Visitors can step back in time to 17th-century New England at Salem's oldest living history museum. The site is a recreation of the English colony established by Roger Conant and his intrepid band of settlers. From these humbling beginnings the seeds of Revolution were planted.
The site offers exhibits and demonstrations.
The Association for Preservation of Historic Natchitoches seeks to preserve areas of historic value in the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The Association maintains the Melrose Plantation and the Kate Chopin House. The Melrose story begins with Marie Therese Coincoin, a slave born in 1742; she was eventually she sold to a Frenchmen, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. In time, Metoyer freed Marie Therese and 10 Franco-African children. Evidence points to Metoyer as the father of these children. Marie Therese and son Louis Metoyer received large grants of land including the present Melrose Plantation. This Creole-style home celebrates its most famous resident, Kate Chopin, and its original inhabitant, Alexis Cloutier. Built by slave labor between 1805 and 1809, the structure exemplifies the early 19th-century homes of the area.
The association offers occasional recreational and educational events; the plantation offers tours; the house offers exhibits and tours.
The Society is housed in the Jonathan Bourne Historical Center, built in 1897 by Emily Howland Bourne as a town library and as a memorial to her father, Jonathan Bourne, for whom the town was named. The Society also manages the Aptucxet Trading Post and the Briggs-McDermott House. The Trading Post recreates the first trade house built in 1627, by Plymouth Colony, located on the south bank of the Manomet (Monument) River, which is now part of the Cape Cod Canal. The Pilgrims traded with the Indians and the Dutch from New Amsterdam (New York City), thus having a source of income by which their debt to the London backers of their expedition to the New World could be repaid. The Trading Post site also houses Gray Gables Railroad Station, built for the personal use of President Grover Cleveland during the years of his presidency (18931896). The Greek Revival-style Briggs-McDermott House has been restored and furnished to reflect the period from 1840 to 1910, an important time for the Briggs family and Bourne.
The society offers lectures and occasional recreational and educational events; the center offers tours, exhibits, and research library access; the Trading Post offers tours; the Briggs-McDermott House offers exhibits and tours.
Built in 1758 by the Colony of New Jersey during the French and Indian War, the Old Barracks was a witness in 1776 to the Battle of Trenton, the turning point of the American Revolution. Today, the Old Barracks serves as an educational center for Colonial and American history, and stands as the last remaining structure of its kind. The Old Barracks staff provides daily tours and interpretations of American colonial life. The building offers a museum of artifacts and weapons.
The site offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).
Legend Rock enables visitors to view over 300 petroglyphs spanning a time period of thousands of years. These petroglyphs introduce visitors to multiple cultures and eras long past.
The site offers tours.
Belle Grove is an 18th-century grain and livestock farm, which, in its prime (circa 1815), encompassed about 7,500 acres of land. The unique limestone house was completed in 1797 for Major Isaac Hite and his wife Nelly, sister of future President James Madison. The house has remained virtually unchanged through the years, offering visitors an experience of the life and times of the people who lived there in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. During the Civil War, Belle Grove was at the center of the decisive Battle of Belle Grove or Cedar Creek. Today, the plantation includes the main house and gardens, original outbuildings, a classic 1918 barn, an overseer's house, the slave cemetery, a heritage apple orchard, fields and meadows, and scenic mountain views.
The site offers tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).
A striking historic adobe structure, this site explores the stories of a multicultural family who influenced the development of the Southwest borderlands. Magoffin family members actively participated in American expansion, West Texas settlement, trade on the Santa Fe-Chihuahua Trails, Civil War turmoil, military service and U.S. Mexico relations. The home, built around 1875 by Joseph Magoffin, is a prime example of territorial style architecture. Explore the home’s authentic art and furnishings reflecting the daily lives of this prominent El Paso family. The site is open Tuesday- Sunday from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tours are given on the hour with the last tour at 4 p.m. Students of all ages are encouraged to come experience life in the past! Tours are designed to meet the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies.
Schools are asked to make reservations in advance by calling 915.533.5147.
This historic rancho, now a living history museum, dates from the early 1700s and was an important paraje, or stopping point, along the famous Camino Real, the Royal Road from Mexico City to Santa Fe, NM.
The site offers demonstrations, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).
One of the oldest sites in Bergen County, this pre-Revolutionary sandstone house is officially listed on the New Jersey State and United States National Register of Historic Places. A living Dutch farm museum, it sponsors activities involving restoration, preservation, historic digs, compilation of local history and folklore, educational programming, colonial agriculture, horticulture, and crafts.
The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.
Visitors to the Astor House Museum and Clear Creek History Park can explore how the people of Golden, CO, settled a bustling town that served the developing West as a government center and mining supply town. They can tour an 1800s boarding house and homestead where early Colorado pioneers worked and played, see what life was like on the frontier, and hear stories of the people who called this place home. The Astor House was built in 1867 and stayed in continuous operation as a boarding and rooming house until 1971—over 100 years! It rented rooms and served hot meals to lawmakers, laborers, miners, students, and families, some of whom stayed for weeks or even months. Clear Creek History Park recreates the look and feel of a late 1800s mountain ranch complete with gardens, a working blacksmith shop, schoolhouse, and chicken coop (chickens included).
The sites offer tours, demonstrations, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).