National Register of Historic Places

Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead

Prairie Ronde Township, Kalamazoo County, Michigan
Listed
May 1, 2007
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
07000387

About this property

The Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead is a farmhouse and associated buildings located at 5992 West VW Avenue in Prairie Ronde Township, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. European settlers first arrived in Prairie Ronde Township in 1828. In 1837, William and Elizabeth Crose Fanckboner moved to Prairie Ronde from Warren County, New Jersey along with their five children, following Elizabeth's father, Christopher Crose, and brother, Jesse Miller Crose, who had settled nearby earlier in the 1830s. The Fanckboners and Croses came from Scott’s Mountain, Oxford Township, New Jersey in what was then called Sussex (now Warren) County. Just to the north is the small town of Belvidere, and Easton lies to the west of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. Three Fanckboner males, presumably related, arrived at Philadelphia from Germany in 1752 aboard the Duke of Wirtenburg. One of them, Conrath or Conrad (1720-1781) Fanckboner (alternate spellings: Funckbohner, Fangbonner), was the grandfather of William Fanckboner, Sr. Christopher Crose, the elder, is in Oxford Township, New Jersey in 1780. He died there in 1799. His son, Christopher (1783-1857), married Sabra Miller (1784-1866). She was from Westfield NJ, near New York City and her family can be traced back two more generations there. Accompanying the Fanckboners and Croses, were the Gingles family (Ingels, alternate spelling), also from the same area in w. New Jersey. James Gingles was married to Hannah Crose (b. 1812), another daughter of Christopher and Sabra. The Gingles had the farm just to the east of Christopher Crose and its ownership was passed to their son, Christopher Gingles. Other Prairie Ronde and Schoolcraft families that came from Sussex-Warren County were: VanKirk, Stuart, and Decker (and others by marriage). Families that came from adjacent areas in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania were: McCreary (see next paragraph); Middleton (see next paragraph); Troxel (Edmund, of Schoolcraft's Troxel House, was born near Easton, in eastern Pennsylvania); Fellows (Col. Abiel Fellows'biography is in Durant's 1880 history of Kalamazoo County); DeLong (lived a quarter mile west of the Fanckboner farm, but had Flowerfield connections); (Deborah) Smith (married Samuel Hackett whose farm was one half mile west of the Fanckboner farm); and Shaver (see below). Three of the William and Elizabeth Fanckboner children who spent their younger years at the Fanckboner homestead married into the family of Preston Johnston McCreary, who with Bazel Harrison, Abram Shaver and others, constituted the founding settlers in Prairie Ronde. The McCrearys came to Prairie Ronde from upstate New York and Erie, PA. Before that, Preston’s grandfather, Joseph (1732-1802) lived in the Lancaster-York area of eastern Pennsylvania (near Belvidere). Christianne Middleton (1807-1868) married Preston in 1828, and is buried in Harrison Cemetery. She was the daughter of George Middleton (1780-1841) and Mary Kriss Burson. George Middleton was from Monmouth, NJ, the reputed birthplace of Abram Shaver.

Location

5992 West VW Ave.
Prairie Ronde Township, Kalamazoo County, Michigan
42.12177, -85.66530

Categories

ARCHITECTUREEXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

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Stevens, Andrew J., House
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Kendall, Silas W., House
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9.4 mi
Gibbs, John, House
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9.6 mi

Questions about this property

When was Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead listed on the National Register?

Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 1, 2007.

What type of historic resource is Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead?

Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead?

The period of significance for Fanckboner-Nichols Farmstead is recorded as the industrial era.

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