1861 for barbed wire entrepreneur Joseph Farwell Glidden. As his personal residence, the house, and its accompanying barn, were closely associated with his invention, really just an improvement, of barbed wire. Glidden's improvement upon a wire board fence developed by Henry Rose was of vast importance in the settlement of the United States west of the Mississippi. It was after Glidden saw Rose exhibit his wire at a fair in 1873 that he was struck with the idea of attaching barbs to wire strand fencing. Glidden is said to have experimented with some of his ideas in the basement kitchen of the Glidden House. He noticed that whenever he tried to attach barbs directly to strands of wire they slid along the length of the wire; Glidden realized he needed a way to crimp the barbs. He began tinkering around the home's kitchen. Glidden fit two hair pins to the shaft of a coffee mill, one centered and the other off-center. He found that by placing the wire between the pins and turning the crank a uniform barb resulted. How to crimp the barbs to the wire was solved, in the barn, by tying one end of the wire and another length of wire to a poplar tree on the grounds of the Glidden House and the other ends of the wires to a grindstone. The grindstone was used to twist the wires together and prevent the barbs from slipping. Day-to-day life at the Glidden House was mostly carried out in the home's basement which contained a full kitchen, dining room, and living room. The upper floors were used for guests and for sleeping quarters. In 1877 Glidden's daughter, Elva, married William H. Bush in the homestead. As of 2006 extensive restoration work had been completed on the home. The front porch was repaired and restored and inside, the hardwood floors have been replaced and refinished. In addition, the front parlors have been repainted and restored. Architecture The home was mostly designed in a French Colonial style, though it contains some elements of Greek Revival architecture. French Colonial architecture was more popular in the American South than it ever was in the northern tier of states. Exterior The two-story brick structure is supported by a fieldstone foundation and still features its original front porch. The porch spans the length of the building's front (south) facade, at a height of about