August 15, 2012

We went to Greenfield Village today from 10:30 am – 4:00 pm. This is a village created by Henry Ford where he put buildings and homes he purchased.  Among them were historic homes, labs, farm buildings, a pottery shop, a woolen mill, a tin shop, a printing shop, two saw mills, a glass blowing shop, a railroad turntable, a jewelry store with a clock tower, a chapel for his wife, schools, slave cabins, an 1832 covered bridge, etc. etc.

Among the historic houses were Luther Burbank’s 1800 home (he is the developer of the current day Idaho potato), Robert Frost’s 1835 home, Noah Webster’s 1823 home, Edison’s grandparent’s 1815 home from Ontario, Canada, the Wright Family’s 1871 home, and the Ford’s 1861 home.  Other buildings include the court house where Lincoln was a lawyer, the McGuffey birthplace (he wrote the eclectic readers for children), the 1835 Susquehanna plantation, a Cotswold cottage from early 1600’s England, and an 1870 boarding house for Edison’s workers.  There was an old carousel, the oldest windmill in the U.S. from the mid 1600’s, a recreation of Edison’s Menlo Park Complex, and a doctor’s office from 1840.

You could buy a ride pass and ride a horse drawn carriage, a model T, an old Ford truck, an old Ford bus, or a steam train. Most of the buildings were put here in the 1920’s.  All of the employees were in period dress.  They had skits is different places, the slave quarters had two slaves acting out Brer Rabbit, a man acted out a scene as Edison, a shop owner performed a skit. There were cooking, glass blowing, weaving, and printing demonstrations.  Children could play with toys of that era.

Then we went to the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanit, Michigan and had a beer.