Farm Museum at Hazel Dell - Jersey County, Illinois

The Fulkerson Mansion & Farm Museum
Jerseyville, Illinois

The Farm Museum

The Farm Museum at Hazel Dell contains many rare agricultural items and equipment. There is a special emphasis on large, rare farm steam traction engines, utilized for plowing the prairie, threshing the grain, and powering the early sawmills. Historical Steam and Living History owns some of the equipment but many of the pieces are owned by other collectors and kept at Hazel Dell. One such example is a rare 1922 Model H Rumely oil pull tractor owned by Duane Selby of Sullivan, IL. This is one of a few surviving models of a tractor that has oil in its cooling system instead of water.

The Museum features many Reeves steam engines, and plows. A new addition to the museum is a 1934 Diamond T ton-and-a-half truck, known as the Cadillac truck of its time. These trucks were built especially for the farm, and you could put whatever kind of bed you needed on the back of the truck.

While the display of agricultural machinery, equipment, and memorabilia is extensive, the display becomes much larger during the annual Jersey County Victorian Festival. Held annually during Labor Day weekend, the Festival is the official event of the ILL-MO Tractor and Engine Club. During this event antique tractor enthusiasts from around the country come to exhibit their pieces with many of the pieces pressed back into service by demonstrating the threshing of winter wheat using or sawing lumber.

Famous Visitors to Hazel Dell

In addition to the wealthy farmers and cattle buyers that stayed at Hazel Dell during business trips to buy livestock, Hazel Dell was also the destination of some famous 19th century Americans. The outlaw Jesse James and his gang camped behind the barn by D’Arcy’s Creek while in the area taking care of “banking business.”

(picture of Russell here ?) A frequent visitor to Hazel Dell was Cornelia’s nephew, Charles M. Russell, who later became famous throughout the country as the “Cowboy Artist.” The Colonel taught Russell to ride on the stallion Great Britain and Russell developed his love of horses while staying at Hazel Dell. Unlike many other western artists, Charles Russell lived the life of a cowboy, and fully understood their lifestyle and is credited with creating more than 2500 hundred paintings, sketches and drawings. For the most part his art dealt with the vanishing frontier in Montana in the late 19th century and portraying Native Americans accurately. Later in his life he developed an interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and produced many paintings and sculptures portraying this historical event. His largest painting ever, "Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flatheads in Ross' Hole, September 4, 1805," was painted on an entire wall of the House of Representatives in the Montana State Capitol. The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge near Lewiston Montana, consisting of over a million acres, has been designated a site on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail because it retains the same qualities that would have been experienced by the Corps of Discovery.