The James Madison Museum Of Orange County, VA

Did you know there is a James Madison Museum in addition to the James Madison home Montpelier? Well, there is and it’s a gem of a place to visit! The James Madison Museum of Orange County Heritage (its formal name) is just 5 miles away from the historic home of the aforementioned 4th president of the United States James Madison and it is definitely worth time on your agenda to visit. That’s Orange County, Virginia in case you missed it!

The Museum consists of 3 parts: the actual James and Dolly Madison display area upstairs, the Arjalon Price House downstairs, and a cool gift shop and bookstore nestled in the front of the building across from the reception desk. I visited the James Madison Museum on July 3rd, 2018.

The folks there are friendly and there are a ton of cool artifacts that you can see on display that you will not get to see at Montpelier – this almost makes it a requirement to visit this museum! The Madison Museum is also worth it because it is self-guided with the option of having extremely knowledgeable and friendly staff escort you around if you so desire. I learned a lot from the tutelage of the docents there! My advice: ask them questions because you will get many of the stories beyond what the display placards will tell you.

The museum is air-conditioned and you can poke around the displays at your leisure. With the exception of a few items encased in protective glass, there is basically nothing corded off like at Montpelier so you can really get up close and personal with all of the history associated with the life of James Madison.

This is what makes it so much more of a personal experience: the ability to openly talk about the objects with your family; spend as much time as you like with each of those objects, there’s no assigned tour guide shoving you off into the next room to keep his/her tour schedule; the option to have either a guided audio tour or to simply ask a docent any question you like.

Downstairs, below the Madison Museum, is a separate display center featuring a historic home build in 1733 called the Arjalon Price House. This is a super-duper cool two-story log cabin in its original state, complete with original, period-correct pieces surrounding the home. You can get right up to it and touch the exterior if you like! There’s a photo of it in the slideshow below.

The other nifty part of the James Madison Museum is the gift shop and bookstore. As a #booknerd I just loved the offerings in this store and I came away with a few books including Dear Old Ellwood: A Home In The Wilderness by Carolyn Jones Elstner and Katherine Porter Clark. Check out all the books I purchased on my Virginia tour!

SOURCE: All photographs in this slideshow are displayed courtesy of the James Madison Museum of Orange County Heritage with permission. Please visit their official website for more information (https://www.thejamesmadisonmuseum.net/).

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