Heritage Museums and Gardens
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The Heritage Museums and Gardens (76 acres), formerly the Heritage Plantation of Sandwich, is a collection of museums and gardens located at 67 Grove Street, Sandwich, Massachusetts. It includes museums of art, American history, and automobiles, with both permanent and visiting exhibits, as well as extensive gardens and grounds featuring a superb collection of Dexter rhododendrons. Both museums and gardens are open year-round though closed Mondays and Tuesdays in the colder months; an admission fee is charged.
The museum's grounds were once the estate of noted rhododendron cultivator Charles O. Dexter estate, where between 1921-1943 Dexter developed between 5,000 and 10,000 seedlings annually. He planted many on the site. In 1969, Josiah K. Lilly III (1916-1995) and his wife established Heritage Plantation of Sandwich on the property. The museum opened with the Auto Museum, Old East Windmill and the building now called the American History Museum. The Art Museum was added in 1972.
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[edit] The gardens and grounds
The gardens' principle interest is its collection of thousands of rhododendrons, which now include 125 of the known 145 Dexter cultivars. Their typical bloom time is from Memorial Day Weekend to mid-June. This collection has been painstakingly recovered since 1972, as Dexter's own named cultivars had been scattered without records. Each cultivar had to been recollected from gardens and nurseries up and down the East Coast. The site was prepared in 1972, and by the summer of 1977 it included over 300 plants representing nearly 100 cultivars, with an additional 25 cultivars as small plants in the nursery. All are now mature plantings.
Other items of horticultural interest include: holly, daylily, herb, hosta, and heather gardens, as well as more than a thousand varieties of trees, shrubs and flowers, many labeled.
The ground also include the Old East Mill, a windmill built in Orleans, Massachusetts in 1800, and extensively restored in 1999-2000. Visitors may view its interior on special days. In 2002 a labyrinth was also added to the grounds, designed by Marty Cain, one of the best-known labyrinth designers in North America.
[edit] American History Museum
The history museum includes four galleries housed within a replica of the Revolutionary War building known as The Temple in New Windsor, New York.
The Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame includes memorabilia from the local baseball league, from its beginnings in the 1800s to the present.
The American History Gallery includes hand-painted lead soldiers that depict the uniforms, arms and insignia of such famous units as the Green Mountain Boys, The 4th Massachusetts Regiment, and the 53rd New York Volunteers known as the “Zouaves”; the history of flags in America; and a sizeable antique firearms collection that includes a Sharps .45 caliber rifle once belonging to Buffalo Bill Cody.
The Native American Gallery features two cases of artifacts, including basketry, hide containers, pottery and carvings.
The Play Things of the Past exhibit contains an outstanding collection of antique toys from the early 1800s to the mid 1900s, with rare examples of cast iron and tin playthings.
[edit] Art Museum
The Art Museum features a working 1912 carousel manufactured by Charles I. D. Looff (with free rides) and three galleries showcasing a wide variety of American art. Around the rotunda are other carved animal figures from carousels including an ostrich, frog, zebra, cat and deer. The Folk Art Gallery features early shop signs, folk paintings, early American weathervanes, Nantucket baskets, and scrimshaw.
[edit] J.K. Lilly III Automobile Museum
The automobile museum includes 32 American automobiles housed within a replica of the Shaker Round Barn in Hancock, Massachusetts. Exhibit items include a 1908 Waltham-Orient Buckboard Runabout, the 1909 White Steam Car Model M (one of the first official cars of the White House, owned by President William Howard Taft), 1910 Sears Model P Surrey, 1911 Stanley Steamer Model 62 Runabout with a 28 gallon water tank, 1912 Mercer Raceabout, 1915 Milburn Light Electric, 1916 Crane-Simplex, 1922 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Pall Mall Phaeton, 1930 Duesenberg Model J Derham Tourster formerly owned by Gary Cooper, 1930 Cadillac V-16 Convertible Coupe with a Fleetwood custom body (with side doors for golf clubs), 1932 Auburn Boattail Speedster model 8-100A, and a 1933 Packard 1002 Dietrich Convertible Victoria.
