The clocks stopped in 1799 at Coggeshall Farm Museum, a living history farm in Bristol, Rhode Island. As well as meeting interpreters dressed in accurate reproduction clothing, you can sign up for fun, hands-on programs. Learn what it was like to be an 18th-century farmhand and enjoy the rewards of a breakfast of johnnycakes, made in a cast-iron skillet; check the livestock, from the pig and the cows to the heirloom game hens.
Although the Farm building is original, in 1968 the Bristol Historical Society signed a lease and constructed various outbuildings. Coggeshall Farm Museum opened in 1973. The mission of the Coggeshall Farm Museum is to preserve this 1790s Rhode Island salt-marsh farm.
Coggeshall offers a window into the turbulent steps the infant United States made during the first years after the ratification of the Constitution. Instead of being a place dedicated to the great leaders like George Washington and John Adams, Coggeshall depicts the lives of everyday farm families who build our nation from the ground up. This living history museum plays an important role in preserving the structure, artifacts, techniques and activities of daily life on a Federalist era farm.
The museum utilizes its entire 48-acre site as an educational environment. Visitors experience the past using all of their senses and are invited to assist the farmers with their work.
The museum is focused on processes and methods as well as objects. Those who are willing may find meaning in the past through hands-on learning.
Text source: Coggeshall Farm Museum
