After the walking tour of Staunton's historic districts we ate lunch and then headed to the Frontier Culture Museum.
The museum is an outdoor, living history museum featuring exhibits and programs that explore the origins and history of the American people. The first part of the walking tour shows how the people who imigrated lived before they came to America. The first exhibit is a West African Farm. Unfortunatly, these people did not come voluntary.
Next we have the English, Irish and German Farms. Each farm had someone there who gave us an oral description of how they lived.
English Farm house
Irish farmhouse
German Barn
This bed is typical of the Irish farmhouse. We were told that due to health reasons most had to sleep sitting up in bed to breath easier. Hench the shorter beds?
The next exhibits show the homes that were built in the different periods after the migration to America.
1740s American Farm
1820s American farm
1850s American farm
1850s Barn
Inside the barn was an authentic replica of a Cyrus McCormick horse drawn reaper
All of these structures, both from overseas and American were purchased, disassembled, and transported to the museum and put back together. Its an amazing amount of man hours that went in to all of this. We really enjoyed the museum. Would recommend it to anyone interested in american history.
That must have been a great tour - I need to add that to my bucket list. I always thought the beds were shorter because the people were shorter back then.
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