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Ella Sharp Art and History Museum (Hillside Farm)

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Hillside Farm
1840s; 1857; 1967–1968 Peter F. Hurst Planetarium, 1968 exhibition gallery, 1987 Mildred I. Hadwin Center, Dabbert and Fleming. 3225 4th St.

This community cultural complex is made up of a nineteenth-century farmhouse, historic buildings moved onto the grounds, and a twentieth-century art center (Mildred I. Hadwin Center), planetarium (Peter F. Hurst Planetarium), and gallery (Exhibition Gallery). They stand in a park setting on the Hillside Farm site. The site was acquired by Abraham Wing of Glens Falls, New York, in 1855 and it passed through the Dwight Merriman Family to their daughter Ella Sharp (1857–1912). Within a short time the Merrimans and Sharps expanded the farm to more than six hundred acres of pastures and meadows and developed its reputation for its dairy and livestock herds and its orchards. Additions were wrapped around the north and west sides of the farmhouse. The house was then crowned with a three-story Italianate tower topped with a belvedere to form the appearance of the present-day museum.

Writing Credits

Kathryn Bishop Eckert


What's Nearby


Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Ella Sharp Art and History Museum (Hillside Farm)", [Jackson, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—,

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 183-184.



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