Pleasing turnout for 50th-anniversary fall festival at Hampton museum

A steady flow of guests visited Hampton’s Depreciation Lands Museum for Hydref, the Fall Festival & Market Faire held Oct. 7.

The influx was gratifying for Carol Greiner, president of the museum’s board, as the history-preserving site continues to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

“After last year when we got rained out this was really good to see,” Greiner said, with a thanks for all who attended.

This year’s weather cooperated, albeit with clouds and somewhat of a chill, as vendors joined visitors to help welcome autumn.

Among the vendors was Susan Michaelis, a calligrapher and blanket trader. She makes drawings of boys and girls from the 1800s and applies modern children’s names to hats and dresses within the artwork, using a genuine wild turkey feather as a pen.

“They used black walnut shells and ground it into powder to make the ink,” she said about the process behind 19th-century illustration. “Then when they were ready to write, they took out some of the powder and added a few drops of scalding hot water. They even added some soot from the fire to darken the ink if they needed to.”

Michaelis sells objects at Wagon Wheel Antiques in Valencia, where everything is at least half a century old.

Another Hydref vendor converted cornhusk into dolls for children.

When I was a little girl, maybe a teenager, my aunt used to make these dolls. She showed me how to make them,” Janet Allaman, 78, said, and she has continued the tradition for over 60 years.

“My aunt and I used to go out into the corn fields and pick the husks. Then we use acorns for the dolls’ head. It didn’t really cost us anything to make them, and then we’d sell them for a dollar or two,” she recalled.

For buyers or other makers of the dolls, she advised:

“Make sure you store them in a tin can or something hard, because the mice will come looking for those acorns.”

Hydref was filled with activities for youngsters. One 9-year-old, Julian Legler, attended the festival with grandparents Pete and Ellen Rubinsky, and he got to make his own twine jump rope.

Bob Huber of Gibsonia was running the booth with a ropewalk, a device that twists twine.

“This would have been hemp back in the 1800s but today we just use sisal, or ‘peeling twine,’” Huber said.

Youngsters used a hand-powered crank that twisted each piece of sisal into a thick piece of rope.

Huber’s other historical passion is making wooden buckets that hold liquid despite a lack of glue.

“We use pieces of wood called staves,” he said. “They are slightly recessed on one side, and they taper at the end. Each one is fit tightly together. Then steel belts are riveted on the outside.”

Historical reenactment at the museum isn’t just for adults. Sixteen-year-old Kai Edwards was dressed in 1800s attire, and he had a nifty presentation for the children as he stood in front of a replica wigwam.

“This one here is just a replica of how the Native Americans would have lived,” he said. “This was built by some local Eagle Scouts,” Edwards explained.

Edwards, a resident of Fox Chapel, has volunteered at the museum for last four years.

“I just love it here. Everyone took me in right away and it’s like one big family. We all share the same interest in history,” he said. “We are surrounded here with history by Fort Pitt and The French and Indian War and the Whiskey Rebellion. Finding a way to express my interest in this stuff has helped me to thrive as a person.”

Perhaps as no surprise, he looks forward to pursuing a career as a history teacher.

Those who look to visit the Depreciation Lands Museum before season’s end have one more opportunity, on Oct. 29.

“We do what’s called a Beggars’ Day,” Greiner said. “This is where the kids under 12 years old can come dressed in their Halloween costumes, and they get a free admission with a paying adult. Then, we have little tables set up around where the kids can use a little trade item to exchange for candy.”

For more information, visit dlmuseum.org.