Model T Tire Equipment, a Gas Station Air Pump and Other Tire Changing Tools

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These days, automobile and truck tire changing is highly mechanized and rather easy. You put the tire on a machine, push a foot lever, and the changer does most of the hard work. Tire off, tire on, put it on another machine, spin it, put on the balance weights, done. Good for another 20,000.

But early tire changing was much different. If you were well prepared and had the right tools, it was still a real test of strength and knowledge. I’ve heard any number of stories of guys changing wheels and ending up in the hospital from making simple mistakes. One of the worst was improperly seating a split rim, airing up the tire and the rim popping loose. If you were standing over the tire and the rim shot up from the pressure, you could lose an arm, get a concussion (if you were lucky) or end up on the floor in some other state of real hurt (I’ve even seen a hole in a cement block wall were a guy got lucky and the wall took the hit). Tire changing was a tricky, hard and hazardous business. Made even worse because early on most roads were poor and tires not particularly “strong”. Even on a short trip you might have several blowouts to fix. It was such a problem that it was common to carry several extra tires as spares.

The museum has a number of such needed early car care tools and machines. These include the tools every car owner carried everywhere, to the larger shop machines used at dealerships or repair shops. Among our most recent acquisitions is a large cast iron Weaver Tire Changer, and a Weaver Tire Spreader. The spreader was used to hold open the tire while you applied a patch to a newly made hole. Both machines were made for changing and fixing Model T tires, but could be used for other car’s tires. We also have somewhat more modern changing equipment, some probably used up to the 1950′s. But all of them were the work of muscle and sweat, with no hydraulic or electrical help.

The Weaver’s I found online. I drove several towns east of here to an area of densely packed housing. I pulled into a short driveway and a guy looked up from his 2 foot square garden and said, “Come on back”. There was a narrow gate between 2 houses, then a back yard packed with “stuff”. He had been collecting all sorts of oddments for years. Piles of it. He wanted to convert his garage into sort of getaway spot for himself. But there was too much in the way. I asked him about a number of things, but he wouldn’t part with any of it. Except for the tire machines. After talking for a very long time about his experiences in Vietnam, we finally made the deal. ….I feel very fortunate to have acquired these two excellent machines (and his stories).

After I returned home, I did a bit of research and found out a couple of other tools I had were individual owner’s Model T tire changers. That was a happy accident, and helped expand my knowledge about, and collection of, early car tools.

The museum has also recently added a tire air pump to the collection. It was used at the gas station that once stood at the S.W. corner of Rt’s. 82 & 21 in Brecksville. Many years ago when the station was torn down our friend Arnie saved the air machine. He kept it safe in his barn for the decades it was unused. I traded him for it by helping him move and sell one of the many cars in his car and memorabilia collection. That’s something I have always found distressing. Guys who spent years gathering great collections, then towards the end of their life letting it all drift away.

So stop on by, see some things you may not have ever seen before. And if you a mind to, bring a flat tire and we’ll see about fixing it. As my friend Gary said, “I’ll be over one of these days to change a couple of Whippet tires”.

Moving Day

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The very first building we moved to the museum was the Eastwood/Rooy Slaughter House. At the time I never guessed the farm would become a village and museum, home to over 40 buildings, so the “Eastwood” was put next to the drive in a very prominent spot. For several years it served as shelter for my metal art making activities, then was returned to its original use as last home for visiting cows and pigs.

It has long bothered me to have a slaughter house in so central a spot, no Western Reserve town would have been arranged so. It really belonged with the other animal buildings, not next to the school.

So finally today, we jacked up the “Rooy”, hung it from a wagon and moved it behind the barn, near the chicken coops and next to the pig pens. It looks much better there, and the village looks far better with its new, unobstructed view.

P.S. For more info. about moving buildings, stop on by sometime. We’ll be glad to describe in detail how its done. —Or maybe, you could help move the next building.

The Morris and Crane Farms

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The Sharon Golf Club has a problem. The course was founded in 1965 by a group of young business men from the Akron area. They pooled their money and bought the Morris and Crane farms (for a total of 308 acres)  just north of Sharon Center in Medina County. But the farmers wanted to  keep their homes.

Mr. Crane was given the right to live out his life where he had always farmed. Just before his passing, he said to a young employee to please, “Don’t destroy my home”. With his death the course directors ordered the house torn down, but the young man remembered the last wish, so he advertised in several newspapers that the house was free for the taking. An Amish family decided to save the home, and, with a number of their community members, disassembled the house in just two weeks and rebuilt it in Sugar Creek. Mr. Crane’s wish was fulfilled. As somewhat of a parting gift, Mr. Crane gave the course a number of the more than 2000 Indian artifacts he had found on the farm while walking behind his horse drawn plow. The remainder of the points, drills and hammer heads were given to the Medina Co. Historical Society. Mr. Crane said that years earlier an old Indian gentleman told him that quite a few of the tools had been traded for with Indians living in what later became southern Ohio.

Now these many years later the Morris farm house and barn are also to be torn down. That same once young employee has once again advertised in 5 papers hoping that once again a fine old house and barn can be saved.

The Morris family had lived on their farm for many generations. When they sold the land, they kept the buildings and 5 acres. They continued to raise sheep that they used for training sheep dogs in the art of herding. The house is a very well preserved Victorian home reported to have been built in 1890. It has 5 bedrooms, and at the end of the upstairs hall is a maid’s sitting room and bedroom. The maid’s room has its own steep and narrow stairs that led directly down to the kitchen. The main stairs features a stained glass window at the top landing. Underneath the bottom of the steps is a closet that looks like it must have made an ideal hiding place for the Morris’ three daughter’s games of hide and seek.

The first floor has a number of spacious rooms all with very finely detailed pressed oak door and window moldings. The chandeliers still hang as they have for so long, and the front door continues to have its original hand cranked door bell used to announce visitors. The house has a full basement built of very finely carved sandstone blocks and has many rooms, including a coal cellar containing coal. The coal cellar door is covered by a canvas sheet taken from a horse drawn grain combine. Outside the backdoor is the largest cistern we have ever seen.

The barn is also very large and well preserved. It is evident from the several repairs that the Morris’ kept the barn in good working order. Entrance to the “upstairs” is by the typical barn bridge. As you enter there are two large grain cribs to either side. The crib to the right seemed smaller than it should be, so I stretched as high as I could and looked through a crack and there was a second room. I could find no opening to it. Not a floor or ceiling trap door and no wall door, just what seemed to be a sealed up room. I could see a push lawn mower and three hoes. Quite the mystery.

The crib to the left covered much of the back wall. As we looked in the crib door, there was a very loud hissing. It sounded like anyone’s worst nightmare snake horror movie. Mendy backed out, and I looked in. And there were two young fledgling buzzards. The park naturalist I talked with later said that buzzards have one of the most well developed voice boxes of any birds. –They certainly seem to. I also found a steel double tree that attaches to the pulled equipment with a rather unusual arrangement of bolt and spring, a leather horse halter and several ornate cast iron plow clamps. Downstairs were many feed troughs of a shape I had never seen before. When I learned later about the sheep, the use of the feed bunks became clear. The floor joists of the south end of the barn are full trees still covered with their bark, while the remainder of the joists are sawn wood. Upstairs is a similar situation with a number of the beams being hand hewn and the rest sawn. I wonder if the barn was originally built using some timbers from an earlier barn. All-in-all, it was a fun barn to explore.

So finally, these many years after the course was first established, the last bit of the Morris and Crane Farms are to be added to the golf grounds. The young man who saved the Crane house is now the golf course superintendent. He has once again advertised the house and barn as free for the taking. And another Amish family may be interested. Its sad to see another farm pass away, but because of liabilities of the occasional miss hit golf ball landing on the house or barn, the house must go. We are at least glad that the Sharon Golf Course is trying so hard to preserve a bit of Ohio farm history.

Huntley Farm

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A week or so ago a friend stopped by. She said the Huntley barn and buildings were soon to be torn down.

The Huntley Farm was an exceedingly beautiful farm on Dunsha Rd., near the crossing of State Rd. in Medina Co. It’s a farm I had always admired. There was a very large barn with two tall silos, and a smaller barn connected at an angle. Across the field drive was a number of out buildings and shops. Nearest the road was a drive through corn crib. Then a work shop connected with a common wall to the crib. The shop had a brick chimney for using a stove. Next was a smaller room of unclear use, and then an adjoining very large two story equipment shed with a number of double doors. Above the equipment was a second story chicken house. In front of the barns sat a block milk house.
                                                                                                                                                                 It was interesting to look in the buildings. To the best of my recollection the farm buildings have stood unused for 20 some years. I’m sure that any number of folks have “visited” to view the remains. I ‘spect some things somehow found their way home with some of the visitors. But, there was actually still quite a bit of equipment left laying here and there. It all looked quite old, and probably was last used a generation, even two, ago. In the main barn there were two large grain rooms. Feed sacks and grain still lay on the floor. A hay elevator rested where it has been for many years, and nearby was a post hole digger used on a tractor before there was 3 point hitch. The auger is unlike anything I have ever seen. It looked much more like an Archimedes water screw than our more modern post hole diggers. On the east side of the barn one thing I found particularly interesting, and sad, was a hay shoot for dropping hay to the animals below. On a nail on the side of the shoot, were hung many baling strings from when Mr. Huntley threw down hay to the cows below. All the work and making a crop and caring for his animals year after year was then remembered only in those hundreds of strings.
                                                                                                                                                        Across the way in the crib there were still mounds of corn cobs, the kernels long since chewed up by hungry mice. In the shop were all sorts of tractor and equipment bits and pieces. Any of Mr. Huntley’s useful tools had long since been removed, but the old, no longer usable, parts awaited his return. In the back of the shop, someone had built a stairs leading to a low loft tucked in below the ceiling. There were a number of tillage parts up there, but it seemed a strange, hard to get to place to store things. In the main equipment shed there still stood a number of metal barrels with several containing oil or some other liquid. There was also a really nice long wooden shop table. I hope someone saved it. The stairs to the floor above had long since fallen, but I was able to stand on one of the barrels to glimpse into the overhead chicken coop. They had fully covered all the walls and ceiling with white plaster board, probably for warmth and cleanliness for the chickens. On one long wall steel lay boxes still hung waiting for the birds return.
                                                                                                                                                               As my historian friend and I walked the farm, we took pictures of the buildings before they disappeared forever. One thing we particularly liked were the louvered and carved window frames. The Huntley’s had paid a great deal of attention to their farm. You could tell the family had truly known what they were doing in the many years they lived there.
                                                                                                                                                             We left the farm and drove around the corner to see it from a greater distance. The fields still remained, fenced as they had always been. The trees around the house and barns still shared their beauty and shade. It was a view of what once was one of the most beautiful farms anywhere. …But, sadly, we could also see where the farms next door had already fallen to the crowded houses of encroaching suburban living. And we knew that soon this last piece of once productive land and life would be under cement.
                                                                                                                                                             Our final visit that day was to the Huntley Cemetery south of the farm. It’s a beautiful spot, with many very ornate cravings and headstones. I recognized many of the local farm family names, going back to those who fought in the American Revolution and War of 1812. Someone had put flags on many of the veterans graves for the just passed Memorial Day. A remembrance of the sacrifices the early settlers and founders of our nation had made. And, in some small way, a remembrance of the farms that once stood on such fertile ground.

Museum Broom Shop

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To us it seems America is fast losing its traditional skills. One example is that at one time many towns across Ohio had horse collar shops. We have been told there is only one left in the state, Coblentz Collar Shop in Millersburg. Other disappearing trades (except for hobbyists) include tin making, pewter casting, rope making, barrel making and broom making.

                                                                                                                                                                  I remember as a kid some 60 years ago, we used to go to Grandma’s house on Sunday’s. We’d drive thru Cuyahoga Falls and I often noticed a broom shop along the road. I don’t remember why it impressed me so, but by the time I could stop by myself, it had long since closed. In the years since I have stopped whenever I see a sign for a shop, but usually the sign is old and the shop closed. Occasionally a slightly older gentleman broom maker will set up at Zoar during their special events. And we’ve now and again talked with the same fellow at Roscoe Village at their yearly open houses. Richard Henson, the last of 3 generations of broom makers at Henson’s Brooms, Kentucky, passed away last April. S. Pritchard in Oregon has been promising a new way to contact her for 2 years now. Finding someone making handmade brooms just isn’t common any more. So I was very happy to have finally come across an Amish broom maker east of Berlin, in Holmes County.
                                                                                                                                                       Melvin Yoder has been making brooms for about 8 years now. Because he is one of the very few making brooms anymore, he gets contacted now and again to sell an old broom machine for someone who inherited one from a long since closed shop or acquired a machine some other way. Melvin will occasionally let me know another “new” old machine has turned up. We go down to Amish country fairly often for animal feed and ice cream, so we stopped by his shop after his most recent letter. His wife came out and said he wasn’t there.
                                                                                                                                                             She pointed to several barns over across the fields and said he was over to the paint shop. We drove over, a five minute drive by road, and the guy there said Melvin was done for the day and he had gone to get his gas tanks filled. He pointed across another field and said he was there. So on we went.
                                                                                                                                                                 At the propane shop we saw a bicycle and pull cart over by the tanks, but no Melvin . But find him we eventually did. We loaded up his bike, tanks and cart and drove him home (saving him a good long peddle at the end of a long day). He said it was too bad we hadn’t come two weeks sooner because a German had just bought his three best machines, -a broom winder, a de-seeder and a broom clamp. But he guessed he remembered he had another in the barn he had forgotten about before we arrived.
                                                                                                                                                                 We opened the barn doors and there was a really nice winder under a tarp. –And he was asking a very modest price. Then we went over to his shop and found a clamp with 3 sets of jaws, and a really unusual combination clamp & winder. The winder was quite small and quite ancient. No one knows, but I imagine it may have been used long ago by someone who had very limited space for making brooms. Because of its age it wouldn’t surprise me if its original owner lived in a small cabin and made brooms for extra income or trade.
                                                                                                                                                               So now we have added 3 more broom making machines to the museum collection. We have a rather complete shop, with 4 winders, 3 clamps, both big and small de-seeders, a shave horse and draw knives and one or two end choppers. From what I’ve been able to determine so far, it’s one of the bigger shops anywhere. So, stop on by, its a very interesting, and somewhat disappearing, art.

The Kenski Farm’s odd barn, the old cement trough, and Gertrude’s sewing needles.

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The Kenski Farm was located just east of the intersection of Rt. 42 & Fenn Rd. in Medina. Not long ago it was fairly far out in the country several miles north of Medina Square. But in more recent years the rapid development along 42 has surrounded the farm with gas stations, a car dealership, a Chinese restaurant, a car wash, a dollar store and more. Within just a short walk dozens of other restaurants, shopping complexes of all kinds and big box stores galore can also be found. Where not so long ago farm wagons and tractors drove, semi trucks and nearly bumper to bumper traffic roars by in sight of the farm.

                                                                                                                                                              Now sadly the farm has seen its last days as the house, barn and out buildings are soon to be demolished to make way for other uses of the land, just as so many other fondly remembered farms have fallen along Rt. 42 and throughout Medina County.
                                                                                                                                                           Over the years I have often passed the farm on my way to pick up seed, fertilizer or sometimes to get planting advice (or just plain jaw) at the now shuttered Medina Farmers Exchange. Or I passed while driving to find some equipment repair piece at Bohaty’s Used Farm Equipment. I’ve often wondered at the look of the barn and its extremely steep roof. It was so out of character with every other barn I have ever seen. But, the one story house was always well painted, the fields tended and productive and the barn straight and true. From the year to year condition of the farm it seemed the Kenski’s knew what they were doing.
                                                                                                                                                              Now the family is long gone. The north wall of the barn has fallen, the house stands empty and forlorn and some of the siding of the back sheds flaps in the breeze. Across the entire front of the farm piles of gravel, dirt and rolls of pipe sit as trucks and bulldozers work to transform the once rich soil into additional lanes of pavement for the widening of Fenn Rd.
                                                                                                                                                                  I was over that way the other day when I spotted a construction worker drive onto the site. I pulled in behind him and asked what was happening. He explained, then said I could go take a look at the barn. Thus my years long curiosity was finally satisfied.
                                                                                                                                                                  I walked thru the small remaining patch of field grass, crossed the barn bridge and went inside. And there was the strangest construction I have ever seen. I wish whoever more recently “renovated” the 170+ year old barn was still living so I could ask him why he had done what he had done. I can only guess what he had in mind. I’m sure I’ll never know for positive. But it looked like some years ago the original roof must have blown off in a strong wind, or perhaps had collapsed under the weight of heavy snow. So the farmer in that generation added a second, much taller set of upright beams, made of nailed together boards. He placed them next to the original hewn beams in order to substantially raise the roof line to give it a much steeper pitch. I don’t imagine any snow ever collected on that roof again. But I also find it hard to imagine how anyone could ever climb such a steep roof to make repairs or replace the shingles. —Actually, standing in the barn gazing up at the roof, I couldn’t imagine how they even built such a steep, tall roof. Without scaffolding and a crane, it looked an impossible job.
                                                                                                                                            Unfortunately, sometimes great farmers do not make the best carpenters. It’s certainly very difficult to farm and not be a fairly skilled jack of all trades. As a farmer you’d soon be out of business if you couldn’t do your own plumbing, welding, electrical work, nail pounding, painting and a thousand other jobs. Hiring for such jobs is far too expensive for most farm families. But doing work of necessity does not mean that every job is done just right. That barn is a fine example of the sometimes difficulties of being adept at everything.
                                                                                                                                                             The added beams were not substantial. The ”new” roof ridge beams were mere boards nailed together. And none of the newer construction looks to be particularly strong. It had held for some decades, but 40 or 50 years is little compared to a century or two. It is now falling simply from the work of the wind shaking the barn, as it stands empty and unused.
                                                                                                                                                           After I left the barn, I crossed over towards the house. Between the two was a quite deep cistern, with a cement water trough next to it. The museum has a small cement waterer that was made by the Davis’s, probably for use by their chickens. But the Kinski trough was much larger and deeper and may have served their milk cows and horses (5 milk stanchions still hang in the bottom of the barn). I have seen many stone troughs over the years, but never so large a cement one. I decided it would make a fine addition to the museum.
                                                                                                                                                            Posted around the several buildings were signs saying the land now belongs to the Medina Parks. I called and was very fortunate to speak with the Park Director. I asked if it was possible to save the water trough and move it to the museum. Several days later I received the go ahead to move the trough, and it is now (with the help of the museum’s good friend, Mendy) at its new home at the museum. It’s an interesting piece, that denotes a somewhat more self-reliant time when folks built what they needed for themselves. It can be seen at the museum, standing in front of the Loyal Oak Wagon Repair Shop.
                                                                                                                                                             The day we picked up the trough, we took pictures of the barn and trough so there would be a record of the farm after it was gone. We also decided to take a peek in the house as the back door was hanging open.
                                                                                                                                                      Gertrude was the last of the Kenski’s to live there. It appeared she simply left everything behind and closed the door on many years of farm life and family. It was a bit sad really. The bird cage pole still stands in the living room. ( I have noticed that many ladies of that generation liked to keep parakeets for company.) Gertrude’s clothes still hang in several closets. The many blouses and house coats looked to have been stylish in the ’50′s. The bed still sits in it’s accustomed place. In the kitchen we noticed Gertrude’s box of sewing needles laying on the counter, while nearby were her husbands wire rim glasses. Next to the glasses was an old pamphlet concerning the many possible diseases of horses. And down in the basement there are many full half gallon canning jars waiting to be served to dinner.
                                                                                                                                                                And now soon, it will all disappear, just a memory of a Medina farm family.
                                                                                                                                                          Update: 7-9-’16
                                                                                                                                                                 A couple days ago I noticed words inscribed on the cement trough. We couldn’t quite read them, so we waited until after dark and showed a flashlight across the letters. In the dimmer light and shadows cast, we could make out, “J. N. Hanson, B. H. Baird, and May 1916″. It will be interesting if we can find any information about those gentlemen.

An Ancient Loom & A Red Corn Sheller

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A long time family acquaintance and friend, Chuck, stopped by a few weeks ago. He brought a fantastic 2/3 sized barn beam loom. My best guess it dates to at least the War of Northern Aggression, and probably much earlier. (That would be the War Between the States, or Civil War, for any of you Federalists reading this.)

The loom is unlike anything we had. It’s a two harness and all hand sawn or draw knife shaped. The pieces fit together so well that only two wood pegs are needed to hold it together. I wonder who built it, and why it’s a smaller than usual size. Could it have been made by a family to carry by wagon as they headed west into Ohio? I suppose we’ll never know.

It’s a great donation by Chuck and his wife. She had acquired it some years ago when she worked at Hale Homestead as a weaver. They stored it in their barn for years until deciding to donate it. She has two other looms that she now uses, in their main house. (Personal note: They bought their farm from my brother when he moved his family from Medina Co. to our family’s original farm house, where we all grew up, in Summit Co. William, being the older son, moved into the family home, while I, the younger, moved next door where my branch of our family tree presently lives. I’ve only been in this house for 42 yrs. while our family has been on this farm for several generations.)

Chuck also brought over a really nice curved top corn sheller. It has a fairly unusual feature on the side. There’s a ribbed cone you can push an ear of dried corn into for removing the last clinging kernels of corn that the sheller missed as the ear corn passed through the machine.

The Car That Became a Tractor

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Adam and Sophie Zielinski lived on their farm on Everett Rd., Richfield, for years. But it took them awhile to get there.

Adam was raised on the family farm in Peninsula where Boston Mills Ski Resort now stands. As he grew up, Adam proved to be quite the mechanic. He really liked building things, especially if it made life on the farm easier. For one project, Adam gathered parts from around the neighborhood, removed the body of an old Model A Ford and put it all together to make his own tractor.

Having completed his high school education, he went on to become chief mechanic at Pneumatic Tool in Cleveland. There he was instrumental in designing and building the hydraulic landing gear for B17 Flying Fortress bombers used to such effect in WW2.

After the war he met and married, “the Polish girl”, Sophie. About that time (or so we have been told) the Catholic Bishop in Cleveland wanted more Catholics to move to Richfield, so a church could be organized there. Adam and Sophie already had the family connection to Peninsula so they came south out of the city and bought the land they called “The Jewel of Richfield” because the farm was just “so green”.

Soon they would be seen driving their maroon Pontiac with its wide white wall tires to go dancing at the Peninsula Night Club on a Friday night. Adam cut quite the figure in his zoot suit, pork pie hat, spats and long key chain. (The PNC still stands in the center of town. It is now called Winking Lizard. I fondly remember the elephants that once paraded around the top of the walls of the dance floor.)

When not dancing, they farmed. They raised pigs, chickens and ducks and, of course, had a large garden out back. Adam & Sophie never had children, but the young’uns of their large extended family would come spend summers with them to help on the farm. And Adam had his tractor that he had moved from his father’s farm in Peninsula.

The kids were always expected to work. One niece, Judy, recalled when she was just 5 or 6 years old, riding on the back of the converted Mod. A as Uncle Adam plowed or weeded the fields. The tractor had better traction when it had her as a counter weight.

When the tractoring was done, the eggs collected and the other chores complete, Aunt Sophie would send the children down the tree lined hill to the grocery store in the little town of Everett to get milk (“just to have a little peace and quiet”). It was a long walk that sometimes took half a day. If the kids tarried too long, Soph. would drive the Pontiac down the long winding road and thru the covered bridge, to fetch them.

When Adam retired, he brought home a number of large, line shaft driven, early 20th Cent. grinders, sanders and mills that had gone obsolete. He dug a garage into the hillside behide the house and added a work shop onto the back of the garage. There he practiced a whole new art. Adam collected, cut and polished stones. The tools that had once helped win the war were now used to create beauty. And his fine stone work ended up in a number of Ohio museums, including at Flint Ridge State Park.

Adam passed about 40 years ago. Judy and her siblings now own the farm and are currently working on remodeling the house. Unfortunately, the garage and work shop have seen better days and it’s time to replace them.

Judy came over to invite me to take a look at the tractor for possible inclusion in the museum. She also showed me the long locked work shop. Once again, there was an unknown museum. I had passed by the farm hundreds of times and never knew what was hidden by the trees along the road. I hope we might be able to move the machinery to the museum to use in the future stone masons shop.

…And Uncle Adam’s tractor? It last ran 15 years ago, about the turn of the new century. It now sits among some trees, overlooking Adam and Sophie’s house. But, once Judy talks it over with the family, the old Model A may find a new home. There it would join the museum’s Ford Company built production Mod. T tractor and the museum’s 1919 Ford Model TT truck.

Update: two days later.

When I was first exploring Adam’s workshop, I discovered a Farm & Fireside magazine dated Oct. 1929, the month of the start of the Great Depression. As I sat at the dinner table reading the news of the day just weeks before the world was over taken by depression and war, I came across an ad on page 43. I image Adam had read that ad and maybe it inspired him to build his own tractor. It read, …

“A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, while men and women toiled for their daily bread in the fields of the world, Cyrus Hall McCormick built the strange machine which did the work of several men. That machine was the McCormick Reaper. On the heals of the Reaper, both Agriculture and Industry leaped forward with great strides.

TODAY another invention is creating another far-reaching revolution in farming. This machine is the McCormick-Deering Farmall, the first all-purpose tractor. In time to come, the invention of the Farmall will take its place with the invention of the Reaper in the schoolboy’s history book.

The Reaper began man’s emancipation from hand labor in the harvest. The Farmall now frees him from dependence on slow animal power.

The harness, the curry comb, and the pitiless whip are being put in the corner where the cradles and sickles of old have gathered dust for generations. Even on the row-crop farm, where the horse makes his last stand, there is no longer any sound reason for keeping him. A thousand farmers have already joined the Horseless Farmers of America. In farming, just as in industry throughout the civilized world, the capacity of the machine and the power of the motor are taking up the burden of the human race.

The farmer with his Farmall and the equipment that goes with it is ready for every power job. He is master of time and season, broad acreage, big crop, and low-cost production. He has put the labor of many men into the hands of one, and made it far easier. He has made the farm interesting for himself  and his sons. He is using his Farmall tractor to give him leisure and profit so that he and his family may enjoy the good things of life.

–Farm & Fireside, The National Farm Magazine ~ 5 cents a copy. October 1929.  Published monthly by Crowell Publishing Co. at Springfield, Ohio. Branch Office -Chicago, Illinois.”

Indeed, I imagine Adam reading that ad and just a short while later building his own tractor, before he was to become an employed mechanic in his own right, just like Cyrus McCormick had before him.

(On a personal note: When Mr. McCormick retired from the daily workings of his factories, he established a farm in Richfield. Included in the several hundred acres of his farm were 50 acres that had originally been a part of our farm.)

A Box of Cigars & a Loom

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The museum sells pumpkins, corn stalks, folk art & crafts, mums, cider and more to raise money for projects. Once a week, we drive over to River Styx Cider Mill to pick up cider.

Yesterday I decided to try a different route, and got a bit lost. As I drove down an unfamiliar road, I spotted a house sale sign. Usually I don’t bother with most sales, these days the majority of what people are selling is plastic. But for some reason this sale spoke to me.

I turned around and went back and drove up the very long drive. And fell down the rabbit hole.

Displayed around the driveway’s edge was a wonderful collection of the tools of an earlier age (that some folks call antiques). I choose a really nice clothes iron that opened so you could put hot coals in it, two unusual upright yarn winders, two oil lamps with holders, a Bisselus (later know as Bissel) push carpet sweeper and a box of ancient cigars.

Then we got talking. The family had lived there for quite a while. Mom was now in a care center, and the older adult children were preparing the family home for its next generation. They had spent several weeks clearing out the various out buildings, and I arrived after most things were already gone.

While what they still had was really great, I could only imagine what I had missed. But, as we talked, Karen said that eventually there would be other items available. I told her about the museum, and she decided to take me into the house. Nothing there was presently for sale and it remained how it had always been. (Hopefully they will give us a call when the time comes).

The kitchen is a gem. It contained a beautiful corner cupboard, an old old desk, a very early pie safe, extremely fine baskets hanging from the overhead beams and a wonderful Victorian ceiling lamp. I felt at home.

And then the basement. I nearly fell over. Turns out that mom had worked at Hale Homestead years ago as a weaver (I knew her from when I worked there). She also used to do various shows to demonstrate weaving. …And she collected spinning wheels, looms, bobbin winders, yarn winders, sheep shears, flax breaks and more. The basement was packed. An unknown museum.

The next day I took my whole family back to the sale. Laura immediately fell in love with a portable scarf loom. It’s unlike anything we had. It’s home now and Laura will use it to teach another generation of folks another form of the art of weaving.

I am so happy that I took that wrong turn that day. I learned so much, reacquainted with the life work of a long ago friend and was able to fill some holes in several of the museums collections.

Oh, and the cigars? I found an ancient box of Dutch Masters cigars. They originally sold for just .10 a piece. But old as they are, they still smell wonderful and appear just as smokable as always. They’re a neat addition to the Blaine-Stewart Cigar Shop.

Thor Washing Machine -World’s First Electric Washer

A very nice lady and her mother stopped by to drop off their old family heirloom electric powered Thor Washing Machine, made by Hurley Machine Co. (of Chicago & N.Y.). It is also marked Red Electric #709.

All the major parts of the washer are wood, with a small 25 amp. electric motor to run it. The agitator is a wood block with four “fingers” protruding down. As the block is turned, the fingers sweep back and forth to agitate the clothes and clean them. It’s in excellent shape with all its original red paint. It looks like it could be used as is. One thing that I found quite interesting about it are the electrical connections to the motor. The motor is under the wash tub, near the drain. The connections are all exposed and would have presented quite an easy opportunity for getting shocked. It might be one of the reasons so few of these washers remain today.

The Hurley Company is credited with making the first electric washer in 1900, with the patent issued in 1907. It may (or may not) be an interesting coincident that the machines number is 709, nearly the opposite of the year of patent. Whether this particular model is one of those first is not yet clear, but certainly it is very early. The washer was probably sold in a city where they first wired for electric.

We  are very happy to add this washer to the museum collection. It nicely fills in a gap of the evolving technology of clothes washing equipment.

The ladies also dropped off a quite unusual wood block plane.

“New” General Store

Every so often I run into some project that just seems to take forever to get done. The Hamburg Horse Shoeing & Jobbing building is a very good example. It’s been a number of years and, for one reason after another, I just never could get it finished. It stood roofless and windowless, year by year, deteriorating in the elements.

This has bothered me immensely, seeing the walls standing, shaking in the wind, with no roof to cover and support them. …It’s also caused me a number of sleepless nights. Every so often we’ll get a heck of a storm, and the winds blow mightily. Many blustery nights I have listened hoping not to hear the sound of the walls falling on the unfinished building.

But, over time, I have learned that if a project or job doesn’t go well, there’s always a reason. Something is just holding up the work. In the case of this building, I had all along planned to restore it to its original size, shape and style. While it never occurred to me that was ill advised; my angels, unseen helpers or something or other, helped me by delaying me.

Summer before last, The Gynn Building interfered. I simply had to get it moved before Mrs. Gynn passed. She wanted it moved and saved and I promised I would. As it was I just barely made it. We moved the building. Her nephew called from her nursing home. I told him. Her told her. She was pleased. She died the same day. Her last wish filled…

Last summer, I was scheduled to complete the Hamburg in August. Then I had what the Drs. told me was a not survivable heart attack (I’m not much good at doing what people tell me to do, so here I continue).

So finally, we arrived at 2015. And I discovered what all the fuss was about in completing this particular building. One day I had a revelation. What I had planned to do, by fully restoring it, was wrong. To put it back as it was originally would not have looked right. It would have been just too tall. It would have been in effect, a three story building in the middle of a village of one stories. The proportions were just all out of quilter.

So I decided to cut off the second floor and lower the roof line. Now it fits in very well with the look of the rest of the museum. And, as a side benefit, I don’t have to climb so high with a bum ticker (sometimes the world is a bit out of focus when you only have half a heart).

And thus the work is proceeding well. A building that I was asked often if I was tearing it down or putting it up, is finally becoming a productive part of the museum. The “Hamburg” is becoming the “new” Gen’l Store. With lots more room than the old General, for lots more 19th Century gifts, crafts, folk art, oddments, doodads, gegauls and soaps, syrups and foods.

—For more about the moving of this building to the museum, please see the posting about it on March 27, 2011.

 

 

Blaine-Stewart Cigar Factory

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At the turn of the century there were 100 cigar factories in Ohio. By the end of WW2 there were just 40 left. The last operating cigar factory in the State of Ohio was the Blaine-Stewart in Hicksville, Ohio. When they finally closed in the early 1970′s, they had been in operation for many years using equipment that was over a hundred years old.

I was very fortunate to have acquired that complete shop and move it here to the museum. All the cutters, grinders, rollers, presses, molds, clamps and vices and cigar boxes and labels came with the shop. I even acquired the very large zinc lined, wooden storage chest still filled with curing tobacco. A nicer, richer smell is hard to imagine.

Originally, I set up the shop in the museum’s main barn. While it was there,  a couple of fellows visited from Pennsylvania just to see the old equipment and smell the fine cigar smell of the shop they used to travel so far to, in order to buy their cigars. They spoke with great affection of the quality of the cigars they had once so enjoyed.

Since then I have now moved the Blaine-Stewart Cigar Shop into the former Darrowville Post Office. I have also added to the collection a large number of other brand cigar boxes, two woven wood tobacco carrying baskets, spittoons, signs, tobacco we grow, chopping knives, ash trays and more. I also acquired a wonderful display case, complete with R. G. Dunn decals, which formally served as the sales desk of our friend Nina at the now closed Peninsula Antiques that once stood east of town on Rt. 303.

In tribute to the fine tobaccos once so commonly smoked and enjoyed, we painted the interior of the shop a color somewhat reminiscent of the color smoker’s fingers used to turn from holding lit cigars and cigarettes. A nice rich, brownish yellow. …How it all reminds me of my long passed but so fondly remembered Grandfather William.

This past week I have spent a great deal of time cleaning out the “old tool shop” where I keep many of my more modern tools. It had gotten rather cluttered over the years with much of the surplus I have collected. Along with chain saws, paint, tools of all kinds, gas cans and such, I had also saved large collections of nuts and bolts and nails, many of them still in the cans where various farmers had originally stored them. It has been interesting how often many of the repurposed cans, now full of nails and such, where originally tobacco tins. I had forgotten about the tins until this most recent cleaning. And so the cigar shop’s collection grows.

Worsh Day (Old N. Ohio Accent for Wash)

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When I was young, I remember folks in Richfield still arguing about the War of Rebellion/War Between the States. Before the advent of mass television and media, and regions of the country were more isolated, it was much more common to have “regional” accents. Most such unique and “old time” differences are gone. It’s very rare to hear anyone still say worsh and the war is usually only mentioned when a few folks demand to erase any history or mark of those who lost. (As a personal note: My family had soldiers on both sides of the conflict. One uncle served on the Federal side, while his brother, also my uncle, served the Confederacy. One brother believed in the rights of the individual States and his sibling believed in Union. They “met” at Fredericksburg, and managed not to kill each other, …not for lack of trying. And several years later returned home, able to once again resume family ties.)

The museum now has a new exhibit, Wash Day. We recently relocated the Blaine-Stewart Cigar Factory, and in its place in the main barn we have gathered our large collection of worshing machines and devices. The collection begins with very early “easy washers” which are simply a tin cone affixed to a wood handle that you would lift up and push down in a bucket of water to remove dirt from clothes. The collection continues on to wood, tin and/or glass scrub boards. Washing machines later came into use incorporating these two devices to make washing much easier. And, of course, later yet, agitator and wringer washers were developed and came into use. In the collection is also many ironing boards, wood heated and electric irons, wash tubs and stands, clothes drying racks and gas powered Maytag Washing Machine engines.

It has been said that the advent of washing machines and devices were the single greatest invention that brought freedom to women. Come visit the museum to see the evolution of washing machines. From work saving, to life transforming.

Studebaker Buggy Rolls Into Museum.

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Today we were finally able to add a “new” Studebaker buggy to the museum collection. We have been working for over a year to acquire the buggy, and we are very happy it has finally arrived. It is already on display and will shortly be restored to its original colors of black interior and seat, yellow exterior and red wheels and shafts. The buggy makes an interesting addition to the museum collection because Studebaker was among the few companies to make the transition from 19th to 20th Cent. transportation modes. The buggy joins our many other older buggies including two believed to be made at the Jaeger Buggy Shop of Bath, Ohio, and our several cars, trucks and tractors of the same era.
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The company began in 1852 when brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend, Indiana. Later two younger brothers would join and they would build the business into the largest wagon and buggy maker in the United States.
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By the time the above ad ran in January of 1909, the company had already been experimenting with newer technology. In 1902, Thomas Edison bought the second electric car they assembled. The electrics were soon followed by a gasoline powered model in 1904.
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By 1920 Studebaker horse drawn buggy production would cease. Later on, in 1966, the Studebaker Automotive Company, known at the time as a style leader, was driven out of business by the bigger Detroit auto makers.
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Halter Feed & Grain Mill

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In 2009, the owner of Halter Feed & Grain retired. After 50 yrs. of operation by the family, the Mill, located in Robertsville, Stark Co., was sold at action. The museum was able to save two feed baggers, conveyer belts and pulleys, the Halter Feed sign and a very nice printed Halter feed sack. We have now set up the Halter Mill display at the museum.

Over the years we have also collected many other feed mill items and equipment, including the Garman Farm hammer mill, several platform scales for weighing bags of grain, a quite rare oat crusher used for crimping oats to make a better more digestible horse feed,  a seed sorter, grain grinding mill, a number of table top corn grinders, hand trucks, feed and supplements signs, a neat price list sign board from Ashery Feed Mill, lots of feed bags and more. Next to the mill will be parked the Museum’s 1919 Model TT feed delivery truck.

This collection makes a new and interesting display to come see the next time you visit the museum.

 

The Winter of 2014/2015

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It’s almost mid-March and there’s plenty of cleaning up to do from this (almost) passed winter. During February we never had a day above freezing. As a consequence, the snow just continued to build up. The result of that was that we had our first ever building collapse.

One morning I went out to feed the animals and there was the Harness Shop fallen into ruin. Unfortunately, the temp. that day and for the week following was in the single digits. It was just too cold to work outside. But finally it warmed up a bit and good friend and constant museum helper, Mendy, and my nephew Mike came over to help start the clean-up. The first day we managed to pull out from under the fallen roof several sewing machines and lots of harness. The next day we dug snow all day. What a job. It was 2′ thick and packed and heavy. We had to move it a shovel at a time and load it into wheel barrows to haul away.

It’s been several days now of hard work tearing apart the building, getting the space ready to build anew and saving the many machines and gear of the shop. We’ve moved it all into the old gen’l store and will set it up soon as the “new” harness shop. The space where the original harness shop was will become an expanded addition to the tractor and motorized farm equipment display.

Quotes We Like About Farming & History

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“If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: that was the American dream.”    ~Edward Abbey

“A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia. “    ~David McCullough

“Our food crisis began when we stopped caring about where our food came from. It began when we no longer knew the people that grew our produce and raised the animals we eat. It began when we stopped cooking and started eating out of boxes and ate fast-food in our cars. It began when we started trusting companies that rely solely on profit to feed us. Monsanto exists because of our neglect. How we became so disconnected from such an important part of our very being is hard to understand.  –It’s Time to Reconnect! Support Local Agriculture!”    ~Anonymous

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”    ~Pearl Buck

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”    ~Mahatma Gandhi

“The challenge of history is to recover the past and introduce it to the present.”    ~David Thelen

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”    ~Abraham Lincoln

“History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same.”    ~Walter Rauschenbusch

“It is hard for us today to realize how very widely communities were separated from one another when they depended for transportation wholly on the railroad and the horse and wagon – and when telephones were still scarce, and radios non-existent. A town which was not situated on a railroad was really remote. A farmer who lived five miles outside the county seat made something of an event of hitching up and taking the family to town for a Saturday afternoon’s shopping. (His grandchildren make the run in a casual ten minutes, and think nothing of it.) A trip to see friends ten miles away was likely to be an all-day expedition, for the horse had to be given a chance to rest and be fed. No wonder that each region, each town, each farm was far more dependent upon its own resources – its own produce, social contacts, amusements – than in later years. For in terms of travel and communication the United States was a very big country indeed.

No wonder, furthermore, that the majority of Americans were less likely than their descendants to be dogged by that frightening sense of insecurity which comes from being jostled by forces – economic, political, international – beyond one’s personal ken. Their horizons were close to them. They lived among familiar people and familiar things – individuals and families and fellow townsmen much of their own sort, with ideas intelligible to them. A man’s success or failure seemed more likely than in later years to depend upon forces and events within his own range of vision. Less often than his sons and grandsons did he feel that his fortune, indeed his life, might hang upon some decision made in Washington or Berlin or Moscow, for reasons utterly strange to his experience. The world at which he looked over the dashboard of the family carriage might not be friendly, but at least most of it looked understandable.”  ~The Big Change: 1900-1950 by Frederick Lewis Allen, published in 1952.

–Come to the museum. Learn about America’s agrarian past. And learn how to use those past skills and knowledge, to raise your own animals, grow your own food, make your own everyday tools, goods and clothing. Stop by anytime to talk, or take one of the museum’s many homesteading & self-reliance classes.

Animals at the Village

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When you come to visit the museum, be sure to save time to see the many farm animals. At one time it was very common for kids to be raised with, handle and care for a variety of animals. When children were raised on farms there were eggs to collect, cows to milk, pigs to feed and barn cats to play with, often before the children ate their own breakfasts.

These days children very rarely spend time, or even know much about what happens, on a farm and “who” lives there. We often have school groups that come to tour and I usually take them into the barn to see who’s home. One time as we stood looking at the milk cows, I asked them where chocolate milk came from. No one knew. When I said it came from brown cows, many of them nodded  in agreement (I have noticed that many farmers tend to have a very dry sense of humor).

Come to the museum and introduce your family to our Big Black/Duroc Hampshire pigs, Jersey/Normandy milk cows, Jacob sheep, La Mancha milk goats, New Zealand rabbits and lots of different breeds of chickens (our favorites are the Aracana hens that lay blue or green or pink eggs).

We really like to raise heritage and less common breeds. This is partly because heritage animals can be much more hardy to difficult weather conditions and different available forages. They can also often have more successful births without human intervention.

Most people know that we are losing our diversity of seeds for the garden, not as many know that the same thing is happening with livestock. Mega farms tend to raise one of two particular breeds of animals because it helps make profit easier. Hereford cattle, Angus cattle and common white pigs are very often raised. For Thanksgiving turkey, most birds raised are “Big Bronze”. The problem is with almost exclusively raising one or two breeds, if ever a disease particular to that breed causes them to die out, we may all be forced to become vegetarians, or worse yet, we could lose whole species of animals, not just that one breed. Most chickens like leghorns have “forgotten” how to hatch eggs because it has been bred out of them. And in the case of the big bronzes, if they’re allowed to live past a year old they become so big they can’t fly and often can’t even walk.

We also do a certain amount of animal rescues. Sometimes people can’t or even won’t take care of their animals. When that happens, the animals are sometimes taken away so they do not suffer. There are farms where they are placed with people who will care for them. We have had beef cattle, goats, riding and draft horses, ducks, turkeys, llamas, pigs and lots of roosters brought here. When we find new homes for them, they move on. Stop by to see if we have any current rescues, along with the animals we raise.

The Museum Tool Collection Grows.

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In the last several months the museum’s tool collection has continued to grow. The biggest additions are a hand cranked sheet metal bender, a foot powered lathe, a “bicycle” grinding wheel, a hand made blacksmith forge, a foot powered jig saw and several wood stoves.

The bender is something I’ve been wanting to get for the tin shop for some time now. It’s used for bending or “rolling” flat metal for making tea pots, large or small pans, buckets and such. I actually found it online for sale at a fairly high cost. But once the gentleman learned of its use for the museum, he decided to donate it. A couple friends and I drove up to Cleveland to pick it up. It’s a good thing the 3 of us went. The bender was far larger than I had anticipated and it was all we could do to load it on Robert’s truck. We had to take it apart just to lift it. But despite its weight and size, it’s a great tool to have.

 

The lathe is a real prize. Years ago I worked at Hale Homestead Farm & Village. Among the various jobs I held there was wood worker. There was a broken foot powered lathe in the shop, which I soon had working. I have always wanted such a lathe to use here. I believe our “new” one may be a bit older than Hale’s. You stand at it and push the foot treadle up and down with your foot, which turns a large cast iron wheel, which spins a belt, which turns a pulley, that spins the wood, (that swallowed a cat, to catch the bird, that ate the spider, …). Then hold a chisel against the spinning wood to shape it down it into stair step spindles, Shaker style clothes hooks, candle sticks, lamp posts, wooden bowls or whatever else you need or imagine. When we went to pick up the lathe, the gentleman also had an exceptionally beautiful Victorian hanging lamp, which we hung in the main house kitchen.

The bicycle grinding wheel was another donation. It’s really neat. You sit on a metal seat, much like a bicycle’s seat. Then you turn the foot powered pedals with your feet in order to turn the grind stone. It’s used for sharpening knives, chisels, garden tools like shovels and hoes, or smoothing metal edges before blacksmithing or welding. It’s a really nice tool for when you are working alone. Some of the older style grind stones had a hand crank on the side. You either had to hold the piece you were grinding with one hand while turning the crank with the other, or you needed a helper to turn the wheel. With the “bicycle” you can sit down, turn the stone with your feet and have both hands free for the work., without having to employ an apprentice.

We recently received two wood stoves. The first one was donated by a family in Garrettsville. They had it out in the barn, which was quite a neat structure. They took me upstairs to show me the burned walls from a barn fire a hundred years ago. The fire burned the roof right off the building (the current owners had found an old newspaper article about the fire), while leaving the first floor untouched (-hooray for firemen). The stove will need a bit of work to make it safe to burn, but it has a great look as is.

 

The second stove was also a donation. The Hinckley Historical Society called and asked if I could use it. They decided to close one of their houses and had too much furniture to incorporate into their other buildings. The stove is ready to use, has a great look, and will make a very nice addition to the Blaine-Stewart Cigar Factory. I’ve wanted to use the factory (the building was originally the Darrowville Post Office) during colder weather, and the stove will work just fine.

The forge is a real prize. It’s all homemade. It has a wood frame which holds a cast iron base of an old wood stove. The maker of the forge used a wheel from a corn sheller, attached a pulley to it to turn a belt that turned a fan. The fan was connected to the bottom of the forge by part of a tractor manifold exhaust pipe and some bent tin. Bits and pieces put together to make a perfectly working forge. It looks to me to have been made in the 1930′s when there was little money for store bought. It’s just the kind of thing I really like to collect and preserve, -one of a kinds.

“New” Model TT Arrives at the Museum

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The museum recently acquired a 1919 Model TT (similar to the one pictured). It will make a nice addition to our gas station display and our 1920 Model T tractor, 1927 Flying Cloud REO, 1928 Whippet and 1934 Reo fire truck  (which was Richfield’s first fire truck). We acquired the 1919 from a sign dealer in Millersburg, with whom we traded a number of signs of a more recent time period which weren’t a particularly good fit for the museum. (If you happen to have signs to donate maybe we could turn them into a Model A !!)

Our “new” truck is missing a number of parts, but we found a really neat Model T junk yard/parts seller in Kansas. From the pictures it’s quite an incredible place. Acres and acres of cars & parts. As soon as the snow clears, we’ll see about getting a radiator and headlights. Once the frame is repaired and painted we’ll decide which truck bed body to put on it. In the early days of the selling of Ford trucks they came without a bed and guys would fit them out as they wished. We’ve seen many different types, with some being stake beds, some have large tanks for hauling liquids, some became fire trucks and some had insulated boxes for carrying ice, and etc. If you like old cars, and like to work on restoring them, stop on by. We’d love some help in returning the TT to its original condition.

1919 Model TT Truck

The Ford Model TT is a truck made by the Ford Motor Company. It was based on the Ford Model T, but with a heavier frame and rear axle.  The wheelbase of the Model TT was 125 inches (3,200 mm), compared to 100 inches (2,500 mm) for the Model T. They were often sold as a chassis with the buyer supplying the truck body as needed. Mass production with Ford produced bodies ran from 1925 to 1927, but production of the Model TT had started with the first chassis being released in 1917. In 1923, it cost $380.[2] In 1925, a hand operated windshield wiper was added.[1]
It was very durable for the time, but slow when compared to other trucks.With standard gearing, a speed of not more than 15 mph (24 km/h) was recommended, and with special gearing, a speed of not more than 22 mph (35 km/h) was recommended, according to Ford Dealers Data Book 1923.
It was replaced by the Ford Model AA truck.

Pumpkin time!!

We will be open 7 days a week daylight hours for the sale of pumpkins, honey &  maple syrup, cornstalks, locally made crafts, mums and more.  Museum and farm tours are always free, so bring the family, have a look at our newest buildings, then grab a red wagon and pick out your favorite pumpkins. Pies and baked goods available on weekends.

 

(330)659-3507

Birthday Parties at the Farm & Museum

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The museum is now offering a fun day on the farm, learning lots of “old time” skills and crafts. For the perfect and very different birthday party, bring your child and friends to learn to make a candle, pull taffy, churn home made ice cream or butter, collect eggs in the chicken coop, milk the cow and make cheese and butter, play old time games or lots of other American heritage/Laura Ingalls Wilder activities.  Call or email for pricing and scheduling  (330)659-3507  StoneGardenFamily@yahoo.com

The Museum’s Buggies, Wagons & Sleighs

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The Museum has a growing collection of buggies and wagons. 110+ years ago horses, harness and wooden wheels formed the backbone of American transportation. Folks also occasionally used bicycles, but the few bikes were little used beyond the paved streets of the cities. Dirt roads were just too rutted and rough. Continue reading →