Harry Anderson, retired executive director of the Milwaukee County Historical Society, speaking in the back yard of the Lowell Damon House at the re-opening of the museum on June 6, 1999:

Lowell Damon and his homestead, its boundaries, family, occupants, and subsequent owners.

It's sometimes difficult to measure one's term of service for an organization, or in this case, with a facility. But I was reminded as I was sitting, listening to my predecessors, these trees were planted after I had been here about 8 or 10 years. Look at the size of them now. That is to me a measurement of how long I was around and why it was a good thing that I left.

This afternoon, I'd like to target the three audiences that are represented here: the Milwaukee County Historical Society, that's the owner of the Lowell Damon House property; the Friends of the Historical Society, which is a group that is supporting the society's responsibilities in connection with this facility; and the Lowell Damon Woods Neighborhood Association. It's always encouraging to groups such as the Historical Society when the neighbors of a facility like this become interested, involved and supportive of its maintenance and programming.

What I'm going to try to do is share some information about the individual whose name is borne by this facility, about the history of the relationship of the house to the Damon family, and to the pioneer period in Wauwatosa history, and also to shed some light on how the Damon House became a part of the Milwaukee County Historical Society's program of preservation of historic structures. You may know that in addition to the Damon House, the Society owns and operates three other historic facilities in Milwaukee County: the Kilbourntown House in Estabrook Park, and the Jeremiah Curtin House down in the Village of Greendale.

For perspective, I'd like to share with you some background about the Damon family. Supposedly, the first Damon came to what is today the United States from Reading, England, about 1650, and he settled in a place called Wakefield, Mass. If any of you are from Boston, you know that Wakefield is a northern suburb of the present city of Boston. Five generations later, the first of the Damons who are affiliated with the house here in Wauwatosa is Oliver Damon Jr. comes on the scene. He is the fifth generation after the first Damon to arrive in the New World. At a very young age, he moved with his family to a place called Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, which I had to struggle with to find on the map. It's in the southwest comer of the state of New Hampshire, near the northern border of Massachusetts, the eastern border of Vermont.