By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent PERRYSVILLE, Ind. — Norman Skinner calls his farm museum and village a “labor of love.” On Aug. 21-22 the result of his quest to salvage and preserve historic homes and tractors will be on display, as he will once again open his home for the annual Skinner Farm Museum and Village Steam and Gas Show.
This year will mark the 30th anniversary of the show, which features 14 historic buildings, about 100 antique tractors, several threshing machines and several buildings full to the brim of period furnishings and rare and primitive farm implements.
“I started out with this one, it came from southwest of here,” Skinner said, pointing to one of the log structures on his 80-acre farm west of Perrysville, Ind. “I got hooked on log houses after that. It seemed like nobody else was saving them. After a while, more of them started to show up.”
Skinner himself lives in a two-story, 250-ton brick house built by his great-great grandparents in 1844 and moved to the site in 1979. “You wouldn’t think that brick house could be moved, would you?” Skinner asked rhetorically, while giving a tour of the village.
But, if there’s a guy who could move it, it’s Skinner. He’s moved everything from a small 1850 octagon Justice of the Peace building, to a massive 1850 Wabash and Erie Canal Warehouse to his village. And everything in between.
The site also features a 1918 round barn, the old Perrysville jail, an 1826 two-story log home and an 1890 schoolhouse.
“As fast as everything’s disappearing, about all of these would’ve been gone if I hadn’t gotten them. Nobody’s worked harder than me to save stuff,” said Skinner, a lifelong collector who says he rarely parts with an item “unless I have two of something.”
His collection of antique tractors includes an Oil Pull and a Keck Gonnerman, both of which were made in Indiana, and a 1923 35-70 Minneapolis Farm Motor tractor. “That’s one of my favorites. It took me forever to find one that I could afford,” Skinner said.
During the Steam and Gas Show, the log buildings will be open for tours, and some will have demonstrators showing blacksmithing, weaving and other period arts. Several of the threshing machines and an old sawmill will be running, and Skinner will demonstrate plowing with some of the antique tractors.
Kids will be able to enjoy his eclectic collection of exotic animals; the farm is home to some Jacob’s four-horn sheep, a herd of rare Belted Galloway cattle, a donkey and about a dozen peacocks.
In its heyday, the show would get upward of 1,000 visitors, but the past four or five years, numbers have been down. “(The visitors are) mostly older and that’s part of the problem. The generation that grew up with this is just about gone and young people don’t know what all this is,” Skinner said.
But, “people can come here and find out what their forefathers had to work with to make a living. They didn’t have any air conditioning or hydraulics, and they had to crank a lot of tractors by hand.”
Skinner, who retired from the Teepak factory in Danville, Ill., five years ago, has built the village in his free time with help from family and friends, but without outside funding. He seems to rejoice in knowing that he has helped preserve a piece of Indiana history, and sharing that knowledge with the public – whether he’s explaining the inner workings of a two-horse treadmill that runs a thresher, or telling the story about the 1830s Perrysville tavern that used to be a part of the Underground Railroad.
“It seems like people enjoy it,” he said about his life’s work.
Skinner has four or five more disassembled log buildings in storage, and every now and then he’ll receive a call from somebody who wants to unload a historic building. But for now, he tries to focus on restoring and maintaining the many items he already has in the village.
“I’ve sworn off them,” he said when asked if he’s planning to acquire more buildings. “Of course, I’ve done that before. Maybe if there was something that was close and easy to move …”
The Skinner Farm Museum and Village is located on State Route 32, four miles west of Perrysville. The Steam and Gas Show runs from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. EDT Aug. 21-22; tickets are $4 for adults and free for children under 12.
For more information about the show, call Skinner at 765-793-4079 or go to www.skinnervillage.eshire.net |
