Flag Day Celebration & Guided Tours of Four Historic Sites

On Sunday, June 11th, the historic sites at Lincoln's Great Road Historic Campus will host guided tours at all four 19th century properties:  Hearthside House, the Moffett Mill, the Hannaway Blacksmith Shop and the Pullen's Corner Schoolhouse.  The tours offer something of interest to everyone and all ages.  Fully-guided tours are given by knowledgeable guides in period attire.

The restored 1850 one-room Pullen's Corner Schoolhouse will hold a special celebration of Flag Day to revisit the historic reasons for celebrating our country's flags.  Historic American flags, as well as regimental flags and state flags, will be displayed inside and outside the schoolhouse.  Historian Kirk Hindman will provide the background and history of the flags.  For kids and adults, there will be a special scavenger hunt involving the pictures and designs on the flags.  During the late 1800s and into the 1900s, Flag Day was celebrated in schoolhouses across the country with songs and poetry.  The school, also known as the "Hot Potato Schoolhouse," was Lincoln's last operating one-room schoolhouse, closing in 1922.  Visits to the schoolhouse are $5/family payable in cash upon arrival, or included as part of the general admission for tours of the full Campus.

The tours at all the sites begin at 12:30 with staggered admission times during the afternoon to avoid crowding, with the last tour at Hearthside at 2:30 and at the other sites at 3:30. All sites will close at 4:00.  Advance registration is recommended through the website to schedule the visits.  A shuttle van will leave from Hearthside to transport visitors to the Moffett Mill, with stops at the Campus sites and running continuously between the sites.  
 

At the 1810 stone mansion Hearthside, the special exhibit "Woven Time: A History of the Talbot Family," details the period from 1904-1926 that the Talbot family lived here and brought national prominence to the house they named Hearthside and the superb hand weaving that they did in the attic.  The same year that the Talbots moved to Hearthside, it had been the model for the design of the Rhode Island Building at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.  

The Talbots were at the forefront of the Arts & Crafts movement as well as the Colonial Revival in this country.  Famous photographers used the house and family as their model for producing popular hand-colored photographs. The family also collected miniature furniture and toys which filled the home.  When they moved out of Hearthside in 1926, the miniatures were donated to the RISD Museum.  In 2021, those same miniatures returned to Hearthside.  The weaving equipment, hand-colored photographs, and the miniatures have returned to Hearthside and are on display in this exhibit. 

The Moffett Mill offers a rare opportunity to step back into a different century.  Built in 1812, this relic of the early Industrial Revolution is frozen in time, as it still appears the same as it did when its doors closed around 1900.  The mill operated with water power from the Moshassuck River and provided custom work and repairs for area businesses and farms, from wagons, buggies and tools to laces for shoes and corsets around the period of the Civil War.  The original equipment and tools are still in place, just as they were 120 years ago.  A shuttle transport will drop off and pick up visitors on a set schedule, as this is the only safe access to the Mill. The last tour is at 3:30 p.m. Admission to the Mill  is included in the admission fee at Hearthside, or is $5/person if visiting only the Mill. The only safe access to the Mill is by the Campus shuttle van.
 

At the Hannaway Blacksmith Shop, the blacksmith demonstrates at the forge while explaining the history of this original shop and the blacksmithing trade that occurred here.  Admission is free and visitors are welcome to stay as little or as long as they like. This is a drop-in so no advance scheduling is required. 
 

Book your tours for Hearthside and any of the other sites at the Hearthside website, www.hearthsidehouse.org, and then pay admission at the door upon arrival, cash preferred.  The $12 general admission includes the tour and exhibit at Hearthside, plus the schoolhouse exhibit and tours at the other three sites; $6 for youth under age 12. Check in at Hearthside for all of the site tours to pay admission and receive an admission bracelet, and take the shuttle van to visit the Mill and the other Campus sites. The tours may be taken in any order. While walk-ins may be accepted, there is no guarantee that the time slot will have openings so some flexibility would be required in the order of the tours.  Parking is in the grass lot across from Hearthside. 

Hearthside and the historical sites at Chase Farm comprising the Great Road Heritage Campus are town-owned properties which are preserved and managed by the Friends of Hearthside.  All proceeds from tours and programs support the mission to preserve and protect these 19th century properties.  Hearthside is located at 677 Great Road, Lincoln.  For more information, email info@hearthsidehouse.org or call 726-0597.