News
Release:
What: Heritage Day 2004
When: September 11th, 2004
Where: Southampton Agriculture and Forestry
Museum / Heritage Village
Heritage
Day 2004 will be Saturday, September 11, 2004,
9:30 - 4:00 pm. Sponsored by the Southampton
County Historical Society, events will take
place at the Southampton Agriculture and Forestry
Museum / Heritage Village on Heritage Lane and
at the Rochelle-Prince House on Main St., both
in Courtland, VA. Admission is $2 for adults
and $1 for school age children.
Crafts people from Virginia and North Carolina,
many in period costumes, will demonstrate old
crafts, with craft items for sale. Lunch will
be for sale on the grounds. BBQ, hot dogs, snacks,
and soft drinks will be available.
Visitors can sign up to participate in numerous
old timey games, such as horseshoes, sack races,
wheelbarrow races, tug of war, and egg races,
as well as hog calling and husband / wife calling.
Ken Christison will be demonstrating the art
of making sorghum molasses. Gasoline engines
will be running at times throughout the day.
Other special demonstrations include wood carving,
basket making, chair caning, spinning, and various
types of needlework. Dulcimer music can be heard
throughout the day. Some of the other crafts
expected include lye soap making, seagrass stool
bottoms, rush chair bottoms, butter making,
hominy making, cracklings and lard rendering,
crocheting, split oak, Williamsburg, and farm
basket making, fur handling and tanning, quilting,
whittling and wood working, painted items, folk
art, painted pumpkins and gourds, rug weaving
on a circa 1920 loom, and broom making, to name
just a few.
Activities throughout the day include corn shucking
and shelling, bee keeping, washboard washing
of clothes, operation of the grist mill grinding
meal, running of the diesel engine, and viewing
the area from atop the fire tower. Antique cars
and tractors will be on display. Herbs and other
plants will be for sale.
In addition, the 1920's Ground Sawmill and planing
mill at the Agriculture and Forestry Museum,
always a crowd pleaser, will be in operation
several times during the day. A blacksmith will
exhibit his skills in the blacksmith shop throughout
the day.
Have you ever seen peanuts being harvested by
an old timey picker? Be present at 2:45 for
this attraction.
A Petting Zoo in an old pig sty will be provided
for children to enjoy. Smokey the Bear will
visit, and there will be hay rides, face painting,
wheel barrow rides, baby chicks hatching, and
a hen house of bantam chickens. Story-telling
will take place in the one-room school at 11
am, 1, and 3 pm.
Confederate re-enactors will be practicing the
art of rope making and welcome help from young
visitors.
Iron Gate Miniature Horse Photography will have
miniature horses for kids to see and will provide
photographs at reasonable prices of children
posed in cowboy hats and vests or other outfits
with a horse.
Entertainment will include "Shilo Grass",
a local blue grass band, at 11:30 am as well
as a well-known local gospel group, Raccoon
Swamp Boys, at 3:00 pm.
The Rochelle-Prince House will feature a very
nice exhibit of Old Time Spinning and Weaving.
A shuttle van will provide transportation to
and from the Ag & Forestry Museum to the
Rochelle-Prince House
In addition to all the special activities, visitors
are welcome to tour the Agriculture & Forestry
Museum and all of its outbuildings and Heritage
Village, which includes a country store, one
room school, country dwelling, doctor?s office,
old post office, and two outhouses, among other
buildings.
This event promises to provide a wholesome and
fun outing for the whole family. Visitors will
see how the older generations lives, how hard
they worked to make a living, and how they made
the items in their homes and on the farm.
For more information, feel free to contact me,
Lynda Updike at 757-654-6785 or at updikes@earthlink.net
or at 33335 Statesville Rd., Newsoms, VA 23874.
To find out more about the Southampton County
Historical Society, the Ag & Forestry Museum
& the Rochelle-Prince House, please visit
our web site at http://rootsweb.com/~vaschs/
. To see additional photos of past events, at
this web site simply scroll down to find them.
Click
here to print a PDF of this release
Click
here to print a PDF of the Heritage Day 2004
Flyer
