The Depreciation Lands Museum is a nonprofit village that teaches visitors about local life in the…read more1700s to 1800s.
Many people do not understand what "Depreciation Lands" means. American soldiers who had fought in the Revolutionary War had been paid with paper money called Continental Currency that had depreciated so much that is was almost worthless. As a result, in 1783, the Pennsylvanian government purchased the Depreciation Lands--720,000 acres in the counties of Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Lawrence, and Armstrong--from Indians in order to compensate the soldiers.
Currently, the Depreciation Lands Museum is open on Sundays from 1-4 PM from May through October. Some special events, such as ghost-hunting and the Hydref Fall Festival, are held at other times.
The suggested donation is $5 per adult and $3 per child, and these donations can be paid with cash or check in person or with PayPal or credit card on the website.
My husband and I parked our vehicle in a parking lot that was near a bank across the street. We spent one hour at the museum, although other people might want to visit for a longer time. We felt interested in seeing the church, cemetery, tavern, barn, workshop, log house, blacksmith shop, Indian wigwam, herb garden, bake oven, smokehouse, and schoolhouse.
All staff members were volunteers. The staff members wore costumes, and they reenacted work such as processing flax into linen thread, weaving the linen thread into cloth, cooking pumpkin soup in a hearth, making nails out of iron, etcetera. The volunteers spoke nicely to us, and they communicated educational information.