By Christine Haines
After more than 15 years of historic reenacting and decades of visiting historic sites as a tourist I thought there was little new for me to see at an old site. Then I visited Old Salem.
Two of my nieces attended Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, N.C., which is adjacent to the Old Salem historic site.
Given our tendency to visit historic sites for vacation one would think my husband and I would have gotten there while they were still students and served as volunteers at Old Salem. So of course I went the summer after the youngest had graduated and headed north for college.
Salem was founded by a group of Moravian missionaries in 1766. Many of the structures in Old Salem are the original construction.
Costumed staff members still practice many of the crafts done by the original tradesmen in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The gunsmith/blacksmith can be found at his shop carving gunstocks and fitting the hardware for custom rifles. Baked goods are made fresh daily in a huge, wood-fired bake oven. They are outstanding in any century.
Visiting the tinsmith we saw something we had never seen at an historic site before: a high-intensity candle lamp, created by focusing the light through a globe of water.
I wish we would have had time to tour all four museums at Old Salem, but we had only allotted one day, so we limited ourselves to the visitors’ center, the town of Salem and the Toy Museum. Not having any young children with us we would have passed on the Children’s Museum anyhow, though those with youngsters should definitely include it. The Children’s Museum takes the concepts of the 18th and 19th century crafts and puts them into formats young children can experience and understand.
I am so glad we allowed enough time to experience the Toy Museum. Some of the toys date back as early as 225 A.D., though most are from the 19th century. There are tiny tea sets, completely furnished dollhouses, even entire zoos and circuses. An early forerunner of animation, the zoetrope, is one of the many optical toys. The detail and care put into the design of the toys is amazing.
There just wasn’t time to add a tour of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA). MESDA is like a life-size dollhouse, featuring 24 fully furnished rooms with all of the accoutrements, plus six galleries. The museum features early Southern furniture, artwork, textiles and ceramics in a variety of styles.Check http://www.oldsalem.org for more information about Old Salem, including photos inside the museums where photography is not generally permitted.
Please e-mail your favorite vacation information and photos to chris@howyouspinit.com.
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Tags: history, North Carolina, tourism, Travel
