Anderson Farm Museum

If you don't visit the Anderson Farm Museum for the history lesson, at least come for the view.

With 14 acres of natural beauty, the Anderson Farm Museum is the perfect location for a Sunday picnic or family gathering!

 
 

The Anderson Farm Museum is the site of one of the largest dairies in the Sudbury area during the 1920s and 1930s.  Today, the site has been developed to preserve the rich history of the surrounding community. 

Anderson Farm Museum

 

Visitors to the museum can see the farmhouse, built in 1914, where the Anderson family lived while operating the dairy. The barn and milk house are also on display.

    

Frank and Gretta Anderson

Frank and Gretta Anderson were Finnish immigrants
who were married in 1901 in Copper Cliff.

They had six children: Frank Jr., Arthur, Lempi, John, Jack and Hilma (from left to right).

Anderson children

    

Anderson farm house
 

The Anderson farmhouse has nine rooms for public viewing.

The rooms include a kitchen, added to the original house in the mid-twenties, the parlour and the dining room.
    

A laundry display in the kitchen addition shows the progression of the chore through the years.

Children were not allowed in the parlour, with the exception of special occasions like Christmas and visits by the minister.

Visitors can also look at the bedrooms where the Anderson family slept. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson's bedroom is located on the main floor, while their children would have slept upstairs.

    

Finnish loom

Without modern conventions, everyday items, such as clothing and rugs, were usually made at home.

This traditional Finnish loom is over 100 years old. Visitors can try it out and help to weave a rug.
 

Pioneering women would have sewn all or most of their family's clothes at home. Mr. Anderson was able to afford to purchase a Singer sewing machine as a gift to Gretta. It is operated using a foot pedal.
      

Dairy barn

The main dairy barn, which measures 120 feet by 40 feet, was constructed in 1916 for a cost of $7,000.

Visitors can walk the length of the main level to view the different farming exhibits. 
 

 The loft of the barn was originally used for hay storage but has since been transformed into a large exhibit area relating to various historical themes in the City of Greater Sudbury's evolution.

Inside the barn, visitors can look at the stanchions, where the cows were held for milking.  The manure carrier was a luxury on the farm. Purchased from the Beatty Brothers catalogue, the carrier was an easy way to transport manure to the pile outside.

    

Beatty Pumper Windmill

Visitors to the Anderson Farm Museum will also see a reconstructed stable, now used to house part of the stored collection. The Beatty Pumper Windmill located on the museum grounds, is a reconstruction using parts from the three original windmills on site.  The windmills were used to pump fresh water to the barn and farm house.
   

The Anderson family grew crops for their animals and for their own personal consumption.

Stitching horse
 

Various plows, which were drawn by horses, are on display in the barn.

The stitching horse would have been essential to repairing damaged harness leather.

    
Immediately adjacent to the barn is the milk house.  Its first room would have been used for processing milk. It has since been converted into a tool room.
 

Included in this area is a blacksmith's forge and a variety of other tools. Visitors will find the processing equipment for the dairy in the second room of the milk house.

Milk house

    

The Creighton log cabin is not an original building on the Anderson Farm.

When Creighton Mine became a ghost town in 1987, the paymaster's cabin was relocated to the museum to preserve the history of the town.

Creighton log cabin


Visitors are invited to walk through and look at the exhibits about mining, Creighton and other ghost towns in the area.


 

  
   

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