Taking as its model the manor houses of the titled nobility of England, the house of the Father of our Country is the latest word in 18th Century elegance. Formal rooms and the very best of imported furniture, textiles, and tableware and decorations highlight the level of society and entertainment that made up the leisure lives of the new-world nobility. A single room log cabin, a few acres of tobacco, a simple kitchen garden, approximately 100 acres of woods, and a few domestic animals give visitors a view of the much more prevalent colonial frontier family. Less elaborately dressed, but just as enthusiastic docents are eager to discuss their everyday experiences and the news of the day - in the 1700's. Outdoor cooking, soap making, harvesting, and tending the animals can all be experienced by the time traveling visitor.
Volunteers perform the continual tasks of keeping up the farm.
They prepare their own meals over an open fire from food raised on the farm, make their own clothing and furniture using authentic reproductions of the few tools and other equipment that an 18th-century farm family would have possessed. In place of manicured gardens, the farmer and his family grow corn, vegetables and wheat to feed themselves, and tobacco to trade for anything they couldn't make themselves. Split-rail and rustic brush fencing protect planting areas from roaming animals. The smells, sounds, continual farm work, and the surrounding forest all contribute to the sense that the little cabin and its family is isolated, but self sufficient. Visiting the Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run is a wonderful way to get back to nature, as well as experience how most of our ancestors struggled to make it in the new-world.