Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 3 Days until Opening Day

With only 3 days until opening day, here is a sneak-peek we've all been waiting for. The Wehle Gallery is coming together after renovations. As the artwork is getting placed, the halls are looking incredible.

While the Gallery won't be open fully for Opening Day, it certainly is coming along beautifully. The Gallery is expected to open this summer for all to enjoy!

Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 4 Days until Opening Day

As Opening Day approaches, the Flint Hill Store is filled with new items to offer.

These tweeting birds are just adorable as a teapot, sugar and creamer as well as a nesting salt and pepper set.

Among the many new textile and housewares you will find these corded baskets and trivets.

You will also find a beautiful new display of teaware. 

Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 5 Days until Opening Day

On this day of our Count Down to Opening Day we are proud to announce you can now follow us on Twitter!

We invite you to follow along as we tweet about the coming of the Intrepid, historic village happenings, the approaching opening of the Wehle Gallery.

Find us on Twitter as:
@GCVMnews

Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 6 Days until Opening Day

With 6 days until  Opening Day, we are all excited about the launch of the Intrepid coming July 4th here at GCV&M!

A ride in the only reproduction Civil War era balloon will give guests a view unlike any other of the historic village and the surrounding landscape.

Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 7 Days until Opening Day

With only 7 days until Opening Day, we are happy to announce our new Hosmer's Tavern Suppers!

1830s Hosmer’s Inn Tavern Dinners


New this year! Have you ever wondered what life was like at a 19th-century stagecoach inn? What were the innkeepers like, how did they entertain their guests and what did they serve hungry travelers for meals? Now you can actually experience what it was like to dine in an authentic stagecoach inn that was once located on the old State Road in the heart of the Genesee Country! The museums’ own Sylvester Hosmer Inn, built in 1818, is now serving traditional tavern dinners on select weekend days this spring and fall.

You’ll have an opportunity to meet the Smith sisters and enjoy a delicious four-course meal that will include dishes prepared using receipts (called recipes today) from early 19th-century cookbooks. Learn about 19th century dining customs and share the latest news from the Genesee Country and beyond. You’ll also have a chance to explore the newly renovated inn upstairs and down. No evening at the inn would be complete without joining other guests in a parlor mixer to brighten everyone’s spirits and fill the rooms with laughter. Enjoy a private lantern tour around the historic village square with one of our hostesses between the final two courses of your meal. Step back into 1836 and share in this unique historic dining experience - you may find it hard to journey back to the 21st century!

Hosmer’s Inn Spring Dinner Menu

Curried Squash Apple Soup

Chicken Roll-up Ham with Maple Glaze Welsh Rarebit (toast points, cheese, and ale)

Green Frogs (Spring peas, eggs, spinach, & bread crumbs)

Stovies (Onions, potatoes & cheese)

Assorted Fresh-Baked Breads Butter Fruit Preserves

India Pickle Pickled Eggs Pickled Beets

Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese Almonds Raisins

Salmagundi with Hosmer’s Inn House Dressing

Shrub

Lemon and Rubarb Tarts

Coffee Decaffeinated Coffee Tea

Guests will begin their dining experience promply at 6 p.m. continiuing until 9 p.m. Reservations can be made by calling 585-294-8218. Private Hosmer's Inn Tavern Dinners are available for yourself and 14 of your friends as well.

Opening Day - 19th Century Fashion

Please join us for Opening Day on Saturday, May 12 as we devote the day to 19th century fashion.

Join us as we take a look at the fashions of the 19th century. Afternoon fashion shows will focus on ladies’ dresses and undergarments worn in New York State during the 1800s. The first of three shows occurs at 12:30pm and will feature how women's dress has evolved over the entire century. Two additional fashion shows will focus on Civil War era clothing and the slender sillouettes of the Jane Austen era of the Regency period at 2pm and 3:30pm respectively.

Speak with re-enactors and townsfolk about the clothing styles of the period and see some of the museum's newest dresses modeled in their period settings as "Fashion in Action" in the following places:

•1820s: Keiffer's Place

•1840s: Dressmaker's Shop

•1830s: Hosmer's Inn

•1850s: Jones Farm

•1860s: Livingston-Backus mansion

•1870s: Hyde House

Additional Activities Offered on Opening Day:

•View antique hand bags and purses on display from the Susan Greene Collection

•Meet the farm animals down at the Pioneer Farmstead

•"Petticoat Tails" Tasting at Jones Farm - find out how this shortbread got its name!

•Try your hand at making a tin ornament at the Tinsmith Shop ($)

•See how villagers dyed brightly colored fabrics at the Humphrey House

•Visit the Dressmaker's Shop and speak with the master seamstress about fashion plates - pictoral descriptions of clothing from yesteryear

•Watch as the Dressmaker creates a sunbonnet from scratch

•Babies wore significantly different clothing than they do now - found out how infants were dressed at the Foster-Tufts house

•Ladies from the village will be gathered at Jones Farm for a community quilting bee - visit them and see the many sewing projects they are working on

•Play and frolic on the village square with an array of period games and toys

Count Down to Opening Day: What is New in 2012 - 8 Days until Opening Day

On this 8th day of our Opening Day Count Down, we are taking a glimpse at the farm.  This momma turkey is sitting on what will be the newest inhabitants of the museum; 17 of them actually.

Yes, nestled under her are 17 eggs. We anticipate these youngsters will hatch in about 2 weeks, just for opening day.

Joining the turkeys  soon will be several ducks and chickens including four Pekin Ducks, Dominques, White Faced Black Spanish, and Silver Spangled Hamburgs.