Historic Warwick Blog: What's Happening at the Warwick Historical Society?

Friday, July 20, 2012

What's Happening at the Warwick Historical Society?

Warwick Farmers Market on Sunday, July 22, 2012, 9-2

Our blog: historicwarwickny.blogspot.com

The Warwick Historical Society will be at the Warwick Farmers' Market this Sunday presenting living history as well as sharing information about our July and August programs.

We have our 95th Annual George Washington Day Picnic in Lewis Park ( across from the Village Hall) on Saturday, July 28, 6-8PM. This is free, a "potluck" , and open to everyone; please come with your favorite food dish to share. We will have a Civil War living history scenario unfold at the park starting at 4PM until we pack up our picnic baskets at 8PM. Uniformed soldiers from the 15th New York Volunteer Calavry will set up camp replete with camp fires, tents, and saddles to share a bit of life from the War of the Great Rebellion.

On Sunday, July 29, 1-3PM and 4-6PM, and Monday, July 30, 12-2PM and 7-9PM, we will have the First Annual Orange County Silent Film Festival. The film selections can be found on the blog. Adults: $10, Under 12, $5 Per Session, 4 Sessions in All.

We are still taking camper registrations, 8-11 years old, for our Summer History Camp, August 6-10, 9AM-2PM. 5 Days of programming. The camp has a full schedule of history programming. Check out the blog for details. How do I register my child? Email us at: rpschmick1@aol.com, and we will send a registration form via email. You can fill out the registration and return it via email. Tuition: $175 per camper, siblings $150 each. Give us a call at: 845-781-3729 or 845-986-3236.

Specific Summer History Camp Programs:

Dress-up: Wear a tricorner hat or a bonnet as well as other 18th century appropriate clothing; costumes provided for the history camp experience.

Minerology: Uncover through digging all kinds of giant crystals that also fluoresce under a black light. See them light up in shades of hot pink, green, blue and yellow! Record your findings as you learn the names of the many unique minerals first discovered between 1828-1832 in Amity, New York. These crystals were collected by people from all over the world, as they sought specimens worthy of their esteemed cabinets of curiosity. The Ecoles des Mines has one of the largest collections in the world of these crystals. Take the treasures you find home with you.

Sheep Shearing: Experience a real sheep and learn how its fleece is removed by hand! We will also card wool and maybe incorporate it in our felting project.

Pottery: Coil and slab construction. Decoration with colored slips. Watch a pot being thrown on a potter's wheel.Student projects will be fired off site and made available for pick-up.
Blacksmithing: Watch a demonstration of a tomahawk being made by a real blacksmith. Handle the tools of blacksmithing. Create a cold metal project using hammer, leg vise, wrench, and an anvil. Choices will include a horseshoe nail ring or a metal bracelet/armband.

Woodworking: Campers will complete a hands-on project. They will create either a coat rack that will involve using a bit and brace, a hand coping saw, a wooden mallet, and a hand saw or saw slices of a tree log with a two-man saw. The slice of log will then be drilled with a bit and brace and a wooden dowel fitted into the hole to create a free standing paper towel holder.

Journal Writing: Campers will have many experiences, and they will record them in their sewn journals using a cartridge fountain pen. They will also be instructed on using a nib pen with ink.

Palaeontogy and Ethnobotany: Kids will do field observations from natural history presentations. Naturalist Gary Keeton will share the recent discovery of the Tuckamoose Creek Mastodon and other long-extinct mammals from the area. Gary helped exhume the second largest tusk ever recovered in New York State, and will share his experience. Kids will become vertebrate palaeontologists and palaeo/ethnobotanists for the day creating field drawings and notes about real sedge grasses, yellow pine needles and the like that remain and were part of life in Warwick 14,000 years ago or more.

Wild Animals in the Wilds of Warwick: Kids will experience some of the fauna of the region. Pelts and stuffed animals from the region will be a starting point for a talk about how animals were used as a livelihood in the past and how we should treat them now. There will be a hands on element that will include creating a fur pelt from faux fur to take home.

Mistucky Village, circa 1703: When Benjamin Aske realized the Wawayanda Patent and had local chieftain Choukhass sign on the dotted line there was a thriving, sedentary Lenni-Lenape village in what became "Warwick" in the stroke of a pen. Warwick in England was Aske's own homeplace and became the name of an original farm in our present township. Ken Hamilton, the "Woodlands Interpreter" will recreate a little of that with an authentic camp set up. In costume and character Hamilton, a professional interpreter and historic artifact artist, will share life as it was. He will lead kids in the hands-on creation of wampum and other trade objects for the purpose of an Iroquois dance that everyone will participate in. This is way cool! Parents can experience this too in an evening performance, Tuesday, August 7, 7-8:30 at the A.W. Buckbee Center.

Shadow Puppet Theatre: Looking to the 18th and 19th century historic homes under the stewardship of the Historical Society and listening to the stories of the people that once inhabited them, kids will create shadow puppets of people, buildings and tools that were integral to Early Life on the Wawayanda Creek. Kids will share their performance at the end of our Friday program for parents.

Felting: Make a wool felt project. Kids will make felt geodes out of multi-colored felt.

Sewing: With a piece of natural color wool felt kids will sew a pouch using an overlapping stitch. They will create a button hole and sew a button to clodse this pouch. Suitable as a pencil case or a gift for mom.

Games and Science Fun! Learn how to play some games from the 18th and 19th centuries. Also learn to use a block and tackle and chain fall to pick up things that weigh 5 times or more of your own weight!

Candlemaking: Make your own candles the old fashioned way.

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At our Summer History Camp this year kids will dig up crystals that fluoresce under a special black light. The crystals were actually discovered in the area as early as the 1820s and collectors from all over the United States and Europe came to the specifically places like Amity in the Town of Warwick to find these rare specimens for their museums, universities and their private collections. One of the largest off site exhibitions of these crystals is found in the Ecoles des Mines in Paris; there are over 150 samples of minerals specifically from Amity, NY in that collection which were discovered in large in the 1830s. What is interesting to imagine is that geologist and mineralogists from the greatest institutions of higher learning were traveling by horseback and carriage to the wilds of Warwick in the 1820s and 1830s to find rocks for their cabinets of curiosities.

Wawayanda Furnace ( 19th century ) the furnace that many of us remember seeing on our trips to the New Jersey State Park actually was integral to iron ore production supplied by Warwick mines. On a recent sojourn into the woods we visited some local iron ore mines that would have supplied the mid-nineteenth century Wawayanda Furnace. Of course, these operations were supplanted by the end of the nineteenth century when places with better quality ore that were closer to cheaper forms of transportation, like water and rail shut them down.

Ken Hamilton, "Woodlands Interpreter", will present the early 18th century life of Algonquin-speaking people, like the Minsi people of the Lenape tribe, of what was later named by Benjamin Aske as "Warwick." Here we see a trade camp with historially accurate artifact reproductions produced by Mr. Hamilton by hand; he an accomplished leatherworker, blacksmith and silversmith. As an "historical artifact artist", Mr. Hamilton produces props used in many living history scenarios and museums throughout the country. He will share some of his knowledge with campers at the Summer History Camp 2012. See further details.