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KINGMAN TAVERN |
Open
Saturdays
in
July
&
August
2 to 5 pm |
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No
Admission
Fee
Donations
Appreciated
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41 Main Street, Cummington, MA
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Most small towns feel fortunate in having a historical museum of two or
three rooms. Here in Cummington, the museum is an early 1800's house
of seventeen rooms, which was a tavern. There is also a replica of
a 1900 country store, a two-story barn, a carriage shed, and an 1840's
cider mill.
The 5,000 or more articles that fill these buildings reflect the life that
has been lived in this small hilltown over the past two hundred years.
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Alice Steele, a nationally known miniaturist, spent her life in this area.
She made over 300 miniature rooms, each a work of art. The seventeen,
which are in this museum, all made and given by her, represent rooms or shops
that were connected with Cummington. In perfect scale of one inch
to one foot, the furnishings are antiques collected over the years,
or furniture and other items made by her husband, Frank Steele, a
cabinet-maker. This collection is just one of the treasures of the
Kingman Tavern Museum
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Minature Rooms |
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Country Store |
The museum was able to acquire the complete fixtures of a Cummington general
store that had gone out of business. A new building was constructed
around the fixtures using old wood.
The shelves are filled with
virtually everything that would have been sold in a country store
in 1900-1910. It also includes letterboxes and windows from early
local post offices. A card tacked on the front gives the weather forecast
as received by the postmaster each day.
No store would have been complete without the traditional stove, checkerboard,
and cracker barrel. |
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The larger two-story barn has an exceptional collection of hand and farm
tools, arranged in categories of use. Jacob Lovell made many of the
planes exhibited in Cummington. The carriage shed has an ox-shoeing
frame, a snow roller for roads, a school bus on runners for winter
use, an ice cutter, and a butter and egg wagon, all used in Cummington.
The 1840's cider mill with its wooden gears is in working condition
except for the press. The wear on the wooden teeth shows the years
of use.
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