Sturges–Marble House, 690 N. Hagadorn (1849)

Sturges–Marble House, November 2003. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

This farmhouse was built in 1849 by Augustus L. Sturges, the first white settler of a ninety-acre farm that extended from this site eastward. The farm adjacent to the south was settled by Horace Bigelow in that same year. The section line trail that became Hagadorn Road was initially “brushed out” north of Grand River Avenue by Sturges and Bigelow.[Coggan, p. 31]

In 1860 John Putnam Marble purchased the land along with another fifty acres to the west, and donated a portion of that land to establish a school district. As a result the surrounding local community took on the Marble name and the first Marble School was soon built across the road.[LSJ, 26 Feb 1967, p. 5. Beers, p. 51]

J. P. Marble’s daughter, Mary Angela Sophia Marble, married Warren Burcham in 1872. For more about her, see Robert Burcham and Burcham’s Woods.

The house is now used as a day care center.