I have been aware of the Deprecation Lands Museum for a number of years, but never was able to visit it until this summer. Located in Hampton Township on South Pioneer Road, it is an impressive collection of historic buildings staffed by enthusiastic, knowledgeable docents. The complex is owned by the Township and maintained and operated by a volunteer organization, the Depreciation Lands Museum Association. It replicates a local settlement in the early 1800s, in a locale that was known as Talley Cavey.
Access to the museum is through the original 1837 Pine Creek Covenanter church building. The Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians who broke from the established church to oppose King Charles II. Many of them came to the New World via Ulster, Ireland, and settled in western Pennsylvania. On the day my daughter Elizabeth and I visited, the interior of the building was filled with exhibits of historical objects and demonstration of colonial crafts. I was particularly interested in a demonstration of flax scutching. This is one more concept I have been aware of, but never actually seen. Flax, also known as linseed, is a common plant throughout temperate climates. Full grown, its stalk is about four feet long. After it has died, the stalk is retted (soaked in water), then scutched. The actual scutching process is the removal of the stalk from the internal fibers by scraping it with a knife. Once the fibers have been cleaned by running them through combs, they are then spun into linen thread.
The floor of the church has a map of western Pennsylvania painted on it, showing the Depreciation Lands, the region that provided the museum with its name. Following the Revolutionary War, the land north of the Ohio River became available for settlement. Our new government decided to reward members of the Continental Army for their poorly-paid service with grants of land. The Depreciation Lands, a section bounded on the north by an east-west line through Kittanning, on the west by the Ohio border, on the south by the Ohio River, and on the east by the Allegheny, was set aside for purchase by veterans with certificates for their depreciated Continental currency. The resulting auction opened up this area for settlement.
Adjacent to the church building is a Tavern, properly equipped with period furnishings. This is a popular local site for rental for public affairs. Next door to it is a barn filled with agricultural implements and tools, featuring an authentic Conestoga-stye Kramer wagon. Part of the barn is outfitted as a wood shop with a docent making wagon wheel spokes and roof shingles. Adjacent to it is a mercantile shop with a demonstration of the sort of merchandise settlers would purchase at such a facility
The Armstrong Log House is authentic. Originally built in 1803 at a different location, it was painstakingly disassembled and rebuilt here a few years ago. It is twenty feet square with a nearly inaccessible loft beneath the roof rafters. Its massive fireplace was added to the original cabin in 1836. The docent there gave a convincing discussion of how a small family could live comfortably in it. Adjacent to it was an impressive herb garden, which included Jerusalem artichoke, which Elizabeth identified; its roots were an important source of food for the indigenous people in North America.
The replica one-room school house was nicely furnished with the old-fashioned wrought-iron and oak combination desks familiar to folks of my generation, the ones with the desk for the student behind you attached to the back of your seat. Each desk had a chalk-board tablet and a piece of chalk for the students to use to practice their sums. I prefer our version, which used inkwells that were perfectly located for dipping the pigtails of the girl seated in from of me. They also had an excellent collection of McGuffey Readers among the books on display.
I was disappointed that neither the smokehouse nor the beehive oven were in use. However, the blacksmith shop adjacent to them made up for it. I always enjoy forge shops and the docents who operate them. This gentleman explained that a proper blacksmith shop didn’t have windows, because external light made it difficult for the smithy to judge the temperature of the workpiece by its color. Being a purist, he used a manual bellows to spur his fire, eschewing the modern electric blowers we have seen elsewhere.
Our final stop was the Native American wigwam, which I was eager to inspect as part of my current research. I am working on a talk on a Monongahela People archaeological site in Bridgeville eight hundred years ago, for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, to be presented on November 28. Sadly, the hut’s bark exterior turned out to be ersatz – plastic! Nonetheless, the docent on duty there gave a mostly correct description of the indigenous occupation of this area prior to the arrival of the settlers, and their attempts to resist it.
The Museum complex is open for visitors every Sunday from May through October; it certainly warrants a visit. They also have special events throughout the year. The next one, October 7, is “Hydref”, their annual Fall Festival and Market Faire (Hydref is Welsh for Autumn). It will feature crafts-persons, re-enactors, sutlers selling period products, and music. The last Market Faire we attended was at Woodville, prior to the pandemic. Perhaps it will return there in the future.