As you enter this room, it is easy to see that it was intended for the children in the family.
 

The clothing you see hung on the left was typical of the period and the brown suit with the short pants was actually worn by one of the house’s earlier inhabitants. A picture of the young lad in the suit is in our archives. Since the women at this time made the majority of the family’s clothing, these very items were likely sewn by one of the Bentley women.
 

While there is quite a variety of toys from the Victorian era, no child would have ever had this many toys at any one time. Particular ones that you may want to discover here are the “church doll”, simply made of a small piece of cloth and some stuffing tucked in for a head. This type of doll was meant to keep young ones quiet during church services. Many toys were handmade – like the small bark canoe and the paper dolls, made stiff enough to play with by adhering bits of newspaper and magazine on the backs.
 

As you leave the children’s room and head to the south side of the house, you will see a number of additional handmade toys donated by a local family. These include a working small toy piano bench and doll house.