Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A living history adventure
47th Annual Hay Creek Festival demonstrates life in rural industrial iron-making village
The 47th Annual Hay Creek Festival offered a three-day living history adventure on the grounds of the Joanna Furnace Ironworks, an 18th- and 19thcentury charcoal-fueled iron furnace and community in Robeson Township, Sept. 8-10.
Visitors experienced what life was like in a rural industrial iron-making village from 1791 to the 1950s.
“We love the old world charm and bucolic settings,” said Levi Landis of Mount Penn, who was visiting the festival for the first time with Lorne, 6, and Van Landis, 4, and Hannah Kern.
With almost 800 interpreters, craftsmen and volunteers, there were demonstrations of everything from a working sawmill to hands-on children’s games, activities and chores.
As children arrived, they were offered a list of chores they could complete throughout the day. If all of the tasks on the list were completed they earned a free tractorpulled wagon ride.
Completing one of the chores on his list, Samuel Crossett, 7, of Fleetwood learned how to wash clothing by hand from Izzy Wright, 17, who has been a festival volunteer for nine years.
“It’s his favorite thing here,” said Samuel’s grandmother Meg Crossett. “He likes playing in the water.”
Early American food demonstrations featured butter and sauerkraut making and other foods that were popular at the time.
First time festival volunteer Charlotte Thomas, 15, diced apples for fritters. The recipe includes apples, eggs, brown sugar, flour, water, butter and spices. No baking soda or vanilla is included; they were not commonly used in the 1700s and 1800s. The fritters are cooked on an open hearth skillet for 10 minutes on each side.
Katelyn VerMulm showed a container of Chomp, a mixture of fresh vegetables in a dressing of vinegar and brown sugar.
“The furnace workers would have eaten this after a hot, dusty day of work in the furnace,” said VerMulm.
Early American crafting offered firsthand learning.
Wool rug braider Debra Weinhold encouraged children such as Kimber Moses, 8, of Exeter Township to pull wool into strips for braiding.
“If we make a rug with wool, it will last 25 or 50 or 75 years,” said Weinhold as she snipped the wool to get the tear started, then showed how three pieces of fabric are braided and sewn together to create a rug. She can finish a rug in two to three days.
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years,” Weinhold said. “I learned it from a 90-yearold lady, Mrs. Landis.”
Aaron Martin made a baseball bat using a wood turning lathe, one of the vintage machines on display in the Mechanical Technology Building on the festival grounds. Additional machines operating in the Hay Creek Valley from 1791 to 1889 that were on display included a stone mill for grain, a 1887 Mortise machine, a milling machine, an 1850 drill press, a corn sheller and an 1830 thread lathe.
Randy Brendle explained hewing a tree trunk to Jimmy Noon, 16, and Gavin Blachford, 12.
“The whole family would help get the cabin up,” said Brendle. “From 3 years old, they might be helping score the knots.”
Civil War and World War II encampments were part of the festival experience.
“You have to understand how these men lived to really understand the horrors and the confusion of the Civil War,” said David Culp of Brecknock Township.
“You’re talking men who would literally go into blackberry patches between their lines and pick blackberries together. Men who would go and build a fire and have a hot pot of coffee going in a house for the other side when they came in.”
In early stages of the war, the soldiers on both sides wore blue, gray, green, red or white, explained Culp.
“It was their militia uniforms,” he said. “They (yniforms) didn’t become standardized until the war progressed.
“Early on in the war, soldiers were nothing more than a spear carrier, The idea was getting close to the enemy and either drive him off the field or stab him. But as the war progressed, they went to a rifled musket. Now you could fire a musket 200 yards or more. A good soldier could fire one weapon three times in a minute, and you were able to shoot the enemy down long before they got close enough to stab.”
Culp said a lot of soldiers would take their bayonets and throw them away because they were useless, but some officers insisted the soldiers still carry them, so they would stick a candle in it.
“It made a great candlestick.”
In the Joanna Furnace Mule Stable, Hay Creek Historical Association’s TriCounty Heritage Library exhibited a collection from the estate of Dr. Florence Williams of West Chester, who immersed herself in the role of women in the Civil War, adopting the living history persona of “Miss Flora.”
Having accumulated more than 40 spinning wheels, she demonstrated spinning and wool dyeing. The display included Flo’s walking wheel, period garb, a collection of 1850s-1860s Godeys & Paterson women’s books, and personal artifacts used with her 97th Pennsylvania Infantry impression.
For more information, visit www.haycreek.org.