History Tours of Great Road Heritage Campus Sites

On Sunday afternoon, May 22nd, antique lovers and history buffs are in for a real treat as four historic sites offer guided tours at the Great Road Heritage Campus at Chase Farm Park. The sites include the Hearthside Museum (1810), Hannaway Blacksmith Shop (1880), Moffett Mill (1812), and the Pullen's Corner Schoolhouse (1850). While antique shops remain a popular pasttime to browse and admire artifacts lined up on shelves, seeing these artifacts in their authentic locations such as these Great Road sites brings their history to life and enhances the experience of visiting a historic site!

Known for its unusual architecture, Hearthside Museum has lots of stories about its previous owners to tell along with an impressive array of antiques and artifacts to show. Tours are led by docents in period attire and take an hour and 15 minutes. It includes 11 rooms on the first and second floors, as well as the third floor, where the antique looms and spinning wheels of the Talbot family who lived at Hearthside during the early 20th century are set up just as they had been while operating a nationally-renowned hand weaving business. Through the tour, you'll learn about the fascinating history of Hearthside and its legendary beginnings as the result of a winning lottery ticket. "The House That Love Built" has welcomed several different families as its residents over the past 200 years, until 1997 when ownership passed to the Town of Lincoln. Over this time, Hearthside has been home to a candle and soap maker, a lawyer, a horse breeder, several farmers, a real estate developer, a merchant, a coal and lumber dealer, a mill owner, a printer, a publisher, and the hand weaving business that gave Hearthside its name.

For returning visitors, some new features are a recent discovery of the original back entrance door that was hidden within the wall. Also, a new donation has been received of a very rare antique Tynietoy dollhouse that had belonged to Mary Ann Lippitt, whose family at one time owned the Manville Mills in Lincoln. A connection to Hearthside of Tynietoy is also the fact that its' co-founder was a relative of Arnold Talbot, who lived at Hearthside 1904-1926. Hearthside tours take an hour and 15 min. The Hearthside Gift Shop is open during the tours to ticket holders, as well as the general public.

Also open for tours during this event is the Moffett Mill, offering a rare opportunity to step back into a different century, while just a few steps away, the cars and trucks race by along Great Road. Built in 1812, this amazing building is frozen in time, as it still appears the same as it did when its doors closed around 1900. The early relic of the Industrial Revolution operated with water power from the Moshassuck River and provided custom work and repairs for area businesses and farms, from wagons, buggies and tools to laces for shoes and corsets around the period of the Civil War.

Shuttle transport will drop off and pick up visitors on a set schedule. This is the only safe access way to visit the Mill. Because of limited space, advance registration is requested and a time slot selected for your 25 min. visit. If you plan to visit just the Mill, admission is $5 per person, which includes the shuttle transportation, and is payable in cash when checking in at Hearthside before boarding the shuttle van.

Schedule a stop at the Pullen's Corner Schoolhouse, located next to the Visitors Center at the Park, and learn about the history of this charming one-room school and discover why it got the name "Hot Potato School." Lincoln's last one-room schoolhouse was moved from its original location on Angell Road to Chase Farm and restored by the Friends of Hearthside and is now filled with an impressive collection of antique schoolhouse books, toys, and teaching tools. A unique "magic lantern," an early slide projector, is one of the interesting items, complete with glass slides that were shown to children as a way of having them see and learn about far-away places. Guests are welcome to write on slate boards or with a quill pen and experience how children from nearby farms of all ages got their education here from the mid-19th century until it closed in 1922. Plan on 20- 30 min. for your visit.

At the entrance to the Park is the Hannaway Blacksmith Shop, where the blacksmith will demonstrate at the forge while explaining the history of this original shop and the blacksmithing trade that occurred here. There is no reservation needed for this visit.. Admission is free and visitors are welcome to stay as little or as long as they like. This is a great chance to preview what it might be like to take a class to learn this traditional craft, offered each weekend.

Sites are open from 1-4 p.m, with the last admission at Hearthside at 3:00, and the other sites at 3:30. Tours should be reserved ahead of time with staggered admissions every 30 min. to help limit size of groups for each tour at each site.

While there is no order to the visits or requirement to visit all four, visitors need to check in first at Hearthside to pay admission, in cash at check-in, and then set off for tours at the museum or to hop aboard the shuttle to visit one of the other sites and return later for the museum tour. Parking is across from Hearthside.

General admission at Hearthside is $12; $6 ages 10-17. Admission includes entrance fees for the other sites. For those who prefer to just visit one or two of the sites, the visits to the Mill are $5 per person, or to the schoolhouse, $5 per family (or person). Visits to the Blacksmith Shop are free. Current members of the Friends of Hearthside also enjoy free admission.

May is Historic Preservation Month. Each of these four sites have been restored and preserved by the volunteers of the Friends of Hearthside. Let us show you what we've done to save these irreplaceable sites for not just today's generations, but for many to follow.

Click the link below to register.