A VILLAGE WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

Sometime in 1795, a pioneer farmer named David Wight cut the cedar timber that stood in a swampy area of his Massachusetts farm and began an ambitious three-year reclamation project. Funded by winnings from a Boston lottery brought home by his son, and using a team of oxen pulling a scoop, Wight created a large mill pond whose enclosed waters would power both a saw mill and a grist mill.

            The history of that region of south-central Massachusetts had long provided a rich, sustaining lifestyle for a group of Algonquian native people known to settlers as the Nipmucks who for centuries farmed the woods, soils and waterways some distance inland from coastal New England, but whose numbers would be decimated by European-borne illness and disease.

            I can’t help but believe David Wight and his posterity would be pleased to know that their enterprising handiwork is “alive” still, in the form of Old Sturbridge Village, a “living history museum” recreating life in a New England country community of the late 1700s and very early 1800s, and encompassing 200 sprawling acres of the farm the Wights pioneered more than two centuries ago. Long before the “museum” became a place, it took the form of a collection; a gathering-together of heirlooms and antiques from a period of time being lost and forgotten which eventually filled 45 rooms of one collector’s home, a world-class collection of clocks and time pieces, and the combined dream of the gatherers to bring it all together in one place. Searching for a location which had working water power, the old Wight farm in south-central Massachusetts was a perfect choice.

            Piece by piece and building by building, the diverse ingredients were assembled over a period of years to become “Old Sturbridge Village”, an open-air monument to the past some think of as the “grandfather” of all such “living museums” across the country.

            First as a fascinated student of history, and later as a tour guide leading others, I have enjoyed a forty-year love affair with “Old Sturbridge”, wandering through its magical charms in spring, summer and fall, (I can only wish for a Christmastime excuse!). I have been mesmerized by the three-thousand-pound grist wheel turning grain into flour, the vertical blade of the water-wheel-powered reciprocating rip saw turning out beautifully squared floor boards and timbers, and tasted tart apple cider pouring in silky streams from a horse-powered cider mill. Strolling the town’s neighborhood streets and country lanes, one can observe a tin-maker, a blacksmith, a potter, a cooper and a shoe-maker at work, peruse the shelves of a county store, drop in on a bank, and pause for refreshment at a tavern.

            From a country green presided over by a white steepled classic New England church/meeting house and circled by perfectly-restored residential buildings, one can either take a carriage ride or just stroll through time, pausing to enjoy the charm of a covered bridge with its own history.  You might – as I once did – find myself serenaded by a fifer and drummer wearing the proud colors of their Revolutionary War regiment.

Sometime in 1795, a pioneer farmer named David Wight cut the cedar timber that stood in a swampy area of his Massachusetts farm and began an ambitious three-year reclamation project. Funded by winnings from a Boston lottery brought home by his son, and using a team of oxen pulling a scoop, Wight created a large mill pond whose enclosed waters would power both a saw mill and a grist mill.

            The history of that region of south-central Massachusetts had long provided a rich, sustaining lifestyle for a group of Algonquian native people known to settlers as the Nipmucks who for centuries farmed the woods, soils and waterways some distance inland from coastal New England, but whose numbers would be decimated by European-borne illness and disease.

            I can’t help but believe David Wight and his posterity would be pleased to know that their enterprising handiwork is “alive” still, in the form of Old Sturbridge Village, a “living history museum” recreating life in a New England country community of the late 1700s and very early 1800s, and encompassing 200 sprawling acres of the farm the Wights pioneered more than two centuries ago. Long before the “museum” became a place, it took the form of a collection; a gathering-together of heirlooms and antiques from a period of time being lost and forgotten which eventually filled 45 rooms of one collector’s home, a world-class collection of clocks and time pieces, and the combined dream of the gatherers to bring it all together in one place. Searching for a location which had working water power, the old Wight farm in south-central Massachusetts was a perfect choice.

            Piece by piece and building by building, the diverse ingredients were assembled over a period of years to become “Old Sturbridge Village”, an open-air monument to the past some think of as the “grandfather” of all such “living museums” across the country.

            First as a fascinated student of history, and later as a tour guide leading others, I have enjoyed a forty-year love affair with “Old Sturbridge”, wandering through its magical charms in spring, summer and fall, (I can only wish for a Christmastime excuse!). I have been mesmerized by the three-thousand-pound grist wheel turning grain into flour, the vertical blade of the water-wheel-powered reciprocating rip saw turning out beautifully squared floor boards and timbers, and tasted tart apple cider pouring in silky streams from a horse-powered cider mill. Strolling the town’s neighborhood streets and country lanes, one can observe a tin-maker, a blacksmith, a potter, a cooper and a shoe-maker at work, peruse the shelves of a county store, drop in on a bank, and pause for refreshment at a tavern.

            From a country green presided over by a white steepled classic New England church/meeting house and circled by perfectly-restored residential buildings, one can either take a carriage ride or just stroll through time, pausing to enjoy the charm of a covered bridge with its own history.  You might – as I once did – find myself serenaded by a fifer and drummer wearing the proud colors of their Revolutionary War regiment.

October maple leaves have begun to fall as visitors enjoy a stroll around Old Sturbridge                      Village’s town green with the church & meeting house as a backdrop.

 A driver and carriage wait for passengers in the elm-shaded quiet of a 1790s morning.

 A perfectly matched yoke of oxen pull a time-honored plow through the soil of an Old Sturbridge Village farm property on land once home to the Nipmuck Indians of New England.

Photos by Al Cooper