When David Josiah Hanford purchased the mill in 1860, he also acquired the farmstead on this site. The original farmhouse, built in the 1850s, was occupied by D.J. Hanford and his family for several decades as he expanded both the mill business and his farm. After D.J. Hanford died in 1899, his youngest son John took over the farm. By then, the farmstead included an 1850s smokehouse, an 1870s wagon shed with a basement pig pen, an 1880s chicken coop, and an 1890s creamery. A pipe carried water from the mill to run a water turbine that powered equipment in the creamery. In 1909, John had his parents' house moved one lot to the north and built the current farmhouse, using the existing creamery building as the house's kitchen wing. In 1917, he built a garage behind the house for his first automobile, a Ford touring car.