Farm Museum Extols Americans’ Trail-Blazing Spirit

By day, he heads one of the four largest banks in West Virginia. In his spare time, Mike Perry has created the state’s largest private collection of historic items.

But he’s no romantic about the good old days.

“They really weren’t that good when you think about it,” Perry says. “Who wants to go back to the days when we had to crank our cars to start them?”

History has always intrigued Perry, chairman of Bank One West Virginia. In 1973, when he and his wife bought a farm in Wayne County, they began collecting historic mementos.

Then, seven years ago, he created the Heritage Farm Museum & Village as his tribute to the American spirit. It now has a church, school, barn, sawmill, inns--and charm.

Visiting the farm is “like stepping back in time,” says Lillie Hall, a teacher at Wayne Middle School.

At Heritage, geraniums and petunias tumble out of old whiskey kegs. Trees laden with apples stand out back, where tiger lilies dot the banks of a small stream.

Across a gravel road is a one-room schoolhouse, cut in half and hauled on two trucks to the farm. Now restored, the gray building, trimmed in white and schoolhouse red, is furnished with desks from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Other log structures built on stone foundations reflect themes that interest Perry.

In the wooden transportation building, visitors can trace the evolution from horses and buggies to a 1931 Model A Ford Coupe. Included is one of the first electric-powered vehicles, a 1908 truck.

On display are almost 300 postcard-size pictures of old steamboats, many of which traveled the Ohio River. Outside, shiny black steam engines that “work like new” are stored alongside farm tractors in an open-air shed.

Perry documents progress “to instill in our children a deep respect that our ancestors were ingenious, courageous, hard-working people. The character it took for them to come over these mountains in a wagon or down the river on a raft is the same character we need for the next millennium.”

Pointing to a Conestoga wagon, he asks visiting schoolchildren, “Can you imagine packing everything you own and taking out into the wilderness in this?”

Time out for Perry’s lesson.

“I’ll ask for some strong boys who think they can lift the wagon to change the wheel. Of course, they can’t,” he says. “Then I’ll pick one of the little girls to come forward and use the jack. This time the wagon starts to slowly rise. It shows them what you can do if you use your brain.”

James Mitchell, curator of the State Museum in Charleston, calls Perry’s project “a very, very good collection.” It is not, however, a museum as defined by the American Assn. of Museums. For that, it must be open 120 days a year.

The farm is open to the public only once a year, in May. An entrance fee of $3 for children and $5 for adults is donated to local charities on that day. The rest of the year, school and church groups and others can tour the farm by appointment for the same fee.

“History provides us a road map,” Perry says. “It shows that those who embraced change enthusiastically thrived and those who fought it struggled and failed.”