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Old Sturbridge Village (OSV) is a living museum located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts which re-creates life in rural New England during the 1830s. It is the largest living museum in New England, covering more than 80 hectares (200 acres).

History

Before the village

Prior to European colonization, the Nipmuck people inhabited the Quinnebaug region of which OSV is a part.

In the early nineteenth century, the land on which Old Sturbridge Village now stands was a farm owned by David Wight. The farm included a sawmill, gristmill, and a millpond which survives to this day.

Inception

George Washington Wells had started a small spectacle shop in Southbridge, Massachusetts in the 1840s which became the American Optical Company.

His three sons -- Channing M, Albert B ("AB"), and J Cheney Wells -- followed him into the business, which continued to expand.

On one rainy day in 1926, AB began to shop for antiques, or as he called them, "my primitives".

Influenced by their brother, Cheney began collecting early American timepieces and Channing began collecting fine furniture.

By the early 1930s AB had more than 45 rooms full of antiques in his Southbridge home. It became clear his collection had grown beyond a single man's hobby.

In 1935 AB, along with his brothers, family members and associates, formed the Wells Historical Museum. The Museum was given title to the various collections and charged with the care and exhibition of the artifacts.

In July 1936 the Museum's trustees met to determine the how the collections would best be presented to the public. AB wanted to create a small cluster of buildings in a horseshoe around a common. His son George B immediately poked holes in the plan. Instead, George proposed "a revolutionary idea."

As AB later said of George, "He pointed out that the historical value of the things I'd been collecting was tremendous, provided that it could be put to proper usage... He suggested that to make this material valuable it would be necessary to have a village, a live village, one with different shops operating... it was essential to have water power."

J. Cheney Wells quickly pledged his clocks and other items to AB's and to help "in every way I can to develop a village along the lines that George suggests."

It is thought that various members of the family had visited European folk museums, of which the most famous was Skansen outside of Stockholm, Sweden. It is likely that these living museums were the genesis for what was to become Old Sturbridge Village.

Within a week of the meeting, the Museum had purchased David Wight's farm and within a few months hired Malcolm Watkins as the museum's first curator. Architect Arthur Shurcliff was called in to help them lay out a suitable country landscape.

By 1941, the Fitch House, the Miner Grant Store and the Richardson House (now the Parsonage) were on the common and the Gristmill was in operation.

After a pause for World War II, Ruth Wells, George B.'s wife, became Acting Director of the Village. In 1946, Quinnebaug Village became Old Sturbridge Village and it opened on June 8.

The early years

Word of mouth

Attendance climbed, mostly through word of mouth and in a 1950 article in The Saturday Evening Post OSV was featured as, "The Town That Wants to be Out of Date."

Adding buildings

By [[1955], OSV had acquired the Meetinghouse from the Fiskdale neighborhood of Sturbridge, the Salem Towne House from Charlton, the Fenno House, the Friends Meetinghouse, the Pliny Freeman House, the Printing Office, and the District School.

The hurricane

On August 18 1955, Hurricane Diane arrived unexpectedly. It was the worst storm in decades. Gale-force winds and a torrential downpour created flood waters that broke dams in surrounding towns and flooded the Village.

Fifteen staff members were stranded by the rising waters. The Freeman Farmhouse was flooded and the Covered Bridge was swept off its foundation. Helicopters kept staff members supplied for three days until the waters receded. The damage was estimated to be $250,000.00 in 1955 dollars. With great effort, Village employees managed to re-open the Village in just nine days.

OSV today

In response to declining attendance, shrinking endowments and rising operating costs, OSV has changed its presentation of history. Gone are the "movie set" displays with a fixed range of dialog. In their place, interpreters engage visitors in a more personal and interactive process, encouraging them to actively participate.

The museum has continued to add interactive exhibits such as a wintertime ice rink, baseball games and, anachronistically, a Christmastime celebration. (Puritanical New Englanders did not begin celebrating Christmas until much later in the 1800s.)

As of March 2004 OSV has entered into a partnership with the New England Heritage Breeds Conservancy (NEHBC) designed to raise public awareness of historical breeds of livestock and sustainable agriculture in New England. Visitors to the museum can see a broader range of livestock breeds and learn about roles they played in New England’s past. Along with public access to the historical animals, a long-term goal of the collaboration is to increase populations through breeding.

Structures and exhibits

Old Sturbridge Village is comprised of over 40 structures, including restored buildings purchased and relocated from across New England, as well as some authentic reconstructions.

The village is divided into three main sections. The Center Village represents the center of town, with the town green as its focal point. Countryside is just that, outlying farms and shops. The Mill Neighborhood features various commercial structures which rely upon a millpond for their power.

Center Village

The Center Village contains the following structures:

Friends Meetinghouse (a meetinghouse of the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers)
Center Meetinghouse (churches often served as a location for town meetings, elections, lectures, and political events)
Tin Shop (tin, purchased from England was used to make a variety of household goods)
Salem Towne House (a prosperous farmer's home)
Law Office (a small, free-standing office of a lawyer)
Parsonage (the home of a Congregational minister and his family)
Asa Knight Store (a country store)
Thompson Bank
Fenno House (the home of an elderly widow and her unmarried daughter)
Fitch House (the residence of a printer's family)
Printing Office
Cider Mill (a horse-powered mill for the production of hard cider)
Shoe Shop
Town Pound (for the confinement of livestock wandering around town or on other farmer's property)

Countryside

Countryside features the following structures:

Pottery Shop (produced earthenware vessels from local clay)
District School (schools stayed in session between December and March and then mid-May to August, when the children were not needed on the farm)
Cooper Shop (manuafactured barrels and pails)
Freeman Farm (a collection of buildings and fields that represents a typical New England farm of approximately 28 heactares (70 acres))
Covered Bridge
Bixby House (the home of a blacksmith's family)
Blacksmith Shop

The Mill Neighborhood

Mill Neighborhood features the following structures:

Gristmill (uses water power to turn a 3,000-pound millstone for grinding grain)
Sawmill (a working replica of an "up-and-down" sawmill powered by a reaction-type waterwheel)
Carding Mill (a water driven facility to prepare wool for spinning)

External links

Old Sturbridge Village official site