FCMV

Easter Weekend
2025-04-19 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-04-20 09:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Easter traditions have a long history. Serving ham, cheese, and bread, along with special sweets to end Lent began around the 12th century. The first decorated Easter eggs date to the 13th century. Come join us as our costumed interpreters demonstrate historic Easter activities all weekend long, including naturally dyed eggs, making hot cross buns, playing games, and more!
This event is general admission and included in the Annual Pass!

May Day
2025-05-03 09:00 - 17:00
May Day has marked the return of spring for people around the world for millennia. Traditional celebrations included decorating people and structures with wildflower garlands, feasting on newly growing greens and, of course, Maypole dances. Maypole dances have had many iterations throughout history. The earliest May poles were simple poles dressed in greenery and flowers, with no ribbons. The dancers wound in and out in complex patterns that evolved much later into the iconic ribbon dances that are still performed today. Weather permitting, come learn a ribbon dance at our May Day festivities on the English Farm Saturday, May 3rd, at 1 PM and 3 PM!
This is a general admission event and is included in the Annual Pass.

Memorial Day Weekend
2025-05-24 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-05-25 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-05-26 09:00 - 17:00
Saturday, May 24 and Sunday, May 25
While the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution has already begun across the former colonies, this Memorial Day, we’re hosting guest reenactors to showcase other periods of history that helped shape American history. We will be joined by the Hog Island Garrison recreating a 17th century militia muster and the civilian response, Crockett’s Western Battalion during the American Revolution, and the Civil War Impressions reenactor group showcasing a period hospital.

Monday, May 26
Join the Frontier Culture Museum this Memorial Day, in commemorating the bravery of the many American patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for our liberty. Sign up for a tussie-mussie making workshop, a 19th century memorial flower posey with different plants providing specific meaning. This workshop is $15 and you can sign up here!
This event is a general admission event and is included in the annual pass.*

*Workshop is excluded from annual pass.

Flag Day
2025-06-14 09:00 - 17:00
Join the Frontier Culture Museum on Saturday, June 14, 2025, for our annual Flag Day event! Stop by the tailors shop at our German farm as our staff race against the clock to create a flag in a day. This year we will be recreating the Culpeper Minute Man flag.
Militia units in the Shenandoah Valley formed individually and headed north to the New England area before, with, and after the B-Line March occurring in July. In preparation for the treck north, to becoming Americans, Flags like the Culpeper flag would be made for regiments to take with them, ultimately distinguishing them from the rest of the army by doing so. Join us this flag day to learn more about this flag, and many others like it!

Independence Day Celebration
2025-07-05 09:00 - 17:00
*July, 5, 2025*
In 1809, the Staunton Eagle recorded Independence Day as “ About 50 gentlemen and a number of ladies…partook of a plain Barbecue, where none but Domestic productions were eaten…In short, the whole afternoon was spend with a good humor, harmony, and joy, which the fourth of July ought always to inspire into the bosoms of Americans.”
Let the Frontier Culture Museum provide you and your family with an opportunity to find good humor and joy with our pay-what-you-will Independence Day celebration! Starting at 9 am and lasting all day, we’ll have apple pie making, games of all kinds, an audience participation required 19th century Civics Bee, and of course, a reading of the Declaration of Independence!
Join the Frontier Culture Museum this July 5 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM to celebrate American Independence and learn how people celebrated Independence Day throughout history!
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How well do you remember your civics classes in school? Come test your knowledge in our 19th century Civics Bee in our 1840 schoolhouse! Audience participation is required in this reconstruction of a historical civics lesson. 11:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30
Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was not the first document expressing discontent with English rulers to be written by Virginians? Nathaniel Bacon wrote the Declaration of the People of Virginia on July 30, 1676 expressing discontent with Royal Governor William Berkeley, sparking Bacon’s Rebellion. Come here the Declaration of the People read on our English farm at 11 and 3.

Extracurricular Nights: An Evening With Crockett's Battalion
2025-07-18 17:30 - 19:00
Out of abundance of caution, we have made the difficult decision to cancel tonight’s event due to the weather forecast. We hope you will join us for the next Extracurricular Night on August 1, 2025.
Any tickets purchased for this event will transfer to the August 1st or 15th dates. If you are unable to attend those, please contact the Visitor Center at 540-332-7850.

Join our semiquincentennial celebrations this summer! We have special after-hours programming for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Test yourself- would you have been a patriot or a loyalist? Join in the defense of Virginia and enlist in Lt. Colonel Joseph Crockett’s Western Battalion. Sign the roll, draw your pay, and learn how these men fought to defend the Shenandoah Valley. Experience the American Revolution on the frontier and how Virginia’s unique frontier culture helped win American independence.
This event will take place on July 18, August 1, and August 15, 2025, from 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM. Admission for this event is $5 for children (6-17) and $7 for adults (18+), children 5 and under are free! This event is also included in our Annual Pass.
Tickets are available here.

Extracurricular Nights: An Evening With Crockett's Battalion
2025-08-01 17:30 - 19:00, 2025-08-15 17:30 - 19:00
Join our semiquincentennial celebrations this summer! We have special after-hours programming for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Test yourself- would you have been a patriot or a loyalist? Join in the defense of Virginia and enlist in Lt. Colonel Joseph Crockett’s Western Battalion. Sign the roll, draw your pay, and learn how these men fought to defend the Shenandoah Valley. Experience the American Revolution on the frontier and how Virginia’s unique frontier culture helped win American independence.
This event will take place on July 18, August 1, and August 15, 2025, from 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM. Admission for this event is $5 for children (6-17) and $7 for adults (18+), children 5 and under are free! This event is also included in our Annual Pass.
Tickets are available here.

Commonwealth Day of Play
2025-08-09 09:00 - 17:00
The Frontier Culture Museum is participating in the Commonwealth’s Day of Play!
As part of the Reclaiming Childhood Initiative, the Governor’s Office is hosting the inaugural Commonwealth Day of Play to raise awareness and inspire collective action about the importance of play, social connection, physical activity, and community in children’s lives.
On Saturday, August 9th, the Frontier Culture Museum will be offering free children’s admission into the museum! Come and experience history coming to life and play games from the past!

Trades Day
2025-08-23 09:00 - 17:00
Have you ever spent an entire afternoon with our blacksmith or tinsmith as they make objects for use on our historic sites? Have you ever wondered how buckets and barrels are made? Come visit our first Trades Day! With many historic tradesmen and craftsmen demonstrating a range of trades carefully preserved and passed on, you’re sure to find something interesting. You might even find something to take home!

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Come and see all our fantastic demonstrators and vendors!
Dod amphitheater

SVCWEDancers

Germany

Austin Englund – Joinery
Preston Gibson – Blacksmithing

1760s

Paul and Elissa Parrish – Surveying and weaving
Stave Frysinger – Revolutionary War Surgeon
Colonial Long Rifles

1820s

Laurin Hanger – Soap
Marshall Scheetz – Cooperage
Carter Hundley – Blacksmithing
Wendy Davis – Basket making

1850s

Angel McCreery – Lace making/Hair Jewelry
Denis Clem – Blacksmithing

Fall Homeschool Days
2025-09-03 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-09-04 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-09-05 09:00 - 17:00
Come see all the activities we have planned for our Fall Homeschool Days! Homeschool days provide homeschoolers the chance to participate in the increased hands-on experience of a field trip. Try your hand at splitting a log to make fence rails or experience an early 19th century school lesson! Pre-registration is highly recommended, but tickets may also be purchased at the Visitor’s Center on the day of the event.
Tickets are on sale now! Get yours here.

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
2025-09-28 14:00 - 15:30
Join the Frontier Culture Museum and Dr. Evan Friss on Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 2:00 PM for a lecture on his bestselling book, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.
How have bookstores shaped American life and culture? What makes the bookstore a unique institution? Why do we still need them? Join us for a talk and a discussion about the history (and future) of the American bookstore.
This lecture is free to attend and copies of the book will be for sale at the lecture!
About the Lecturer:
Evan Friss is a professor of history at James Madison University. His latest book, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, is a New York Times bestseller, one of Time magazine’s “100 Must-Read Books of 2024,” and the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award.

International Archaeology Day
2025-10-18 09:00 - 17:00
Saturday, October 18th is International Archaeology Day, and the Frontier Culture Museum is offering archaeological activities all day!
But just what is archaeology and why are we talking about it at a living history museum? Archaeology is the study of patterns of material culture, the tangible things that people made and used. Things that are still around, just in the ground beneath us. Archaeology gives us a snapshot of the past. Objects enter the ground, a house decays leaving only the foundation. We only get to see the remnants, not the activity. History, on the other hand, is the study of human behavior in the past, based on the records people themselves have left behind. You can see where one might inform the other. Both involve asking questions, forming hypotheses and doing research.
We look at all of these clues, carefully piece the fragments of a moment in time together, and create a picture of what life was like, for example, on the frontier.
So, what does Archaeology Day at the Frontier Culture Museum mean? It means walking around our Old World loop, the farms from places people left behind to come to the New World, and learning about different types of artifacts, like metal and ceramics, and also a little bit about experimental archaeology. It also means heading over to the American section and being able to try your hand at excavation in our dig boxes and learning a bit about what happens after the artifacts are excavated. We hope to see you here at the museum, as we celebrate International Archaeology Day!

Homefront at War
2025-10-25 09:00 - 17:00, 2025-10-26 09:00 - 17:00
What happens to a farm when the men march off to war? Join us for Homefront at War on October 25th and 26th, 2025, to learn about the impact of the Revolutionary War on the civilian population.

Cider Festival
2025-11-08 11:00 - 17:00
This November 8th, join the Frontier Culture Museum, Virginia Humanities, and the Virginia Cider Association for a one of a kind event in Staunton, Virginia. From 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM, explore how apples and cider helped shape the culture of the Valley of Virginia through historical interpretation and modern day cider tastings. The event will include living history demonstrations, author talks, live museum, and cider tasting.

Joining us for this event is celebrated cider historian Mark Turdo. For over twenty years Mark A. Turdo, historian and museum professional, has been researching and recreating historic alcoholic cider. He is especially interested in early American cider and cider culture, including who was making it, who was drinking it, and why it was more common than beer. In 2013 he began the Pommel Cyder blog (https://pommelcyder.wordpress.com) where he shares his adventures in cider research and his experiments in cidermaking.
We will also be joined by apple grower and basket maker Clyde Jenkins, and foodways historians Leni Sorensen & Elizabeth Beamon.
This event is a general admission event, with an additional option to add on a tasting ticket option, which includes five 4oz. pours from Virginia cideries. Purchase your tickets now at: https://frontierculturemuseum.shop.koronaevent.com/en/offers/t551.
There are a limited number of commemorative tasting glasses available for those who prepurchase tickets, the first 50 annual passholders to purchase tasting tickets that day will also receive a commemorative tasting glass. The remaining commemorative glasses will be given out first come, first serve to walk ups.
*If you are having difficulties purchasing your tickets, please call 540-332-7850 and one of our staff members can help!
Cideries
We are excited to welcome the following cideries for this year’s Cider Festival.

Ciders from Mars
Albemarle CiderWorks
Old Hill Cider
Daring Wine & Cider
Big Fish Cider Co.

Food Trucks
We are excited to be joined by three food trucks for this event! We will have Smokeshow BBQ, the American Corndog Company, and Blue Ridge Cider Donuts!

Book Sales
Stone Soup Books will be selling books from our authors from 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM at our 1850s Barn.

Please note golf carts will not be available for rent during this event. Shuttles will be running.

If you are an annual passholder, you can purchase a tasting ticket for $13 at the door. Presales at this price are not available for annual passholders via our website.
There will be no refunds granted for this event.

Schedule of Events
All Day Activities (11:00 AM – 5:00 PM):

Book sales with Stone Soup Books
Food trucks
Cider tastings
Living history demonstrations

11:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Presentation with apple grower Clyde Jenkins at 1850s

12:45 – 1:00 PM

Presentation of Folklife Apprenticeship Certificates in 1850s Barn

1:00 – 2:30 PM

Lau Project performance in 1850s Barn

1:30 – 2:00 PM

Presentation with apple grower Clyde Jenkins at 1850s

3:00 – 4:00 PM

In conversation with Diane Flynt, Gregory Hansard, and Allistair Reece

4:00 – 4:45 PM

Book signings with Diane Flynt, Gregory Hansard, and Allistair Reece

2025 Lantern Tours
2025-12-16 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-17 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-18 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-19 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-20 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-21 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-22 17:30 - 20:00, 2025-12-23 17:30 - 20:00
SOLD OUT!!!
Our ever-popular Lantern Tours are back!

For 2025, we do have a few changes due to our on-going construction, but the skits and holiday atmosphere will be just as enjoyable as ever! The tour will begin at our Visitor’s Center and will be a lantern-lit walking tour stopping at 17th century England, 18th century Ireland (both forge and farm), 18th century Germany, and end in our Lecture Hall for refreshments and our final sketch set in 1850s Virginia.

Please remember that this is an outdoor walking tour that will occur rain or shine, please plan to dress appropriately.

Tickets are on sale now. Get yours here: https://frontierculturemuseum.shop.koronaevent.com/en/offers/t568. Tours leave Visitor’s Center every half hour from 5:30-8:00 pm and last around an hour and a half.

17th century England
The future King Charles II and the Scottish army do not do well during the last of the English Civil Wars. This puts the Scottish government and King Charles on the run. We enter into the home of the Woodhouse family in Hartlebury, Worcestershire, on a Christmas many years later and learn how a moment of kindness helped a King.

18th century Irish Forge
Times are tough for an Irish blacksmith with many people, especially wayward apprentices, being drawn toward the New World and the chance to own land. What to do when an apprentice runs away?

18th century Irish Farm
A young man returns to the County Tyrone countryside of his childhood to find that many people he remembers have left for America or London. Disoriented, he encounters the home of some former acquaintances, a mother who thinks that he stole their pig and ran away, and her daughter, who remembers playing with him and having a crush on him.

18th century German Farm
It’s a bit of a chaotic Christmas season in a household packing to move to America. The young daughter, concerned about the things she’s heard about no Christmas in America, is cheered up by a classic children’s tale.

1850s Virginia
Balls were common entertainments in the mid-19th century at the holidays. Social gatherings like this were excellent ways for younger women, often working on their parents farms until marriage, to meet new people and show off their fashion sense. Of course, sibling tensions can rise at any time and when two young ladies get ready at the same time…not even the Christmas spirit can prevent it!

Toddler Time
2026-01-10 10:00 - 12:00
Join the Frontier Culture Museum this January, February, and March for Toddler Time! Each Toddler Time at the Frontier Culture Museum will include a story time, a hands-on historical activity, and a craft to keep.
January 10, 2026: Our first Toddler Time will be focused on historical music, instruments, and rhythms. Our small friends will have the opportunity to see, touch, and hear historical instruments, while also having the chance to make and play their own! *Please be advised that this program will be loud and may affect friends who are sensitive to noise.
January 24, 2026: Our second Toddler Time will be focused on historical games. We’ll play games from different cultures and learn how old some of the games we still play today are.
February 14, 2026: Our third Toddler Time will be focused on historical cooking, recipes, and food. Your child will have the chance to see and feel historical cookware and make a historical recipe to bake at home!
February 28, 2026: Our fourth Toddler Time will be focused on chores and the roles children played in the past. Sweeping, carrying water, and helping around the house were a big part of life.
March 7, 2026: Our fifth Toddler Time will be focused on plants and how important a kitchen garden was to all of the cultures we talk about. Your child will get to see, touch, and smell different herbs and plants and even plant their own to take home!
March 21, 2026: Our final Toddler Time will be focused on the animals of the Frontier Culture Museum! Your child will have the opportunity to meet some of the critters who make their home at the FCM and make a puppet in honor of their favorite new friend.
Recommended Age
Toddler Time is designed for children ages 18 months to 4 years. Activities are tailored to this age group to ensure a safe, engaging, and developmentally appropriate experience.
Parent Participation
Because space is limited, we ask that one parent accompany every two children. This helps us welcome as many toddlers as possible while keeping the environment comfortable and enjoyable for all.
Each week there will be two sessions, one at 10:00 AM and one at 11:00 AM. The cost per child is $3, and adults are $5 and includes admission into the museum after the program. The toddler time program is included in the annual pass. Tickets are on sale now: https://frontierculturemuseum.shop.koronaevent.com/en/offers/t437.
