The Keeper’s House was the personal residence of the first two keepers of the nearby Marblehead Lighthouse, Benajah Wolcott and his wife Rachel Miller Wolcott, and was built for them by William Kelly, a stonemason from Sandusky, Ohio, who also built the lighthouse and many old stone structures in that city. Marblehead Lighthouse, constructed in 1821, was one of the first lighthouses on the Great Lakes and is the oldest in continuous operation. Benajah Wolcott served as keeper from 1821 until his death in 1832, and his widow Rachel succeeded him, serving until February 1854 as the first female lighthouse keeper on the Great Lakes. Benajah was also a farmer and pioneer settler of Danbury Township and Ottawa County on the Danbury Peninsula, which separates Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay and lies within the Firelands, land granted by Connecticut to residents whose homes were burned by British forces during the Revolutionary War. A Revolutionary War veteran from Connecticut, Wolcott first arrived in 1806 with a survey crew surveying the Firelands after the Fort Industry Treaty, then returned in 1809 as the first of a small number of settlers in the area called The Orchards or Danbury Settlement, the first American settlement in Ottawa County. The house was long known locally as the Old Stone Fort, possibly through an erroneous connection to a skirmish between American and Indian forces that ranged across the peninsula, the first battle in Ohio of what became the War of 1812; American soldiers who died there were buried at the site, including at least one Revolutionary War veteran. Rachel Wolcott conveyed the house to her son Henry Wolcott in 1845, and the home remained in the family until 1900; Henry became a prominent Danbury Township fruit grower. During the 1920s the house was converted into a summer restaurant, and in 1989 it was acquired by the Ottawa County Historical Society. It is maintained for preserving and interpreting the heritage of Danbury Township and the Firelands, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is the oldest known residence in Ottawa County, one of the oldest in northwest Ohio, and a rare intact example of an early American hall-and-parlor folk house.