 and 1876 atlases, and on the tax rolls for property in sections 7 and 8 through 1873 (except 1872 when it was in Charles Patterson's name). The 1884 Agricultural Census gives a statistical picture of the activities of the farm at that time. They tilled 45 acres of land, had 15 acres of pasture/meadow, and 10 acres of unimproved land. Eliza owned $300 worth of livestock, her cows produced 300 pounds of butter, and she grew hay, corn, oats, winter wheat, potatoes, and three acres of apples. Eliza Peters died April 7, 1885 at age 70 years. In 1887, following his mother's death, Charles Patterson moved his family from Care, Michigan back to the family farm. Charles had a daughter, Delcania, from a first marriage. In 1879 he married Roseanna Blackmer from Vermont, who had a son, Walter. Charles and Roseanna had two daughters, Sadie (1879) and Mabel (1883). It was Sadie, married to Bert Shuart in 1900, who continued the family tradition of occupying the homestead after her father's death in 1907. Of the Shuart's four children, Florence (1903), Bernice (1906), Charles (1911), and Ruth (1918), it was Florence who eventually made the Ridge Road property her home. Florence married William Gilmore in 1936, and bought the farm in 1937. Mrs. Gilmore attended Hanford School, Ypsilanti High School, and Cleary College in Ypsilanti where she worked at a bank. The farmhouse is located on a rise of land that slopes gently to a wooded area north of the house. Old lilacs, apple, evergreens, and deciduous trees adorn the yard. Evergreens were a gift from the Huron Street home of Daniel Quirk in Ypsilanti, president of the Ypsilanti Savings Bank, and employer of Florence Gilmore in the 1930's. Mrs. Gilmore died March 13, 1999.

The John and Eliza Barr Patterson House is a one-and-one-half story frame Greek Revival house with wide frieze and box cornice with returns. This five-bay New England one-and-one-half cottage faces east on a gravel road. The symmetrical front facade fenestration includes a center doorway with four-light transom flanked by two twelve over twelve windows on each side. The north facade has three over three fenestration. The south facade has a center entry with entablature. The west facade has a plain door and asymmetrical fenestration. It has clapboard siding, a center chimney, shingle roof, and stone foundation. According to Diane Wilson's book, Cornerstones, the Gilmores replaced the home's roof, replaced clapboard siding and some of the windows, and removed a deteriorating portico. The interior of the house has had little remodeling. There are four bedrooms and a c.1940 bathroom upstairs. The bedroom in the southwest corner retains original stenciling in a leaf pattern with border around the top. The ground floor has a living and dining room in the front half of the house, and a bedroom and kitchen in the rear. Wooden cupboards in the kitchen appear old, but are difficult to date, although the family thinks they are original to the house. A small first floor bedroom in the southwest corner is called 'the birth room' by family members because a relative, Barbara Banks, was born there. Original hardware adorns the interior doors. The basement has hand-hewn beams. A one-story frame summer house with fireplace (former chicken coop, date unknown), and shed roof frame storage shed are located at the rear of the house. A small two-story frame twentieth century barn with hip roof is also located in the rear of the house. A gambrel-roof barn, once located to the south of the house, collapsed around 1978 or 1980. Part of the foundation is intact. The nominated property is located on the north end of a 48.79 acre parcel and consists of 43,556 square feet of land (almost one acre) which encompasses the house, outbuildings, and archeological site. The drive is bordered on the south by five large (a sixth was cut, leaving a stump) yellowwood trees (cladrastis lutea), used by American settlers to make yellow dye for textiles. On the north side of the driveway entrance is a Scotch pine (pinus sylvestris). Large maples and a silver linden (Tilia tomentosa) provide summer shade in the front yard. To the west of the house and outbuildings is a line of mature blue spruce (Picea pungens) that separates the mowed yard from a meadow. A large old apple tree grows a few feet behind the house. Several Norway spruce (Picea abies) dot the property. The wooded land north of the house slopes north toward Fellows Creek. A stone and cement barn foundation is located south of the present barn and is surrounded by an overgrowth of trees, wild black raspberries, poison ivy, and weeds. The yard retains its old lilacs, peonies, and lily of the valley. The family relates that a rose bush, planted by Grandma Sadie Shuart nearly 100 years ago, still thrives in the front yard. The land was tilled behind and south of the farmstead until recently when the 48.79 parcel on which this farm is located was purchased by Canton Township. Hanford School (built 1855) is located north on Ridge Road. The site still retains its nineteenth century feeling, but there is new residential development nearby.