Woodsmen’s Festival at Hanford Mills Museum
Saturday, October 3, 10 am – 5 pm

The Woodsmen’s Club from the SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill returns to the festival to demonstrate cross-cut sawing, overhand and underhand chop, ax throwing, and other lumberjack skills.

The fall festival celebrates the many ways people use and work with wood and includes:

• Mohawk Valley Woodturners
• GTO Woodturners
• Bovina Brown Bats
• Wightman Lumber
• Promisedland Farms
• Bourbon & Branch, a band that blends rock, blues, country, and folk music history, will perform from 11 am to 2 pm.
• Seth Finch will demonstrate log skidding with his team of Percheron draft horses, and also will offer horse-drawn wagon rides.
• Tours of the Museum’s  water-powered sawmill, gristmill and woodworking shop.
• Tickled Pink BBQ will be selling pulled pork sandwiches and macaroni and cheese.

New for this year, the National Barn Alliance will have a quarter-scale Dutch Barn Timber Frame model, which visitors can help raise. Weighing 1100 pounds, the model is a 3-D puzzle that teaches how barns were made, touching upon science, engineering, and history.  The American Chestnut Foundation will have a display on their efforts to restore this tree to benefit the environment, wildlife and society.

“Since the first sawmill was built on this site in 1846, Hanford Mills has been synonymous with wood and wood products,” explains executive director Liz Callahan. “The Woodsmen’s Festival celebrates this long history, as well as the craftsmanship, skill and talent of woodworkers, barn builders, forest managers, coopers, mill workers, and lumberjacks.”

The Museum’s gift shop will be open, offering Mill-made crafts, traditional toys, sweets, books and local products.  Hands-on activities for kids include playing with gears and simple machines, exploring electricity with circuit kits, and using a small waterwheel to power machines.