THE OLDEST CONTINUALLY OCCUPIED HOUSE IN MICHIGAN.

Just recently, in 2016, I became more aware that this humble house in Pontiac where I live is ancient for this part of our country. While out east, or in parts of the south 1820 isn't so old but this time period here marks the beginning of the settlement of the interior of our state, away from major bodies of water surrounding us where the earliest settlements had started. While Detroit was settled in 1701, Sault Sainte Marie earlier yet, no early structures remain before 1826. The Sibley-Hoyt House that began as a cabin in 1819 or 1820 dates to the beginning of Pontiac, Oakland County, and the interior settlements of Michigan. It is the "oldest continually occupied residential structure in the state," as can be determined to date. It also has not been moved from it's original site as have two other earlier structures that exist in Monroe County. Two houses on Mackinac Island date to circa 1780 and are both museums as are the those in Monroe County. The Henry Ford Museum has early houses brought there from around the country.

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In November of 2004, the Hoyt House, located at 146 W. Lawrence St., in Pontiac, Michigan located within the Franklin Boulevard Historic District, became the Sibley-Hoyt House. Eighteen years of research had come to an end for me. The house I purchased in December of 1986, with little known history, now had a complete identity and paper trail of how it came to be. This new, complete history is on file with the Michigan Department of History, and the National Register of Historic Places. 

The Sibley Company Cabin, an 18x20' structure is at the center of this old place and was virtually identical to the one in the photo above. The early frame cabin was built by Solomon and Sarah Sibley, as a Pontiac Company resource. They provided the primary financing for the settlement of the Village of Pontiac and the construction of its first structures, including the first log house, mercantile, mills and this cabin. The house has seen many changes through the years, including the addition of another house, circa 1840, that was moved to this site in 1866 or 67 by George Hoyt and attached to the cabin. The Hoyt family made their home here for 111 years, teaching music and dance from here for 101 of those years. But the significance of this crooked and stand-alone structure existed long before the Hoyts came to town. 

Solomon Sibley, above, and his wife Sarah, were the central figures behind Pontiac's settlement as they provided the greater oversight and financial means for the first buildings and management team. The Sibley company cabin was built on a 10-acre outlot, part of the original village, owned by the Sibleys, that had frontage on the Clinton River.  It would have been used as housing for itinerant workers, with the cellar being a community resource, likely the first cellar built in Pontiac, high above the banks of the Clinton. The cabin was built out of sawn timbers, except the hewn mud sills, which means it couldn't have existed before 1819, when the saw mill was completed. Surely, it was one of the first things built once the mill was up and running.

It was also a Pontiac Company farm as referenced in Pontiac Company meeting minutes. It being one of a few parcels of acreage that were part of the original village. The Sibley's were throwing money at the new settlement in many ways. It is certain that farming for sustenance of settlers was at the top of the list.

Sibley was an important man in Detroit, the territory, and nationally. He was Detroit's first mayor and drafted its first charter. He was a territorial supreme court judge, and congressman. He was also appointed to chair the committee that was responsible for dividing and selling land in the Michigan Territory to veterans from the War of 1812. As such, he had unique access to the purchase of land in the area that came to be known as Pontiac, named for the prominent Ottawa Indian chieftain. The land that he and other members of the Pontiac Company purchased, was deeded to them in 1818. The first structure, a log cabin, was completed in late fall of that year for less than $150, one year after Avon Township's first settler. Solomon Sibley was chairman of the Pontiac Company for its first two years.

Sarah Sproat Sibley, Solomon's wife, was said to have brought the first piano to Detroit. She was instrumental in Pontiac's fledgling start as the overseer of the Pontiac Company's activity while Solomon was in Washington, Cincinnati, or elsewhere, that was frequently. One letter from Sarah to Solomon describes financial difficulties where Stephen Mack and Shubael Conant, partners in Mack, Conant, and Sibley, prevail upon Sarah to write Solomon asking for additional financial aid in procuring provisions, mostly food, for the new town. The partnership of these three men was in place to carry out the commerce of the new village as a mercantile; getting buildings built; provisions shipped, stored. and rationed. PHOTOS OF SIBLEYS COURTESY DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY, BURTON HISTORICAL COLLECTION

ABOVE: An early water-powered mill, similar in nature to the first mills erected in Pontiac. The saw mill was operational by 1819, according to letters & documents (from the Detroit Public Library, Burton Collection, Solomon Sibley manuscript collection)  financed by the Sibleys.

 
ABOVE: Elizabeth Denison, was born enslaved in the 1780s in Macomb County, Michigan. In 1825 Solomon and Sarah Sibley sold Ms. Denison 48.5 acres of land in Pontiac, likely making her the first woman of color to purchase land in the Michigan Territory. She was free at the time. It's important to remember that women of any color did not buy land in those days. Their husbands did. Therefore, it is important to recognize the Sibleys for enabling this purchase against all norms and with great understanding of right is right.

On November 5, 1992, a historical marker was dedicated commemorating Ms. Denison through efforts of Ms. Cora Bradshaw, and her Pontiac, elementary students. It is located in the eastern section of Oak Hill Cemetery, where her land was located. It's very likely that Ms. Denison, who later married Scipio Forth, actually stayed in the Sibley Company Cabin, as they faciliated her purchase of land here. The cabin had been around five years by the time of her land purchase. She also had been employed by the Sibleys. PHOTO COURTESY ORVILLE G. MUMFORD

ABOVE:  The 21-Star Flag became the offical U.S. flag on July 4th, 1819, with the admission of Illinois to the Union, December 3, 1818. This is the flag that would have flown at the time the Sibley Company Cabin was constructed. James Monroe was our fifth president. The flag changed one year later to the 23-Star Flag. Beginning in 1818, when Pontiac was founded, it was decided that only stars would be added for new states, versus a star and stripe as had been done previously. At that time, the flag reverted from fifteen stripes, on the Star Spangled Banner flag of 1814, to thirteen stripes, representing the thirteen founding colonies.

The little cabin was crude in nature by evidence still here. It existed for forty-three years before George Hoyt, Professor of music from New York state, bought it and made it his home. In preparation for his marriage to Carrie Wilcox, in 1867, he bought, or was given, a nearby Greek Revival two-story house dating to 1840, that he proceded to have moved to this site and attached to the cabin. He was assisted in the house moving project by Charles Palmer, owner of the Myrick-Palmer House on Huron Street. George and Carrie had a daughter, Georgia, in 1876. After George died in 1885 several changes occurred over the following fifteen or twenty years, and essentially none since.

Music Taught Here

101 Years

This photo is the Sibley-Hoyt House in the first half of the twentieth century. You can barely make out the Victorian uncovered porch on the right side of the house, halfway back. This porch was gone when I bought the house. Additions made by Mrs. Hoyt, and her daughter Georgia include an indoor toilet and bathroom, fireplace, formal dining room, and the wide front porch. There was only a small front stoop here when this part of the house was moved here. All the Hoyts taught music. George came to Michigan initially through Charles Palmer, of the Myrick-Palmer House, and taught music at the Romeo Academy in Romeo, Michigan, an extension of the University of Michigan, where Palmer was the principal. George was blind. He was also organist at All Saints Church. The Hoyts had a music store in Pontiac for a few years: Lockwood & Hoyt. Professor Hoyt was partner with Charles Lockwood, formerly of Detroit. They also had a publishing company: Lockwood & Hoyt. After the store closed, the old sign was used to make new cellar stairs here. Access to the cellar in this house changed at least three times over the years. Carrie Hoyt is shown in a city directory as a music teacher from her home, after George passed. She was formally educated in the school of music. Georgia went to school for dance, and taught music and dance here for over sixty-five years.

ABOVE: Georgia Hoyt in one of her gardens here, with a feline friend. She was an animal rights activist, being a founding member of two animal humane societies. The Michigan Animal Rescue League, still operating in Pontiac, had its first meeting in this house.

Overall, this house has changed very little in the past one hundred years. It is a time capsule of home improvements from the early 19th century, to the turn of the 20th century.

These are the original cedar shingles on the front portion of the house that was moved here in 1867. These shingles date to around 1840. Altogether, there were six layers of roofing on this portion of the house when I put the new roof on in the summer of 2007. There was also a small chimney in the center of this roof that was unsupported to the ground causing the roof structure to sag. It was obsolete and so it was removed during this roofing project. Improvements to the house's exterior and interior continue.

     The Sibley-Hoyt House is located two blocks south of Huron St. (M-59), and one block west of the Woodward Loop (the west side of the loop) near downtown Pontiac. The home is flanked by two large sugar maples.

HOUSE NEWS

Et seq. is an abbreviation of a latin expression meaning, and that which follows. I learned this when having a historical sign painted for my house several years ago. The sign painter was located in New England and stated that this designation was used frequently in the east to describe old houses. It's most suitable for the Sibley-Hoyt House because so much of the house's story truly follows that of the early cabin built in 1819 or 1820. The history that came after the cabin is every bit as important and significant in the description of it's history on the  National Register of Historic Places.

Feel free to leave comments and contact information below. Events may be held here periodically. Let us know if you would like to be notified.

ABOVE: Sibley-Hoyt House, summer 2011 while getting new paint and colors.

ABOVE: Smarty comes to stay on W. Lawrence in June of 2010, after a troubled childhood.

ABOVE: March, 2009, and the sap is running. There are two very old sugar maples here, and one about thirty years old. I have eight buckets on trees as of today, March 14, 2009 and the sap is running well.