The Acadian Village is a museum of
Acadian heritage on
United States Route 1
U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making ...
in
Van Buren, Maine
Van Buren is a town on the Saint John River in Aroostook County, Maine, United States; located across from Saint-Leonard, New Brunswick, Canada. The population was 2,038 at the 2020 census. It is named after U.S. President Martin Van Buren.
G ...
. The museum includes a complex of six historic buildings (five authentic 19th-century structures, one a careful modern reproduction) in which the life and work of 19th-century
French-Americans is showcased; this complex has been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
. The museum is open daily between June and September.
Buildings
In addition to a split-log visitor center built in 1976, the museum includes five wood-frame structures built in the mid-19th century: three houses, a schoolhouse, and a blacksmith's shop. The church, a rough log structure also built in 1976, is a reproduction of a typical 18th-century Acadian church. All of the buildings are either one or stories in height, with gabled roofs. They are built using either log construction or wood framing. The Morneault House, for example, is a log structure with the logs exposed inside, and is finished on the outside with clapboards. It served as an early post office in the region. The Village Schoolhouse is a wood-frame structure, built in 1875, and is also finished with clapboards.
It was originally located in
Hamlin Hamlin may refer to:
Places
* Hamlin, Iowa, a city
* Hamlin, Kansas, a city
* Hamlin, Kentucky, a town
* Hamlin, Maine, a town
* Hamlin, Michigan, a former community
* Hamlin, New York, a town
** Hamlin (CDP), New York, a census-designated pl ...
, and is believed to be the oldest schoolhouse in the region.
These buildings were not originally located at this site, having been moved from elsewhere in the region by the museum's organizing body, L'Heritage Vivant. They represent surviving elements of early French-American Acadian culture, which originally settled the area in the 1780s, and remained through a
border dispute
A territorial dispute or boundary dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more political entities.
Context and definitions
Territorial disputes are often related to the possession of natural resources s ...
between Maine and
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
in the first half of the 19th century. When the border dispute was resolved without bloodshed with the 1842
Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the Acadian community was divided between the two jurisdictions.
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See also
*
References
External links
Museum web site
{{National Register of Historic Places
Acadian diaspora
Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Museums in Aroostook County, Maine
Acadian history
French-Canadian culture in Maine
Open-air museums in Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Aroostook County, Maine
Van Buren, Maine