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 Todd Wetherington | Daily Herald Olivia Kidd, left, and her sister Hailey teamed up to try their hand at plastic fish wrangling during Saturday's Roanoke Canal Festival. |
Though the museum was competing with other local events on the crisp, sunny day, Manager Harold Jacobson and Historic Interpretor Ginger Phipps were pleased with the turnout.
Cindy Manning of Roanoke Rapids visited the museum with her husband, Bruce, and grandson Jackson Wright. The family arrived with their friend, Michelle Clark of Raleigh, and her three children.
The children enjoyed a magnetic fishing game in the children's area of the museum, as well as a computerized demonstration on the canal locks.
Visitors had a variety of activities to choose from, such as guided trail walks and booths highlighting such industries and businesses as the textile and paper mills, Dominion Power Company and Sylvan Heights Waterfowl and Eco Center.
Outside, Steve and Carolyn Ciccarello provided demonstrations of stonecutting and quilting.
Buddy and Jean High of Valentines, Va., represented the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and even dressed the part.
Buddy High constructed a 42-foot-long wooden batteau four years ago. In their heyday, there were usually between 1,500 and 2,000 batteaus on the James River at any given time. He has donated the batteau - which would have been used for shipping merchandise along the canals - to the museum, and hopes to build a new one for himself this winter. The batteau is fully functional, and has been successful on the water.
“It's got 500 miles on it, on the James River from Lynchburg to Richmond,” said High, who is chairman of the James River Batteau Festival and president of the Virginia Canal and Navigation Society.
He also displayed tobacco and a grading table used to sort each leaf by quality.
Jean High stitched a muslin tunic, and explained that during the early 1800s, people tried to get as much use as they could out of their clothes. The tunic, appropriate for a 4-year-old boy, could double as a nightshirt.
The Highs enjoy educating people, particularly children, on the pieces of history that deeply interest them. They participate in numerous events in order to reach as many people as possible.
“It's interesting to do stuff like this,” Jean High said, “because there's a lot of stuff that you never read about or see unless you go to places like this.”
Children also enjoyed arts and crafts and face painting by Rainbow Rescue, a local rescue organization for homeless and abused animals.
The climbing wall seemed to be particularly popular, and Trace Oglesby of Roanoke Rapids tried to convince his mother, Judy, to let him give it a try. Trace, a third-grader, said his favorite activity so far had been making a “leaf man” arts and crafts project. Oglesby said her son also liked to “stop and read everything” in the museum.
Jacobson said the community was extremely supportive of the celebration, and the museum received many donations. This year's event was about the same size as last year's, he explained, because there are currently some big projects in the works. The museum will nearly double in size, adding new displays on hydroelectric power and batteaux in the basement next summer.
“Next year, depending on how all the construction and stuff goes, we'd like to make (the celebration) much bigger, much broader,” he said.
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