Brian Boyce
The Tribune-Star
PERRYSVILLE —
Norm Skinner ambled about his family’s homestead Friday afternoon, readying the grounds for another Skinner Farm Museum and Village Steam and Gas Show.
“I went to school with kids that actually lived in it,” the 67-year old said of an authentic two-story log cabin now situated on his farm. Built in 1826 by Thomas Cunningham, the home once stood in the northeast corner of the county along the Wabash River, but Skinner had it jacked up and moved to his farm for display amid 80 acres of his other treasurers.
This weekend marks the farm’s 30th annual steam and gas show. Located on Indiana 32 about five miles south of Interstate 74 on Indiana 63, history buffs and antique lovers can mill about to their heart’s content, checking out several generations worth of collectibles. More than 14 buildings of historical interest have been moved out to the farm, and inside each, historic artifacts are literally stacked one upon another.
A single blade, wooden, mold board plow built in 1720 stands next to butter churns and old hay rakes, with rope beds and chests and hand-crank washing machines alongside.
Skinner said he’s been accumulating the hundreds of antique vehicles, tractors and farm machines over the last 50 years or so, a hobby he began as a small child picking up arrowheads now on display inside one of the village’s buildings. Among the vehicles is a 1960 Milburn Electric car he bought at an auction in Westville, Ill., about a decade ago. It’s stored inside a building that once served as a “Smith and Jones Ware House” when built in 1850, before being loaded up on a wagon and hauled out to his place.
“It didn’t cost anything,” the old farmer said of moving building after building to the farm. “It was just a lot of hard work.”
And in addition to the farm buildings, Skinner even moved his great-great-grandfather’s two-story brick home, built in 1844, the three miles from its original spot to the farm where he lives today — a farm Skinner’s grandfather built.
From threshing equipment to steam engines and ancient farm tools, Skinner talks history by the hour, and said he hopes to get a decent crowd at this weekend’s event. The show lasts from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Sunday. And while attendance was once 1,000 per weekend, it’s dwindled down into the hundreds, something Skinner attributes to a lost interest in history.
“There wouldn’t be so many big farms today if they had to do it all by hand,” he said, brushing through barns full of those implements, from mule-drawn plows to hay rakes.
One building of particular note is Newport’s old Justice of the Peace facility, in which 441 couples were married between 1850 and 1910 by a circuit-riding Methodist minister. Skinner has the registry book which contains the names of those couples, as well as the history of the building itself and its ministers.
Homemade ice cream, cobbler and other food items will be available for purchase on-site, as Skinner hopes to show another generation the ties it has to ones passed.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
