Griffith Breese Farm

Griffith Breese Farm
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Roadside view of the farmhouse
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Location	2875 Fort Amanda Road
Nearest city	Lima, Ohio
Coordinates	40°42′9″N 84°9′32″W
Area	65 acres (26 ha)
Built	1840
Architect	Griffith Breese
Architectural style	Federal
NRHP reference No.	83001942[1]
Added to NRHP	January 11, 1983

The Griffith Breese Farm is a historic farmstead in southern Allen County, Ohio, United States. Established in 1840, the farm is one of the oldest white settlements in a formerly Native American area of northwestern Ohio, and it has been designated a historic site because of its unusually good degree of preservation.

Griffith Breese

The son of John Breese, Griffith was a native of Wales who immigrated to the United States in 1798.[2]: 787  He married a Pennsylvania native, Mary Mowen, who bore him a son George in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, before they moved to Ohio.[2]: 785  Breese bought six sections of land in present-day Shawnee Township,[2]: 237  on lands that had once been part of the Hog Creek Indian Reservation.[2]: 538  Moving his family to Section 10 of the township in 1834,[2]: 237  they found that their new home was a former apple orchard: eighty apple trees and seven cabins of the Shawnee former residents occupied the site.[2]: 541  During their first winter, they lived in the reservation's former council house,[2]: 785  and Breese was elected to the first group of trustees of the Shawnee Township.[2]: 537–538  By 1840, Breese had grown sufficiently prosperous that he was able to establish the present homestead.^[citation needed] The first of the four Federal buildings on the property were erected in that year,[1] and he bought additional land in northwestern Allen County's Marion Township five years later.[2]: 444  Breese continued to live on the farm until his death in 1848.[2]: 237 

Recent history

Today, the Griffith Breese Farm is a major historic site in Shawnee Township. With the decline in Lima's economy, Shawnee Township has become a suburban area; small shopping malls and modern housing developments surround the farm, and no other pioneer homestead in the township has been so well preserved.[3]

In recognition of its historic architecture, the Griffith Breese Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Four buildings, spread out over an area of 65 acres (26 ha), qualified as contributing properties.[1]

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
2. History of Allen County, Ohio: Containing a History of the County, its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Industries, etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; Biographies; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio; Statistical and Miscellaneous Matter, etc., etc. Chicago: Warner, Beers, & Co., 1885.
3. Owen, Lorrie K., ed. Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 9-10.