This house ia a place for children - and adults - to explore. The theme is “A Child’s Life,” and the house offers many opportunities - to touch, to open drawers, sit on chairs, lie on beds, read letters and stories, and investigate what it was like to be a child in a nineteenth-century family.

A white picket fence, a homemade rose trellis at the door, and a colorful flower garden in the side yard suggest this family’s comfort and prosperity.. By 1820, the house, begun as a much smaller structure nearly a century earlier, had several additions, creating five ground-floor rooms. The best parlor is furnished to reflect the life of a successful country printer, his wife and their growing family. It is an up-to-date place for displaying good taste and entertaining visitors, with carpet, sofa, and an elegant stove.

Everywhere else visitors will find touchable reproductions and learning activities. There are games, toys and books to explore in the family parlor, clothes to try on in the children’s bedroom, family chores to try out in the kitchen, and opportunities to learn about children’s health, discipline, and living with many brothers and sisters.

In the side yard is a children’s flower garden. Advice books encouraged parents to let their children plant simple gardens themselves. With its circular plan, bright blossoms and rustic arbor of birch saplings, it is based on one of New England’s earliest books of horticultural advice.