My Afternoon At The Fairfax Historical Society Museum

Time went by in a flash yesterday at The Fairfax Historical Society Museum. I had brought my camera and had planned to take some pictures of a few of the items, but never did get to it. Had some new people in town that stopped in. They had moved up from Virginia and came in to look around. Had a good visit with them as they strolled around the museum and they ended up buying 4 T-Shirts. Shortly after they left had a native Fairfaxonion come in with a friend from St. Albans. Enjoyed reminiscing a bit with the native talking about the old days as they strolled around the museum. They ended up buying a T-Shirt and expressed an interest in attending our next Historical Society Meeting as did the first group.

Jim Ellsworth dropped by with some items from the past. His grandfather, Clinton Ellsworth was a Maple Producer from years back, making Jim the third generation on the Ellsworth Place to be a Maple Producer. Jim had some wooden moulds with dividers in them that his grandfather used to use to put maple sugar cakes in. They made little square cakes with each mould making a different size with the smallest being the 2 ounce size. In addition, he had a hand made wooden box that these maple sugar cakes were shipped in. I left the items on the desk for Mike Cain to make the decision as to just where we will put these in the museum. I will have to get with Jim again, so we can type up a little story to go with them. This has to be something passed down from Jim's father Ralph to him and it is definitely important that we know what these items are to pass on the information to future generations so people won't have to guess what they are.

While Jim was there he noticed a milk can there and said, "Is that number 328?" Sure enough it was and that just happened to be a milk can that his father had brought in. Back in the old days when milk was brought to the creamery in milk cans, each farmer had a number assigned to him and the milk was weighed from all the milk cans with the same number as well as tested. I remember seeing the little white slip that our milk hauler used to drop off the next day so my father would know how many pounds of milk he had each day. My Dad's number was #59 and the slip would say, "Mr. 59." and the slip would say how many pounds of milk he had that day and the milk hauler would put it on a nail in the milkhouse.

Jim is also interested in joining the Fairfax Historical Society and I am sure would be a valuable source of information as Ralph & Ruth Ellsworth, his parents, were great Fairfax Historians and Jim has a lot of that information in his head, having heard it over the years.

It was truly a nice afternoon, with plenty of time to talk with each party that came in.