Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990 TAG: 9006040007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Organizers of next week's Montgomery County Historic Festival hope to answer those questions by peeling away the decades back to the 1700s and 1800s.
"We're keeping the festival as authentic as possible," said Blacksburg special events coordinator Stephanie Thomas.
This year, the town is combining its Smithfield Plantation Days with the county's historic festival June 9.
But festival-goers won't find the arts and crafts for sale as in years past. Instead, they'll see exhibitors in period costume making black gunpowder, fiddles and dulcimers, shingles, quilts, barrels and baskets. They'll see blacksmithing, sheep shearing and wool spinning.
And visitors will get a chance to try their hand at these lost arts.
"I want them to understand more about their heritage . . . and realize the time and effort that went into just everyday living," Thomas said. "And have fun doing it."
Hence, the festival is designed to educate, not simply entertain, people. Planners have worked since December to organize the new and improved historic festival, even bringing in a few out-of-state exhibitors.
There'll be storytelling, puppet shows, pony wagon rides, live old-time music and basket weaving classes - all at the Smithfield Plantation on campus.
The festival also includes a tour of historic buildings in Ellett and North Fork valleys, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.
A highlights in the plantation house will be the new paint job, which reflects the original colors in the 216-year-old building. "I think they're lovely," said Grace Shackelford, president of the Montgomery County branch of the Association for Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which owns Smithfield Plantation.
Last fall, a paint research expert from Baltimore took samples from the house. Using new chemical, microscopic and photoscopic techniques, he was able to determine the original pigmentation under three coats of paint and varnish.
Homeowners in the 1700s liked more vivid colors than was previously thought. Many of the colors in the Smithfield house are hues of Prussian blue, a bright blue which was the first synthesized chemical paint, not based in earthen materials, Shackelford said.
Those colors are now adorning the woodwork in the house.
Another interesting tidbit concerns the log cabin directly next to the plantation house.
Shackelford said that when William Preston, who built Smithfield, died, the land was divided up for inheritance. Some of his log cabins were moved to different farms.
A couple centuries later, in the early 1970s, a Blacksburg doctor whose hobby was archaeology uncovered the foundation for a log cabin next to the Preston house.
Soon afterward, an adjacent farm owner gave a log cabin to the preservation association. Turns out the logs were numbered and they fit perfectly atop the old foundation.
However, it has not been determined whether the cabin is the same one that was built there originally, Shackelford said. Once a chimney and windows are put in, the group will turn the cabin into a textile museum.
Tickets for the historic festival are $6 that day, $5.50 in advance. They may be purchased at Smithfield, Montgomery County and Blacksburg parks and recreation departments, Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce, Blacksburg and Christiansburg Junior Woman's clubs and Valley Pike Inn. For more information, call 951-1135.
by CNB