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Bussard Farmstead at the Agricultural History Farm Park

Bussard Farmstead at the Agricultural History Farm Park
18400 Muncaster Road
Derwood, MD 20855
Event Hotline: 301-670-4661
Open for special events throughout the year. Please check our event calendar.

This 1908 farm of the Bussard family includes a large bank barn, water tank house and other outbuildings. The Farmstead is located within the Agricultural History Farm Park, a 455-acre complex with an historic farmhouse, barn, assorted farm buildings and a modern activity center situated along Rock Creek in Derwood. To interpret past farming practices, 70 acres were set aside as an historic area. The farmhouse is currently being furnished to reflect the home of an average turn-of-the-century family. Programs to interpret the typical Montgomery County farmer's lifestyle are planned for the future.

History

The Bussard Farm is a well-preserved example of a Montgomery County farmstead at the turn of the 20th century. Thaddeus Bussard, of Frederick County, built the main block of the house in 1908. The late example of a center-cross-gable house is tangible evidence of the persistence of traditional building forms in the county. With a floor plan popular since the early 1800s, the house is one-room deep with a center hall. A polygonal east-bay window adjoins the front porch. The east kitchen dates from the early 1800s, while the rear ell was built about 1864. Both of these sections had been added onto the original log and stone house, which no longer stands.

The Bussard family built the large frame bank barn in 1898 with the help of Frederick County barn builders, using square louvered windows, German siding, and a stone foundation. The barn has a half-open forebay with one end of the downhill overhang, supported by a stone wall and the other end open.

A large log smokehouse has vertical siding and an overhanging front gable roof; a frame granary also has vertical siding. A water tower (tank house) moved in 1998 from Etchison’s Dorsey Farm, replaces a similar structure previously demolished. Other onsite features include a chicken coop, corn crib, broody house, carriage shed, hay barracks, equipment shed, granary and the privy – all of which played extremely important roles in the operations of the turn of the 20th century. The farm also has a champion Nordmann fir tree with a 9-foot trunk circumference. The Bussard family continued to own and operated the farm until the 1970s.

Last Updated: April 25, 2008