THE VILLAGE PERFECT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4561, 17 April 1942, Page 7

THE VILLAGE PERFECT

INDUSTRIAL MAGNATE’S HOBBY

GREENFIELD’S CHARM

(By

M.C.)

All the world knows about the life work of Henry Ford, but the hobby of that great industrialist is known only to those who have had an opportunity of touring the United States.

It is the re-creation of an American village of old colonial days—Greenfield Village—and has been established not far from the mighty Ford plant in Detroit. Through the past years it has become one of the show places of the United States.

Greenfield Village takes its name from the birthplace of Mrs Henry Ford. Some of the buildings she knew as a child have been brought here’, many of the others are nationally famous. As one passes through the gates of Greenfield Village the years seem to turn back. The clop clop of horses’ hoofs is the first sound that greets one’s ears, for on the gravel drives through the glorious park lands only the horse-drawn vehicles of other days may go, or in the winter, when the ground is snow covered, the oldtime sledges. DIGNITY AND WORK An old coachman invites the visitor to take a seat in a brougham, and he is slowly wheeled through the village, stopping wherever he chooses to see one of the buildings at closer range, or to walk through and admire its period furnishings. The spirit of the pioneers who built the houses and shops since brought to the village seems to fill the air. An old grist mill chuffs slowly, and over in their tower Gog and Magog bend with the creaking dignity of age to smite the great clock chimes. The Village Smithy, complete with chestnut tree, stands close by; the dull ring of an anvil sounds from its door in measured cadence, The smith can be seen at his forge, using the hand bellows and other tools of that period. Throughout the village handicraft arts of the past are presented as they were practised in their original environment; it is no mere show place, but vitally alive.

The historical village centres in the “green,” as did early American communities. About this spot stand the public buildings—the chapel, the school, the inn, the store, the court house, and the town hall. We spend a few minutes in the chapel and feel as if the years had rolled away, transmuting the noisy activity of to-day’s world into the peace and gentleness of the past. The organist is playing something of Beethoven’s, and it fills all the little chapel like a melodious prayer. The Martha-Mary chapel it is called, after the mothers of Mr and Mrs ' Henry, Ford. A typical colonial church overlooking the green, it is

non-sectarian, and open to worshippers of all creeds, serving residents of the village and pupils of school and institute as a retreat and a religious centre. The bricks and front doors are from the girlhood home of Mrs Ford, and the bell in the steeple was cast by a son of Paul Revere. STEPHEN FOSTER’S HOME One of the most interesting of all these beautiful old buildings is the birthplace of Stephen Collins Foster, composer of “Way Down Upon the Swanee River ” and other famous melodies. America’s greatest folk song writer was born in this charming white cottage at Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania (now a part of Pittsburgh) on July 4, 1826. Built during the early part of the nineteenth century, the cottage has been restored to its original appearance. It was dedicated on the 109th anniversary of Foster’s birth, and on that occasion a descendant of the poet applied a light to a fire in a little back room of the cottage—a fire that is never allowed to go out. As we wander through the old home nothing breaks the silence save the mellow chiming of a grandfather clock, and ■then the silvery strains of music, as someone sits down at the Hammond electric organ and plays the opening bars of Beautiful Dreamer. Everything about the cottage suggests the home of a cultured family of means in the borderland between north and south. In this respect it is very much like the songs that Foster wrote and set to music, blending southern ditties

and northern themes with blameless taste and courteous spirit.

Among the otner buildings in the village are Clinton Inn, a typical hostelry of a century ago, and an overnight stop on the stage coach run between Detroit and Chicago; Scotch Settlement School, where Mr Ford first attended school, “occupying a back corner seat”; the McGuffey group, perpetuating the achievements of William McGuffey, who gave to the world the graded readers from which so many Americans gleaned their first lessons of conduct, literature and life; the court house, where Abraham Lincoln practised law; Luther Burbank’s office and study used at his experimental farm in Santa Rosa, California; a post office more than 100 years old; a century old carding mill, any many more of equal historic interest.

For general visitors the most attractive is the Menlo Park group, which consists of buildings reconstruc-

ted from or replicas of those used by Mr Thomas Edison at Menlo Park, New Jersey, during his stay there between 1876 and 1886. The buildings are in their original grouping, and Mr Ford has even had loads of red gravel brought from New Jersey te make the picture more complete. One can even see the letter that Edison wrote to his friend Henry Ford saying that he would never employ a rrtan who smoked!