History of The Land & Origins

In 1907, at age 40, Jesse Emmett Pitman and his wife Annie left their home in Kansas, with their eight (8) children and were the first Pioneers to settle on this land, across Tilley Road and the Millersylvania Homestead. Prior to that, our property lies within the accustomed territory of multiple Native American tribes including the South Lushootseed and Upper Chelalis groups, in the mid-1800s the land that is now Millersylvania (to the east of Tilley Road including Deep Lake) was claimed by homesteaders until the Miller Family settled in 1882.  Millersylvania was willed to the State as a park in perpetuity in 1921, our property is directly bordered by State forest to the west, south and east. 

First building the road in 1907 and then the barn in 1910 and the farm-house in 1912, the Pitmans, for which our lake is named for, lived until Jesse’s death in 1935 and Annie’s in 1953.  The land was largely used as a dairy farm (the large barn, milk parlor, pastures, water on property etc.)   The original 320 acres were sub-divided over the years and passed through the Pitman family until 1995 and two buyers until the Lewis family purchased in May of 2021.  All of the original farm buildings are on the twenty-eight (28) acre parcel(s) that were purchased and are zoned agri-tourism.  We have been working with groups such as the Conservation Land Trust to help insure that the property, and important environmental areas are protected for the next one hundred years and beyond.