After we did our 6K walk around the lake at the Watkins State Park
we walked down to the Watkins Homestead. Waltus Watkins built
and ran a woolen mill on a piece of land he named Bethany Farms.
In 1839 the family moved into a two room log cabin just right of where
the current house was built in 1850. The large brick home took four
years to build and was designed by Mr. Watkins. He also handmade
the bricks from the clay on his land. The house has eight bedrooms
and two parlors.

This is the front of the house. There is a huge front yard and you can
just see the parties, picnics, and gatherings that might have been held
under the large trees.

This is a side view of the house. On the other side of the house a lady
was doing laundry on a wash board and hanging it up on a clothes line.

There are girl’s and boys bedrooms on the 2nd floor,
but accessible only by their small staircases. The purpose
of this was that Watkins  had several daughters and at
times there were male boarders, workers at the mill and
they stayed in the boy’s bedrooms. For additional security
the girl’s bedroom staircase was through Grandma’s
bedroom. This is the walnut winding staircase just inside
the front door.

This is the dining room.

This is the family parlor with the children’s toys on display.

Just out the back door of the house, in a small separate
building, on the right is a summer kitchen. There were two
ladies in 1850s dresscooking lunch. It smelled wonderful!
The kitchen was also very warmin the kitchen with the
outside temp being around 75. The ladies said the kitchen
temp runs 20 to 30 degrees warmer than the outside temp.

This is the inside of the summer kitchen.

Down the road from the house Mr. Watkins built a woolen factory
in 1860.

Once again he constructed the building from bricks made on his farm.
The lumber also came from his land.

We didn’t do the tour of the mill but may go back again one day
to walk again and do the tour. As a side note, by the time we finished
the day we did about 5.5 miles of walking.