Field Trip Next Week!
Off we go to the Shelburne Museum
What are some of the historical things that I will see on my visit?
Settlers House
Settlers’ House offers a look at Vermont life in the 1790s. The two-room log house features an open hearth fireplace. Adjacent there is a vegetable garden and flax field.
Outdoors a clay bake oven and reproduction English-style barn, which serves as a special demonstration site for early American crafts and cooking.
Settlers’ House was built about 1846 in East Charlotte, Vermont of hand-hewn and dovetailed beech and pine timbers. The ceiling and floor joists are dovetailed into the outside walls. The house was moved to the Museum in 1955, and the barn was built in 2001.
Schoolhouse
The one-room Schoolhouse’s desks, maps, chalkboard featuring lesson plans, and children’s schoolwork re-create the environment of a 19th-century rural school.
The brick Schoolhouse was built about 1840 in Vergennes, Vermont. Its projecting bell tower, arched door opening, and sash windows reflect classical influences. When the structure was relocated to the Museum in 1947, the tin dome was replaced with copper and the surmounting acorn finial was repaired.
Ticonderoga
The restored 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga is a National Historic Landmark and the last walking beam side-wheel passenger steamer in existence. Built in Shelburne in 1906, it operated as a day boat on Lake Champlain serving ports along the New York and Vermont shores until 1953. In 1955, the Ticonderoga was moved two miles overland from the lake to Shelburne Museum in a remarkable engineering effort that stands as one of the great feats of maritime preservation.
Today the Ticonderoga portrays life on board in 1923. The ship’s carved and varnished woodwork, gilded ceilings, staterooms, grand staircase, and dining room bring to life the old-fashioned elegance of steamboat travel. Visitors may explore the Ticonderoga’s massive engine, four decks, pilot’s house, galley, and crew’s quarters.