| Highlights of the 2015 Autumn Gathering Saturday, October 24th This fall's Autumn Gathering was the largest we've held, with about 175 visitors. We were blessed with weather that was overcast but pleasant. In the Grange Hall we had an Artisan Craft Fair - handmade goods by local people. At the museum we chose Indian corn or maize as a theme. This is the Native American grain that truly saved the lives of the early English colonists, and was grown on most New England farms until around 1900. In the kitchen, hearth cook Lynn Cullity made Johnny cakes, or "journey cakes", a simple fried corn cake. Visitors got to sample the cakes with butter being made on the spot by Cassie Klupast. Outdoors, John Cullity had a display of several kinds of flint corn that he had grown, and a photo display of 17th century Cape Cod grist mills. He also demonstrated a sapling mill - a mortar and pestle that used a white oak sapling as a spring to lift the 18 pound granite pestle. This piece was replicated by stone artist Dave Campbell, based on a broken Native American artifact his uncle, John D. White had found near Hoxie Pond in the 1960s. Peter Thomas made the mortar out a chunk of locust wood. It made a great "hands-on" exhibit. This type of mill was also used by colonists until water and wind-powered grist mills became available.
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The sapling mill produces a coarse meal very
similar to grits.
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Cassie Kuplast made butter.
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| Stephanie Kuplast made corn husk dolls. |
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| Archaeologist Dave Wheelock interpreted artifacts found under the floor of the west parlor during restoration. |
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| At the Artisan Craft Fair |
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