June 19, 2014: A few days ago B & I visited the Poore Farm. It was quite an experience. In all our years of vacationing and living in NH, we had never heard of the Poore Farm--until a couple of weeks ago. The Poore Farm is located in Stewartstown, just a little north of Colebrook, NH, so we decided to take a couple of days off from the stresses of retirement. We loaded the camper and headed north to see what it was all about.
We set out on Tuesday morning for Colebrook in our camper. It was a great day for driving, which was a good thing because I drove about 50 miles more than I had planned on. I didn't take the US-3 exit off I-93 in Franconia, thinking that there was another exit for US-3 a little further north--there wasn't. We drove into Vermont and then exited onto US 2 East. This took us back to NH and into Lancaster, where we picked up US 3. Our little detour provided some great New England scenery.
We reached Colebrook and, after a little delay caused by poor phone service and a missing sign--this caused us to drive over the hump of Dixville Notch and to the town of Errol, before reversing direction back to Colebrook. we finally reached the Notch View Inn and Campground. It was almost 3:00 PM. We got a very nice site with a fantastic view of the mountains to the south and east of Colebrook.
The campground is close to the center of Colebrook and it has about thirty or forty sites, all with full hookup--and with plenty of space between sites.
We turned onto NH-145, which is located just at the northern end of the business district of Colebrook. This was another great scenic drive on a narrow, winding two-lane road through old farm sites and woodland. There was a large waterfall visible from the road, called Beaver Brook Falls, it also had a nice looking picnic area.
We reached the Poore Farm Museum at 11:15 and we were happy to see the open sign out on the edge of the road. The museum is only open from 11:00 to 1:00 during the week and it is a volunteer dependent organization. We turned into the short, narrow, grassy driveway. I kept an eye on the low-hanging tree branches that hung over the driveway, hoping they wouldn't come in contact with the stuff located on the roof of the camper. There was no "parking area," so I stopped near the end of the driveway. An information booth nearby was open, but not occupied, and there were two cars parked next to it.
A young woman came down from the path into the farm area to greet us. She was one of the volunteers on site. She took us into the farmhouse first. The farmhouse was built in 1826 and looked it. The siding is grey, weathered and worn. At the corner of the house, near the porch and kitchen door, was a large of patch of yellow irises, which made a nice contrast.
We entered through the kitchen door, after being warned to watch our step crossing the well-worn porch, and we were surprised to see a large amount of "stuff" inside the small kitchen. Our guide told us that the Poore family saved everything--and everything in the house, and barns, was there when the museum opened in 1994. The Poore family lived and worked the farm from 1832 to 1983, when the last Poore to live here died at the age of 98. The guide told us that the house did not have electricity or modern plumbing during all the time the Poore's lived here.
The house has several small rooms, all filled with an amazing collection: clothing, wood stoves, calendars (the oldest going back to 1894), military gear from WWI, cereal boxes. utensils, and pieces of string.
Next, we went into the barn, also very old and very full of stuff. On the wall, just inside the entrance of the second level of the barn--reached by a steep inclined grass ramp and a cleated wooden "bridge"--was an interesting collection of family documents and certificates. Inside, on the main floor, the collections of farm equipment, tools, old clothing, old patent medicine packages, a preserved cut-off finger in a glass jar--which has a story--and a large weaving loom, which was used to make the rug located in the living room of the house. Up on the third level of the barn, more items, such a old flour and grain bags, a large home-made bandsaw, transcripts of civil war letters, and toys, home-made and purchased.
On the way out, we stopped at the information booth to fill out the visitor's log and to leave a donation. On a shelf with tourist brochures, I saw an item that, at first, I thought was just decorative; it was actually a birds nest with three baby birds in it. The parents, Phoebes, were in the tree next to the booth. Obviously, the birds are not disturbed by tourist--or there are not enough tourist to disturb the birds.The entire place is very picturesque, interesting and worth the effort to visit. It gave us an appreciation of what it must have been like living in the north country during the 19th and early 20th century. You can read more about the Poore Farm on their website: www.poorefarm.org
Another interesting place to visit in Colebrook is the Hick's Hardware Store on Main Street. They have just about anything you could possibly want for home or garden. They even had grandfather clocks. I saw items in their tool and hardware section that I don't recall ever seeing in either Home Depot or Lowes.
I kind of wish they were located a little closer to home; I certainly would be in there all the time. I almost forgot to mention, they were very helpful trying to find something I was looking for--they had the item, but not with the feature I wanted. B managed to leave the store with several items that she had been looking for.
We drove home the next day without any detours and with sunshine all the way.
