Enlarge

Cottage Grove, Dane County, WI. - The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the Hammond Farmstead on the State Register of Historic Places.

The Hammond Farmstead has been owned and operated by the Hammond family for over 175 years. Alexander Hammond was born in Ticonderoga, New York on June 22, 1800. Caroline (Brown) Hammond moved to Wisconsin with her family who established a homestead in the Town of Cottage Grove in 1821; at the time, the Browns were the fourth family to homestead in the township. By 1843, Alexander Hammond had also arrived, where he met Caroline Brown and purchased land south of her family’s homestead.

Alexander and Caroline were married in the fall of 1846, the year the original farmhouse was constructed, and began farming on the property the following spring. The Hammond Farmstead’s existing agricultural outbuildings were constructed between 1901 and c.1965 by subsequent generations of the Hammond family. The outbuildings reflect the evolving agricultural trends – from tobacco cultivation to dairy farming – that were prevalent in southeastern Dane County during this period.  In addition to the original Alexander and Caroline Hammond house which features a hewn wood frame, buildings on the farmstead include a dairy barn (1901) with attached milk house (c.1950), a freestanding milk house (c.1910), a tobacco stripping house (c.1910), a garage (c.1938), a tobacco shed (1946), and a concrete stave silo with attached trough (c.1965). The property also contains a corn crib (c.1990) and a secondary house (originally a Quonset building) that was moved to the property in 1949 with a 1960 addition. The property as a whole is an excellent local representation of the evolution of a family tobacco and dairy farm from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. 

The State Register is Wisconsin's official list of state properties determined to be significant to Wisconsin's heritage. The State Historic Preservation Office at the Wisconsin Historical Society administers both the State Register and National Register in Wisconsin.

Additional information for the Hammond Farmstead is available at

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI243099

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: www.wisconsinhistory.org.

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.