#Harvest hills historical society full

Wings, outbuildings and a boiler house for better heating were added between 18. In 1861, the farm was sold to the “Directors of the Poor for the County of Greene” and those with nowhere else to live worked the land to help pay their keep. The farm was named Lions Bush and it’s easy to imagine the last of the big cats passing through the ravine behind the museum where Civil War battles are now fought during the annual October Harvest Festival. Richard Zollars reports in The History of Greene Hills, that in 1789, Barnet Rinehart (1758-1822) built the brick farmhouse that is now the oldest part of the museum’s sprawling complex of buildings, additions, sheds and barns. Over on Rolling Meadows Road, the past had another part of the story to tell. When its first museum and library opened in the basement of the Long Building in Waynesburg in 1925, the society had a membership of more than 200 fellow history lovers. They rediscovered a segment of the 5000-year-old Warrior Trail near Nettle Hill and together with Jones founded the historical society. “Prexy” Stewart, explored the indigenous mounds in Ohio, then found traces of this ancient culture on farmland around the county. Waychoff, who had a hankering for anthropology, geology and local history. Jones was already an avid collector when he came home in 1906 and joined forces with Waynesburg College professor A.J. Visitors can time travel between the mid 1700s, through the gas and oil rich Victorian Age and even touch the museum’s crown jewel – “Waynie,” the original narrow gauge steam engine that made the last trip on the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad line in 1929, accompanied by the number six coach car that is being lovingly restored as part of the railroad exhibit.īut it’s those hundreds of indigenous artifacts on display inside – the arrowheads, clay pots, shards and stone tools, that take us back to 1925 when the historical society was born.

Its museum on Rolling Meadows Road, Waynesburg is filled with the trappings, tools, machines and artifacts donated by local families and intrepid history hunters. Greene County Historical Society has all of this and more.

#Harvest hills historical society full

History can be full of surprises and sometimes even a mystery or two.