A 1856 map of Townsend showed 87 Cooper Sheds across the town. A Cooper Shed was a building used in the winter by farmers who no longer could work the fields or graze their herds because the weather was too harsh.
The Copeland Cooper Shop is one of a very few remaining structures. The Copeland farm was located on Townsend Hill. The shed was moved to THS campus in 2015, where it can have a productive future and educate generations of Townsend citizens to the history of Townsend’s barrel industry.
Visitors can walk into the small confines of the Copeland Cooper Shop and imagine spending a cold winter’s day there, and better understand what work life was like in those years.
