He operated mills, dried fruit and stocked the cellar with wine he made himself, while his wife Mary Browett Holmes ran a glove shop.

"[2] The 1+1⁄2-story house, with a rock basement (a former wine cellar), is made of 1.5-foot (46 cm) uncoursed rubble with cut-stone quoins on each corner.

Each floor has four rooms; the hall-and-parlor plan on the front is hidden by a symmetrical, minimally-decorated facade, with an attic door set in a gable to allow large items to be brought up.

The building is extended by an original one-story lean-to on the rear, which served as the kitchen and hosts the staircase to the upper floor.

He settled in Port Huron, Michigan, in April 1839; he and his wife Isabella Donald converted to the LDS Church in 1844, and moved to the Mormons' center at Nauvoo, Illinois.

Trading dried peaches for buckskins with Indians at Sevier, Mary tanned leather and ran a glove shop (no longer standing).