Civil War units highlight Port Oneida Fair

Press release
The cavalry is coming. So is the heavy artillery, the infantry, and the sharpshooters. Civil War re-enactors will highlight this year’s Port Oneida Fair.
On Friday August 4 and Saturday August 5 the Port Oneida Rural Historic District of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will host the fifth annual Port Oneida Fair. The two-day event showcases the crafts, skills and activities that made rural life productive and enjoyable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Many of the early settlers in Port Oneida and Northwest Lower Michigan were veterans of the Civil War. The war was a major event in their lives and the lives of their families. The Civil War units will demonstrate authentic uniforms and equipment and show their camps and drills. The soldiers will also talk about their experiences during the war. The soldiers will be accompanied by military band, Women’s Aid Societies from both the North and South and a peddler who traveled with the army. This is a rare opportunity to experience living history in this part of the state.

In addition to the Civil War re-enactors, over 100 exhibitors will demonstrate early farm skills and crafts from barn building to quilt making. On hand will be spinners, blacksmiths, buggy makers, potters, broom makers, weavers and many more. Each exhibitor is happy to explain their craft while you watch them work. A favorite each year are the big gentle oxen who will be mowing hay, followed by a team of work horses raking and loading the hay on to a wagon. Kids can help unload the wagon and build a haystack. There will be lots of other activities for kids to try such as traditional games and toys. Everyone will also be able to experience some of the daily chores like cutting wood or washing clothes by hand.
Traditional community bands, fiddlers and a variety of other musicians will provide music during both days of the fair.
The Fair is sponsored by The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes with a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Several local partner groups help with the planning and presentation of the fair along with many volunteers. The event takes place at five historic farms and a one-room school house in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District, located four miles north of Glen Arbor in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Fair hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day with special events taking place periodically. There will be an abundance of activities at each of the six locations so moving between the fair sites by horse and wagon, trolley, bike or just walking across the fields is a special part of the fun of the Port Oneida Fair.
The Port Oneida Rural Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, showcases life at the turn of the century through a community of eighteen farmsteads from the late 1800’s to mid 1900’s. The District is the largest historic agricultural community fully protected by government ownership in the nation. The Port Oneida community has stories to tell about the pioneer and maritime past of Northern Lower Michigan. Over the years, these farms and cultural resources have been loved by many for what they add to the pastoral Leelanau landscape. Now these historic buildings and meadows are interpreting history through such events as the Port Oneida Fair.
A Stone That Rises:
Inspired by the lives of Elizabeth and Carston Burfiend
By Anne-Marie Oomen, music by Norm Wheeler
Elizabeth:
“What could I say? A clear day, and the schooner is way out, coming in. The cordwood stacked high, all down the beach. And I think, well maybe it will bring some good fabric for a baby dress, or some salt. Maybe … and I see the white ship coming closer and closer, riding the wind, and steam engine puffing, and my husband and this Thomas Kelderhouse standing at the dock, and I look for the name. Oneida. Thomas, he struts, talks with the Captain, and tells everyone the name of the town is Port Oneida. (Music Out) That night, when the house gets quiet, I find the word in the big book of English. Oneida. The name of an Indian people, the word for the great stone that come to them wherever they went, a stone for the Oneida. That’s what their name for the people means. The stone that showed wherever they settled. A stone is a hard thing, and we have the stones that rise and break the plow blades. I know that kind of stone. But a stone big enough to stand for a people. It would be our great pyramid bluff. Ah, it could be, a great bluff standing for the people. This Thomas, he would make his town, but we had the stone.”