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Mercer Museum
A castle filled with pre industrial tools and artifacts
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Mercer Museum
Photo by Milton Rutherford
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Other Information
Open daily
Insider Tip
Don’t miss the old cigar-store statues dotted around the museum; you'll see not only Native Americans, but Buffalo Bill Cody, too.
Great Kids' stuff
There are stations on the many levels of the museum that allow kids to try on Colonial clothes, build a Lincoln Log house, create tile rubbings and drive a team of horses.
The Experience
This towering castle, an imposing landmark in otherwise low-rise Doylestown, shelters a museum where the mundane becomes fascinating. Each themed room winding up the castle stairs has dramatic displays of tools, folk art and articles used in everyday life in early America — before mechanization.
Every craft is represented: there are cobblers’ tools and log sleds, leatherworking hammers and threshing machines, tinsmithing wares and a vast room of horn and tortoise-shell works. The more than 40,000 items are packed floor to ceiling; in fact, many hang from the ceiling of the four-story central court, including a Conestoga wagon, whaling boat and antique fire engine.
History
Mercer built a museum in 1916 to contain his collection of everyday tools and artifacts associated with preindustrial trades, crafts, agriculture and domestic work. Mercer wanted to make sure that progress didn’t wipe out evidence of America’s early productivity.
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