06/11/2026
The small bubbling fountain in the front yard of the Van Hoosen Farmhouse is not just a trendy water feature recently added to our site...
Joshua Van Hoosen was a visionary farmer. With a third-grade education, he was a keen observer of the world around him and President of the Avon Agricultural Society. His idea for a water pipe system came to him after he had mined for gold for several years in California, returned home, married Sarah Taylor and purchased the Taylor Farmhouse.
Bertha Van Hoosen writes in her autobiography – Petticoat Surgeon – “One of my earliest lessons in physics occurred when father installed a water system for the house and barns. In 1865…. we moved into the farm house that Grandfather had built in 1840. There were so many gushing springs on the hillside across the creek that father determined to try and pipe the spring water from the hillside to the house.
To provide pipes to conduct the water, he cut tall tamarack trees, and by boring holes through them from one end to the other, made them into what were known as “pump logs.” The next step was to drive the small top-end of one log into the larger bottom-end of another, and to construct in this manner, a sufficient length of pump logs to carry water from the spring down the hill, tunneling across and under the creek, then up a small hill to the house.
While work was progressing, there were plenty of men looking on, ready to laugh at “Josh’s Folly” but father always met them with, “water will always seek its level.”
When the trial came, the spring water from the hillside came gushing and singing through the buried tamarack logs, to pour forth in a never-ending stream into a big half barrel just outside the door of Mother’s kitchen.
Father soon became interested in extending his waterway, and finally laid enough pump logs to carry water from the house to a fountain in the door yard, then to the horse barn, from there to a roadside trough along the road for passing horses and this is where Joshua could go and “exchange information” with the riders. Joshua grew fingerling salmon in the front yard pond as well.
The fountain was only a cement basin with a whirling spray of a lawn sprinkler in the center of it, but a fountain in the yard of a farm house attracted much attention, and the place was known all over the County for having a water system.
Exhibits in the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm's Dairy Barn showcase this water system. The Museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 12-3 pm. Come visit and enjoy the unique feature in our historic landscape!
