Woodsmen’s Festival, Saturday, October 4th 2014
Additional Information
The Woodsmen’s Festival will be held on Saturday October 4th from 10AM - 5PM at Hanford Mills Museum. Children 12 and under receive free admission. Admission for adults and teens is $9, for seniors, $7. AAA and other discounts available. Museum members receive free admission. Free parking.
The fall festival celebrates the many ways people use and work with wood. Featuring demonstrations of lumberjack skills, horse-drawn logging, log hewing, and woodworking, the Festival also includes BBQ, music by Bourbon & Branch, and tours of the water-powered sawmill, gristmill and woodworking shop.
The Woodsmen’s Club from the SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill returns to Hanford Mills and will demonstrate cross-cut sawing, overhand and underhand chop, ax throwing and other lumberjack skills.
Seth Finch will show how horses were used in logging. Exhibitors include Bovina Brown Bats, Simple Integrity, and Wightman Lumber. Historic cooking demonstrations will be taking place in the John Hanford Farmhouse, where visitors also can learn more about home life in the 1920s. Tickled Pink BBQ will offer BBQ sandwiches, soda and snacks.
Visitors can enjoy music by Bourbon & Branch, a Cooperstown-based band that blends rock, blues, country, and folk and crosses generations of music history—from Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie to Wilco and the Decemberists. Bourbon & Branch is Will Green (bass, vocals), Tim Iversen (keyboards, accordion), Will Walker (guitar, vocals), Amar Sastry (lead guitar), and Tom Baron (guitar, vocals).
The Woodsmen’s Festival also features children’s activities, like making corn husk dolls. The Museum’s gift shop will be open, offering Mill-made crafts, traditional toys, sweets, books and local products.
In addition to the “Rural Genius” exhibit, visitors can view “Planting Wildness: Finding Roots in Delaware County.” The exhibit includes mixed media artworks, photographs, an accompanying video by Bertha Rogers and Jack Schluep, and logging artifacts from the Museum’s collection. Bertha Rogers will discuss her exhibit and her experience converting an old farm to a forested area rich with wildlife at a reception from 2:00-4:00 pm.
"This Festival celebrates wood as a natural resource, and the people who work with wood, including woodworkers, lumberjacks, craftspeople, millers, and builders. Since 1846, people have used water-power on this site to convert logs to lumber, and many other wood products,” says Hanford Mills executive director Liz Callahan. “Bertha Rogers' exhibit ‘Planting Wildness’ is a great addition to the Festival, because it highlights the importance of tree planting and sustainable practices." She noted that this event is especially popular with families, and that all children 12 and under receive free admission.
The Festival runs 10 am - 5 pm on Saturday, October 4th.
Admission
Children 12 and under receive free admission. Admission for adults and teens is $9, for seniors, $7. AAA and other discounts available. Museum members receive free admission. Free parking.
About Hanford Mills Museum
Hanford Mills Museum operates an authentic water- and steam-powered historic site. The mission of Hanford Mills Museum is to inspire audiences of all ages to explore connections among energy, technology, natural resources and entrepreneurship in rural communities with a focus on sustainable choices. The Museum, which is listed on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places, is open Wednesdays through Sundays through October 15.
Hanford Mills Museum is located at 51 County Highway 12 in East Meredith, at the intersection of Delaware County Routes 10 & 12, just 10 miles from Oneonta, and 15 miles from Delhi. For more information, visit www.hanfordmills.org or call 607.278.5744.