The Goll Homestead is a historic

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

complex in far western

Fulton County Fulton County is the name of eight counties in the United States of America. Most are named for Robert Fulton, inventor of the first practical steamboat: *Fulton County, Arkansas, named after Governor William Savin Fulton *Fulton County, Georgia *F ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Located in German Township northwest of Archbold, the farm has been declared a historic site because of its role in the region's settlement.

House

Before white settlement, Fulton County was a very heavily wooded region. Although most early settlers in this Black Swamp county cleared their lands, Peter Goll, Sr. and his wife Catherine preserved significant areas of virgin woodlands on their property.State Board Recommends 10 Ohio Nominations to the National Register of Historic Places
, Ohio Historical Society, 2005-08-05. Accessed 2010-08-06. After immigrating to the United States from France in 1836, the Golls' first home in western Fulton County was a

log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers. Eur ...

, approximately east of the present farmstead. As Peter Goll, Jr. grew to adulthood, he married and established a new farmstead; building a new house, he used a distinctively European method of massive timber construction derived from the vernacular architecture of the region's earliest French and German settlers. In 1862, one day before their child was born, Peter, Jr. and his wife moved into the new white wooden house. Soon afterward, his parents also moved into the house; in order to accommodate both households, the structure was built divided into two parts, each accessible by a different front door.

Barn

Three years after the house was completed, the Golls erected a barn to shelter their different types of livestock:

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

dairy cows Dairy cattle (also called dairy cows) are cattle bred for the ability to produce large quantities of milk, from which dairy products are made. Dairy cattle generally are of the species ''Bos taurus''. Historically, little distinction was mad ...

, and possibly

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

s. Like the house, the barn employed distinctive construction methods; its structure was based on wooden

mortise and tenon A mortise and tenon (occasionally mortice and tenon) joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right ...

construction, with the massive beams being made from

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

trees cut on the property. In later years, the barn was modified several times; one of these renovations involved the raising of the entire structure by one story to simplify the keeping of livestock.

Public ownership

The house and related buildings remained in the Goll family for a full century. By the 1960s, ownership had passed to a descendant named Florence Louys, who decided to sell the farmstead and woods to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), which converted it into parkland, the Goll Woods State Nature Preserve. After the state took control of the property, the house and barn were converted for park purposes; the barn was used for storage, and

park ranger A ranger, park ranger, park warden, or forest ranger is a law enforcement person entrusted with protecting and preserving parklands – national, state, provincial, or local parks. Description "Parks" may be broadly defined by some systems in thi ...

s lived in the house. By the 1990s, ODNR had decided to cease using the house for residential purposes, and the decision was made in the early 2000s to demolish both buildings. Some local residents reacted strongly against this proposal; by working with ODNR and the

Ohio General Assembly The Ohio General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio. It consists of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives and the 33-member Ohio Senate. Both houses of the General Assembly meet at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus ...

, they were able to secure

grants Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom *Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama *Grant, Inyo County, C ...

from the state for the property's restoration, and renovation efforts began in both the barn and the house. In 2005, the Goll Homestead, comprising four buildings spread out over an area of , was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. It qualified for inclusion both because of its place in local history and because of its well-preserved historic architecture:, Ohio Historical Society, 2007. Accessed 2010-08-06. it was a survivor of the county's early period of settlement, and its buildings employed elements of distinctively European architecture, such as construction with large timbers. Since that time, restoration efforts have continued — volunteer members of the nonprofit Friends of Goll Homestead have repaired the buildings and returned them to a condition more closely resembling the days of Peter Goll, Jr., while teams from Eastern Michigan University have aided in removing modifications to the house in hopes of converting it into a base from which to conduct experiments in the surrounding woodland.

References

{{NRHP in Fulton County, Ohio Houses completed in 1862 Houses in Fulton County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Fulton County, Ohio Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Nature reserves in Ohio Vernacular architecture in Ohio 1862 establishments in Ohio Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio