A week or so ago a friend stopped by. She said the Huntley barn and buildings were soon to be torn down.
Museum Broom Shop
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. Continue reading
The Kenski Farm’s odd barn, the old cement trough, and Gertrude’s sewing needles.
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. Continue reading
An Ancient Loom & A Red Corn Sheller
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.) Continue reading
The Car That Became a Tractor
Adam and Sophie Zielinski lived on their farm on Everett Rd., Richfield, for years. But it took them awhile to get there. Continue reading
A Box of Cigars & a Loom
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. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
“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. Continue reading
Blaine-Stewart Cigar Factory
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, … Continue reading
Worsh Day (Old N. Ohio Accent for Wash)
When I was young, I remember folks in Richfield still arguing about the War of Rebellion/War Between the States. Continue reading
Studebaker Buggy Rolls Into Museum.

Halter Feed & Grain Mill
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
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. Continue reading
Quotes We Like About Farming & History
“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
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, … Continue reading
The Museum Tool Collection Grows.
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.
“New” Model TT Arrives at the Museum
The museum recently acquired a 1919 Model TT Continue reading
Christmas Trees at the Farm
Starting Thanksgiving day, bring the family out to Stone Garden Farm and Village to take a free tour of the many buildings that make up our 19th century village and to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. Continue reading
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
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
Horse Harness, “Shine” & The Mueller Farm
We recently received a call from Roger Miller at Miller Orchards on Baumhart Rd. in Amherst, Lorain County. His family has owned and operated the family farm and orchard (now totaling 500 acres) since 1840. Continue reading
The Museum’s Buggies, Wagons & Sleighs
- Birch Run Buggy
- Amish Surry
- Light Farm Wagon
- Akron Grocery Store Cart
- “Jaeger” Buggy
- 120+ Year Old Sleigh
- Wheatly Wagon
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
The One Room School Houses of Richfield & Osborn Corner’s Grange
- School Hse. #5 at Black & Boston Mills Rds.
- School #10 Osborn’s Corners, Everett & Medina Line Rds.
- Osborn Corner’s School #10. Interior lathe & wainscoting.
- School #6 on Rte. 303
- Bath Twp, Stony Hill Sch. # 12
- Richfield High School, 1864. West Richfield Center.
At one time there were 12 one room school houses in Richfield Twp. Continue reading
Rendering Tallow
Hunting season having just concluded, several friends (most especially Glen) gave us a quite a bit of deer fat. We use the tallow produced from it in our daily cooking and when teaching classes in soap and candle making. Continue reading
Barrel Making Shop
A couple years ago I received a call from Barbara Gynn, of Brecksville, Cuyahoga Co. She needed the roof fixed on one of her farm’s out-buildings. She called me because several years earlier I had fixed her brother Elton’s barn (He had asked Amish, local builders, contractors and others to fix it and no one could. –I did.). Continue reading