Visits: 105
In a continuation of our 33rd Wedding Anniversary we went back to a place we visited 34 years ago. Yes a year before we married. So I hope you enjoy the pictures and if ever in Ohio, please visit. Hale Farm.
© Jeffrey Gibson
At the Cuyahoga Valley’s southwestern edge sits an impressive three-story red brick house surrounded by 140 acres of fields, gardens, and woods. Familiar to many school children, it is now a popular regional attraction that overlooks a recreated historical village.
Despite the building’s grandeur, Hale Farm began like any other farm: with hard work. In 1810, farmer Jonathan Hale arrived in Bath to begin a new life on he Western Reserve.
For over one hundred years, generations of the Hale family worked and managed their land. In the early 1900s, the farm passed to Jonathan’s grandson, C.O. Hale, a kind and ambitious man who hired local families as farm laborers. Part of a newer trend in “gentleman farming,” C.O. Hale oversaw the work on his property and earned additional income by entertaining friends and tourists.
Jonathan Hale and his family settled in the Cuyahoga Valley in 1810 and began a tradition of farming, family and entrepreneurship. In 1956 Clara Belle Richie, the great granddaughter of Jonathan, bequeathed the family farm to the Western Reserve Historical Society, “to be established as a museum so that the greatest number of persons might learn about the history and culture of the Western Reserve.”
The museum first opened its doors in 1958, and over the course of the next 60+ years the Hale’s family farm was transformed into a experiential learning laboratory. It is this space that has been the platform for delivering programming which provides a lifetime of social value.
