The Settler's Museum of Southwest Virginia

This Friday we headed about an hour south for a field trip with our homeschool group to The Settler's Museum of Southwest Virginia. Our first stop was the 1890s Lindamond one-room schoolhouse. The kids were called to class by the teacher ringing a bell. She then told them that the girls needed to sit on one side of the room with the boys on the other. The schoolhouse is the original schoolhouse and still had carvings on the walls from boys and girls over 100 years ago. The teacher told the kids all about what school would have been like for them in those days. My kids liked the story that the kid's dogs would follow them to school and sit under the schoolhouse so that when the kids ate their lunches, the dogs could eat the crumbs that fell through the cracks in the floor. Also, posted on the wall was the punishment for misbehaviors like 10 lashings for playing with cards, 7 lashings for coming to school with dirty hands or face and 4 lashings for girls and boys playing together.
The teacher eventually passed out McGuffey's readers to the kids. Jared read the saying, "If at first you don't succeed - try, try again." There was more to it that I don't remember.

Then it was time for recess and a potty break. The kids loved the see-saw, but no one took advantage of the outhouses up on the hill.The part of recess the boys enjoyed the most was this log with flat ends. The object of the game is for two people to stand on the flat ends and try to keep their balance while trying to throw the other person off. After challenging each other they thought it was fun to see how many boys could fit on it at the same time. Who would have thought this simple log could provide so much fun.


After recess everyone went inside for a sewing lesson. Each of the kids, boys and girls, sewed a bean bag. Everyone enjoyed it and the bean bags provided fun later in the day. When they were done with their bean bags, they had to wash up in the basin at the back of the room, then we headed to the picnic shelter for lunch.
After lunch we toured the 1890s farm. This is what the farmhouse looked like. It was originally a one-story cabin that they built upon and it eventually became this beautiful farmhouse.This is the view of the living room. Daxton played a number on the organ. Then the tour guide played "God Bless America" and we all sang. The little green piece of furniture with two seats facing each other is called a courting chair for use when a couple is courting, how funny.
Upstairs in the girl's room was this spinning wheel and amazing loom.
After touring the farmhouse, she took us on a tour of all the outbuildings: the meathouse, the washhouse, the wellhouse, the woodshed, the root cellar, the grainhouse and the barn. The boys tried to get water to come up from the well, but even with priming it, they never got much, I guess life in the 1890s was harder than we think.
Everyone enjoyed the tour and learned a lot.