Walking through the Hale Farm and Village, visitors can hear the clanging of a blacksmith's hammer, feel the heat of a glassblower's kiln, and smell freshly cut timber from a woodworker's shop. The Hale Farm and Village is a living outdoor history museum that educates visitors about daily life in the nineteenth-century Western Reserve. The farm and village contain a collection of restored structures, including a church, log schoolhouse, law office, and several craft shops. In 1957, the Western Reserve Historical Society received the Hale Farm as a donation from Clara Belle Ritchie, the great-granddaughter of the farm's first owner Jonathan Hale. In the 1950s, the farm consisted of an 1825 brick home and surrounding outbuildings. Rather than risk the loss of her family's home and history, Ritchie offered the property to the WRHS on the condition that the society preserve the farm as a museum dedicated to local history.

Together, the Hale farm house and village testify to the nineteenth-century Western Reserve experience. At the farm house, visitors learn about the personal struggles and triumphs of Jonathan Hale and his family. The surrounding village presents additional aspects of life in the 1800s, including different forms of civic and religious participation. The church, for example, illustrates the importance of religion in the daily lives of Cuyahoga Valley settlers, while the land office teaches visitors about the area's immigration and financial history. Unlike the historic villages of Old Salem and Williamsburg, the Hale Farm and Village is a conglomeration of buildings moved to the site to represent significant elements in public and private nineteenth-century life.

In the later twentieth century, historians and history museum educators became increasingly concerned with representing the lives of ordinary people, rather than exclusively the rich, powerful, or famous. Museums like the Hale Farm and Village exemplify this more recent approach to history, which justified the preservation of a home and property that represented neither a grand form of architecture, nor the site of a famous man. The Hale Farm and Village, instead, emphasizes the interpretation and recreation of daily life, including family and community.

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In the southwestern Cuyahoga Valley sits a tall red brick house on over 140 acres of the Hale Farm and Village. Now a tourist destination and educational trip for school groups, the Hale Farm provides a window into 19th century valley farm life. Jonathan Hale arrived in the Western Reserve from Connecticut in 1810 to begin a new life of hard work and dedication to his farm. In 1824, Jonathan and his sons began laying each brick of the famous home, an architectural landmark in the Cuyahoga Valley.

Jonathan's son Andrew Hale, who inherited the farm after his father's death, increased the Hale Farm's size and productivity. Based on market demands, Andrew developed specialized farming practices, which included commercial orchards and dairy products.

The third generation to own and operate the Hale Farm, Andrew's son Charles Oviatt (C.O.) Hale (1884-1938), was a farmer in name only. Part of the newer generation of "gentlemen farmers," C.O. Hale transformed the farm into an inn and recreational retreat for friends and visitors. Hiring local families to work on his land, C.O. Hale oversaw the labor and production of fruits and vegetables, hay, and maple syrup.

In the 1930s, the great-granddaughter of Jonathan Hale and C.O. Hale's niece, Clara Belle Ritchie, inherited the farm. A business woman with a strong interest in the investment-value of the farm, Clara Belle supervised the farm's restoration and donation to the Western Reserve Historical Society. Visitors to the farm today experience a living history museum that features reenactments, crafts, and historical interpreters to educate about Western Reserve farm life in the 1800s.

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