If you were Jonathan Hale in 1810, you’d just walked away from everything familiar — Connecticut farms, East Coast comforts, friends who probably thought you were nuts — and trekked 646 miles into Ohio’s Western Reserve.
You arrive in Bath Township, still more wilderness than neighborhood, with two horses, a wagon, and the wide-eyed optimism of someone who hasn’t yet met an Ohio winter.
Within days, you trade your horses and wagon for… someone else’s squatter’s cabin.
Not exactly an HGTV dream home. 😅 But this was a pioneer’s gamble: rough land, big dreams, and no guarantees.
Jonathan bought the 500-acre plot sight unseen, but when he arrived, a squatter had already built a cabin. With no way to defend his claim, he ended up trading the man his horses and wagon for the land.
Nevertheless, he got to work clearing trees, planting crops, and shaping the land. By the mid-1820s, with the help of his sons he was ready to go big — building one of the only brick homes in the valley, made with clay dug right from the property.
It was three stories tall, solid, and impossible to miss if you were trudging through what would one day become The Cuyahoga Valley National Park. (See the brick house here.)
The Ohio & Erie Canal opened just as he finished it, and suddenly he had a new business: shipping bricks to Akron and beyond.
The farm stayed in Hale hands for decades, passing to Jonathan’s son Andrew, and eventually to his grandson, Charles Oviatt “C.O.” Hale. By the early 1900s, C.O. wasn’t content to just keep cows fed and fields planted. He had a vision of a gentleman’s farm — part working farm, part showplace.
He filled the property with orchards, gardens, beehives, and flowers. He even built a Sugar House in 1910, turning maple syrup season into a community event with “taffy parties” and plenty of sweet treats.
And because the man had style, he and his wife Pauline opened the Hale Inn, inviting weary Clevelanders and Akronites to escape to the countryside. Guests came for the quiet, the food, and the charm — the same reasons we still go to Bath today. 😉
Charming, just charming. 💅
When the last Hale family member to live on the farm, great-granddaughter Clara Belle Ritchie, passed away in 1956, she left the land to the Western Reserve Historical Society with a simple but powerful request: turn it into a museum so people could understand the history and culture of the Western Reserve.
By 1958, the Hale House and barn were open to the public, with early crafts and farming demonstrations for school kids and history buffs alike.
Then came the craziest part…
In the 1960s and ’70s, WRHS began moving whole 19th-century buildings from all over Northeast Ohio to the property — a church here, a law office there — until they had a full-on recreated village. They called it Wheatfield.
Today, there are more than 30 buildings, plus heritage livestock, blacksmiths, glassblowers, and costumed interpreters who make you forget there’s a Starbucks just a short drive away.
It’s honestly SO beautiful and peaceful!
Now part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Hale Farm & Village is a time machine you can walk through. You can pet sheep, watch a candle being dipped, or stand inside Jonathan Hale’s brick house and wonder what it felt like to trade a wagon for a cabin in a place where the nearest neighbor was a forest away.
If you love a peaceful drive and a little historic geeking-out, this spot’s for you. Bring the kids so they can start their history-nerd journey early. 🤓
📸 See it for yourself:
💡 Fun fact: That Sugar House C.O. built in 1910? Still standing. And every March, it smells like maple syrup and Sunday afternoons all over again.
Each week I’m featuring one weird, wonderful, or deeply underrated place in Ohio—and I’m not telling you what it is here.
You’ll have to click to find out. 😏
👉 This week’s hidden gem is one of my favorite unknown spots, and I’m honestly nervous to tell you about it because I don’t want it to get super busy, but it’s too good not to share. 😅 It’s a bit of a road trip, but trust me, it’s so worth it:
