William Campbell, a Scottish immigrant who had taught school and ran a farmer’s cooperative story in Ypsilanti, purchased the farm in 1881. Gaining renown for his purebred Durham cattle and sheep, he implemented a system of crop rotation and greatly extended the apple orchard west of the house. Three generations of Campbells worked the 225 acre farm and kept the house essentially unchanged for 91 years.

Never fully recovering from a disastrous fire which gutted the farm outbuildings in 1924, son Clair Campbell’s heirs sold much f the farmland for postwar housing developments. The Joseph Buhr family bought 39 acres north and east of the house and gave it to the City of Ann Arbor for a park in 1955. Siblings George and Mary Campbell sold the farmhouse and last 4 1/2 acre parcel to the City of Ann Arbor in 1972. Throughout the years they have been instrumental in providing both artifacts and oral histories that enrich the site.

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