Historic Richmond Town [NY]

Description

Historic Richmond Town is New York City's living history village and museum complex. Visitors can explore the diversity of the American experience, especially that of Staten Island and its neighboring communities, from the colonial period to the present. The village area occupies 25 acres of a 100-acre site with about 15 restored buildings, including homes and commercial and civic buildings, as well as a museum.

The site offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, educational programs, workshops, and recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Jamestown Settlement, and Yorktown Victory Center [VA]

Description

The Foundation operates the Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center, two living-history museums that explore America’s beginnings. Through film, artifact-filled galleries, and outdoor living history, these museums engage visitors in nearly two centuries of the nation's history—from the founding of America's first permanent English settlement in 1607 to the decisive Revolutionary War victory in 1781 and implementation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Today at Jamestown Settlement, the story of the people who founded Jamestown and of the Virginia Indians they encountered is told through film, gallery exhibits, and living history. New gallery exhibits and a new introductory film trace Jamestown's beginnings in England and the first century of the Virginia colony and describe the cultures of the Powhatan Indians, Europeans, and Africans who converged in 1600s Virginia. Outdoors, visitors can board replicas of the three ships that sailed from England to Virginia in 1607, explore life-size recreations of the colonists' fort and a Powhatan village, and tour a riverfront discovery area to learn about European, Powhatan, and African economic activities associated with water. In the outdoor areas, costumed historical interpreters describe and demonstrate daily life in the early 17th century. Today at the Yorktown Victory Center, America's evolution from colonial status to nationhood is chronicled through a unique blend of timeline, film, thematic exhibits and outdoor living history. An outdoor exhibit walkway details events that led American colonies to declare independence from Britain.

A second website for the organization can be found here.

The sites offer short films, exhibits, tours, demonstrations, lectures, educational programs, and recreational and educational programs.

Hempsted Houses [CT]

Description

The 1678 Joshua Hempsted House is one of New England's oldest and best documented dwellings. Joshua Hempsted lived here his whole life, filling many roles, including farmer, judge, gravestone carver, shipwright, and father of nine children left motherless by his wife's death in 1716. The Hempsted House survived the 1781 burning of New London by the British, commanded by traitor Benedict Arnold. Later, it may have been a safe house on the secret Underground Railroad which aided fugitive slaves seeking freedom. Adjacent to the Joshua Hempsted House is a rare stone dwelling built in 1759 by his grandson Nathaniel. Both houses' furnishings include original Hempsted family objects.

The houses offer exhibits and tours.

Museum of African American History and Historical Sites [MA]

Description

The Museum of African American History is dedicated to preserving, conserving, and accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the colonial period through the 19th century. The Museum maintains several individual historical sites, including the Boston African Meeting House, the Abiel Smith School, the Nantucket African Meeting House, and the Higginbotham House. The African Meeting House on Beacon Hill was built in 1806 in what once was the heart of Boston's 19th-century African-American community. It is today a showcase of black community organization in the formative years of the new republic. The 1834 Abiel Smith School is the first building in the nation built for the sole purpose of serving as a public school for black children. This historic site has been transformed into exhibit galleries. The African Meeting House on Nantucket is the island's most vivid reminder of a thriving 19th-century African-American community. Erected in the 1820s by the African Baptist Society (of which Captain Absalom Boston was a trustee), it is the only public building still in existence that was constructed and occupied by the island's African Americans during the 19th century.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, lectures, and recreational and educational events; the Boston African Meeting House offers tours; the School offers exhibits; the Nantucket African Meeting House offers exhibits.

Fort Bedford Museum [PA]

Description

Old Fort Bedford was a British stockade built in 1758 as part of the French and Indian War campaign against the French at Fort Duquesne. After several failed attempts in the early 1750s, the British launched a major offensive against Fort Duquesne in 1758. Facing the formidable task of crossing the Allegheny Mountains and the treat of attack, numerous stockades were built along the way west. Fort Bedford was constructed as a key fortification along the military path Forbes Road and served as the staging area for the successful campaign. After the war Fort Bedford stood until the 1770s, used as a British outpost on the frontier and as a refuge from Indian attack as westward migration increased in the 18th century. Today, a reconstructed blockhouse structure houses a large-scale model of the original fort. The Museum displays Native American artifacts collected from the region. Thousands of household items dating back 100 to more than 200 years ago from flintlock rifles to early clothing to antique hand tools help to recreate the atmosphere of pioneer days on the frontier of western Pennsylvania.

The museum offers exhibits.

Nantucket Historical Association, Whaling Museum, and Historic Sites [MA]

Description

The Association operates several museums and historic sites, including the Whaling Museum, Hadwen House, Oldest House, Old Mill, Old Gaol, Quaker Meeting House, and the Hose-cart House. The Museum displays exhibits tracing the history of the New England whaling industry. The Hadwen House is a Greek Revival mansion built in 1845 by whaling merchant and silver retailer William Hadwen. Also called the Jethro Coffin House, the Oldest House is the oldest residence on Nantucket. Built as a wedding gift in 1686 for Jethro Coffin and Mary Gardner, it is the sole surviving structure from the island's original 17th-century English settlement. The Old Mill, built in 1746 by Nathan Wilbur, a Nantucket sailor who had spent time in Holland, is the oldest functioning mill in the country. The Old Gaol was opened in 1806; the wooden structure represents colonial architecture with exceptional reinforcements. The Quaker (Friends) Meeting House was erected in 1838 and originally served as a Friends School for the Wilburite Sect. The Fire Hose-cart House is the last remaining 19th-century firehouse on the island, dating from 1886.

The association offers tours, lectures, classes, research library access, and recreational and educational events; the Museum offers exhibits; the Hadwen House offers tours; the Oldest House offers tours; the Old Mill offers tours and demonstrations; the Old Gaol is open to the public; the Quaker Meeting House is open to the public and offers lectures; the Hose-cart House is open to the public.

Hancock House [NJ]

Description

Built in 1734, the Hancock House is an important tangible link to understanding the history of Salem County and the nation’s struggle for independence. It was the home of a prominent Salem County family and is an excellent example of English Quaker patterned end wall brick houses associated with the lower Delaware Valley and southwestern New Jersey. It was also the scene of a British-led massacre during the Revolutionary War.

The house offers tours, workshops, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Plimoth Plantation

Description

Plimoth Plantation, a bicultural museum, offers powerful personal encounters with history built on thorough research about the Wampanoag People and the Colonial English community in the 1600s. The Plantation's exhibits, programs, live interpreters, and historic settings encourage a new level of understanding about present-day issues affecting communities around the world. The Plantation is made up of several organized areas, including the Wampanoag Homesite, the Mayflower II, the 1627 English Village, the Crafts Center, and the Nye Barn.

The plantation offers exhibits, tours, living history demonstrations, workshops, lectures, and educational and recreational programs.

Historic Miller-Cory House

Description

The Miller-Cory House is a story-and-a-half clapboard farmhouse with shingled roof, brace and beam construction, and nogging-filled walls typical of an average New Jersey homestead of the mid-18th century. It was begun in 1740, at the time Samuel Miller married his wife Sabra. Three sections were completed before Samuel Miller's death in 1782. The property came into the possession of Joseph Cory in 1784, and remained in the Cory family until 1921. Today, the Miller-Cory House is a nationally recognized living museum. It has been certified as an historic site and has been entered on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places. It is the focus of the Miller-Cory House museum to effectively create the atmosphere of an 18th-century farm in the midst of suburban, metropolitan New Jersey. On Sundays, costumed docents describe 18th-century life as they guide guests through the house. Visitors are introduced to a variety of colonial skills as trained artisans recreate the crafts and tasks of the 18th- and early 19th-century farm family.

The site offers tours, living history demonstrations, and educational and recreational programs.

Museums of Old York [ME]

Description

The Old York Historical Society, as the Museums of Old York, was founded more than 100 years ago to preserve the history and artifacts of York, Maine. Originally referred to as Gorgeana, York is one of New England's earliest colonial settlements. It also has the distinction of being the nation's first chartered city (1641) and first incorporated city (1642). Offering 37 period room settings and several galleries housed throughout nine historic museum buildings, the Museums of Old York showcases a wealth of early New England art, architecture, and decorative arts. The exhibits focus on the stories of southern Maine's men, women, and children and the world they created and lived in from the earliest settlement in the 1600s to the present day. Historic structures include the 1834 Remick Barn, the 1750 Jefferds' Tavern, the 1745 Old Schoolhouse, the 1742 Emerson-Wilcox House, the 1719 Old Gaol, the 1747 Ramsdell House, the 1740s John Hancock Wharf, the 1867 George Marshall Store, and the 1730 Elizabeth Perkins House.

The museums offer exhibits, tours, living history demonstrations, classes, and other educational and recreational events.