There are jobs we chose and some that seem to choose us. For Joseph Merli, it's the latter.
"I'm just a history buff, love recreating history," said Joseph Merli, from Duanesburg. "If it doesn't have belts, grease and oil I'm really not interested."
He is compelled to put pieces of our past back together.
"I'm proud to have been left behind," said Merli.
It started as a business where he makes wagons and push carts from the turn of the century. But with that page in history underway, he decided it was time for something more.
In the late 1990's he built a full size replica of an old general store. He based it on the Wallace Armer Hardware Company from Schenectady. Much of what is inside came from the original, auctioned off when it closed.
"The floor is from Wallace Armer, it's from a shelf," said Merli.
"It's a museum to recognize how America became the great American dream," he said.
That is a dream he learned about growing up.
"It's really dedicated to my parents which are pioneers of the ma and pa business," he said.
They built and opened their own businesses in the 1940's.
"If you don't follow your dreams what's the sense," said Merli.
His dream, the museum, is growing beyond the store.
"This is a Delaware and Hudson tool shed from 1900," said Merli as he pointed to a building on his property.
He also has a train he saved and the 9 and 20 Diner from Castleton, New York.
He has given all those pieces of history a new home, rescuing pieces of our past that time would have destroyed.
It has grown so much it is almost like a little town. In fact he calls it the Canal Street Station Village.
"You've built yourself a book and you've taken all the pictures which are parts and pieces of a collection and you've put them into a time frame," said Merli.
Not just a book of where we have been, but as Merli says, also a guide for what we have yet to do.
"Walt Disney said the backbone of American future will be built on our past history it's a very good saying because you need to know where we got our roots from so we can move ahead," he said.
Merli says the project has received a lot of community help. People have donated time, equipment and have helped move the big pieces of history he has collected.
