Have you ever wanted to experience life in the mid-19th century as it really was? I mean, truly experience it? You can at a coastal living history farm on Roanoke Island: feel what it's like to spend time in the restored farmhouse (without air-conditioning) during the humid summer of North Carolina, touch the furniture and linens, feel the breezes through the open windows, smell the herbs drying from the ceiling of the detached kitchen while the historic interpreters cook over the hearth (and then sample the fruits of their labor), and of course, play with the farm animals!
Last year I enjoyed working on a consulting project preparing a historic furnishings plan for Island Farm. Island Farm is the site of the Etheridge Homeplace, on which stands a two-story heavy timber-frame farmhouse built between 1845 and 1852. Also are a number of reconstructed outbuildings: a kitchen, smokehouse, slave quarters, dairy, privy, corn crib, barn and chicken house, and a livestock barn. Each building is fully functional and used daily by the historical interpreters that operate the farm and live according to the mid-19th century period. The furnishings report was a first for me, as I am more familiar with preparing architectural histories. But I must say, it was SO much fun and I would love to do it again someday.
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| Slave Quarters |
Stay tuned for Part II to see photos of the completed farmhouse and outbuildings fully furnished!
