For some, Crook Farm is a place to go to buy crafts and enjoy
good food at the end of August. But, for many students around the
area, Crook Farm is a place where they learn about yesteryear.

Towards the end of each school year, fourth and fifth graders
from New York state and Pennsylvania come to the Crook Farm on
Seaward Avenue to get a taste of life in the 1800s, according to
the program coordinator, Judy Yorks.

The students, which come one school at a time, are in a one-room
school house for the first half of the day where they learn to
write with a pen that requires an ink well and the “casting out
nines” method of checking addition. There’s also a “spelldown”
where students use words most children their age would be
accustomed to spelling in the 1800s, as well as a history test
about events in the during that time. The children also break into
reading groups and read books for the teacher and explain what
they’re about.

For the second half of the day, they are divided into five
groups which rotate through different stations. Each group spends
about 20 to 25 minutes at each station. The first is the Crook
House where students learn about the Crook family. The second is
the summer kitchen where they can wash clothes on a washboard, iron
with an iron heated on a stove and carry a bucket of water with a
yolk. They are also shown different artifacts in the kitchen, like
an antique mousetrap.

Then, students go to a carpenter shop and through the barn,
where they can work with some of the tools of the time and be
taught about different objects in the barn. They learn about candle
making in the candle shop, where they’re shown candle dipping and a
piece of wax with the oil still in it, after people learned to make
candles out of wax instead of lard. They also visit the weaving
shop, where they can cart pull, wash wool and work on the loom.
Each school contributes to a rug while they work on the loom.

The rugs are sold during the Crook Farm Fair Days – slated for
Saturday and Sunday. Yorks said they have about four rugs from this
past school year.

Yorks said this is the only type of place in this particular
area where students can learn about life in the 1800s.

“Some of their comments were that they wished they lived back in
this time,” Yorks said. “For the one-day experience, it was great
to find out what they actually do back in those days. They
thoroughly enjoyed the day on the farm. One teacher said some
students that were graduating were still talking about the day on
the farm. Some teachers came there as students and are now bringing
their students there. It’s a very rewarding experience for all the
volunteers that were there to see their reactions.”

Yorks said she hopes children can see they can survive without
all the things they have today.

“I think it’s just a wonderful opportunity for the children to
appreciate all the things they have in today’s world that they
didn’t have back then,” Harrijane Hannon, president of the Landmark
Society, said. “There’s advantages and opportunities in their world
that they didn’t have (in the 1800s). They were so limited in the
things they had, but they were able to enjoy life and had pleasures
that maybe even some of us don’t even have in today’s world.”

The schools involved this year were from Port Allegany, the
Bradford Area Christian Academy, The Learning Center, Kane,
Otto-Eldred, Mount Jewett, Fox Township, St. Bernard’s, Allegany,
N.Y., Limestone, N.Y., Bolivar-Richburg, N.Y., and Ellicottville,
N.Y. The program is funded by the fee students pay to participate,
and many staff members are volunteers, according to Yorks.
Pennsylvania schools visit in the beginning of May while New York
state schools come towards the end of May and the beginning of
June. This year, the program ran from May 2 to June 2.

Yorks said they had between 700 and 800 students attend this
year, but normally they have closer to 1,000 in attendance.

The program has been running for more than 20 years, and was
originally for children in the explorer programs. Then it was
expanded to all fourth and fifth graders, and for a while, third
graders. Bullah Blair, who used to work on the farm, started the
program and worked as the school marm. Currently, program
operations are run by Gerry Zetler.

(Era reporter Jason Burt contributed to this story.)