Greenfield Village Open-Air Museum

This is a fine example of midwestern Greek Revival architecture. This six room house was built in the early 1830's in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was the home of local politician Thompson Sinclair. It is furnished with Classical Revival and Empire pieces, popular in the mid 19th century. Robert Frost, noted American poet, discovered this home in the 1920's while on a walk around the University of Michigan during his tenure as an honorable fellowship - "poet-in-residence" - at the college and, charmed by the structure, moved in. He wrote some of his best and most famous poems while living here. He would invite students over for tea and discuss their poetry. Henry Ford had the home moved to Greenfield Village in 1937. .

Luther Burbank, famed horticulturalist (see Luther Burbank Office , to read of his work) was born in this circa 1800 house originally located in Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1849. He was the son of a farmer and maker of brick and pottery. He attended the district school until he was 15 and then spent four winters at the Lancaster Academy. Most of his scientific education, however, was obtained from reading at the public library in Lancaster. According to his own account, his reading of Charles Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1868 proved the turning point in his career, causing him to take the production of new species and varieties of plants as his life's work. In 1870, 2 years after the death of his father, Burbank used his inheritance to help purchase a tract of 17 acres near the small town of Lunenburg, where he took up the business of market gardening. Here he produced his first "creation," the Burbank potato, and began the work th...

Huntington, NY July 29   Edsel Ford   Copy to Mr. Campsall Dearborn, Mich     Noah Webster House at New Haven - an attractive plain house built about Eighteen Hundred - is in the hands of wreckers -*stop*- Believe it will fit in well with your father's scheme and can be purchased for a small sum -*stop*- Immediate action is required as it will be torn down Friday     RTH Halsey 9:20 a.m.  Huntington, NY July 29 Edsel Ford Copy to Mr. Campsall Dearborn, Mich. Noah Webster House at New haven - an attractive plain house built about Eighteen Hundred - The above written telegram shows just how close the world came to losing this wonderful piece of American History. With demolition already begun (!) by Yale University, the house's plight was, luckily, brought to Ford's attention by way of his son through one of his dealers. The Webster home was soon purchased and brought to Dearborn. The dismantling and restoration of th...

Named after the Farris family, who ran this mill for three generations, this windmill, once the oldest windmill on Cape Cod (built in 1633), stood at the road to West Yarmouth, Massachusetts. It now stands at the southeast end of Greenfield Village. It seems, however, that the acquisition of the Cape Cod/Farris Windmill in 1936 (a gift to Henry Ford from his Ford dealership employees nationwide) caused quite a stir. The owner of the mill sold it to Ford's workers who moved it from the Cape to Greenfield Village, and that caused quite a few Cape Cod locals to voice their anger. Although protests came in fast and furious, the windmill was moved. The owner claimed that the town had ignored his offer to make the windmill a historic spot, so, (according to a Cape Cod web site) this truly Cape Cod giant is gone where it will be appreciated for its historical value. It is said to be the oldest windmill in the United States. This mill was built like those the early pilgrim settlers had se...

Built inside the Village in 1935, this building, according to the early guidebooks from the 1930's, '40's, and '50's, represents the type of watchmaker's home in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. Most of the doorways, windows, and iron works are from an original Swiss structure. Ford was fond of watches, especially Swiss made watches, hence, the reason for the building. There is little else I have about this structure, which is now used as a break and changing area for the employees of the Village. .

With the classic architecture of the mid-to-late 19th century, this building has been though a number of businesses before Mr. Ford became its owner. Originally I wrote of this structure as being a mistake that Henry Ford had made when he purchased and relocated it inside of Greenfield Village in 1935. He claimed it once housed the jewelry store run by Mr. Magill in the 1870's and early 1880's at which he himself worked part time repairing clocks and watches. But as I researched this shop I had heard that during the 1990's the Village historians felt Henry Ford actually bought the building from which a Mrs. Cohen conducted her Millinery business and not the Magill building as he assumed. And word got out that Ford made another historical blunder (see Susquehanna Plantation and the Stephen Foster Memorial ). That's when I decided to investigate this 'mistake.' I mean, Ford worked at the building - wouldn't he had known what it looked like? What I found...

This barn was built in 1863 - the same year as Henry's birth - by Henry's father, William, at Springwells Township, Michigan. It was originally located across the road from the family homestead and stored grain and hay and, at times, tools and livestock. In 1933, it was moved to the Chicago World's Fair where it formed part of the Ford exhibit housing soybeans in the Century of Progress Exposition . When the exposition closed, the barn was brought to Greenfield Village and re-erected in 1935. This barn continues to house the horses that pull the carriages filled with the visitors to the Village. The horses are groomed and harnessed here as well. .

The relocation from a Savannah, Georgia plantation to Greenfield Village of two small slave houses in 1934 was the beginning of Ford's showing of the progress of the American blacks from bondage through their emancipation. The small quarters are typical in size and furnishings of slave houses of the Old South. They are among the few that have been preserved anywhere in the United States. Most slave houses were made of wood. However, these were made from brick due to the fact that brick making was one of the industries of the Heritage Plantation from which they came. The exhibit in the Village shows the daily home life of the typical African slave family in this area of the south. .

According to the 1930's Edison Institute Guidebook, this smokehouse was the original smokehouse located on the property of the McGuffey's in Pennsylvania. Most rural families had a smokehouse on their land like this one to help preserve their meat. Without refrigeration, meat would become inedible quickly and thus, preservation was necessary. After rubbing ham or bacon with a salt mixture and letting them set for a few weeks, the meat would then be hung from the rafters in the smokehouse. The smoke, created by a fire in the floor of the structure that was made from aromatic woods such as hickory or apple, flavored the meat and created a crust that prevented its ruin by flies or other pests. .

The same year that Ford re-erected McGuffey's Birth Place in Greenfield Village - 1934 - he used original logs from an 18th century barn on the Holmes property in Washington County, Pennsylvania to build a one room McGuffey School inside the Village as well. Henry Ford replicated what many pioneer country schools looked like during the time of William Holmes McGuffey, and, due to the fact that the McGuffey Readers of the 19th century influenced so many of the era that Ford built this school in full honor of McGuffey. .