Heritage Village Museum facts for kids

Heritage Village Museum is a cool place in Southwestern Ohio, United States, where you can step back in time to the 1800s! It's like a real-life history book. The village has 13 old buildings from around the Cincinnati area. These buildings were moved here to keep them safe from being torn down. You can find the village inside Sharon Woods Park in Sharonville, Ohio.

Heritage Village is open all year for you to explore on your own. It's a great way to see what life was like long ago!

Historic Buildings at Heritage Village

The village is home to many interesting old buildings. Each one tells a story about life in the 1800s.

Hayner House: A Grand Farmhouse

The Hayner House is a beautiful building built in 1852. It's designed in the Greek Revival style, which means it looks a bit like an ancient Greek temple with its fancy columns. This house was once in Warren County, near the Little Miami River.

The house was bought by John Hayner in 1862. He was a farmer who grew and dried corn. Later, he and his friends started canning corn, which was a big business back then! He even turned his corn-drying barn into a cannery (a place where food is canned). The house was later moved to Heritage Village and carefully put back together, just like it was originally.

Elk Lick House: A Country Home with a Secret

The Elk Lick House is an example of Carpenter Gothic architecture, which means it has lots of decorative wooden details. It's thought to have been built around 1818, with an addition added in the 1840s. This house came from Clermont County.

What's cool is that the two parts of the house look very different! The older back part was a simple two-room cottage. The front part, added later, is much fancier. This house was going to be destroyed to make way for a reservoir, but thankfully, it was saved and moved to the village in 1969.

Chester Park Train Station: A Busy Stop

The Chester Park Train Station shows off Italianate architecture, a style popular in the mid-1800s. Long ago, people in Ohio used rivers to move goods. But for towns away from rivers, trains became super important! Trains helped farmers get their crops to market and allowed people to travel between towns.

This station was built in 1875. It became very busy because a racetrack called Chester Park was built nearby. So many people came by train that the station had to be made bigger in 1879. This larger station is the one you can see at Heritage Village today.

Benedict Cottage: A Craftsman's Home

The Benedict Cottage is an example of Federal architecture, an early American style. It was built as a small home for a worker along Mill Creek. It might be older than people first thought, possibly built before 1825.

Later, it became a caretaker's home on a large estate owned by the Burchenal family, who were connected to the Procter & Gamble Company. In 1997, the cottage was moved to Heritage Village. Now, it's used to show how people made textiles (like cloth and fabric) in the 1800s.

Vorhes House: A Typical Farmhouse

The Vorhes House is another Federal-style building. It's a good example of a typical farmhouse from the Cincinnati area in the 1820s or 1830s. This strong, well-built house was moved from Blue Ash.

Inside, it has two rooms and two fireplaces downstairs, and three rooms with two fireplaces upstairs. You can even go upstairs using one of two staircases! It gives you a great idea of how a family lived in a larger farmhouse back then.

Kemper House: A Pioneer's Home

The Kemper House was built in 1804 by James and Judith Kemper. It came from the Walnut Hills area of Cincinnati. James Kemper was a very important Presbyterian minister, one of the first in the area north of the Ohio River.

This building is considered a house, not just a simple cabin, because it had plastered walls, a staircase, and nice wood trim. It even had a large sitting room! The Kemper family lived here for many years before the house was moved to the Cincinnati Zoo in 1912, and then later to Heritage Village.

Somerset Church: A Place of Worship

The Somerset Church was built around 1829. It was originally located in Deerfield Township. Even though Reverend Kemper (from the Kemper House) never preached here, he helped find the church's first minister. It's interesting that his log house now sits right next to the church at Heritage Village!

This church has been restored to look just as it did long ago. It's used for special events today and helps visitors understand the importance of faith to early settlers.

Langdon Medical Office: A Doctor's World

The Langdon Medical Office is an example of 1850s Steamboat Gothic architecture, which has a fancy, decorative style. This was the doctor's office of Dr. Henry A. Langdon, who was a doctor during the Civil War. He practiced medicine here from 1865 to 1876.

The museum uses this office and its collection of old medical tools to show what medicine was like in the 1800s. Moving this building was a huge job; it had to be taken apart completely and then put back together at the village.

Fetter General Store: Shopping in the 1800s

The Fetter General Store is an example of Leadville architecture. It was moved from Main Street in a town once called Boston (now Owensville) in Clermont County. Built in the 1860s, it was named after its owner, John C. Fetter.

The museum got the store in 1983. It was in bad shape, but the outside has been fixed up. Now, it's used for educational programs, helping kids imagine what it was like to shop for everything from food to tools in a general store back then.

Schram Printing Company: News and Books

The Schram Printing Company was originally in Covington, Kentucky. The building you see at Heritage Village isn't the original print shop. Instead, it's a new building made to look like the original. It holds a cool collection of old printing presses and letter trays that were donated by the Schram family. This lets visitors see how newspapers and books were printed long ago.

Gatch Barn: An Old Farm Building

The Gatch Barn is believed to be one of the oldest barns from Clermont County. It came from the Gatch family farm. Barns were super important on farms for storing crops, housing animals, and keeping tools safe. This barn gives you a peek into the farming life of the past.

Myers Schoolhouse: Learning in One Room

The Myers Schoolhouse is a classic one-room schoolhouse built in 1891. It was moved from Delhi Township. Imagine all the kids from different grades learning together in just one room with one teacher! This schoolhouse helps visitors understand what education was like for children in the late 1800s.