Mercer Museum

While we were in the Bucks County area of Pennsylvania, we also spent a day visiting the Mercer Museum in Doylestown.  After building Fonthill Castle, in 1914 Henry Mercer began construction of a building to house his extensive collection of the tools American settlers used to live their lives.  Mercer was concerned that advances of the industrial age were rapidly making many of the objects used in everyday life obsolete and that many would soon disappear.  One of Mercer's passions was saving such objects and documenting how they were used.

Mercer Museum

The main gallery is filled with objects of the lives of the early settlers.

A display of hand tools

The museum was decorated with works from Mercer's Moravian Tileworks.

The museum holds a large collection of stove plates which were used to construct the very common cast iron wood stoves.

Part of a firearms display

A medical equipment display

And what every family needed!
(determined to be a mid-twentieth century fake)