Old Salem, North Carolina

I've been asked to blog more. Thank you for the compliment! I've been meaning to make it a point to do things that I used to enjoy, but I guess I'm still surprised that someone wants to read my ramblings.

I think the sleep regression has caught up with little man, as he is already in bed for the night (almost 2 hours earlier than he normally goes to bed), so while Micah watches his nerdy technology review videos on YouTube, I have been pondering what to write about tonight.

I glanced through old posts and saw that I never talked about our adventure in Old Salem, NC! So, here it is.

Back in December, Micah and I road-tripped out to South Carolina to see my parents. For a 12 hour trek across half the country, the baby did fantastic. Anyways, our last day visiting, we drove two hours Northeast into North Carolina to visit historic Old Salem.

Let me give you a brief (because I don't remember everything that they told us) history of the city. Salem was founded in 1766 by the Moravians–a Protestant church that began in what is now known as the Czech Republic. They basically came over here seeking religious freedom.

See, how brief was that?! I'll just link the town's website and if you'd like to read more about it, feel free. (Some of it is pretty interesting)

http://www.oldsalem.org/learn/the-town-of-salem/history/

I didn't do any research beforehand, so upon our arrival, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. We parked at the visitors center and went inside to buy tickets. We then walked out of the visitors center and across the wooden bridge, pictured above, and straight into colonial America.

 Ok, well minus the paved road that goes through the middle. But this is still an actual town with real residents.

**Note: this is an outside walking/on your own tour. If it's July- you'll get hot. If it's December- you'll be cold. Dress accordingly.

We were there on the off season, so there weren't very many people. I think that added to our experience because we didn't have to wait in line for any of the buildings.

 (Inside one of the barns)

 My favorite part was getting to see the architecture of these old homes! Many of them you could go inside, and several of them had volunteers doing trade-work. For instance, we spent time in the blacksmith's shop, the carpenter, the bakery, the doctor's house/apothecary, the cobbler, several churches, and we got to tour several residences and the tavern.

 This is the back of the tavern, I believe. I remember taking this picture because the windows fascinated me for some reason.

 The Moravian Christmas decorations were gorgeous. They were simple and elegant. The entire town was decorated in like manner with garland on the street signs and wreaths on most of the doors. We were told that children in Salem would receive 3 gifts for Christmas: a piece of fruit, a bible verse (written in German and English) for them to memorize for the church, and a new candle. SOMETIMES they would get small toys like wooden tops, but to many residents, Christmas presents were considered vain.

This is the sugar cake from the bakery. It tasted like a doughnut. We ate the entire thing in 10 minutes.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the little details around the town. It was a little chilly the day we were there, with the high being mid 40's, but we still spent upwards of half a day here. It was very cool to sit and listen to the volunteers talk about the history of the particular building they were in, and watching the tradesmen do their work- also fascinating.

They might be historical volunteers, but they are actual skilled artisans legitimately working. The blacksmith was working on a replica musket and we got to watch him work. (Plus, that was the warmest building because he had his forge going)

The woman speaking in the gentleman's boarding house actually played the old church organ for us. The carpenter was working on a window to replace one of the windows in his shop. The bakery was a working bakery where you could buy their goods. (and we did!)

In one of the places, (I don't remember if it was the tavern or the boarding house) you could sit on one of the beds to see what it was like to sleep in a bed stuffed with hay and held with a rope base. 

All in all, if you have the chance, go check Old Salem. But fair warning, it is a popular destination for school field trips. Even being on the 'off season' there were 3 different schools there on the day we were there. Luckily, they were ahead of us by quite a bit and it's a large enough route that there was only one or two buildings where it felt crowded. The shop making pottery was backed up because they let the kids play with the clay, and one of the residences was backed up because the particular school group that was in there had to go in 3 different shifts because they were so large.

I think we ended up walking between 2 and 3 miles in the roughly 4 hours we spent there. If you like history (and I DO!) certainly make a stop at Old Salem.