Thomas Durham, a Quaker born on October 1, 1784, in Brunswick, Virginia, came from a large and influential family of English origin that had settled in Virginia in the later part of the 17th or early part of the 18th century. Durham and his family arrived on this site on May 11, 1835, after he purchased 160 acres from Gurdon S. Hubbard in what was then called Bourbonnais Grove. Hubbard, formerly an employee of the American Fur Company, had become a Chicago merchant and part-time real estate agent dealing with eastern land speculators. Durham’s land was part of a section ceded to the métis Jacques Vieau, known as Jonveau, by an 1832 treaty between the Potawatomi of the Prairie and the Kankakee and the United States Government. The Danville to Chicago Road crossed the northeast corner of the property, and the Bourbonnais Trace, a north-south trail, divided it. At the place Durham chose for his home stood twin oak trees, with open prairie to the east and scattered hardwood timber to the west. Local tradition holds that resident Potawatomi helped Durham build his first shelter, a wigwam made of boughs, followed by a sturdy log cabin and, by the late 1830s, a two-story timber-frame house with a large barn nearby. During the 1840s a horse barn was added. An 1850 agricultural census reported that Durham owned 320 acres, half of it improved land, along with nine horses, four milk cows, two working oxen, and 100 cattle, and that he harvested wheat, Indian corn, oats, and Irish potatoes while also producing 200 pounds of maple sugar and 1000 pounds of beeswax and honey. The house served as a stop on the Danville to Chicago stagecoach route, and from October 2, 1849, to February 11, 1853, the Bourbonnais Grove Post Office operated there with Thomas as postmaster. Thomas Durham died on March 13, 1854, and was buried in the corner of his orchard. He left his estate to his sons. In 1866, one of Durham’s sons-in-law, David Perry, owned and renovated the original house, and over the years several rooms were added. In the 1870s, David’s son Alvah converted part of the house into living quarters for a tenant farmer.