When Asa Bement, Jr. built this house in the mid 1790’s, he was among the first settlers in Newark Valley. He brought his young family from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in the 1790’s to settle here on the banks of the east branch of Owego Creek. His 350-acre farm included tilled fields, pastures, and woodlands. Asa and Abigail Brown Bement built a saw mill, a grist mill, a blacksmith shop, and barns on their property. The mills and blacksmith shop served the needs of neighboring farms as well as his own. The Bement farmstead was one of the most prosperous in Northern Tioga County.

It had a kitchen, ante-room, pantry, bedroom, and a sleeping loft for the children. A formal parlor in the Federal style was added in the 1820’s. In 1843 Asa’s son, William, extended the house to include a second story, new parlor, and two more bedrooms on the first floor. These rooms and the exterior of the house reflect the Greek Revival style popular in the early-to-mid-1800’s. In the 1880’s the summer kitchen was added to the north end of the house.

In later years, the property was owned by the Ford family, and then the Billings family. In 1977, Mrs. Myrtie Louise Billings Hills deeded the house to the NV Historical Society to be preserved as a living history museum. In 1997 she gave us 90 acres of the original farm. Today the house is furnished as it was in the early 1800’s. Additional structures include a reconstructed blacksmith shop, the Herrick threshing barn, a wood shop, a carriage shed, and a Welcome Center.

Costumed interpreters demonstrate 19th century skills and trades such as blacksmithing, open-hearth cooking, spinning and weaving, and woodworking as they were done in Asa’s day.