A Visit to Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum

Pasture with the 1750s Log Farm house in the background

September 22, 2018 was Smithsonian magazine's Museum Day, when free tickets are offered to various museums in the country. We happened to be in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that day, so we got tickets to visit the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum. While most of the buildings date later than the colonial period, the Log Farm section depicts Pennsylvania German life in the 1750s. This post will focus on the Log Farmstead.

The Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum is the largest museum dedicated to the history of the Pennsylvania Germans (or Pennsylvania Dutch, as they're often called, though they're not Dutch at all—the Dutch comes from mispronunciation of Deutsch, the German word for German). The museum depicts Lancaster County farming life during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the village, which includes the many structures listed below, and the museum, which houses a collection of farming implements and other decorative arts pieces. In addition, the museum has an award-winning Heirloom Seed Program (growing plants, field crops, and vegetables that are now disappearing), and offers classes in folk art and driving of horses and oxen. It is in every way a living history museum.

The 1750s Log Farmstead includes a log house (two rooms), a pasture, two barns, a spring house, and a woman's garden:

The Log Farmstead

Log Farmstead kitchen 

Log Farmstead bedroom

Log Farmstead barn

Sheep in the barn

My kids favorite part of the whole village: this (gigantic!) hog was having the time of her life in the mud. According to one of the workers, she also loves to eat pumpkins whole.

Bulls in the pasture

This mare and her foal loved eating the Chinese chestnuts (buckeyes) we found growing nearby.

Inside the spring house

Woman's garden

Other buildings in the village include the original brick farmstead and Grossmutter house (circa 1830), a sexton's house (staffed by a leatherworker), a blacksmith shop (moved to the farm from Gettysburg, circa 1880), a farm machinery and tool barn, the Landis Valley House Hotel (built in 1856), the Maple Grove Schoolhouse (an Amish school built in 1890 about three miles from the museum), a country store (recreated to depict 1900), a firehouse, a tin shop, a tavern (recreated to represent a tavern circa 1800–1820), a gunshop, and some outbuildings.

If you're ever in the Lancaster area and would like to visit, the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum is open year round. More information is available at www.landisvalleymuseum.org.

The Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation

The Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation is a historical museum and working farm located in Ridley Creek State Park in Media (Delaware County), Pennsylvania. The plantation, which was a working farm continuously for over three hundred years, differs from many colonial historical sites in that it depicts the life of the common man—the “yeoman,” or farmer—instead of that of a well-known figure, during the 1760s to 1790s.

While the plantation’s original owner is not certainly known, the property was purchased by Joseph Pratt, an English Quaker, in 1720. At that point, the original portion of the farmhouse (built either before 1700 or around 1705) was already standing and the land encompassed 110 to 120 acres. Wheat, usually the winter variety, was Pennsylvania’s primary crop at this time, and farmers in the area also grew rye, corn, and flax, among other things. Crops are still grown on the land today, but the plantation’s location within a state park makes this more difficult, as deer and other animals see the fields as their dinner table. Such animals would have been disposed of in colonial times, but now they are protected by being within the park limits.

The farmhouse with the kitchen garden in the foreground. Some researchers believe the center section is the original house, while others opine that the eastern end was built first. Additions were then added over the next 130 years. Attached to the left side of the house is the still room, which was used for storage. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures inside.

The well in front of the house. While it's still in use (note the lever to raise the bucket), the water isn't drinkable.

The Pratt family remained on the property until May 1820, when the original owner's great-grandson sold it at auction. It continued to be a working farm under its new ownership, eventually becoming a tenant farm in the twentieth century. In the 1960s, Pennsylvania bought approximately 2,500 acres to create Ridley Creek State Park, and a local group formed to preserve the old houses within the park. One particular house, part of the Lower Rawle farm, was abandoned but provided the necessities for a farm museum. From 1973 until the present, historians have restored the farmhouse, outbuildings, and land to accurately reflect eighteenth-century farm life. 

Also on the property are a kitchen garden, spring house, still room, stone cabin, wagon barn, stable barn, sheepfold, pigpen, and chicken house, as well as crop fields, a wet meadow, and an orchard. For safety reasons, the animals are kept penned while the farm is open to visitors, but on off hours, most of the animals are released to roam the land freely, as they would have in colonial times. 

In the foreground is the stone cabin, thought to be built in the late 1600s. The steeply pitched roof implies that the roof was originally thatched. This building is now used for craft demonstrations (potter's wheel on the bottom floor and textile making on the top floor.) In the background is the wagon barn, which now houses, among other things, an interesting array of bones found on the property.

The pigpen and sheepfold provide shelter when the animals are not roaming the property.

The pigpen and the stable barn (upper right-hand corner). Somehow, I didn't get good pictures of the stable barn (probably because I was carrying my six-year-old at the time, now that I think about it—see next picture for explanation). The stable houses cows, horses, and more sheep, as well as bunnies and chickens in its yard.

The resident ankle-biters (my poor son may never get over his fear of these feathered fiends friends)—the only farm animals that roam freely all the time. We now know the real reason the plantation interpreters carry a walking stick—geese control. ☺

If you're ever in the area and would like to visit the Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation, it's open on Saturdays and Sunday from April till November. You can find more information at www.colonialplantation.com.

Corn: An Essential Colonial Food

Iowa cornfield

Today we’re so used to eating foods made from corn and seeing large fields of corn spreading across the countryside that we take this humble grain for granted. Have you ever wondered how corn ended up becoming such an important crop in today’s economy—not only for food, but also for oil, fuel, and other products? Well, today we’re going to take a look at this very useful staff of life.

When European settlers landed on the shores of North America, they brought with them the grains they were used to eating, including wheat, oats, rye, and spelt. But they quickly began to add a number of unfamiliar foods eaten by the native peoples they encountered. One of the first was Indian corn, or maize. The colonists soon learned from their Indian neighbors how to plant, harvest, and cook this grain. Corn was relatively easy to grow and very productive, and by the 18th century it was the most widely eaten grain in many of the colonies. Not only did people eat the breads, mush, hominy, grits, and porridge they could make from corn, but they also fed the tops and leaves of the plants to their cattle during the winter months. By the last half of the 18th century corn had become a lucrative commodity for export as well.

White dent corn

The most popular variety of corn in the American colonies was called gourdseed. The plant grew 10 to 18 feet tall and produced 2-3 ears per stalk, each from 7 to 8 inches long. The kernels, called “white dent,” or “she-corn,” were white, deep, and broad, with ends that appeared to be dented when they were completely dried. Farmers came to favor this variety because it produced more grain per acre than wheat and could also be stored longer. It was easier to harvest than wheat as well, and a huge advantage was that it didn’t have to be threshed before it could be ground. One farmer could produce 5 to 10 acres of corn working the land with hand tools or 20 acres if he had a horse and plow.

Corn hills

To prepare the soil for planting, after the threat of frost passed and the soil warmed, farmers would plow furrows across their fields at right angles to create a grid pattern. The distance between the intersection of the furrows depended on the variety of corn to be grown and the quality of the soil. For large varieties like gourdseed, they spaced the furrows so they crossed each other from four to eight feet apart, with six feet being the most common. From 3 to 6 kernels were then pushed into the soil 2 or 3 fingers’ breadth deep at each intersection, and after the plants emerged they were thinned to 2 to 4 plants per hill. Some farmers hilled the earth before planting it, while others planted first, and then built up hills around the base of the plants as they grew. Native Americans planted beans and squash in the hills alongside the corn, and some colonists adopted this practice. The cornstalk supported the bean vines, while the beans provided nitrogen for the corn, and the large squash leaves shaded out the weeds.

Corn shocks

Native Americans set aside a section of their cornfields from which they harvested the “green corn” when the kernels reached their full size but before they dried and became hard, just as we eat sweet corn today. They roasted the ears or made green corn soup to eat during their Green Corn festivals. Some colonists may also have eaten some of their corn this way, but they harvested most of their crop later, after the kernels were dry enough to store and to grind into meal. They cut off the tassels and tops of the cornstalks above the highest ear as soon as they began to dry and the plant didn’t need them anymore—this is often done today too. Bundled into shocks, they were cured in the sun for a couple of days before being stored for use as fodder for livestock in the winter. The blades, or leaves of the plant were also pulled from the stalk, cured, and stored for fodder when they dried.

Corncrib

The ears were left on the stripped cornstalk until the ears dried enough to store. One acre yielded about 15 bushels. Of course, with today’s varieties and farming practices, 1 acre produces a great deal more corn, but during the colonial period this was an excellent yield. Once harvested, the ears, often still in the husk, were generally stored in a corncrib made of saplings, slats, or notched logs, with a floor a few feet off the ground to provide plenty of ventilation so the corn wouldn’t get moldy. On some smaller farms corncribs are still used, and I remember the one we had on the farm where I grew up. If kept dry, corn stores well in the husk, but many farmers preferred to remove them for storage.

Corn sheller

Before the corn could be ground, the kernels had to be shelled off the cob either by hand, or with a metal scraper. Shelling corn by hand is a miserable task, let me assure you! I remember shelling popcorn as a teenager with my church youth group, and we ended up with very sore and blistered hands. Scraping the ears wouldn’t be a fun job either, but thankfully ingenious inventors developed hand-cranked corn shellers in the 19th century. Lester E. Denison from Middlesex County, Connecticut, holds the honors for producing the first modern sheller, which he patented on August 12, 1839. It was a freestanding, hand-operated machine that drew the cob through a series of metal-toothed cylinders to strip off the kernels. Kudos to him for coming up with a way to save your hands! No matter which method you use, however, 2 barrels of ears produce about one barrel of shelled corn.

Have you ever husked or shelled corn or seen it done? If so, please share your experience!

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers, an author, editor, and publisher, and a lifelong student of history. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Her novel Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with bestselling author Bob Hostetler, won ForeWord Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases in Spring 2017. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

The Care and Feeding of Colonial Livestock

Google books is an invaluable resource!

It started, as so often happens, as a quest to find a scrap of research info. I just wanted to know whether or not a backcountry farmer would feed oats to his saddle horse. I mean, they couldn't just drive down to their local feed store and bring home a bag of Omelene.

I asked my trusty 18cLife Yahoo group, which led to a whole array of answers.

Among other things, I was pointed to a handy resource: an old book, now available online, titled The Discipline of the Light-Horse by Captain Hinde of the Royal Regiment of Foresters. I discovered that oats were, indeed, common provender for horses since at least colonial times, and I plan on taking time to read the entire book. Though written with an eye to the War of 1812, it contains many references to the American Revolution.

Something else I learned, though, was that Germanic settlers--Germans, yes, but also Dutch and other continental Europeans of varying religious backgrounds--were the ones who introduced the concept of large-scale farming with big barns and big hay wagons. The practice of farming the land on purpose (for "business," some said) and rotating crops were a curiosity to their British neighbors, who generally turned out their livestock to roam and graze, then herded them in as needed. Thus, the term "Cow Pens" where the famous South Carolina battle got its name was an actual area where pens were built for the periodic containment of cattle. Saddle and work horses might either be pastured or staked out to graze. Horses and cattle both do just fine on grass only, or hay with a bit of grain in the winter, but they'd need to spend a lot of time grazing because it takes a lot of grass to feed that large of an animal. Hogs and chickens or other yard fowl were also left to roam.

Cattle drives were a thing long before the West was won

The purpose of fencing or stables in colonial times, in the backcountry or on the frontier, was more for the purpose of keeping predators out than containing livestock.

The rich meadows and forests of South Carolina were actually considered cattle country at one time, and many savvy cattlemen were of African descent, whether enslaved or not, trusted with the keeping and care of herds. The Florida "Crackers" (as in, the cracking sound of the cattle drivers' whips) were also famed for their ability to work cattle in the harsh conditions of central Florida, through heat and torrential rains.

So, what did the colonial farmer raise crops for, if not to feed his livestock? The concept of the cash crop (tobacco, rice, indigo) dates back to at least the first settlement at Jamestown, and like it or not, much of the grains grown (corn, barley) went into grain liquor, especially the making of whiskey. (There's a whole discussion, in fact, on how the different spellings of whisky and whiskey denote a British-made product or an American-made one.)

I was able to find "provenance for my provender," in the case of whether to feed a favored saddle horse at least an occasional bit of oats, but it probably wasn't the norm for every farmer, especially not in the Carolinas.