Mercer Museum
National Historic Landmark · Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Henry Chapman Mercer's second poured-concrete castle, finished in 1916 a mile from the first, built to hold the roughly fifty thousand pre-industrial American tools and objects he had spent twenty years collecting because he could see that machine production was about to make them all disappear. The display method is the point: rather than cases, the objects hang from the walls and ceilings of a six-storey central atrium — a whale boat, a Conestoga wagon, a cider press and a gallows suspended overhead, with alcoves off each gallery arranged by trade. It is the largest collection of early American hand tools anywhere and it looks like nothing else.
84 South Pine Street, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 18901, United States
Open most days, generally 10 AM to 5 PM, closed at least one day a week and on major holidays. Self-guided, with docent-led tours at posted times. Combination tickets with Fonthill Castle are sold; Fonthill requires a timed guided-tour booking and this museum does not.