The single-room log cabin belonged to the family of Caspar Ott, a French tailor born in Baldenheim just west of the Rhine River in 1812, as well as his German wife Elisabetha Trier, where both of them raised their seven children.

[2] One story that comes from the cabin is that in the winter of 1858, a 28 year old runaway enslaved person named Andrew Jackson (no relation to the president) from Mississippi found refuge in Deerfield via the Underground Railroad.

A man named Lyman Wilmot recommended the Ott family cabin.

Jackson remained with the family until spring of 1859, and he helped to build a fence around the home in the meantime.

Come spring, Caspar crafted the man a new suit, Wilmot travelled with him to Chicago, and paid for Jackson's ship fare headed further north.