The Mellon Homestead

He was born in this house in February, 1813, and it remained his home until 1818. When Thomas Mellon was five years of age, he emigrated to Pennsylvania with his parents.

The Ulster American Folk Park was developed around this cottage - also known as the Mellon Homestead or Camphill Cottage. The house you see at the Ulster American Folk Park is the one that Thomas Mellon was born in.

In Thomas Mellon's memoir Thomas Mellon and His Times, the house is described in great detail. 

The Mellon Homestead is a low, one-story stone building about thirty-six feet long by eighteen feet wide. There is a chimney in one end, two windows and a door in the front, with two windows in the back. The house is divided into two apartments by a partition. Thomas Mellon's bedroom was in the back of the cottage, where there was a niche in the wall, also called an outset.

In the front room, there was a great open fireplace, with a chimney that projected six feet above the hearth. It was wide enough to receive all the smoke that would arise from the fire.

A stable and small orchard surround the cottage, and you can still see the River Brae which is mentioned in Thomas' book. 

The Mellon Homestead is a living building - there are ducks and hens in the yard and soda bread on the griddle - just as it was in the 19th century.

The Mellon Family and Slavery

Thomas Mellon’s uncle William enslaved people on his cotton plantation in Mississippi. His mother-in-law’s father, Conrad Winebiddle also enslaved people. Six enslaved people were recorded in Winebiddle’s will of 1795 – Jacob, his wife Nell and their daughter Poll, as well as a second enslaved couple and their child. Although Thomas Mellon himself was not an enslaver, his memoirs suggest an ambivalent attitude to slavery which was shared by many Ulster migrants at the time.