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Step Back in Time at the Genesee Country Village and Museum This Fall

posted by Teresa Farrell at 2018-10-28 13:48:00

With October in the rearview mirror, apple picking season fading away, and the holidays still ahead, late fall is the perfect time to enjoy and explore some of Upstate New York’s local history. For a fun, family-friendly weekend outing that provides activities and entertainment that reaches back over more than 200 years of that history, look no further than the Genesee Country Village and Museum.


Located in Mumford, a portion of Western New York southwest of Rochester, the Genesee Country Village and Museum boasts the distinction of being the largest living history museum in New York State, among the same ranks as Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg and other famous living history destinations. The village is composed of 68 individual historic buildings, and each and every one of them once stood and was used by real people of the era from 11 different counties throughout western New York, with some buildings coming from as much as 100 miles away. Each one was moved from its original location and reconstructed on-site.

 
Today, the living history museum includes a 19th-century village, broken up by era, so that visitors can progress from 1790-era section all the way up to 1900 and learn about the changes that came with each period of time. The dwellings range from log cabins to authentic Victorian homes, and the sheer variety of architectural styles and different types of homes and business buildings is fascinating in itself. To make the experience even more authentic, costumed interpreters ready to demonstrate or explain a different part of historic Genesee country life in each area of the village, from cooks and bakers to blacksmiths, tinsmiths, coopers, potters and other tradespeople who are doing the same work it would have taken to survive back in the 1800s.

 
Four different heirloom gardens on premises yield produce used to cook meals, make medicine, dye fibers, and create other crafts and decorations of the time. There are also plenty of animals to see here, including a pair of 2,000-pound oxen that kids marvel at, among others that were essential to life on homestead. An on-site nature center encompasses more than 600 acres of gardens, forests and other wild areas, with five miles of themed nature trails and 175 acres of wildlife habitat open year-round so visitors can explore natural history and the area’s flora and fauna.


You can take your authentic experience a step further and enjoy a historic meal prepared with 19^th-century recipes at the village’s 1818-era Sylvester Hosmer Inn, which once stood the Ontario and Genesee Turnpike. Your dinner reservation includes four courses, a tour of the historic inn, and a lantern-lit stroll around the town square. And to truly live the life of a 19^th-century settler, look into spending a weekend in the 1809 Hetchler log house, where you can live like a pioneer for a few days; experiences can be customized for each group that reserves the house.


Photo Credits: Genesee Country Village and Museum

 

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