HISTORIC DEERFIELD INC

Historic Deerfield Inc., founded in 1952, is an outdoor history museum that focuses on the history and culture of the Connecticut River Valley and early New England. It has a dual mission of educating the public about the lifestyles of the diverse people who lived here long ago and of preserving antique buildings and collections of regional furniture, silver, textiles, and other decorative arts. First settled in 1669, Deerfield is one of the few towns settled by English colonists along the eastern seaboard that retains its original scale and town plan. Visitors are offered guided and self-guided tours of 12 antique houses ranging in age from 1730 to 1850. Eleven of these houses are on their original sites.

The village has been on the National Register of Historic Landmarks since 1962. We interpret more than 300 years of stories that reflect the rich and diverse social, cultural and economic history of Deerfield and the region. The Pocumtucks, English, French, enslaved and free Africans, as well as later immigrant groups such as the Polish frame the stories Historic Deerfield tells. These stories, along with more than 32,000 objects in the collection, make Historic Deerfield a center for education for thousands of annual visitors and scholarship supported by our research library with the most comprehensive collection of materials relating to the history and material culture of Deerfield and the Connecticut River Valley, including the 23,000 volumes of the Henry N. Flynt Library of Historic Deerfield (reference works, microfilm and newspapers), and the Flynt Center for Early New England Life, a state-of-the-art museum facility featuring exhibitions and a visible storage area.

Experience talented craftspeople, bringing 17th, 18th, and 19th century crafts to life. You can stroll the quintessential New England Village, tour the twelve, historic homes on their original plots, and meet and experience silversmiths, dress-makers, blacksmiths, woodworkers/cabinetry makers, stoneware potters, gunsmiths, gravestone carvers, coppersmiths, and letterpress printers, and experience their work up-close. This fascinating, interactive program begins on opening day in April and extends into December. Visitors will meet gifted craftspeople and observe their work, while learning the role of these crafts in early American life.

Historic Deerfield has a well-deserved reputation for its masterworks in New England furniture, early American metalwares, textiles, needlework and costume, English and Chinese ceramics, paintings, and prints. The Flynt Center of Early New England Life, which opened in 1998, provides a 27,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility containing climate-controlled exhibition galleries, visible storage area, and collection storage for the museum’s most sensitive and highly valued collections. This facility, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, enables Historic Deerfield to display its collections in thematic ways that the historic houses do not allow.

The Flynt Center is open for self-guided tours Wednesday-Sunday (and Monday holidays) during the regular season, and weekends during the winter season, from 9:30am to 4:30pm. This facility is fully accessible.