Today we set off for Old Sturbridge village which we had originally planned to visit on the way to Hartford but it was closed, it is only about 45 minutes away along the interstate so after a small diversion around Hartford because of roadworks we were on our way. It was worth going back to as it is a living history museum staffed by employees rather than volunteers so for example the cobbler has been working on the site for 35 years so is very ‘in character’ when you talk to him. We started in the small house which was two rooms and was apparently small even by the standards of the time, the woman in there was rolling up wool to start knitting a scarf, not sure if that is all she can knit or if that was actually what she wanted! Next stop was the Friends meeting house, otherwise known as the Quaker house, I learnt a few things which I don’t think we knew mainly that women sat on the right which surprised me as normally women are on the left. Also it was only the ‘elders’ that spoke I thought it was anyone but the elders sat at the front and spoke from the heart. They actually strongly believed in quality not just for the people of colour but also between men and women and a lot of the key people in the movement were actually women. We spent quite a lot of time in the shoe shop talking to the cobbler who was originally from Birmingham but moved to the US in the 60’s so had a very strange accent! He explained the evolution of shoe making which was something we didn’t know, apparently originally fine shoes were hand sewn, work boots had nails, then they used very fine wooden pegs to hold them together and then it went back to sewing again but this time by machine. He also explained how some of the work was done at home for factories mostly by women but also some of the finishing was done by men. We went to one of the farms where the lady of the house was taking the breakfast food out to the pigs, it was interesting as they actually had ‘real’ food and the amount of flies over the food was frightening you forget how bad it was when you didn’t have windows or fly spray. The next section was all the mill’s they had a Carding mill which we have never seen before, this was used to card the wool, basically it mechanically disentangles the fibres into either a continuous web so that it can be easily spun or just lapped which is basically one long roll of the fluffed up wool. The other fascinating thing about this was that the water mill was a horizontal wheel which rather resembled a washing machine as the water went round it. Talking to the man in the Carding mill he explained that this, more than any trade showed the industrialisation, the village is set in the 1840’s and he explained that his Grandmother would own the sheep, sheer them, card the wool and spin it herself, his mother would probably own the sheep, sheer them but take the bails of wood to a Carding Mill then take the wool back home and spin it herself, his wife would still own the sheep but she may sheer them herself or pay someone to do it, she would then tak the wool to the Carding mill and sell the fleeces to the miller, she would then go to the shop and buy wool to use at home. There was also a Grist mill and a saw mill but unfortunately neither of these were being used. They have there very own Covered bridge which we walked over then got to the Tin shop where the owner was making lanterns to hold candles, he explained that this wouldn’t be the main thing that was made it would probably have been an order for the local shop, on the whole his job would be to make measuring cups, and pots and pans for the kitchen. Up until now everyone we had spoken to from the potter to the miller had said that the job they had would have been done alongside being a farmer, we spoke to the potter who said that he would only fire his kiln twice a year but each firing would have about 800 pots in it, but the tin man said that this would be his only job as it would be very rare. The final part of the village had a number of town houses, a law office, a bank, we also watched the militia man fire a musket and prove the saying of keeping your power dry as it got damp and he couldn’t get it to work! then finally we went to the printing office which is always interesting. By the time we finished walking round we had spent over four hours but it didn’t seem like it. We decided to treat ourselves to something to eat then decided to head back to the hotel so that we could get everything sorted as we are moving on tomorrow.
