1.
Robert A. Miller Building
 This building houses
the Gift Shop and Admissions, Temporary Exhibit Gallery, public
restroom facilities, a defibrillator, and the administration
offices.
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2.
Puterbaugh Schoolhouse, c. 1830
 This
one-room school was donated by the Puterbaugh family. An
activity booklet available in the Gift Shop demonstrates school days
of the 1830s.
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3.
Path to the Museum Village
 This scenic path leads through a wooded landscape
and across Duffins Creek. A route from Lake Ontario and a source of
power for the mills, Duffins Creek was very important to the early
development of the area.
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4.
Lean-To
 Early settlers lived under a
lean-to until a log shanty could be constructed. Crops were the
first priority; trees were girdled and seeds sown among the
stumps to ensure a harvest to see the family through the winter.
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5.
Log Barn
 Built
of rough logs, this barn is dovetailed and pegged with trenails.
It is actually two barns joined together. A barn master
positioned barns to guide winds through doors and across the
threshing floor. Once flailed, the wind would help to winnow the
chaff from the grain. On display are grain-related tools and a
loom used for weaving rag rugs. When the barns were joined, the
east end would have served as the stable.
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6.
Three Sisters Garden
First Nations tribes grew corn, beans, and
squash together. The beans, needing support, grew up the corn
stalks; the vines of the squash grew thickly around the base of
the corn, smothering out weeds. A few fish were planted with the
seeds as fertilizer. Following this wisdom, settlers had crops
that provided perfect sustenance over the long winters.
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7.
Log House Family Garden
The garden at the west end of the Log House is representative of
the vegetables and herbs a family would have grown in Upper
Canada. Pickering Museum Village’s heritage gardeners, Bloomers
& Britches, only plant vegetables and herbs that were available
of the time period.
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8.
Log House, c. 1830
 Construction and clearing land were conditions of
receiving the land title. One large room served as kitchen,
living room, and bedroom. This home had an earthen floor,
windows stretched with oiled cloth and a blanket door. If a
settler could afford it, doors, a floor, and eventually windows
were added. Originally located at Brimley Road and Sheppard
Avenue, this building represents a settler’s home after
approximately seven years.
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9.
Log House Dye Garden
Dye gardens were functional rather than pretty and larger since
dyeing requires large quantities of plants. Plants used for
dyeing wool and cloth were goldenrod, celandine, onions, lady’s
bedstraw, rose campion, tansy, calendula, golden marguerite,
zinnias, black-eyed susan, madder, woad and bee balm. Our dye
pot often contains black walnuts, sumac, and daffodils found in
season elsewhere on the site.
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10.
Collins House, c. 1850
 This
home comes from Reach Township, just north of Chalk Lake. The
deed for the land was dated 1811. The house is representative of
a tradesman’s home in the mid-1850s. Vertical siding forms the
structure, the walls are painted plaster, the space divided into
rooms, and there is a cast-iron stove for heating and cooking.
The housewife in this home supplements the family income with
butter and candle making.
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11.
Collins House Medicinal Garden
The
lady of the house had many tasks, and nursing her family through
illness was one of the most important. Mint soothed upset
stomachs, feverfew for headaches, soft lamb’s ear leaves were
used as temporary bandages. Foxglove (digitalis) aided heart
conditions, sage tea alleviated sore throat and rose hips,
nettles, raspberry leaves, and dandelions were used to make
tonics. Calendula was used in ointments as well as colouring the
butter! Mullein, mallow, lady’s mantle, monkshood, horehound,
hyssop, hollyhock, flax, cornflower, comfrey, columbine,
valerian, wintergreen, and witch hazel provided herbal remedies
used in teas, infusions, poultices and/or ointments.
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12. Redman House Program Centre
 This frame house was built by Thomas Redman between 1851 and
1860 on Balsam Road, Pickering, Lot 5, Conc. 6. The City of
Pickering acquired the house and moved it to the Museum Village
in 2005. Our guests may access the public washrooms and a
defibrillator at the south entrance.
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13.
Duffin's
Creek General Store / Dressmaker's Shop, c. 1910
 Built
about 1855 this building and the Brougham Central Hotel once
shared a porch. This building has served as a harness shop,
County Office, and home. As the Museum Village’s General Store,
it serves as a post office and community centre. Set in 1910, it
shows electricity use which was just being introduced to
Pickering Township. Upstairs is a dressmaker’s shop, one of few
professions appropriate for women.
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14. Blacksmith and Woodshop, c. 1856
Donated by Miss Edna Green, whose family owned and operated the
Greenwood Mills, this shop was built on Concession Road #6,
(across from the Oddfellows’ Hall). It served as a blacksmith
and wagon making business. Many tools are original to the
building. Also original to this building is the hemlock floor,
known for its fire retardant properties.
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15.
Claremont Bandstand, replica
 This
is a replica of the bandstand at the four corners of Claremont
at the turn of the century. Continuing its tradition, live
entertainment can be enjoyed here throughout the summer. The
hydrangeas and spirea plantings were donated by the Pickering
Horticultural Society.
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16.
Peony Friendship Garden
Donated by the Pickering
Horticultural Society, many plants are heritage varieties. Inter
planted are hundreds of tulips as part of the Bloomers &
Britches‘ Communities in Bloom 2007 project in partnership with
the City of Pickering.
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17.
Oddfellows' Hall, c. 1869
 Originally a Christian Church in Whitevale, this building
was sold to the Independent Order of Oddfellows at the turn of
the century. Today, it represents a Town Hall, and is a popular
location for weddings and filming.
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18. Miller-Cole House Garden
Reflecting gardens of the1870s are favourites like roses,
heliopsis, love-in-a-mist, love-lies-a-bleeding and gomphrena as
well as practical gooseberries and red currants. Growing in the
four-square garden are vegetables such as lettuce, beets,
radishes, beans, tomatoes, lovage, rhubarb, onions, and chives –
all easily harvested steps from the kitchen.
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19. Miller-Cole House,
c. 1870
 Originally built in 1840 near the intersection of 16th Avenue
and Concession Rd. #9, the deed was received in 1857 by Luton
Miller and sold in 1881 to Amos Cole. It depicts the rural home
of an established, but not wealthy, farm family. The stacked
plank construction (see kitchen wall) demonstrates the abundance
of timber at the time. The backyard features a four-square
kitchen garden, and laundry area.
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20.
Combination Barn, 1875
 Originally
on the 6th Concession of Pickering, this barn was built from at
least two other structures, a combination of hand-hewn and sawn
timbers.
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21. Teaching Garden
This garden represents crops that would have been grown in
larger fields. Heirloom varieties of bush beans, cucumbers,
squash, onions, beets, peas, turnips, rutabagas, potatoes and
melons are planted by the Bloomers & Britches and used by the
Museum Village’s culinary group, Vintage Victuals. Youth
volunteers assist in planting, weeding and harvesting.
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22.
Beef Ring Bar, c. 1870
 This
building was used by a cooperative of farmers. Each family
supplied a cow or steer and shared the cuts, ensuring fresh
meat. The cooperatives, or beef rings, died out with the advent
of ice boxes and freezers.
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23. Bible Christian Chapel, 1853
 Simple
in structure and furnishings, this 1853 Chapel was built by a
splinter group of Methodists known as Bible Christians. It
originally sat on Lot 24, Concession 5, but was moved to the William
Major farm around 1890 after the Church closed. The box pulpit, wainscoting, and front doors are original. In
2001, The Pickering Museum Village Foundation took the lead in
refurbishing the interior of the building. Pews were re-created
using one original as the template; volunteers painted the
interior and faux wood-grained the pews, and a local blacksmith
created the hanging, wrought iron light fixtures. This building
is a popular location for weddings and filming.
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24. Brougham Temperance House, c.
1850
 Originally
in Brougham, this building is two structures joined together to
form a hotel. They were built using the vertical plank method,
but unlike the Collins House that remained exposed with battens,
these buildings were covered with horizontal siding. Evidence
indicates that woodstoves were used for heating and cooking. The
east wing was a private dwelling. James Woodruff operated this
tavern as a temperance inn. It played a key role in society and
politics. The Brougham Sons of Temperance, met frequently in
this inn, as did the Pickering Township Council. Dances were
held upstairs in the flop room.
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25. Church
Drive Shed, c. 1860
 Originally part of the Methodist Church
in
Balsam, but moved to the Mount Zion Church, this shed
sheltered horses and vehicles of parishoners.
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26. Steam Barn Shed
 This structure has been rebuilt using old and new materials,
and is used for storage for wheeled vehicles, a shingle mill,
and other items awaiting restoration.
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27. Gas & Steam Barn
 This
metal on wood structure houses a collection of early steam,
kerosene, and gasoline engines and equipment from the late 19th
Century to the mid 20th Century. An industrial boiler, farm
tractors, saws, threshing and haying equipment, mills, a steam
traction engine, and a restored Waterloo Steam Engine are some
of the pieces restored, maintained, and operated by the Gas &
Steam Club volunteers. Details regarding steam and gas
interpretation and demonstration are available in the Gift Shop.
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28. Demonstration Shed
This shed is used as a small stage for interpretive purposes
at events, and for on-site programs.
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