Beginning in 1846 when Alexander Hammond constructed the earliest portion of his farmhouse, and continuing through the remainder of the nineteenth century, all of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first century, 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 was born in Pennsylvania on June 9, 1821. By 1841, Caroline’s family had traveled to Wisconsin and established a homestead in the Town of Cottage Grove; at the time, the Browns were the fourth family to homestead in the township. By 1843, Alexander Hammond had also arrived in the present-day area of Cottage Grove where he met Caroline Brown and purchased land south of her family’s homestead.

Alexander and Caroline were married in in the fall of 1846 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. Taken as a whole, the Hammond Farmstead is an excellent local representative of the evolution of a family tobacco and dairy farm from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

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