American Revolution Museum at Yorktown Part II

A continuation of yesterpost...

After visiting the indoor exhibits of the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, we went outside. The two outdoor areas are the Continental Army Encampment and the Revolutionary-era Farm. Our first stop was the encampment since it was between the museum and the farm.

Just barely fortified encampment

The encampment has several tents for the soldiers. Nearby is the camp kitchen, a small earthen mound with cutouts for each tent to cook food. The person in charge of food dispensed rations for each tent and one of the tent's occupants had to cook the food for his tentmates. This arrangement kept fires from spreading in the sleeping area.

Kitchen for camp

An individual tent's fire

Barrels of supplies

A nearby laundry offered services for soldiers not interesting in washing their own clothes.

Laundry

The reenactors occasionally demonstrate firing muskets and cannons but we did not time our visit right. We proceeded to the Revolutionary-era farm.

Approaching the farm

The farmhouse was relatively large and well-to-do, with two rooms downstairs and an upstairs for storage and the children to sleep.

The main house

The bedroom

A busy desk

A few steps away is the kitchen, a separate building. Much like the encampment kitchen, this kitchen is separate to prevent fires in the sleeping area. Also, it keeps the house cooler in the summer.

Kitchen

Kitchen fireplace

Herbs drying

The kitchen includes a food safe. The safe is a spot to protect freshly-cooked food from flies and crawling bugs.

Food safe

Just outside the kitchen is a food garden. Since we visited in February, not much was growing.

Garden

Plants far from harvesting

An open-air workshop is ready to use. Without nearby neighbors, the farmer has no need to lock the garage!

Workshop

A sample slave quarters is also on this farm.

Slave quarters

Inside the slave quarters

A penned-in yard has chickens.

Chickens hanging out

Tobacco was the first cash crop (before cotton became more lucrative thanks to Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin invented in 1793). Tobacco barns were made to dry the leaves before they were sold or shipped out.

Tobacco drying

This museum has a nice blend of information, interaction, and entertainment. We enjoyed our visit.