In 1841, Oliver Damon at the age of 58, came to the Wauwatosa community. And on that visit, he bought 120 acres in what was legally called the northwest quarter of section 21 in the Town of Wauwatosa the old township of Wauwatosa. He paid the magnificent sum of $350 for these 120 acres. You couldn't even file your papers on a piece of property for $350, I don't think, today.

Oliver Damon stayed a few weeks here in Wauwatosa in 1841, living with his daughter and son-in-law. His daughter Lavinia, and his son-in-law, Jonathan Warren, had come to Wisconsin a few years earlier, in 1838. They were living south of this area, but the old man, old Oliver, got a little homesick. He returned to New Hampshire and after having sold all of his property there, he moved in and lived with his son Lowell for a number of years until returning to this area in 1843 with his wife.

Between the fall of 1847 and January of the following year, Oliver Damon disposed of his land holdings in Wauwatosa. The southern 60 acres of his property he sold to his daughter and son- in-law, the Warrens, for $200 in November 1847. And the following January, the northern 60 acres were sold to his son Lowell on Jan. 20, 1848.

This plat ... was bounded on the north by North Avenue; on the east by Wauwatosa Avenue, or 76th Street; on the south by the middle of the block between Rogers Avenue and Woodland Avenue. This was the common with the property that Oliver had sold to the Warrens. And on the west, the boundary of the Lowell Damon homestead would be what I guess you could say would be 82nd Street, if 82nd Street were extended south of North Avenue.

Sometime in the early 1850s, Lowell Damon as owner of the property deeded a half-acre in the extreme northeast comer to the Baptist Church and society here in Wauwatosa as the site for a church building. Now Oliver supposedly sold this property to Lowell for $1,000, but the records indicate the money was never paid over by Lowell to his father. Instead, an agreement was drawn up whereby Lowell Damon and his wife and family would provide a residency for their father and mother for the rest of their lives. That was very much like the traditions that were practiced in Europe where the parent would establish a life tenancy m a property that was taken over by the son.