Old Sturbridge Village

I drove over to Old Sturbridge Village today, about 60 miles east of here on the Massachusetts Turnpike.  It's a "living museum", a reconstruction of a Massachusetts village set in about 1830.  I've been there many times before; the family used to go fairly often when we lived in Connecticut.  As always, there were a few new things since my last visit.

This is called the "Small House", and it's certainly that.  It has two rooms and an attic, and is intended to represent the type of house a poorer family would have had in 1830's rural Massachusetts.  The rest of the houses in the village are rather grand by comparison.  Those houses were moved to Sturbridge from other New England locations; the more prominent houses would have been the ones that survived all these years, while the houses of poorer folk would mostly have been replaced or just abandoned to the elements.  Old Sturbridge Village had to build this one from scratch, a "reconstruction' rather than a "restoration."

The view from the Small House toward the backs of the houses on the village's main street.  Those living on the street were better off, for the most part -- merchants, a lawyer, the local banker.  Still, they kept pigs and chickens in their back yards.

This woman was demonstrating dying of wool yarn, using materials available to the people of the village in the 1830s.  Today she was dying the yarn brown, using material from walnut trees.  Most of the dye materials were local, but some were imported from Europe and Mexico.

I found these tiny flowers in the garden of the Fitch House, on the main street.  Some ornamental flowers were grown, especially by the wealthy, but the contents of most gardens were intended to be eaten or used as medicine.

Speaking of the wealthy, this is the Towne House.  Mr. Towne was the largest landholder in the area and hence the largest farmer.  Many of the people living in the village would have worked for him.  He was, in effect, the local squire, although such terms weren't used.  This photo is from the side garden; the front of the house is on the left.

The Towne House has a formal garden, although not a lot was in bloom in mid-July.  Coneflowers are ubiquitous, and the bees obviously like them.  The last photo is of some really tiny flowers:  the whole flower, including the green part, is about the size of a fingernail.

Near the Towne House garden, a couple of women were giving a talk about what it was like being a servant in the Towne household.

A stagecoach drives about the village, giving rides and demonstrating the form of transportation available to the people of the time.

On an outbuilding behind one of the Main Street houses, I saw this door latch.  You can't buy this stuff at Home Depot or Lowe's.  It was handmade by a blacksmith, and has apparently been repaired at some point (the small piece of metal added to the left tip of the latch).  Today we would never repair something like this, just toss it away and buy another one (from China, most likely).  Back then, no one could afford to discard an object like this just because it had broken.

Here's the village tinman at his trade.  Today, we would call him a tinsmith, but he said that in the 1830s people would have called him a tinman or perhaps a tinner.  This particular fellow has been in the tinman's shop every time I've visited the village, and he said to someone that he's been doing it for more than 30 years.

This "field of flags" is set up near the entrance to the village.  Each flag represents a donation; the money is used to pay for the flag itself and to fund a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village by an underprivileged child.  A worthy cause, and because Anne used to love coming to Sturbridge, I donated a flag in her memory.