Antique farm equipment at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

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Billings Farm and Museum Main Page

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The museum at the Billings Farm and Museum focuses on Vermont farm life around 1890. This is one of my favorite museums from all those that I visited during my travels to National Parks. It is typically open from April through October between the hours of 10 AM and 5 PM, with limited operating hours in the winter and holidays. There is a fee to visit the farm, and entrance to the museum is included in the price.

The first section of the museum covers the lives of George Marsh, Frederick Billings, and Mary French and Lawrence Rockefeller, as well as the history of the farm. If you have been through the exhibits in the Carriage Barn Visitor Center at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, much of the information is the same.

Exhibit area on the history of Billings Farm at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

After learning a little bit about Billings Farm, proceed into the next area of the museum where you can see antique farm equipment and learn about farming during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This section covers dozens of farming topics such as the seasonal progression of farming, farm equipment, fence making, and even how wood was cut.

Display of antique farm equipment at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

There is also a section on daily life in a rural Vermont farming village. Highlights include reproductions of a farmhouse, schoolhouse, and country store.

Reproduction of a country store at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

Exhibit at the Vermont Farm Life Museum showing the typical Vermont farm house in the 1890s, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

Farm workshop at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

My favorite section of the museum deals with other rural industries such as ice cutting, maple syrup production, apple harvesting, and cider making. Perhaps my interest stems from being from the south, where such activities are as foreign to me as Greek.

Ice cutting exhibit at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

The final section of the Vermont Farm Life Museum is a temporary exhibit area that changes each year. When I visited there was a display of modern quilts that were entered into the Billings Farm and Museum’s annual Quilt Exhibition.

Quilt exhibition at the Vermont Farm Life Museum, Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

While the Vermont Farm Life Museum is very big, it doesn’t take as much time to go through the exhibits as you might expect because much of the space is taken up by displays of antique farm equipment and reproductions of places such as a country store and a rural farmhouse. I read all of the information on every exhibit and even watched a nine-minute video on ice cutting—which is way more than the typical visitor to the museum will do—and I was in and out in an hour. I can’t see spending any less than thirty minutes at the museum or much more than an hour.

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