The Hadley Farm Museum lives in a 1782 barn that originally stood on the Porter-Phelps-Huntington estate about two miles up the river. In 1930 the barn was moved to its present spot on Russell Street, just behind the Hadley Town Hall, and remodeled with white-painted clapboards and an ornate colonial doorway copied from the village’s oldest house, the McQueston house, so it would harmonize with the other public buildings on the common.
Inside, the hand-hewn timbers and rough plank walls are largely untouched. The old hay mows now hold the farm tools of the people who worked the Connecticut River bottomland here. Some of the timbers used in the museum’s restoration were salvaged from barns torn down in the Quabbin towns (Prescott, Enfield, Greenwich, and Pelham) when the reservoir was created in the 1930s.
What to see
- The 1848 Abbott & Downing stagecoach. Built in Concord, New Hampshire and a feature since the museum opened; visitors can climb inside. The interior and upholstery were restored in 2007.
- Vehicles. Wagons, carriages, sleighs, and other horse-drawn conveyances from late-18th to early-20th-century New England farms.
- Hand tools and equipment, including what the museum identifies as the first broom-making machine, hay tedders, butter churns, cobblers’ benches, and spinning wheels.
- Domestic and trade items. Period furnishings, household tools, toys, and the everyday objects of farm life.
Visiting
The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays, 2–4 PM, from mid-May through mid-October, and by appointment otherwise. It’s a small, volunteer-run operation, so calling ahead is the surest way in if you’re coming from a distance. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors, $1 for children under 12.
The address is 147 Russell Street (Route 9), just behind Hadley Town Hall on the long, narrow town common. Free parking is on site. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum (the barn’s original home) is two miles north on Route 47 and operates separately.