Jenison Museum / Jenison Museum

Jenison is named for a pioneer family of English descent. Lemuel Jenison, son of a Revolutionary War soldier, came to the Grand River Valley from New York in 1835 with his family. Among the seven children born to Lemuel and his wife Sara were four daughters and three sons, Hiram and twins Luman and Lucius. Lemuel died in 1837. The care and support of the family fell on the eldest son, then twenty-four, and the twins who were fourteen. Sara died in 1841. The Jenison brothers, initially lumbermen, later branched out in other ventures. They donated land for roads, schools, and churches. Hiram, who served as the first Georgetown Township supervisor, died in 1889. Lucius and Luman, who were business partners, both died in 1899, and much of their estate was left to Margaret Husband who built this house. Margaret Husband was bookkeeper for, and legatee of, the Jenison twins. She built this landmark house at the turn of the century as a memorial to the twins. This two-story mansion, with massive fieldstone foundation, has ten rooms, curved plate glass windows in the turret, and leaded and beveled glass doors. Margaret Husband left the house to her daughter Bessie Husband Hanchett who died in 1960. Subsequently, the house was purchased by the C. W. Tiffany family, who began the restoration process later taken up by the Jenison Historical Association. In 1971 the Georgetown Township Board voted to try to save the house, which had been purchased by the Department of State Highways and Transportation for demolition. Through the efforts of these historians, the State Highway Commission voted in 1975 to leave the Jenison Museum on this site.