Ligonier Valley Historical Society looks to revive tours, programs at Kinsey Museum

A Ligonier Township museum that preserves a pioneer family’s legacy is getting a new lease on life through a partnership with a local historical society.

Officials with the Ligonier Valley Historical Society, which operates Laughlintown’s historic Compass Inn, announced last week they have finalized an affiliation with the Kinsey Museum in the village of Waterford.

Historical society Executive Director Theresa Gay Rohall explained a separate nonprofit board of directors will continue to oversee the museum while the society takes over administration of the four-building complex at Route 271 and Nature Run Road.

Gaining nonprofit status in August 1971, the museum was developed by descendants of Jacob and Elizabeth Kemp Kinsey, German immigrants who settled in Bedford County in 1795 and sent out branches of their family tree to the Ligonier Valley of Westmoreland County and to multiple states over the ensuing centuries.

The museum preserves Kinsey family heirlooms and artifacts, including a chest the couple brought with them from Germany. Items are displayed in buildings relocated from other sites, including a main log house that is said to have once served as a country schoolhouse. A building that previously housed a cobbler’s shop for members of the family was moved from a spot elsewhere in Waterford.

The buildings and the items they house tell the story of a Western Pennsylvania pioneer homestead between 1800 and 1840.

“They’re all about daily life back then, really showing the types of chores that the family did in order to make a go of it here,” Rohall said. “There wasn’t a lot of civilization out this way.”

Kinsey made his living by fashioning such household items as chairs and spinning wheels — examples of which are included in the museum collection, along with a foot-powered lathe and a beehive oven, Rohall said.

Members of the Kinsey family, who still gather locally for an annual reunion, have volunteered to staff and manage the museum through the years. The buildings have been maintained, including recent installation of new roofing, but it has been years since the museum offered tours and public programs to demonstrate traditional methods of baking bread and making apple butter.

“They’ve never had any paid staff. It’s been all volunteers from the family,” Rohall said. “They’ve done a great job, but they are all getting older and there’s not a generation coming behind them with an interest in taking over.”

The affiliation agreement has been in development since 2017, as historical society officials have met with museum board members, including Kinsey descendant Roger West, who operates Waterford Tooling near the museum. Members of the society and museum boards are planning to meet at the museum at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 26 for a brief program including official signing of the agreement.

“It’s a neglected thing, but I think it’s going to be salvaged,” West said of the museum operations.

Rohall said the society will take over bookkeeping for the museum and plans to digitize the meticulous hand-written records the Kinsey descendants have kept regarding artifacts.

Officials are working to develop a 2020 tour and program schedule for the museum. In the meantime, anyone wanting to make an appointment for a museum tour should contact the historical society at 724-238-6818.