If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

[Becky Morgan]

Along the far back roads in Ohio are dozens of abandoned little town. There ae miles of reclaimed but empty strip mine land far from anything (The Wilds is a good example.) Southern West Virginia has a lot of small places along bends in the rod where the buildings sit empty and have for the last forty years . Our discussion of imperfections led me to think of this quetion:

If tomorrow someone handed you a tract of land with no power lines in sight and no major highway or flyway nearby, and if money were not a problem, what would Perfectville look like? What year would it be (or would it be frozen in time at all?) and what kind of buildings would you have in it? How big would your perfect period town be? What sympathies would it have--Union, Confederate, or both? Would you use reclaimed and restored original buildings transported to the site, or would you build new?

I'm just cuious as to what we'e all picturing when we think of the right kind of town. Because of the pictures I saw when I was growing up, my image will forever be small Hocking Valley town, white houses, big porches, tree-line streets. What about the little New England villages that had already been though one war, the Trans-Mississippi towns that had just sprung up, or the perpetual commotion of NewYork City?

[ElizabethClark]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

To replicate even a small city requires an infrastructure and support system it may not be possible to create (gaslines, manufacturing, incoming trade lines, mass transport, large livestock quantities, etc.)

But smaller towns of, say, 3000 population, could likely be done, given unlimited resources. Me, personally--I'd build it as a "development town" in the 1850s, brand new, and tend to let the time run up to about 1861, but not later. I prefer the exploration of the lead-up to conflict more than the actual conflict itself.

[LindaTrent]

Re: If you COULD have Perfectville...?

If tomorrow someone handed you a tract of land with no power lines in sight and no major highway or flyway nearby, and if money were not a problem, what would Perfectville look like?

Been there, done that -- Maybe not a town or a city, but one rural home.
http://thebradfordplace1863.homestead.com/ You might say this is my ideal.

If anyone wants to be bored with details and such I'd be glad to send them, but I don't wanna bore anyone.:confused_

But even when a site strives it's darndest to be as accurate as humanly possible, the problem is still getting people to come. What people say, and what people want or will do, or sometimes two different things.

Linda.

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

For me, empty or at best a few house widely spread out representing the more forested terrain.

I actually know of a large peice of terrain that fits the bill nicely. The NYSDEC Wilderness area known as "Partridge Run" in Albany County. Very rural, a few houses along the outskirts but nothing inside, abandoned in the 1920s-30s by farmers impovrished by the depression. N otning left of their foundations but a few cellars and wells and graveyards with people in them who were born before the Revolution.

Great place to hold a tactical or except for its hilly terrain a great substitute for the Wilderness.

[nick19thind]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

For me, close to the city to attract tourists and near a major road.
It would have a large old west saloon (also selling hot food), a bank where people change their modern cash for replicas of Civil War era money (the only currency visitors will be able to spend in the shops), a fort nearby for reenactments (with its own working cannons and Gatling gun), stagecoach rides for visitors, a hotel, a Victorian museum/freak show with curiosities and artefacts from the period, a preserved stretch of steam railway, a theater, a church with graveyard, a sheriff's office and jail, several old-time stores including a sutler, photographer's studio, a shooting range where visitors can fire weapons from the period, horse rides across the terrain and a network of caves below the town with guided tours.
My Perfectville would make money from the tourist trade.
There will be a farm to grow authentic food and sell produce to maintain the site's upkeep as well as a factory producing equipment for the reenactor and providing employment for the town's inhabitants.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

To all:
I think it's only a matter of time in which someone with enough investment money creates such a place (if there isn't one already). The preservation of a small, deserted period town would be an ideal place, especially near a battle/skirmish site no matter how small or large- anyone know of one?

[ElizabethClark]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

One small terminology point: stores sell things to citizens. Sutlers vend to military. So if it's a town, you'll have a variety of merchants, and perhaps military sutlers will purchase from them before pushing on toward the troops, but they're not the common commercial interest in a town setting.

There's a site in Utah that has a lot of positive features: replica or restored buildings with furnishings, breeding program, working animals, a hotel with a dining room (though it's not a functional historic setup), a general store (again, functioning as a gift shop instead of a real store), livery stables, barber shop, private homes, church, social hall, school. It's actually a very good layout for Perfectsville, with correctible flaws given unlimited funds. :) And that's the big daydream bit, isn't it?

[27thNCdrummer]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

Perfectville for me would be:
A small rural farming village with some large plantation house's nearby. Lots of livestock and crops. It would preferably be 1863-1865. It would have working earthworks that would manned and a working railroad.
But, this will never happen so I guess I'm just dreaming

[tomarch]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

I've already seen my Perfecville! It's Upper Canada Village near Morrisburg, Ont. and is an authentic re-created typical small farming town (permently stuck between 1860-1865) complete with spining mill, sawmill and grist mill, tavern, small hotel, drygoods store and a good number of trades represented from tinsmith and cobblers, cheesemakers, joiners to blacksmith, wheelwrights and wood cutters ect, ect. Wish sometimes I could retire and live there

[LindaTrent]

Re: If you COULD have Perfectville...?

If anyone wants to be bored with details and such I'd be glad to send them, but I don't wanna bore anyone.:confused_ Linda.

Okay, so a few people wanted me to post, so here it goes.

To me, the perfect site is one where one where they care enough about every little detail from the types of grass; to the layout of the vegetable garden, orchard and flower garden, and the varieties in each.

Where the buildings are carefully chosen and their function clearly known by the contents (i.e. wash house complete with buckets, tubs, wash-board, and soap, with an outdoor fire pit with tripod to hang the pot on to heat the water, clothesline, clothespins, etc...), barn complete with workshop, hay room, maybe a tie or box stall (particularly helpful in milking anxious cows), milk stool, milk bucket, wash bucket, horse leathers (saddles, bridles, harness...); cellar complete with stoneware crocks, wooden barrels, boxes and such that are fully stocked with period appropriate items (corned beef, pickled pork, vegetables, lard, eggs, fruits, preserves...), fields where the animals are fenced out rather than in, where there are period appropriate types of livestock, barnyard fowl, and other farm creatures that are there not as a static display, but fully functional -- in other words you can really milk the cow, gather the eggs, churn butter, and do all the things associated with each activity.

The perfect place would be a house that is furnished with the best of reproductions or original furnishings, and fully furnished to a person's particular social level and position. In other words a doctor's home would have a desk, a cabinet to store important papers, an account book (with names of patients and the reason that he visited...), notes that he needs to pay and/or collect on, a medical book or two, a medicine chest or closet that contains medicines that are a very close look-a-like, a scale and mortar and pestle, instruments that reflect his social class (in other words if a rural doctor he wouldn't be up on all the absolute latest and have all the things a city doctor would have at his disposal), and of course a medical saddle bag, pen, ink, paper, reading glasses (if necessary), the
latest Harper's Weekly and any other publication that has been reprinted or in good original shape.

In the way of other furnishings: a family Bible, perhaps a little box full of interesting clippings cut from the local paper (marriages, deaths, jokes, farming tips, etc.) bellows for the fire, andirons, trivets, crane, [unless the occupant can afford a stove], hearth, cast iron, porcelain lined preserve kettles, skillets, [dutch] ovens, cupboard where the plates,
glasses, and such are stored, along with mixing bowls, and other necessary kitchen items, and a salt box with drawer for pepper and spices, and nail to hang the nutmeg grater on. Table, chairs, candles and candleholders, lamp and lamp oil, sewing box complete with a mish-mash of things.

Wash-stand complete with pitcher and basin, soap, towels, toothbrushes, toothpowder... Any and all drawers, closets, cupboards, etc. can be opened at any time without a fear of anything anachronistic. All meals based upon receipts from the immediate area(unpublished local sources, recommended in the local paper, obtained from friends/church..., and the area that the residents' parents lived (might include some ethnic specialties). Oh yes, the pantry... with bags of dried vegetables, sugar, flour, meal, etc., a barrel with bacon immersed in ashes, an iron, ironing board (that's placed over the backs of chairs) a bag of starch, butter churn, dirty clothes bag...

Bedstead, with period sheets, coverlet, buffalo robe, chamber pot, rope key, straw tick, feather pillow, of course a clock would be nice. A few paintings for the walls, a blanket chest to store blankets, sheets and some extra undergarments...

Of course there's an upstairs (whether full or half story -- that's where the children sleep on a straw tick on the floor. The upstairs is also storage for the house. Perhaps some extra glass for windows, extra buckets, children's toys (for use, or storage depending upon age of children), a few children's chairs, a candle stand, a chamber pot for upstairs use, another blanket chest with the provisions for the upstairs tick inside and again extra linens and such, and of course on both floors clothing hanging off pegs, hats and bonnets on shelves...

And it would be really cool to have fictional characters that live in the area who fill all the local mechanics, merchants, millers, physicians, lawyers, gentlemen, and other roles that the residents can gossip and talk about.

Well, that's just one house, and one small family, and I'm sure I left something out. ;-) And that in itself costs a small fortune, even if you build your own barn, cellar, privy, wash-house w/ carriage shed, and wood shed, and just hire out the log cabin w/ firebox, hearth and chimney, and the log hut.

Conner Prairie is something along these lines, but there are cupboards, drawers, closets... that the visitors can't open; beds that neither the interpreters nor the visitors can lie on; objects that can't be picked up by visitors, items that can't be picked up by interpreters or visitors;... The houses are not fully functional even though they appear to be by the average tourist.

The problem is, the larger the setting the more reenactors it requires to fill the homes and businesses. The more reenactors that are required the less the quality. It's always been one of the things I've loved about being a civilian. The military has to have numbers in order to fill their ranks or they look silly, therefore oftentimes the quality of the participants has to drop to allow for quanity, I would just hate to see that happen to 'perfectville.'

Linda.

[tomarch]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

Mrs.Trent: I love your post. If you ever get the chance, please go to Upper Canada Village. The folks that docent there live there for the summer months working at the various trades and working farms. Their children either help out around the farms or are apprenticed to a tradesman most of the day and attend the school for around 2-3hrs. per day (using period lessons and materials.) I think you would get a kick out of it. Oh yeah, ALL of the trades there will make items for private purchase.

[LindaTrent]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

Mrs.Trent: I love your post.

Thanks! What I described is the Bradford Place, and it shows we put our money where our mouth is. :tounge_sm

Linda

[Hank Trent]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

If you ever get the chance, please go to Upper Canada Village. The folks that docent there live there for the summer months working at the various trades and working farms.

I'd seriously be interested in getting a job there one summer to experience that, but I'm wondering how it's possible? The limitation we had with the Bradford Place was to live there would require total isolation from friends, since there was no larger 1863 world around it, and no period means of resupplying--no store or blacksmith, etc. Obviously, being part of a village would solve that. But...

Are you saying that the docents are expected to live a period lifestyle there, even after hours, when they live on site? No elecricity, laptops, telephones, recorded music, microwaves in their rooms? No modern newspapers or books? No modern shampoo or plastic-handled toothbrushes? They wear period nightclothes to sleep in period beds, and use privies and carry all their water from a well? All their meals, even after hours and on their days off, are cooked on period stoves/fireplaces with period ingredients and utensils? No modern refrigeration?

I just can't believe it. It's hard enough to get reenactors enthusiastic about doing that for a weekend, but a village full of paid employees for months or weeks?

I guess employees could leave and visit the modern world, and keep modern clothes for that, but how does the village enforce a period lifestyle on site? By searching buildings?

I used to think that somewhere there must be a group of people as enthusiastic as I was about experiencing living history, and it was just a matter of finding them. Now, older and wiser and more cynical, I don't think there is, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[tomarch]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

Hank, as far as I understand it, the docents are expected to live a period lifestyle even after hours. Everything they use they have to try and provide themselves. Out of the whole town and the three or so farms I belive there are only three building that have electricity, and they are closed after the public is gone for the day. There is still much to do as there are crops to be tended, livestock to be fed, clothes to be mended and washed,logs to be sawn, forges to be manned etc, etc. At least this is my understanding

[Hank Trent]

Re: If you COUL D have Perfectville...?

Hank, as far as I understand it, the docents are expected to live a period lifestyle even after hours.

Well, I wrote them through their online contact form, and will post the answer if they reply. If you know of a better person or email address to use for contact, let me know.

I looked at their employment opportunities online, and no mention is made of onsite housing being available, that I could find. It's just like any other job, you work so many hours per week, at so much per hour, and you're done for the week.

They even have a position for "cleaners" who don't need to wear historic costumes and "provide cleaning services in historic buildings at Upper Canada Village," which is the way it usually is at large historic villages, where a totally modern cleaning and maintenance crew takes care of things after hours or behind the scenes. Because otherwise, you get into labor laws, for example if a housewife is expected to do the breakfast dishes or make the bed or empty the chamber pots before her paid hourly work day begins, yet isn't paid by the hour for it. These big villages have to be run like businesses, not labors of love.

I'd still love for it to be true, but at the very least, the employees would need to be salary, not hourly, and thus aren't showing up on the employment page of the website at http://www.parks.on.ca/jobs/listdir.htm

Here's the inquiry I sent:

I hope you won't mind settling a friendly disagreement. :-)

A friend who visited your site said that the interpreters in the historic buildings at Upper Canada Village actually live a period lifestyle in the buildings 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with nothing modern available after hours. No flush toilets, no running water, no refrigerators, no modern clothing, no TVs or microwaves or recorded music, or even modern clothing are allowed for those employees, even during their non-work hours in their on-site homes. They meet all their needs by shopping at the period store and contracting with the other historic interpreters for goods and services.

I contend that if some employees have onsite housing in historic buildings, they have normal modern amenities available after hours (flush toilets, running water, electricity, modern clothing), and that he's only seeing an illusion based on the excellent period atmosphere presented to visitors in the daytime.

The reason I ask is that *if* period living is required 24 hours a day for some employees, I'd like to apply for a seasonal job there, since that would be a unique and very enjoyable experience, unavailable at any other historic village I'm aware of.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net