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MILLTOWN PRIMITIVES, LLC
A Shop that Captures the Essence of a Simpler Time

By Annice Bradley Rockwell and Robin Rock

Sitting alongside Route 2 in rural North Stonington, in a building that for years housed Frank's Trading Post, Milltown Primitives, LLC has put together a collection of six rooms fully decorated to represent the feel of an eighteenth-century home. This shop features primitive antiques and quality reproductions artfully displayed in a setting complete with the ambiance of aged walls, simple yet sophisticated vignettes, early lighting and colonial music. Whether you have an early home or wish to recreate a setting of a much simpler time, Milltown Primitives will captivate and inspire.

THE TAVERN
The tavern at Milltown Primitives, LLC features a cage bar filled with blown tavern glasses, early kegs and taps and early lighting to recreate the mood of the 1700s. Early ladderback chairs surround tap tables set for two with pewter, early hogscraper candlesticks and tavern smalls. Early oil portraits are hung over a mantel containing pewter chargers and redware. Hanging cupboards and a pewter cupboard contain a varied selection of early pewter, leather bound books, clay pipes and powder horns.

THE KEEPING ROOM

Early cupboards and open shelves ‘keep’ what one would have needed in an early home. Housed in these cupboards are early treen, such as mortars and pestles, wooden trenchers, chopping bowls and dough boards. A work table that is set with early stoneware stands near the hearth which contains antique iron pots, kettles, grid irons, toasters and punched tin footwarmers. A dry sink is filled with several fine examples of man’s first receptacle: the bowl. Primitive bucket benches stand filled with sturdy firkins in early paint, primitive buckets and open crocks.
The other end of the keeping room features a display dedicated to women’s work in the eighteenth century. A spinning wheel is beautifully surrounded by both early American splint work and Indian baskets filled with local yarns and wools, nitty notties, wool combs and flax rakes. Yarn winders and needlework complete this setting of utilitarian essentials—everything a woman needed for keeping house.

THE BUTTERY
The buttery off of the keeping room is set as it would have been in the 1700s as an area for putting by. Buttery shelving houses early salt-glazed crocks and jugs, flour barrels, fruit jars, tin ware of all shapes and forms, butter churns, dried strings of fruits and vegetables and pantry boxes intended to store goods throughout the year.

THE BEDCHAMBER
The windowed bedchamber features a hand-painted mural by a local artist and a pencil post bedstead covered in reproduction woven coverlets. An early rocking cradle in original red wash is home to a primitive doll. Early drying racks are adorned with early coverlets, bonnets and reproduction homespun clothing. An early washstand and blanket box in early red complete the chamber setting.

THE LEAN-TO
The lean-to area of the shop contains early benches, antique work tools and laundry antiques such as large early baskets, wash sticks and scrub boards. Cupboards are filled with early decoys, candle molds, butter stamps, gourds, knife boxes and early carriers. Items for indoor and outdoor use are also found here and include patriotic Betsy Ross flags, bee skeps and other seasonal touches.

Milltown Primitives, LLC, with its fully decorated rooms, will leave you feeling inspired with ideas and a deeper knowledge of history to enhance or recreate your own home with pieces from a much simpler time. In addition to their beauty, form and value, antiques remind us that part of the reason they endured the test of time is for us to continue to care for them, enjoy them and feel more fulfilled knowing that we are all keepers of the past.

Annice Bradley Rockwell is an educator, a writer and owner of Pomfret Antiques

Robin Rock is the owner of Milltown Primitives, LLC

MILLTOWN PRIMITIVES, LLC
387 Norwich Waverly Road · Stonington, CT 06359
860-535-1776 · milltownprimitivesshop.com
"Featuring Primitive Reproductions and Antiques"