So, you don't have to guess that I try and visit as much as I am able during "open season."
And during my visits I take an awful lot of photos. I may take a half-dozen photos of the same thing at a slightly different angle just to get the right look I am striving for. But mostly I simply play tourist with my point and shoot Sony camera.
I thought for today's post I would show a few of some of my favorite shots taken during this year of 2019, beginning with the April 12 opening day through Labor Day - roughly spring through summer.
Now these pictures are really in no historical order; they do not necessarily tell a story other than the fact the images are historical in nature. Think of them as peering at a photo album. Or maybe spying through a portal into the past, for as the title of this post states, I am truly fascinated by things not of this time.
Let's begin with opening day: April 12
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| April 'Twas a cloudy cool day, but the scenes from the past just seemed to jump right out begging to be photographed, such as the horse and carriage preparing to clip-clop through the 1831 Ackley Covered Bridge. |
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| April The Daggett break-back (saltbox) house (built in 1750) and the Farris Windmill (from 1633). Yeah...Daggett...my absolute favorite. |
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| April A couple of farmers representing early 20th century. |
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| April Which one for dinner? |
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| April Springtime plowing at Firestone Farm |
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| April In the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, Abel Prescott, the brother of Samuel Prescott, who was one of the warning riders that rode with none other than Paul Revere himself, pounded upon this very door to warn Thomas Plympton, a member of the Provincial Congress, who lived in this house in Sudbury, Massachusetts, that the British Regulars were on the march! Yeah...that's me in the picture below sort of playing the role of Abel Prescott...254 years to the day.  At the very same door... It gives me chills. |
I've never visited Greenfield Village on Easter Sunday before, for my family always celebrated Easter on the day itself. Also, many times this most important of holidays usually falls before the Village's official opening day. So I took advantage of this rarity, and since now that my family celebrates Easter on Saturday, that left Sunday free to go to church and then to visit Greenfield Village.
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| Easter Sunday Upon entering the Village, it felt like Easter. The weather was spring-like, many people were (as was said in the old days) gaily dressed, and the joyous Easter feeling from long ago was in the air. |
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| Easter Sunday The Village Green with the Martha-Mary Chapel centered beautifully. |
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| Easter Sunday If you look closely, you can see the horses and carriage |
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| Easter Sunday Lest you think such a place might not be busy on Easter Sunday, here you go. |
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| Easter Sunday An Easter meal at the Daggett House |
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| Easter Sunday Preparing for the Easter celebration at the Edison Cottage, representing life in 1915 |
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| Easter Sunday Preparing for the Easter celebration at the Edison Cottage, representing life in 1915 |
Now we'll head into May:
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| May Rebecca cards wool in Daggett's great hall |
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| May The kitchen door |
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| Early May Anna Daggett digging her kitchen garden |
At the end of May those of us who reenact the Civil War take part in one of the largest reenactments in the area. I did a blog posting about that event HERE, and included are sixty one pictures, so there is no need to include any from that event in today's post. But click the link if you are interested in checking it out.
So now we shall move into the month of June:
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| June Preparations for Independence Day celebrations are under way at the Eagle Tavern, built in 1830. |
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| June The Wright Brothers House - the one and the same in which Orville and Wilbur lived during the time in 1903 that they invented and flew the first real working aeroplane. |
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| June Dinner time bell is rung at Firestone Farm |
Now we are into July:
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| July The back-breaking work of using a scythe. And that is the Firestone farmhouse there, originally built in 1828 with an addition added on in the early 1880s. |
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| July Inside the Firestone Farmhouse we see the dining room as it looks in the morning hours. |
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| July I love the contrast between the wheat and the buckwheat |
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| July My lovely wife and I with one of our most favorite of presenters, Mrs. Dillard (affectionately known as "Mama Jean" to her friends and fans). |
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| July Firestone Farm pigs! |
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| July By July, the Daggett House kitchen garden really took off. |
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| July Mr. Daggett and daughter Tabitha having a bit of flax fun. |
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| July The J. R. Jones General Store, built in 1854. |
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| August In the morning. |
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| August A greeter on the porch of the Eagle Tavern. |
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| August Inside the original kitchen of the Eagle Tavern. Yes, that is its original hearth you see here - the same hearth that the guests' food was once cooked over. |
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| August Greeting the Day at the Daggett House. |
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| August We see one of the Daggett daughters gathering early harvest greens. |
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| August Baby I'm a dreamer, found my horse and carriage. |
I had a bit of fun with the next couple of pictures:
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| August A couple of customers to the General Store noticed the quality vegetables recently picked. |
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| August I asked the presenters for a pose, and they certainly gave me a great one! |
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| August After a hard day on the Firestone Farm in the sitting room. |
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| August Looking at the pond that runs 'neath the Ackley Covered Bridge. |
Labor Day signals the end of summer, though technically there still remains three weeks left.
Yet...tradition reigns...
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| Labor Day A scene from before there was a Labor Day holiday as the horse and carriage move past the JR Jones General Store. |
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| Labor Day Over at Firestone Farm, the late summer harvest continues. |
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| Labor Day A Canadian goose flies over the heirloom apple trees in the Firestone orchard. Glad I had my camera ready. |
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| Labor Day Peeping 'round the door - - ahhh...life in the 18th century. |
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| Labor Day The morning sun in the Daggett lean-to kitchen glows. |
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| Labor Day A kitchen sink inside the Ford house representing 1876. No running water. |
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| September 7 Okay, so I am cheating a little with this picture. It was taken a week after Labor Day during the Old Car festival when the Village was opened until 9:00. I was able to capture the Daggett Farm in the night time. The little bit of candle light in the window? Well, I'm not kidding when I say the Daggetts still live there! |
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Please understand - - I took hundreds upon hundreds of pictures during these five months. I just went through and chose those that stood out to me the most for this posting.
And don't worry about September through December, for, believe me, you will see plenty of those coming up here soon.
Until next time, see you in time.
To learn more about these other historic structures inside Greenfield Village:
Firestone Farm, click HERE
Daggett House, click HERE
Plympton House, click HERE
Giddings House, click HERE
The Ackley Covered Bridge, click HERE
The Eagle Tavern, click HERE
Doc Howard's Office, click HERE
The Home of Noah Webster, click HERE
Richart Carriage Shop, click HERE
How and why Henry Ford preserved the buildings, click HERE
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