Sutherland, Landgford and Lydia McMichael, Farmstead

The Sutherland Farmstead with its diverse collection of farm buildings is a well-preserved example of nineteenth and early twentieth-century southern Michigan farmsteads. The farmstead also represents a broad pattern in the history of Washtenaw County and southern Michigan of settlement by Euro-Americans from the northeastern United States, in this case, upstate New York. In 1832, Langford and Lydia Sutherland with their first two children arrived in Pittsfield Township from Ontario County, New York, to establish this farm. Like many early settlers in this region, they built, after first occupying a log house, a Greek Revival house similar to those being built in the east. The Sutherland House is significant in Washtenaw County as a well preserved example of the New England one-and-one-half cottage of Greek Revival design. The Sutherland farm remained a working farm within the same family for over one hundred years. These farms are rapidly disappearing from the developing suburban area of Washtenaw County. Pittsfield Township became the first charter township in Washtenaw County in 1825. The history of Euro-American settlement in this area however, goes back as far as 1824. When Langford and Lydia Sutherland arrived in what is now Pittsfield Township, they were part of a broad movement of migrants to the area, and southern Michigan in general, from New England and upstate New York. Farming made up a significant percentage of land use in Pittsfield Township in 1850. Out of 23,040 acres in the township, farms occupied 15,137 acres. In the 1850 census, the Sutherlands were among 307 farm families in Pittsfield Township. Among these farmers, the Sutherlands owned one of the largest parcels of land. The Sutherland family had a longstanding history in Pittsfield Township as a pioneering family with a strong connection to the social fabric of the community. They lived life as farmers and members of the Baptist Church. Langford Sutherland's prominence as one of the largest landholders and as a successful farmer in the township did not go unnoticed. A school that was built on land across from his house was named the Sutherland School after the family. Four of the Sutherland's eight children attended this school and three of them would play key roles in the development of education on the local level. Following Langford Sutherland's death in 1865, his son Tobias lived on the farmstead with his mother, Lydia. Tobias married Harriet Knaouse and they had two children. His son Ernest married Delia Rheinfrank and they also resided on the farmstead. Ernest and Delia Sutherland's only child, Mildred, married Arthur Wilson. Mildred and Arthur's son, Harold, the sixth generation of the family in Pittsfield Township, lived here until 2000. Harold Wilson was the last direct descendant of Langford and Lydia Sutherland to live on the farmstead before it was sold to Pittsfield Township. The Sutherland-Wilson Farmstead contains a well preserved collection of nineteenth and early twentieth-century farm buildings typical of southern Michigan. These buildings include a raised gable-roof main barn, carriage house/horse barn, ice house, woodshed and pigpen. Except for the unobtrusive garage/apartment building behind the house, this farmstead retains a high level of historic and architectural integrity. As a result of a 1981-82 reconnaissance-level survey of architecture in rural Washtenaw County and follow-up study in 1984-85 of selected Greek Revival buildings carried out under Dr. Marshall McLennan of the Eastern Michigan University Department of Geography and Geology, the Sutherland House was evaluated as 'one of the best surviving examples in the county of the synthesis of a New England tradition one-and-one half New England cottage with a central hall version of the New England plan and Greek Revival stylistic expression.' This house form is found in New England, upstate New York, and westward across the northern part of the United States to the western Great Lakes region- areas settled extensively by people from New England and New York in the early and mid-nineteenth century -and only rarely elsewhere. These houses in the Great Lakes region date primarily from the period of the 1830s to the 1860s and are almost always Greek Revival in style.

The Sutherland Farmstead is located on the south side of Textile Road, between State and Lohr Roads in Pittsfield Township, southeast of Ann Arbor. The farmstead occupies 4.6 acres of the original farm property. The rest of the farm has been built up with residential development, but the land across the road currently remains open. In addition to a Greek Revival farmhouse that exemplifies the New England one-and-one-half cottage type, the farmstead contains five other buildings clustered along a lane that runs back from the street past the farmhouse. These buildings include gable roof wood shed, carriage house, pig pen, large barn, and icehouse clad in vertical boarding, board-and batten, and horizontal novelty siding. The house was sold to Pittsfield Township in 1999 and will be restored and managed as a farm museum by the Pittsfield Township Historical Society. The farmstead forms a somewhat L-shaped tract with frontage of about 285 feet along Textile Road, a depth of about 570 feet, and width at the rear, where a small rectangular projection forms the end of the foot of the ell, about 485 feet. The farmhouse stands near the center of the front of the property and faces north on Textile Road. The primary farm lane extends back from the street, running along the house's east side south to the barn's east end. The wood shed is located on the west side of the lane near the house, the carriage house sits well back on the same side, with the pig pen building a little behind it, the barn east of the pig pen at the south end of the drive, and the ice house on the drive's east side southeast of the carriage house. The property also contains a non-contributing modern (1965) garage/apartment located directly behind the house. A second lane extends back from Textile Road along the house's west side, looping around to intersect the main lane just south of the ice house. In front of the house, there are large, older trees arranged roughly in rows along the east side of the main drive and west side of the lane west of the house. Several of the trees have been identified as sugar maples and the oldest maple is estimated to be 150 years old.