Traveling Back to 18th-Century Living is an Option This Fall--at the Peter Wentz Farmstead in Montgomery County

By Catherine J. Barrier

Two hundred and thirty-four years have passed since our country declared its independence in the late 18^th-century, and our lives and world have been modernized by increased knowledge and technology, but the simpler 18^th-century lifestyle continues at the Peter Wentz Farmstead in Worcester, PA—and especially during numerous upcoming weekend events.

“We’re an 18^th-century historical site with a German flair,” said Kimberly Boice, the Museum Educator at the Peter Wentz Farmstead.

The 90-plus-acre Peter Wentz Farmstead, located on Shearer Road, near the intersection of Routes 73 and 363 in Montgomery County (Worcester, PA), has not only a main two and a half-story Georgian-style stone house, with many German heritage architectural features, but a rear kitchen with a bake oven and numerous outbuildings.  There’s a bank barn—a barn built up with a bank of dirt, which allows wagons access to the barn’s threshing floor, a sheep fold—the sheep’s “home”, a grist mill, an ice house, a smoke house, chicken coops, a kitchen garden, orchards, a woodshed, and a privy, or outhouse.

“The house was built in 1758 by Peter Wentz, the son of German immigrants who came to the area in the early 1700s,” said Boice. During the American Revolutionary War, the house was used twice by General George Washington, and in 1794, Melchior Schultz, a Schwenkfelder minister, purchased the farm. The Schwenkfelders were a Christian group that left what is today Southern Germany in the 1730s, fleeing religious persecution.  They arrived in the Philadelphia area and brought the spice saffron to the Americas.  Schultz’s family lived in the home until 1969, when Montgomery County bought the property.

Today, the farmstead is an historical site listed on the National Register of Historic Places (since 1973) and is managed by Montgomery County as a fully restored historical site that serves as an example of a prosperous 18^th-century German farmstead.  Admission is Free, and the Farmstead is open year round on Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.  It is closed Mondays. For more information, visit http://www.peterwentzfarmsteadsociety.org/, or call (610) 584-5104.

“About 40 percent of our visitors are people out sightseeing,” said Boice. “People who live in older homes often visit [us] as well, [and] we do get a number of groups [visiting]—school groups, camp groups, quite diverse groups.”  Groups are requested to register in advance.

While the Farmstead is not a petting zoo, it is home to a number of animals.  “We have horses, cows, chickens, sheep, and guinea fowl,” said Boice.

“I’ve had a passion for museum work since I was thirteen—and I worked hard in school [to realize my dream of making a career out of it],” said Boice.  “I was fortunate enough to get a job in the field shortly after I graduated.”  She has been with the Farmstead for the past seven years.  “I see education at the museum as education in a non-traditional classroom setting.  I have an 18^th-century house, animals, gardens, and nature trails [to teach with].”

The Food Ways Program’s Fall Harvest Event Returns on Saturday, September 25th, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“The Fall Harvest program is a continuation of a [larger] Food Ways Program we’ve had going on for the past few years,” said Boice.  “The Fall Harvest program focuses on the seasonality of food and on work on the farm.  [The seasonality of food] is a very hot topic now, and this program is on a smaller-scale [than some of our other programs throughout the year], but the guided house tours [during this event] show what the family would be doing to get ready for this season.”

Pressing apples into cider and cooking on the open hearth, using 18^th-century recipes (pronounced like the modern word “receipts”) from this region and this time of the year, will both be demonstrated. “We have the hearth to show the cooking, and we have a kitchen garden, where the food is grown that we use in the kitchen [demonstrations],” said Boice.

Non-food-related 18^th-century fall preparations would include putting extra blankets on the beds, pulling up wool bed curtains, and processing the flax plant, by scutching, or scraping the straw away from the fibers, & combing the flax—both to extract the fibers, which would eventually be spun into linen thread.  Volunteer staff will be on hand to show how the flax plant was processed.

“We have an amazing corps of volunteers, including junior volunteers,” said Boice.  Some of these will be hosting the Fall Harvest demonstrations on September 25, and some of the younger volunteers use their volunteering at the Farmstead to fulfill various school community service project requirements.

“We’ve had a very positive reaction to [all] this,” said Boice. “It’s [all] clearly something people are interested in.  They’re staying for hours and asking more in-depth questions.”

The Secrets of the Farmstead Tours Are Scheduled for Saturday, October 2nd, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“[The Secrets of the Farmstead Tours] is an opportunity for people with an interest in old buildings to see much more than you’d usually see in taking a house tour,” said Boice.  “We also go into the attic and the basement—and get to look at the roof joints in the attic and the floor joists in the basement.  Our basement has a dug-out trough along three of the sides that we believe was used to hold water to keep things cool.  We also go into depth about the restoration work begun in the early 1970s and still going on today.”

In particular, there are several German features about this house, such as the inside paint decoration and the German 5-plate stove, which was used for heating, not cooking.  “We believe the [paint decoration] dates to the family because it’s not the kind of thing one would find in this area,” said Boice.

The home also features a number of corner cupboards and corner fireplaces, and people who live in older homes, those interested in restoring older buildings, students of architecture, history buffs, and those simply curious about older structures tend to sign up for these tours.  Registration is required.  Call (610) 584-5104.

The Farmstead Focuses on Washington’s Headquarters at Wentz’s on Saturday, October 16^th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“General Washington was headquartered here for approximately six days in October 1777, and we wanted to highlight this a bit,” said Boice.  Washington planned his strategy here, from October 2-4, for what became the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777.  The battle was a defeat for the Americans, but because the Continental Army believed the defeat was due to bad luck—for example, dense fog and thick smoke (which were both present)—instead of believing the truth: that the defeat was due to poor tactics—the battle served to boost American morale and self-confidence.

Washington returned after the Battle of Germantown—from October 16-21, 1777.

It was at this location that General Washington learned, on October 18, of British Major General John Burgoyne’s surrender to General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York the day before. Washington celebrated the news here.

“We will have a first-person interpretation of the General, ongoing house tours—especially of the first floor [set up as when Washington was here], and re-enactors on-hand, portraying everyday camp life and 18^th-century military maneuvers,” said Boice.

The Peter Wentz Farmstead Society has researched Library of Congress records that indicate that the Wentzes did not leave their home when Washington headquartered there. They merely moved into a smaller part of the house, making room for the General.  They were also reimbursed for a number of things taken, or used, by the Continental Army.  Many of these were food items, such as cabbage, milk, potatoes, and crèmes, but the Wentzes were reimbursed for some broken dishes as well.

There was undoubtedly some conflict at times in the kitchen during General Washington’s stay here.  “Ajena Rogers, who has a Masters in Resource Interpretation and portrays the General’s cook, Hannah Till, actually believes that when the General was here, Hannah was still working with him,” said Boice. “She believes that that probably led to some friction in the kitchen—between Hannah Till and the regular cook(s).”

All these highlights of the day will help the public to understand what things were like for General Washington, his men, and the Wentz family at this farmstead during those important historical days.

In the afternoon of October 16, John Nagy, the author of Rebellion in the Ranks: Mutinies of the American Revolution (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing), will present an 18^th-century code and ciphering class at 1 p.m.  “He’s done a lot of [coding and ciphering],” said Boice.  No registration is needed for this class, and it will be followed later in the day with a John Nagy book-signing of his newest work: Invisible Ink: Spycraft of the American Revolution (Westholme Publishing).

There is a Museum Shop on location at the Farmstead, where a handcrafted box loom, attractive redware—especially the scrafitto plates with German quotations, wooden toys, crafts, books, and prints are all on display and available for purchase.

Some people come to this working 18^th-century farmstead, with its fields of cultivation farmed using 18^th-century techniques, for the history.  Some come to see the demonstrations. “People can just walk around and have a picnic lunch,” said Boice.  (There are no food facilities on site, but there is a picnic area.)  Whatever their reasons for coming, those who visit the Peter Wentz Farmstead have the opportunity to travel back in time and enjoy—at least for a day—a place and a lifestyle that have remained for more than two centuries—since the 18^th-century and the founding of America.

* Photos courtesy of the Department of Parks & Heritage Services - Peter Wentz Farmstead

© 2010 by Catherine J. Barrier.  All rights reserved.