Porches & Parlors

about this exhibit

See the homes and lives of ordinary people who changed America, from humble early dwellings like the 1760s Daggett Farmhouse and 1800 McGuffey Birthplace, to the 1860s Susquehanna Plantation and the 1930s Mattox House.

Highlights

Daggett Farmhouse

Like other farm families living in northeastern Connecticut in the 1760s, the Daggetts made and grew many of the things they needed. Along with farming, Samuel Daggett was a house builder and furniture maker. The "saltbox" form of this house — with short roof in front and long in back — was a typical New England house type of this era.

Noah Webster Home

Noah Webster and his wife Rebecca had this comfortable New Haven, Connecticut, home built in their later years to be near family and friends, as well as the library at nearby Yale College. While living in this house, Webster published his famous American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. His dictionary aimed to capture distinctively American words and spellings for the first time.

Hermitage Slave Quarters

Enslaved African Americans built and lived in these cabins on the Hermitage Plantation near Savannah, Georgia.

Susquehanna Plantation

Henry Carroll owned this Maryland house on the Patuxent River in the decades before and after the Civil War. Its form — one room deep with porches — invited cooling breezes in the warm, humid climate. In 1860, the Carrolls raised tobacco and wheat on their 700-acre plantation. Seventy-five enslaved African Americans provided the skill and labor that supported the Carroll family's comfortable life.

Ackley Covered Bridge

In addition to lending some charm, covering a bridge protects its wooden truss work from weather, extending the structure's service life. Joshua Ackley and Daniel Clouse built the Ackley Covered Bridge in 1832, across Wheeling Creek in southwestern Pennsylvania. Henry Ford acquired the bridge in 1937, when it was scheduled to be torn down, and moved it to Greenfield Village.

Mattox Family Home

Amos and Grace Mattox — descended from enslaved African Americans — raised their two children in this rural Georgia farmhouse during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Amos farmed, cut hair, made shoes, and preached at the local church, while Grace sewed, canned, cooked, and helped needy neighbors. Although life was hard, the family proudly affirmed that there was "always enough."

Cotswold Cottage

Cotswold Cottage is from the Cotswold Hills in southwest England. The Fords were attracted to the distinctive character of Cotswold buildings, which are characterized by the yellow-brown stone, tall gables, steeply pitched roofs, and stone ornamentation around windows and doors. Several decorative additions were made to the house in England, before dismantling and re-erecting it in Greenfield Village.