Over the years, we have put together some interesting, historically accurate stories that we tell to our guests. Robin Wormser, a teacher at Williams Elementary School in Jonesville found out about our entertaining tales and asked if we would be willing to take on the entire 4th grade and give them a tour of the house and tell them about life in Jonesville back in the mid 1800’s. We agreed.
Upon discovering that there are generally over 100 kids in fourth grade, we decided that they would need to be split up into groups of 20-30 for this annual field trip.
Depending on time constraints, we offer a 30 minutes to one hour tour. We talk about Benaiah Jones, the founder of Jonesville and George Munro, an early pioneer, entrepreneur, and the original owner of our house. We show them the differences between our original Salt Box house and the new addition that is Greek Revival style.
We tell stories about settlers moving west along the Sauk Trail and how they picked places to settle. We talk about runaway slaves folowing the Underground Railroad to Canada and how they found out the the Munro House was a safe haven.
We take them into what is left of our tunnel. We have pictures of a secret room in our house where it is alleged that over 400 runaway slaves hid for at least one day on their trek to freedom.
We enjoy interacting with the children and providing them with an informative and interesting field trip. This year, we had 4 groups of about 30 kids (plus chaperones) tour our house over 3 days. We arrange a day and time and eagerly await their arrival. We give a quality, informative, and fun tour of our great old house. Any group is welcome to contact us and arrange for a private tour at a mutually agreed upon day and time.
Mike Venturini – Innkeeper
“Life is good in Jonesville”
