Shaker Historical Museum [OH]

Description

The Shaker Museum is housed in a mansion overlooking Upper Shaker Lake. The museum exhibits a large collection of Shaker objects. Many are from North Union, a Shaker colony founded in 1822 and located in what is now the city of Shaker Heights. The museum also has a library with collections from both the 19th-century Shakers and 20th-century Shaker Heights. By 1850, North Union was a prosperous community of 200. At first it sold produce and handmade furniture to nearby communities. Cleveland's mass production industries eventually put them out of business. The colony disbanded in 1889.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, lectures, and research library access.

Stephen Decatur House Museum [DC]

Description

The Stephen Decatur House is one of the oldest surviving homes in Washington, DC and one of only three remaining residential buildings in the country designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who has been called the father of American architecture. The home was completed in 1818, and has been home to many prominent figures over the course of its history both due to its neoclassical architecture as well as its location across from the White House. The location offers visitors a glimpse into nearly 200 years of Washington history through a variety of permanent and special exhibits. Currently, the house is undergoing an extensive renovation, though exhibits continue to be open for visitors.

The website offers brief biographies of all house owners, a history of the Lafayette Square neighborhood; information on all special events and programs, including educational tours and other programs designed for schoolchildren; an online museum shop; and visitor information.

The house offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational programs.

High Point Museum [NC]

Description

The Museum chronicles the history of High Point, North Carolina, and the greater Triad, which consists of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. The museum offers visitors a variety of exhibits, as well as access to the 1786 Haley House and Blacksmith Shop and the 1801 Hoggatt House.

The website offers visitor information, a brief history of the museum, an events calendar, and as well as links to outside historical resources.

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

Zion Historical Society and Shiloh House

Description

The Society's main focus is maintaining the 1901 Shiloh House, the home of Zion's founder, Dr. John Alexander Dowie. The Society maintains a museum collection in Shiloh House. Artifacts of the period, many the personal property of the late Dr. and Mrs. Dowie, are on display. The Society continues to build on its collection through donations of photographs, documents, and artifacts by both past and present Zion residents.

The house offers exhibits and tours.

Dudley Farm Historic State Park [FL]

Description

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this park demonstrates the evolution of Florida farming from the 1850s to the mid-1940s—through three generations of the Dudley family. An authentic working farm, the homestead consists of 18 buildings, including the family farmhouse with original furnishings, an 1880s kitchen outbuilding, a general store and post office, and a functional cane syrup complex. Park staff in period clothing perform daily chores—raising crops and tending to livestock. The farm features seasonal cane grindings, corn shuckings, and heritage varieties of livestock and plants.

The park offers demonstrations, exhibits, tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Barnacle Historic State Park [FL]

Description

The Barnacle, built in 1891, offers a glimpse of Old Florida during the Era of the Bay. Situated on the shore of Biscayne Bay, this was the home of Ralph Middleton Munroe, one of Coconut Grove's most charming and influential pioneers. Munroe's principal passion was designing yachts. In his lifetime, he drew plans for 56 different boats. As a seaman, civic activist, naturalist, and photographer, Commodore Munroe was a man who cherished the natural world around him.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and educational and recreational events.

Franklin County Historical Association and Museums [Texas]

Description

The Society maintains two historical museums. The Majors-Parchman House Museum, a restored 1883 Victorian cottage, retains its original outbuildings and displays an extensive artwork collection. The Franklin County Historical Museum, located in Mount Vernon's Old City Hall, presents exhibits on area history with additional natural history exhibits.

The museums offer exhibits and tours.

Forest County Historical Society and History Center [Pennsylvania]

Description

The Society operates out of the George W. and Martha Bonner Robinson home, built on Elm Street in Tionesta in 1872. Housed in its several levels are displays of printing press, cobbler, blacksmith, butcher, and general farming and domestic tools. War relics and Indian arrowheads, historical paintings, and quilts from the County are also on display. A library of historical books, photographs, pamphlets, and documents is also housed here.

The center offers exhibits, research library access, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Governor John Langdon House

Description

John Langdon rose from modest origins to become a merchant, shipbuilder, Revolutionary leader, signer of the United States Constitution, and three-term governor of New Hampshire. The house he built for his family in 1784 expresses his status as Portsmouth's leading citizen and was praised by George Washington, who visited there in 1789. Its reception rooms are ornamented by elaborate wood carving in the rococo style. After Langdon's death in 1819, the house was occupied by other leading families. At the end of the 19th century, Langdon descendants purchased the house and restored it to its 18th-century state, adding on a substantial wing designed by McKim, Mead, and White to house modern conveniences.

The house offers tours.

Sugar Pine Point State Park and Hellman-Ehrman Mansion [CA]

Description

Ed Z'berg-Sugar Pine Point State Park contains nearly two miles of lake frontage, with dense forests of pine, fir, aspen, and juniper. Another attraction is the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion (also known as Pine Lodge), a summer home built in 1903 in a grove of pine and cedar. From the turn of the century until 1965, the lands of what is now Ed Z'berg-Sugar Pine Point State Park were owned by financier Isaias W. Hellman, and later by his daughter Florence Hellman. The mansion provides a view into the lifestyles of the wealthy on Lake Tahoe.

The mansion offers tours.