Historic Roscoe Village

One more Ohio story...

Priscilla (blog name) wanted to see historical things, so sister-in-law took us to Historic Roscoe Village. It's in Coshocton located on Whitewoman Street. Of course, Priscilla questioned that name ("an interesting choice"), but it turns out that the name is there for a good reason. There was a QR code at the end of the street which led to this website. 

The "white woman" was named Mary Harris, who at ten was taken by the local Mohawk tribe, and she eventually became a tribe member, married, and had two sons. Now, if you recall Priscilla from the castle post, you'll understand that we read into that history a bit and wondered at what sort of life Mary had. 

Anyway, onto the tour... 

The tour started at the visitor center, where we were directed to the path we'd be taking and where we checked out keys for the buildings that were locked. (The tour did cost money, but I can't recall how much.)

Our first stop was to the blacksmith. 

There was a real working blacksmith in the small, hot building. He talked about how the job was back in the day, informing us that the first skilled worker in a village would be the blacksmith, and he would have likely been the only one in town who could read. 

Then we moved on to Hay Activity Center where we learned how they printed stuff and how they made brooms. 

It was a hot and humid day. Everything after the blacksmith was air conditioned. Whew. Not period appropriate, but we really appreciated seeing the sights in nice and cool. 

The activity center also contained a little gift shop. It had been a slow day for the guy behind the counter. We enjoyed the a/c. He thought it was a bit cool. 

For the rest of the tour we needed the key (which was a fob that electronically opened the doors). 

The next building was Dr. Johnson's office. It was set up the way it would have been back in the day. I took no pictures. It was set up with the tools he would have used. We went up the (very steep) stairs to find more 19th Century medical stuff. 

Next to his office was his home. That I did take pictures of.

And upstairs.

Then came the home of Daniel Boyd, a weaver. They call it the craftsman house, and they moved it from its original location. 

And his looms, which were in a back room. There were video monitors in each place which gave background. Apparently the looms could be disassembled and reassembled in barns in various locations, as the weaver would travel around to make cloth for communities that did not have a weaver.

Our tour ended at the schoolhouse. 

There was a woman sitting at the teacher's desk, there to answer any questions we had. There were back rooms with displays of the materials the kiddos would have had. Those desks do not look comfortable.

We finished up right about 4 o'clock, which was technically closing time for the tour, although the other buildings had no people, and we had a key to the locks. But as we were leaving, the guy from the gift shop was at the schoolhouse to pick up the woman at the teacher's desk, and rather than us returning the key to the drop box, he said he'd take it up for us (as he was heading that way anyway). That was helpful. 

It's a cute little tour. We did it in about an hour, but a bigger group could totally take their time. (There were a bunch of cute shops along the way, too, but they were all closed the day we were there.) 

It was interesting to see what life was like on the Erie Canal back in the day. This village was right on the highway, but it was then too, just a different sort of highway. 

After leaving, we headed towards dinner, but I already talked about that in a post last week.