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Florence B. Dearing, in whose honor the museum was named, served as the librarian for Cromaine Library for 26 years, beginning in 1934. She began collecting for the museum in the fall of 1958 when the Hartland Consolidated Schools no longer needed the library basement for classrooms. At that time Mrs. Dearing sent out a call to the community asking for the donation of local historical items. Her aim was to preserve and exhibit the relics of rural home and farm life from the Hartland area for school children as well as adults and the generations to come. The museum was opened to the public in 1959 with a major part of the collections coming from the home of Seth and Mae Dexter whose farm on U.S. 23 had been sold to the state highway department.
The Hartland Board of Education voted unanimously in 1960 to rename the museum in honor of Mrs. Dearing in her final year at Cromaine Library.
