The Mercer Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Part 2

     The Mercer Museum has a special exhibit which began April 25, 2015 and runs through September 7, 2015 called "To Save Our Fellow Citizens:" Volunteer Firefighting 1800-1875. Firefighters get $1.00 off the price of admission.

https://www.mercermuseum.org/event/exhibit-to-save-our-fellow-citizens-volunteer-firefighting-1800-1875/

This piece of equipment sits in the lobby of the visitor center.  There is a small display to the right.  The main exhibit is in a separate room on the left.

This is part of the smaller display - a few artifacts and lots of photographs of Bucks County firefighters.

The belts of three fire houses.

This pumper is in the main exhibit.  It's quite a work of art.  The firefighters who operated this beautiful machine are pictured behind it.

A lot of firefighting was done with buckets.

This statue was carved to honor a fireman who died in a blaze in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

The Mercer Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania - Part 1

     The Mercer Museum, located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was built by Henry Chapman Mercer, and it houses his collection of American preindustrial artifacts.  Preindustrail means the time before the year 1850 or the time before machines mass produced goods in factories.  Henry Ford said that the Mercer Museum was the only museum in the United States worth visiting.  It is the most unique, as far as I'm concerned, from the collections to the style of the displays to the building itself.  You can't go to the museum without also going to Fonthill, Henry Mercer's home, and the Moravian Tile and Pottery works, Mercer's business.  These three locations are known as the Mercer Mile.
     Henry Chapman Mercer lived from 1856-1930.  He had a liberal arts degree from Harvard and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.  He was admitted to the bar, but instead of practicing law, he spent ten years after law school traveling in Europe and Egypt.  He was able to do this with the support of his wealthy aunt, Elizabeth Lawrence.  Mercer returned from overseas a self taught archaeologist.  He founded his pottery works in 1898 after spending time as an apprentice to a German-American potter.  The pottery was successful and it helped finance Mercer's collecting.  Elizabeth Lawrence died childless in 1905, and she left a portion of her estate to her nephew.  Chapman was now extremely wealthy, and he could afford to indulge his childhood fantasy of living in a castle, and he could build a museum for his artifacts.
     The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 5:00 p.m.  Admission is $14.00 for Adults, $12 for Seniors, $8.00 for ages 6-17, and free for children age 5 and under.  Parking is free.

Henry Mercer loved dogs.  These are the graves of Rex, the Collie and Dickie, the Airedale.

Mercer's favorite dog was Rollo a Chesapeake Bat Retriever.  Rollo's statue and portrait are in the museum.  His paw prints are preserved in some concrete steps in Fonthill.

There are two sheds in the back of the museum which house wagons and carriages.  There is also a one room cabin.  Unfortunately, the cabin was closed on the day we visited.

The museum is built from rebar reinforced poured concrete - walls, floors, ceilings...

... even the muntins.
Mercer used concrete because it was fireproof.  He didn't want his treasures to burn should fire sweep through town as it did in Boston in 1872.  The museum is neither heated nor cooled.  Construction was completed in 1916.  The building cost $38,944.99.  Mercer employed ten workers used one horse named Lucy to help with the heavy hauling.  They mixed all of the concrete by hand.  There were no blueprints or formal drawings.  The crew worked with sketches done by Mr. Mercer.        

There are six floors of relics.  Every surface, including the ceiling, is covered.  That's a blue whaling boat at the top, right of center.  Sixty percent of Mercer's collection is on display.

Ceilings are covered with chairs, baby cradles, boxes, and baskets.

     

Separate rooms are dedicated to different industries.  This room contains bone buttons, combs, and hair ornaments.

Candy molds and everything related to candy making.

Butter molds and butter making tools.

Cigar Store Indians
These early examples of advertising and commercial art were most popular between 1850 and 1890.  Of the estimated 100,000 that were produced, about 3,000 remain today.  

Shoe Making Artifacts

Hat Making

Basket Weaving

Tools for Trapping

This is a Conestoga Wagon.  These wagons were named after the Conestoga River or Conestoga Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  These wagons were used for moving freight.  Being narrow at the bottom and wider at the top kept the contents from shifting during transit.  People did not ride on these wagons.  Horses pulled at the front and the human walked along the left side where the brake was located.  There was a pull out board where the driver could stand and operate the brake, and sometimes a person would ride the horse that pulled at the left side.  The left-sided-ness of this vehicle is the reason Americans now drive on the right side of the road.  One other thing: Conestoga wagons were always painted blue.   

The stage coach from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh ran through Downingtown.  The door of this coach is decorated with a cow.  Mike says this model must have been the cow-dillac of stage coaches (groan).

A classroom with slates and ink wells.  No dry erase boards and mass produced Ticonderoga #2 pencils here.

Burning the Midnight Kindle Battery

     Mike sleeps and I read.  My Kindle emits less light than a night light, so my reading doesn't disturb his beauty rest.  Here are my latest reads:

FICTION

The Mermaid's Child by Jo Baker - This is a fantasy about a girl, Malin Reed, who goes off to find her mother after her father dies.  According to the father, mom was a mermaid who couldn't hang around on dry land to raise her daughter.  According to the reviews, Malin is an androgynous creature who doesn't reveal her true gender until the end of the book.  I didn't read that at all. While Malin masqueraded as a boy some of the time, she always seemed like a female to me (and, spoiler alert, she's a girl).  Malin's all-over-the-world adventures were an odd mixture of creepy and boring.  After Malin's adventure comes full circle, the book ends abruptly.  It was an unsatisfying read.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty - It's a story about three women, their secrets, and the lies told to cover things up.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - Amy Dunne is a fake girlfriend, fake wife, fake friend, fake victim, and real, live psycho.  The book was a little different and a little better than the movie.

The Handsome Man's DeLuxe Café by Alexander McCall Smith - This is the fifteenth book in
the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.  It is as delightful as the other fourteen books.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff - This Mormon themed book is a combination of historical fiction and modern murder mystery.  It alternates between the story of the woman who may have been Brigham Young's 19th wife and the story of a current day woman who is the 19th wife of a fundamentalist LDS leader.  Warren Jeffs might have been the inspiration for this book.

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob - It's about Indian immigrants parents and American born children, their connection to the old country, and their lives and deaths in the new country.  




NONFICTION

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey - Some stuff in this book didn't ring true - because it wasn't true.  James Frey originally marketed this book as a memoir, but called it semi-fictional when he was found to be a liar.  Maybe some people get more satisfaction out of being sober if they remember themselves as much worse substance abusers.

Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller - I previously read Ms. Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness.  These two books are about Ms. Fuller's unconventional upbringing in English colonial Africa.  Before the Rains Come is about getting married to an American, settling in the United States, and going through divorce (with a side story of succumbing to the family  curse - bipolar disorder).

Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi - A memoir about growing up female in Iran before, during, and after the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979.

Dancing Girls of Lahore by Louis Brown - Lahore is a city in Pakistan.  The dancing girls are prostitutes as well as dancers.  Prostitution is illegal in Pakistan, but it is ignored as long as it stays in the pleasure district.  Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years studying one woman who plied the dancing trade while raising three daughters.  Like ballerinas and NFL players, Lahore's dancing girls have short careers.  Unlike ballerinas and NFL players their daughters always follow in the parent's footsteps.

Mick Jagger by Philip Norman -  I've heard people say they can't understand how such an unattractive guy could get so many good looking women.  After reading this book, I can't understand how a guy who treated women so badly could get so many good looking women. Mick's first serious girlfriend, Chrissie Shrimpton, attempted suicide after their break up. Marianne Faithful did the same.  L'Wren Scott succeeded in killing herself in 2014.  This looks like a pattern.

Fox Catcher by Mark Schultz - It's supposed to be the story of David Schultz's murder at the hands of John E. DuPont as told by David's brother, Mark Schultz.  It's really Mark Schultz's tedious autobiography with a few pages about his brother getting killed by that nut DuPont.  The book is boring and poorly edited.  
  

Winterthur

     I first visited Winterthur, Henry Francis du Pont's former home, in December 2014.  I went to see an exhibition of the costumes worn in the Downton Abbey television series.  I also toured the house which was decorated for the Christmas season.
     This past week, I returned to visit the gardens.  If you have been to Longwood Gardens, the legacy of Henry Francis du Pont's cousin, Pierre S. du Pont, be prepared for something entirely different.  Winterthur is a naturalistic or wild garden.  Most of the 62 acres appear to have developed naturally, but they were carefully planned and cultivated.  We didn't see everything, and that's fine with me.  We have a reason to go back.

We went to see the peonies in bloom.

Late Blooming Azaleas.
Most of the azaleas at Winterthur were propagated from cuttings from seventeen Kurume azalea plants that Mr. du Pont acquired after the 1915 World's fair.  The Kurume azalea was introduced to the United States at the fair. 

It wouldn't be a garden without a koi pond.  These guys came to the surface and begged as soon as we stood on the edge.

This is the Quarry Garden.  Mr. du Pont planted species that like wet ground in this abandoned stone quarry.

The Story Garden reminds me of Stonehenge.  

Shakespeare had a quote for everything.

This cottage sits in the Enchanted Garden.  The neighboring area called Oak Hill is where the faeries live.  Legend has it that the faerie folk built the Enchanted Garden out of  scrap they collected from the estate.

It's fun to look for odd pieces of this and that built into the walls. 

I think could live in this hollow tree if it just had a bit more ceiling height.

So delightful.

A sign warns that one must never enter a this circle of mushrooms, the Forbidden Faerie Ring.  Punishment for ignoring the warning is getting sprayed with water.  Each mushroom is equipped with a spray nozzle at the base.  Unfortunately, someone forgot to turn on the system the day we visited.

Big eggs in a big bird's nest.