Historic Palmyra

The week concluded with the community festival, Canal Days, at Palmyra.  In addition to the Grandin Printing House where the Book of Mormon was first printed, there are 5 museums.  We visited them all.   http://www.historicpalmyrany.com/

Sister missionaries at the Grandin Print Shop.  Sister Bradford, wife of the coordinator for the historical sites, sewed all these dresses! 

This is in the Alling Coverlet Museum with its large collection of hand woven coverlets such as the one hanging behind SJ.

Furniture from the period

Quilts were also on display

This was the next most interesting museum to me.  It was a general store which closed in the late 1930s.  Upon closing, the owner just left everything as it was.  It reminded me of some of the old country stores in Fulton County in my youth, like the Perrysburg Store.  The daughter of the owner continued to live in the upper stories until her death in the 1970's.  Those floors had some elegant features like the china, an organ, and a player piano in a sitting room and she had a reputation of being a classy dresser when she went out.  But amazingly, the living quarters did not have electricity or running water until after her death. 

Other museums were a print shop, a depot that was alongside the Erie Canal with the lore of the canal days, and a general museum with different rooms featuring different themes in the community's history.