Pioneer Farmsteads: William Hulsizer Farm

William Hulsizer farmhouse in 1897

One of Avon Township's early farms, settled before the Civil War, was the William Hulsizer farm on Section 24, located on the north side of today's Hamlin Road, just east of John R. William Hulsizer was born in Lebanon, New Jersey in 1818 and emigrated to Michigan with his wife and children in 1859. The couple established a farm on 86 acres of land southeast of the village of Rochester and reared twelve children there.  (One of the Hulsizer children, William H. Hulsizer, was a well-known auctioneer in the Rochester area for many years.) In September 1894 the family suffered a setback when their farmhouse was lost in a fire, but they quickly built a new house on the same foundation, finishing it in 1895.  The Hulsizers called their farm "Maple Villa," and lived there until their respective deaths in 1904 and 1905; in all, they were married for 64 years.

The William Hulsizer farm was subdivided in 1920 when the Ferryview Homelands plat was approved. Today, the Hulsizer farmhouse is 118 years old; it still stands on a small remnant of the farm at the corner of East Hamlin and Gravel Ridge roads, looking much the same as it did in this 1897 view from the booklet Beautiful Rochester.