MY TRAVELOGUES: 42. GREENFIELD VILLAGE, DEARBORN (MICHIGAN), USA

“What are you doing today?” asked Gaurav, my nephew as I sipped my morning tea.

“Nothing. We plan to enjoy the solitude, the beautiful environs here and sit with our feet dipped in your swimming pool,” I replied admiring the lush green surroundings around the aquamarine pool which I could see from the deck.
“Oh, that you can do any day. The weather is lovely and the sun is bright. I suggest you visit Greenfield Village today. I can assure you that you will not regret it,” Gaurav persuaded in his inimitable style.

“If you can get ready in half an hour, I can drop you there on my way to work,” he added without giving us time to think.

Lo and behold, in the next hour, we were at Greenfield Village, the village of the famous Henry Ford. As I wondered, how a village could be there in the thick of the city, Gaurav read my mind. “This is not the original village but it truly represents America and the Americans.”
I looked at him to understand the meaning of what he had said.
“Henry Ford was basically from a village. Though he became a big man and shifted to Detroit, his heart was still in his village, so he decided to recreate a village here. The village sprawls across 80 acres and has 83 historic structures. They are Noah’s Webster Home, Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory, the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practised law, and many more, anything which represents America,” our Walking Encyclopaedia explained.

Greenfield Village

By this time, we were already at the entrance of the village. Tickets purchased, leaflets collected and saying bye to Gaurav, we moved towards the village.

Josephine Ford Plaza

At the entrance of the village, was Josephine Ford Plaza, named after Henry Ford’s grand-daughter. It has an amazingly beautiful fountain in the centre. We looked around. There was a cafeteria, there were washrooms and a number of benches. It was heartening to see even old couples coming, walking slowly with the help of sticks. A single woman, may be in her eighties, had also ventured to see the place which involved a lot of walking.

The 19th-century steam engine which pulls the circular train in the village

We had purchased tickets for the train ride, which goes around the village on a three-mile track with hop-on hop-off kind of arrangement.

Henry Ford's vintage cars moving around the village

We had the option of taking a ride in Henry Ford’s Vintage Model T car of the 20^th century.

1931 Ford Model AA Bus

Alternatively, we could take a tour of the village by the 1931 Ford Model AA Bus.

A horse cart plying in Greenfield Village

There was also Greenfield Village Omnibus Shuttle, a horse driven cart. Although we had so many choices of going around the village, we stuck on to the steam engine powered open train as I love the chhuk-chhuk trains. For the entire day, we hopped on and off the train and continued to walk without feeling tired.

Brief descriptions of some of the centres that I particularly noticed and liked are given below.

Richart Wagon Shop

RICHARD WAGON SHOP
This was the place for the villagers to get almost anything wooden repaired. It was a convenient one-stop shop for the local farmers for the repair of their vehicles, tools and equipment. Robert and William Richart, who were wagon makers and owned this shop, were able to do almost everything here. They built, repaired and painted wagons. They fixed tools and sharpened saws. Villagers even brought their old chairs to make them look like new. The Richards were in business for more than fifty years.

Soybean Experimental Laboratory

SOYBEAN EXPERIMENTAL LABORATORY

Henry Ford used soybean as more than just food. He designed car parts from soybean, an experimental car body and even clothes from the soybean plant. Henry Ford knew that the soybean and other crops could be reproduced quickly, unlike iron ore, lumber or lead. He built this lab to help farmers to find a way to use these crops in an industrial world. Chemist Robert Boyer ran the lab.

Port Huron Engine

PORT HURON ENGINE

Like the ox and the horse, this engine was a versatile power source that could be used anywhere on the farm where power was needed. The arrival of this steam-powered traction engine during fall harvest season created a lot of excitement, as it gave neighbours and families a lot of opportunities to socialise and work together. Big threshing crews used this engine to power their machines as they moved from one farm to another. It could also push or pull other farm devices and run a variety of machines when a belt was hooked to its steam-driven pulley. The Port Huron Engine represents pinnacle of technological development for steam traction engines before gasoline tractors replaced them.

Sir John Bennett Jewellery Shop

SIR JOHN BENNETT JEWELLERY SHOP
Sir John Bennett was a successful watch, clock and jewellery maker in London, England. He liked the mythical story of Gog and Magog, the ancient protectors of Britain, so he recreated them for the front of his shop. The clock figures, Gog and Magog, toll the chimes of this clock every fifteen minutes. This building stood a grand five storeys at its original London site. It was scaled down to two storeys when it was moved to the village. Today it has a sweet shop inside.

Tintype Studio in Greenfield Village

GREENFIELD VILLAGE TINTYPE STUDIO
Tintypes were inexpensive photographs made on a thin sheet of iron painted black. They were much less expensive than the paper photographs made in the late 1800s. Having one’s photo taken was considered an event and people got dressed up and went to the tintype studio for a portrait.

Ready for a tintype photo

Charles Tremear was a travelling tintypist until he found work in the Ford Motor Company in 1909. In 1929, he was asked to create authentic old style tintype photographs for visitors to Greenfield Village. In this studio, Tremear made portraits of many famous people including Thomas Edison, Joe Louis and Walt Disney.

Thomas Edison's Idea Factory

EDISON’S IDEA FACTORY AT MENLO PARK COMPLEX

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” said Thomas Alva Edison. Henry Ford admired Edison a lot and was inspired by him in his own inventions. We explored a day in the life of Thomas Alva Edison and his workers in the Invention Factory at Menlo Park Complex, which is the home of first electric light bulb, the first phonograph and many other inventions. Edison believed that the best creations came from the people working together. His team of workers brought both traditional craft skills and new scientific knowledge to the exciting challenges facing them at this laboratory.

Thomas Alva Edison

In 1876, Thomas Edison had set a goal to have one major invention every six months and one minor invention every ten days. He came very close to achieving this goal. Yes, ninety-nine percent perspiration!

Sarah Jordan Boarding House

SARAH JORDAN BOARDING HOUSE

Sarah Jordan Boarding House was one of the first homes, which were wired to be lighted by electricity.

A view of the room

More than a dozen male workers from Thomas Alva’s Menlo Park Laboratory lived in this boarding house run by a widow Sarah Jordan. These men came here after a day long work and spent most of their free time here. Sarah Jordan ran this boarding home with the help of her adopted daughter Ida and a maid. These three women took care of the men and served lunch to the people who came to see the new developments at the Menlo Park Laboratory.

House of Thomas Edison's grandparents

EDISON HOMESTEAD
Thomas Alva Edison had happy childhood memories of the time he spent in this house with his grandparents.
His grandparents were kind-hearted people and they always left some food on the stove in their kitchen when they left their house so that hungry passers-by could find something to eat there. Thomas Edison’s grandparents fled to Canada after the American Revolution because they sided with the British. The guys wanted to know which country we were from. Hearing India, they asked us, "Is it true that Indian weddings are very lavish and last for many days?" We laughed and shared with them the multiple rituals that we have in our weddings. The reputation of big fat Indian weddings has travelled across the world!

In front of a Cotswold Cottage

COTSWOLD COTTAGE
Limestone was plentiful in England and many English homes were made of this natural resource. The families, who lived in this home, had a variety of jobs. Being a stone mason was a good job for the family because most of the homes in the area were made of stone.

Poet Robert Frost's House

ROBERT FROST'S HOUSE

While a poet-in-residence at the University of Michigan, Robert Frost often took walks around the neighbourhood. He found this house during one of his walks and thought it was quite a charming place. He wrote some of his best poetry in this house. His poem “Spring Pools” was also written here in only three days.

“These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods---
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.”

Scotch Settlement School

SCOTCH SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
Henry Ford and his friend Edsel Ruddiman sat next to each other in school. Henry Ford was a hard-working student at the school, but he was restless too. Henry and his friend Edsel played pranks in the school. They created their own alphabet so that they could send secret notes to each other in the class. To deal with such mischievous students, the school hired a teacher named John Chapman. The stern and heavy-set Chapman was paid an extra $5 to keep such mischievous students in line.

In the backdrop of Martha Mary Chapel

MARTHA MARY CHAPEL: Henry Ford built this chapel as a tribute to his mother Mary Litogot Ford and his mother-in-law Martha Bench Bryant. Churches like this, as the centre of community life in colonial days, were often built at the centre of the towns.

We could have gone on walking, but we had factored limited time for this visit but whatever time we spent here was quite a revelation. The experience was like getting into a time machine. We could choose our lunch from 18th-century menu and feel the sounds, sensations and sights of America that was two hundred years ago. So different from the America of today.

The Greenfield Village truly represents the people of America, their love for life and their unbridled optimism, which has made the country what it is today.

And finally a ride through the complex.... see if you can view it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2eeCrAzFUc

It was truly an exciting experience and we will definitely come here again to see what we could not see today.