Newest Era

One area in the park commemorates the fur trade. Its strategic location between the Mississippi and the Saint Lawrence Rivers made “LaBaye” a logical place for a trader to settle. By the 1720’s bands of voyageur canoes set out each spring from Quebec, the capital of New France, bound for the Northwest with a cargo of French trade goods. The French fur traders were reliant on the native groups for food, a trade route, hunting grounds, pelts, and companionship. Out of this companionship grew the Meétis culture, a mingling of French fur traders and the Indian culture.

Exchange Place -- the Gaines-Preston Farm recaptures life in the early 1800s. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, nine buildings built between 1816 and 1851 are restored on their original foundations, including the main house, the spring house, the school house and the smoke house. 

In 1677, a group of Huguenot families established a community in the Hudson Valley of New York in the hope of creating a home where they could worship as they chose.  In 1894, their descendants formed what is now Historic Huguenot Street to protect their legacy in the buildings, objects, and stories they left behind.

Sayer had been working for British fur trade companies since the 1770s in the Fond du Lac District, southwest of Lake Superior. When Sayer and his party arrived in the area they were welcomed by the local Ojibwe. The Ojibwe recommended Sayer’s party build a post on the banks of Ginebig-ziibi. The post included a rowhouse with six rooms that included living quarters, a storehouse, and a room where trade was conducted. The rowhouse was enclosed by a stockade with a single entrance. On April 26, 1805, the North West Company party left the Snake River Fur Post and returned to Fort St.

In the following years, several buildings were donated and moved to the present site. Eventually, ideas to create a farm museum and preserve buildings of historic importance merged into the concept of a rural village. Impetus came with the realization that the nation’s bicentennial was fast approaching. The plans for this hypothetical Crossroads Village evolved from the common characteristics of rural villages in Genesee County as depicted in the 1873 Atlas of Genesee County. The Village, dedicated July 4, 1976, became a reality.

Twelve log houses, the Rutledge Tavern, ten workshops, stores, mills and a school where church services were held have been reproduced and furnished as they might have been in the 1830s. The furnishings, including many articles actually used by the New Salem people of Lincoln's time and others dating back to the same time period, were assembled and donated to the state by the Old Salem Lincoln League.

Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer living in Springfield by the time his parents moved here, but his burgeoning law practice often brought him to Charleston and the farm, especially during the 1840s. Abraham Lincoln also owned a portion of the farm which he deeded back to his father and step-mother for their use during their lifetime.

The operation of the farm consists of component parts which comprise one integrated demonstration. The main theme depicts self-sufficiency and man in his natural environment. The seasons and the weather are an important part of the demonstration. Everything the Lincolns raised and used was either totally consumed or recycled. Nothing was wasted. They derived their living from the land and forest around them.

The group began moving local and regional historically significant buildings onto the property, and a historical "village" setting emerge, dating to between 1875 and 1910. These include a pottery shed, a country store and a Methodist church. Through the years, additional workshops were built to exhibit various historical trades and life ways of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s like a Print Shop, Wheelwright Shop/Carriage House, Woodwright Shop, Blacksmith Shop, and the native American Timucuan-Myacca and Seminole Villages.