Sitting on the edge of downtown Greenfield, Indiana, is a pretty whitewashed home with well-tended landscaping. As one passes by, signage and unique art become noticeable around the home, and one may realize it isn’t any ol’ home, rather the childhood home of legendary Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley!
On Friday, May 23rd, I returned to Greenfield, IN to take a tour of the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home with a friend—something I’ve been wanting to do and document since my initial run of downtown Greenfield. So here it is!
A note: all facts about the museum shared in this article are information I learned first-hand from a museum docent, unless noted otherwise by reference markers in the corner of sentence endings.
Acquiring A Tour
Before you can enter the JWR Boyhood Home, you must visit the Riley Museum first. The Riley Museum is next door to the Boyhood Home—if you are facing the front of the JWR Boyhood Home, the Riley Museum will be to your right (it’s the cheery yellow house).
During operating hours, the museum can generally take walk-in tours, with the exception of groups of ten or more. Luckily, I was not in a group of 10 or more!
Stepping into the Riley Museum, I was greeted by two bright, friendly ladies working there. Me and my friend were taken to the back of the museum where the register and gift shop resided so that we could pay our tour fee—we encountered the museum curator back there! The curator was lovely as well, and she was open to any questions I had about the museum.
If you’re looking for something inexpensive to do, or you’re a teacher or homeschool family looking for a field trip day, this museum is wonderfully economical: tours cost $7.00 per Adult (18+), $5.50 per person for military with ID, $5.50 per Senior (the museum website doesn’t specify what age “senior” starts at), $2.00 per child/student (ages 6-17), and children 5 and under are free1.
For more general information on the home & museum, including operating hours, check out their official webpage on the Greenfield Parks & Recreation website!
I’ve not been paid to advertise for this museum—I’m just an enthusiastic visitor!
Exterior
The James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home sits on W Main Street in Greenfield, Indiana. It’s a beautiful, fresh white building, with well-maintained landscaping and walkways that are clean and welcoming.
Along the sidewalk are signs pertaining to the museum, as well as a fun photo-op with a James Whitcomb Riley statue!
The James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home. 
The sign in front of the Riley Museum next door to the Boyhood Home (pictured in the back). 
This plaque in front of the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home details the home’s significance. 
A National Register of Historic Places plaque is affixed to a stone outside the Boyhood Home’s porch. 
Say cheese! You can take a photo sitting next to this James Whitcomb Riley statue!
As we walked from the Riley Museum to the Boyhood Home, the docent leading us said that when James Whitcomb Riley’s family lived here, they owned a great deal of land. The property used to run all the way back to 5th Street behind the house, and I didn’t quite catch what the docent said about the property width—I know at minimum she said the land extended into where the present-day Riley Museum resides next door.
Potts Ditch ran through the end of the Riley property, and the ditch is where the family drew their water from, so I might assume their property ran further than the Riley Museum width-wise down 40/Main Street in order to access the ditch before running into the W 5th Street boundary.
The James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home & Museum (bottom, red marker) vs. where 5th Street & Pott’s Ditch are (top).
Interior
The Riley Museum was surprisingly warm when we walked in, but we were greeted by air that was as chilly as the outside when we stepped inside the Boyhood Home. It was no problem for me and my friend because we were dressed for the weather, but please note the outdoor temperatures if you’re planning a visit to this museum–there is no AC and heating in the Boyhood Home, so the interior will reflect the outdoor temperature.
A docent, or Riley Home Hostess, took us room-by-room, sharing from her impressive well of knowledge about the Riley family, the function of a given room, and all items contained within each room, all from memory—no cue cards or books referenced on the job!
The way this hostess spoke and explained all that she did about the Rileys, the home itself, and life in the 19th century was deeply engaging—time passed slowly when she spoke, and I relished every moment.
And if the hostess I had is reading this: hi Miss M.!
The Riley home was built primarily by James Whitcomb Riley’s father, Reuben Andrew Riley, in the 1840s, and surely with some help from his wife and James’s mother Elizabeth Marine Riley. The Rileys lived in this Greenfield house until about 1861.
Reuben was a lawyer and Civil War veteran, and Elizabeth was a housewife who homeschooled all of her and Reuben’s children.
In total, they had six children, five of whom survived childhood, and four of whom lived into old age.
A temporary but impactful member of their company was an eleven-year-old orphan girl named Mary Alice Smith, who stayed with the Rileys for a year to help Elizabeth raise the children.
Mary was the inspiration for James Whitcomb Riley’s iconic poem “Little Orphant Annie”, which spun into the red-headed character we know today who sings “It’s A Hard Knock Life”!
The Riley house is a truly impressive construction, with plaster walls, beautiful wooden doors and trims, and fanciful wallpaper.
The walls were likely whitewashed plaster during James’s childhood, as was typical with walls in Indiana homes during that period.
The wooden components of the house—from trim, to doors, to banisters—were made with yellow poplar wood, and if anything in the home isn’t made with yellow poplar, those things were still made with local woods.
Speaking of, the flooring was all handmade as well!
The JWR Boyhood Home is filled with a mix of items and furnishings that the Rileys actually owned, and items that are replicas or period-authentic that the Rileys didn’t own during their residency but function as either a stand-in for missing pieces or as a representation of aspects of the family’s life.
As our hostess took us room-by-room, she actually took the time to point out which items were which ownership-wise! Pretty neat!
What’s most unique about the arrangement of belongings and furnishings is that nothing in the home is roped-off—you truly step inside a home, walking through the layout around tables and couches like any person living in or visiting the home would’ve done in the 19th century! This also means that one must mind where they step, as to not bump into anything.
Some items visitors may touch, but only at the indication of a Riley Home Host.
A kerosene lamp that the Rileys actually owned & used. 
A piano, circa. 1901, that was added to the home 
A knick-knack shelf that the Rileys owned. On rainy days, Elizabeth let James play with the knick-knacks on the rug of this room! 
The family room, featuring a writing desk and toys on the center table. 
A stereoscope used by the Riley children. Stereoscopes are supposed to give a 3D effect when the double-image card is viewed through the glass in the wooden viewer. 
The dining room. 
These are handmade dishes that the Rileys bought and used. 
Be sure to listen when the host explains this closet in the dining room. An absolutely hilarious story about James Whitcomb Riley and Mary Alice Smith awaits you at this part of the tour.
What’s cooking tonight? This is a 19th century stove in the kitchen! 
A water scoop from the kitchen. The Rileys drew their water from Potts Ditch, and they used this scoop to take drinking water from the buckets they’d bring back from the ditch. The scoop is made from half a coconut shell, rimmed with lead. People in the 19th century didn’t know lead was poisonous. 
Reuben Riley had an office in the home, and it included a stove to keep it nice and toasty in cold seasons. 
The edge of a spinning wheel + yarns in the home.
A trundle bed in one of the bedrooms. The top bunk is a rope bed (suspended by ropes instead of wooden boards), and the bottom bunk is a pull-out bed for young kids. 
Chamber pots can be found throughout the bedrooms. They’re like toilets for overnight relief, since 19th century families didn’t have plumbing. 
Throughout the bedrooms were dishware such as these. Due to a time constraint I had, I could only stay an hour, so my hostess kindly breezed through the rest of the tour as it came close to my departure time, and this dishware did not make the cut for room highlights. My guess is these dishes in the bedrooms were either used for face washing, or sanitization after using a chamber pot. 
A kids room. I love the running layout of this room.
Photo 2 has reference number 2.
Conclusion
I feel I’ve really only shown and told about a slice of the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home—I didn’t want to give away all the fun! There’s much more to discover for yourself in the home and museum, and the best parts are in the history and stories that the hosts tell visitors.
Touring the home is a deeply educational as well as fun experience—not only do patrons get an understanding of who James Whitcomb Riley was and what he wrote about, but you’ll walk away with a solid image of the entire Riley family, a good grasp on life in the 19th century from how this particular family worked, played, cooked, and learned; and you’ll even learn some funny stories about actual things that happened in the Riley family!
The staff at this museum are very friendly as well as engaging storytellers who seem very genuine and in-love with their work. Staff such as the ones at the Riley Museum & Boyhood Home are truly gems. A big thank you to the hosts and curator of the museum & Boyhood Home for my amazing experience!
This is a worth-while activity that’s great for a variety of ages. But take it from me: allow yourself two hours minimum to enjoy the Boyhood Home. It may be a small house compared to other museums out there, but there’s much to learn! As I referenced in a previous photo caption, I had a time constraint of an hour on the day that I visited, so I only got a detailed comprehension of 95% of the first floor and not as much about the second floor—the hostess was very accommodating when it came close to my departure time, helping me and my friend breeze through the upstairs and the final downstairs room, giving bullet points on each room’s highlights.
P.S.
Why is this article “part 1”? I haven’t covered the additional museum + giftshop in the Riley Museum next door to the Boyhood Home yet!
References
1 Greenfield Parks & Recreation. “James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home and Museum.” Greenfield Parks & Recreation,
https://parksingreenfield.com/riley-home/
Accessed 30 May 2025.
2 Saud, Javeria. “Antique Chamber Pots: What Is It & How Is It Used?” Jacqueline Rare Antique.
https://www.jacquelinestallone.com/antique-chamber-pots/
Accessed 3 June 2025.
Bonus Shoutout: Greenfield Chocolates
When I and my friend went to tour the JWR Boyhood Home, we arrived twenty minutes before the museum opened, so we killed time at Greenfield Chocolates (a four minute walk from the museum). What an amazing place! The smell of chocolate wafts out when you open the door. There was a very friendly and knowledgeable young woman working the glass cases, and the chocolates looked mouth-wateringly good.
The shop offers a large variety of flavors and styles of small individual chocolates, from straight chocolate flavors like Sweet Chocolate or Vanilla Bean to intriguing and complex chocolates like Berry Citrus Cheesecake or Snickerdoodle! You can buy as little as one chocolate or as many as a box of twenty (and I don’t say twenty was a definitive cap, but just an example)—I liked that purchase quantity was customizable.
While I couldn’t sample any chocolates myself that day, the family member I decided to surprise with chocolates from this shop reported that the chocolates were absolutely incredible.
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