Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia  

The Museum’s German Farm dates to the 1600s and originally stood in the village of Hördt in the modern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.  The farm and its surrounding landscape represent a common scene in the Rhineland region of German-speaking Europe during the 1700s, a time when Hördt was part of the Holy Roman Empire and thousands of people were leaving for Great Britain’s North American colonies.  These German-speaking immigrants, sometimes called Palatines or Dutch, were among the earliest and most successful settlers on America’s eighteenth century colonial frontier.