A child races to a woman dressed in 19th-century attire. The woman’s layers of clothing shuffle against the warped floor as she turns to face the inquisitive boy.

“I thought you said you don’t have electricity,” he challenges, pointing to an electrical socket in the corner of the room.

“Oh, are you referring to that mouse hole, young man?” she answers.

On a daily basis, hundreds of curious people travel to Hale Farm and Village to witness a unique take on the area known as the Western Reserve in 1848. Hale Farm, located in the Akron suburb of Bath, is home to Wheatfield Village, a replica of a 19th-century township. Residents of this village live the lifestyle and talk the gossip of 1848.

To visitors, it’s a re-creation.

To first-person interpreters, it’s a way of life. James Polk is president. Abolitionism and slavery are the condemned topics of the town. Gold has just been discovered in the California territory. They know nothing beyond the realm of Wheatfield’s boundaries - the 21st century does not exist.

The interpreters spend months researching and mentally preparing themselves for their characters.

And on a daily basis, the interpreters prepare for their greatest challenge: never breaking character.

Sophronia Buell Hadley

Upon the untimely death of her husband in 1831, Sophronia Hadley became Wheatfield’s resident widow. Visitors to the Hadley House are exposed to the mourning practices of the mid-19th century.

Karen Lohman, in her fifth season as Hadley, says it’s hard to portray the differences between the 19th and 21st centuries.

“The job is challenging,” she says. “You are constantly learning and researching material while incorporating an acting flair. It’ll look like we’re having a conversation, but I’m actually giving you information.”

Lohman says developing the Hadley character required at least six months of initial research on the time period.

“It’s very frightening as to how long it takes,” she says. “When you first [are in character], you’re scared. You worry that you won’t have anything to say or that people will ask questions that you won’t have an answer to.

“You can’t have 19th-century conversations unless there’s something up there. You have to understand the whole of the era before you can know its parts. The goal is to convince [people] to suspend disbelief and enter 1848.”

While most people leave the modern-day world at the gate, Lohman says some intentionally dwell on 21st-century materials.
“Do you have TV in Wheatfield?” someone asks her.

“Well, of course we do,” she replies, “and all the other letters of the alphabet, too.”

Lohman says she deals with modern questions in two ways — she ignores them completely or responds to the best of her character’s knowledge.

“You become adept at reading the visitors,” Lohman says.

Wheatfield’s elaborate stories are meant to entertain but also educate. Hadley has a story that teaches about prejudice in the era.
The widow’s oldest son, Andrew, eloped with the family’s Irish domestic servant, Miss Heany. Lohman uses the story to illustrate the persecution against the Irish and Catholics at the time.

“We use fiction only to get to the fact,” she says. “The mid-19th century was a nasty time. If you weren’t a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, life was not easy.”

After years of drawing people into the past, Lohman says she identifies with Hadley.

“I am very comfortable with Mrs. Hadley,” she says. “This job fits me like a glove.”

Cordelia Huntley

Cordelia Huntley, the reverend’s eldest daughter, is a snob. Just ask Heidi Schnee, the woman who portrays her.

“She is a know-it-all,” Schnee says, laughing. “She’ll spit fire. And she loves talking about the Hadleys.”

On most days, Huntley sews in the meetinghouse and dishes out the local gossip.

“Mr. Hadley, a gristmill worker, made all of his money in land speculation,” Huntley will say. “When he was killed in an accident in 1831, Mr. Charles Strong, husband of Hadley’s eldest daughter, Lucretia, squandered all the money. Now there is nothing left, and Mrs. Hadley is forced to see the house.”

Huntley’s voice drops to a faint whisper as she leans toward listeners.

“Caroline, the Hadley’s youngest daughter, married a Mr. Reed from Virginia, and they now own slaves,” she says while eyeing the meetinghouse windows. “These aren’t thing I should be talking about in the daylight, but Andrew, their eldest son, used to be a grave robber.”

“Rumor has it there is something going on between Andrew and Miss Heany, their Irish domestic.”

Schnee, who has played Huntley for three years, says she uses gossip to illustrate the views of 19th-century Baptists.

“Religious families were very abolitionist, very liberal,” she explains. “I tried to make Cordelia a little bit different than me, but now I really know her well.”

Schnee says it’s difficult to re-enter modern day life.

“It’s sometimes easier to think in 19th-century terms,” she says. “I find it easier cooking on an open hearth than on the stove in my apartment. In character, men tip their hats and open doors for women. Then I have to leave, be in traffic and go home.”

The Rev. Asa Huntley

In the same meetinghouse, the Rev. Asa Huntley conducts the village’s weekly services.

Tim Schnee, Heidi Schnee’s uncle, portrays Wheatfield’s Baptist spiritual leader.

Schnee, who was raised Catholic, leaves his religious upbringing behind when at work.

“We’re only 150 years removed from the Puritans,” he says. “Protestant work ethic is what founded this country. Maryland was the only Catholic colony.

“The time was very anti-Catholic. The few that were here were not well thought of.”

Schnee spent months brushing up on 19th-century Protestant practices in preparation for his character.

“I have a notebook that is nothing but religion background,” he says as he shovels wood kindling into a hearth fireplace. “Thinking in 19th-century terms can be very strange.”

Those in character must learn to ignore what is not of 1848, Schnee says. This includes modern clothing, cell phones and racial equality. Through the eyes of every Wheatfield resident, all visitors are white Protestants.

“[While in character], I’ve talked with black couples about how Wheatfield Village feels about runaway slaves and slavery,” he says.

Most of the interpreters at Wheatfield have backgrounds in education or history.

“The whole point of this is education,” Schnee says. “We are educators, not actors.”

William Tibbals

Wheatfield’s ailing residents stagger to the William Tibbals’ house for treatment. Shelves of medical books and bottles of medicinal tonics adorn his walls.

Wheatfield’s resident doctor, also portrayed by Tim Schnee, will amputate gangrene limbs, extract diseased teeth or dress wounds for fees ranging from $2 to $100. Nineteenth-century surgical tools catch the light as Tibbals explains each instrument’s purpose. For many ailments, he will use leeches to bleed his patients.

When it comes to 19th-century medicine, Schnee is the expert.

Schnee has read countless articles on 19th-century medicine. He even purchased an 1848 medical textbook online.

A Hale Farm employee for three years, Schnee says his research is never finished.

“If you want to be believable in character,” he says, “you have to have extensive research. It’s not scripted.

“It’s like learning a second language. Once you learn the language, you don’t compare anymore. It’s the same with first-person interpretation. Once you walk across that bridge [into Wheatfield Village], you walk into the 19th century.”

Mary Mueller

In December 1847, Wheatfield resident Mary Mueller did the unthinkable — she married a German.

“Germans at that time were looked down upon because of religious and cultural differences,” says Mandy McCafferty, who portrays Mueller.

McCafferty’s research took her to 1825, when cheap German and Irish labor was used to construct the Ohio and Erie Canal. Many of the immigrants took labor positions from the higher-paid local citizens.

“They were laborers — not classy at all,” McCafferty says. “The people of the Western Reserve were from Connecticut and of a Calvinist, English background. It’s a cultural shock that my husband, Johann Mueller, is German.

“He goes by John Miller so Wheatfield Village residents won’t discriminate against him.”

Visitors to the Mueller House are exposed to culturally divided marriages as well as 19th-century practices in pregnancy and childbirth.

For McCafferty, what started as a summer job after graduating from Bowling Green State University became three seasons of work with Hale Farm.

“There’s a difference between Mandy McCafferty and Mary Mueller,” she says, while mixing flour and egg for pancakes. “When I’m in her mindset, it’s the difference between a flat interpretation and a round character. It’s not a matter of walking into 1848. I usually don’t get into that frame of mind until I see visitors walking across the bridge.”

McCafferty recalls being stumped by a question once.

“A boy approached me and asked, ‘Are you happy?’” she says. “It was a profound moment. I actually had to step back and wonder — would Mary be happy?

“I know she would be.”

Jacob Meredith

Jacob Meredith is Wheatfield’s prosperous dairy farmer and staunch Democrat.

“He dislikes Whigs with a passion,” says Floyd Baum, who portrays Meredith.

“He doesn’t shun Mr. Mueller because of his German background. The fact that Mueller is a Democrat is more important.”
Baum is in his first season at Hale Farm, and he says modern-day materials still affect him once and a while.

“Work becomes hard when someone’s cell phone rings,” he says, with a smile.

Baum will continue to develop his character through studying 19th-century farming techniques.

“He owns 60 cows,” he explains. “Meredith is a strict disciplinarian, and he believes that animals are to be used. They are not for domestic pets.”

Baum uses his passion for history to teach children about the life that existed on the Western Reserve.

“I have seen the hunger that the children have to learn about history,” he says. “Hale Farm is the best kept secret in the area.”