Farmers' Museum

The Farmers' Museum is a living history complex on the north side of Cooperstown, adjacent to the Fenimore Art Museum, that presents rural life in central New York in the early 19th century. The campus includes around twenty historic buildings — some original, some reconstructed — arranged as a working farm and small village, including a blacksmith shop, a printing office, a doctor's surgery, a tavern, and a church.

Costumed interpreters demonstrate period crafts and agricultural practices throughout the grounds, and the experience has a genuine educational weight that many living history museums lack. The museum also holds the Cardiff Giant — the famous 1869 stone hoax — on permanent display in the main exhibition building. The adjacent Lippitt Farmstead complex demonstrates early 19th-century farming practices with heritage breeds of livestock. Both the Farmers' Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum operate under the same organization and a combined ticket is available.

things to do museum sight
A story
The Cardiff Giant on display here is one of the great American hoaxes. George Hull had the ten-foot stone figure carved in 1868, buried it on a farm near Cardiff, New York, and arranged for it to be "discovered" in 1869. People paid 50 cents to see what they were told was a petrified ancient giant. P.T. Barnum offered $60,000 for it, was refused, and simply had his own copy made. There are now two fake Cardiff Giants in existence — the original fake, and Barnum's fake fake.