The site was originally occupied in May 1825 by German immigrant Abram Walrod, who erected a log cabin beside the Huron River and was the first European resident of Commerce Township. The next recorded inhabitant was Frederick Peck, who built the current farm house in 1849 and lived there for almost 60 years until his death in 1908, after which his daughter, Grace Germine, became the next owner. The Byers family purchased the 2.3-acre property in 1932 for use as a summer cottage, and June Byers lived there from 1932 to 2007; the place was also affectionately known as Duckville for the large number of wild ducks that migrate there annually. Commerce Township purchased the property in 1998. A barn on the property, moved there around 1900 and probably dating from the 1830s, has a Dutch gambrel roof and rustic post-and-beam construction; it once housed a blacksmith shop, later served as a bait and tackle shop after the Byers family took over, and is now used to sell antiques and penny candy. The farm house stands at the confluence of the main branch of the Huron River and Hayes Creek, whose source is Green Lake, along a river that runs 130 miles from the Huron Swamp at Indian Springs Metropark in northern Oakland County to Lake Erie on the boundary between Wayne County and Monroe County.