Historic Fairview, Abingdon, Virginia
Kayla and I took in the
antique tractor show at Fairview in Abingdon Friday. It was
another perfect girl's day out, with an extremely well-behaved baby,
fascinating old implements (like this thresher --- look at all those
belts!), and quite a bit of historical education as a bonus.
The interpretive signs were
top-notch, full of information I'd never considered. For example, did
you know that the crescent moon traditionally shown on an outhouse was
meant to designate the lady's room? Way back when the average American
couldn't read, stars were for guys and moons for girls...but men's
outhouses tended to get run down and didn't last. Thus the
crescent-moon-marked outhouses dominating the colonial landscape.
And speaking of outhouse
traditions, hollyhocks were usually planted around the outhouse as a
way to draw the attention without forcing a lady to request directions
to the necessary. Lamb's ears with their silvery ears did the same job
at night (while also providing backup toilet paper).
Oh, and the other
picture in this section is flax. I was proud of myself for guessing its
identity...and Kayla was proud of herself for capturing the plant
matter before it made it into baby D.'s gaping mouth.
In
the air-conditioned comfort of the interpretive log house, we took in
several beautiful displays pertaining to history and crafts. On the
history front, I was intrigued to learn that I-81 (the big highway that
runs through our region) began as a buffalo trail but soon became a
major thoroughfare between Philadelphia and the Frontier.
In the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, the so-called Great Philadelphia Road
was used for wagon trains of settlers (many from Europe) moving to new
land and also for people from our region driving their sheep, pigs, and
cattle to market in the City of Brotherly Love. Can you imagine
making that 500-mile trek at the tail end of a herd of swine?
The
upshot? Best girl's day out yet! Think we can top this in August, Kayla?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Sounds like you had a wonderful outing despite the 93 degree weather.
If you are really into historic sites, I strongly suggest you go down to the other side of Knoxville and visit the Museum of Appalachia. Wonderful old log buildings, interpreters, and various implements of daily life in the 1800s. There are also sometimes banjo players sitting on the porches of some of the buildings playing tunes! Wonderful site.