Eaton History Day better known as Eaton Day, Memorial Day and Me!

It is May and as I do every year I work on the upcoming Memorial Day Monday Eaton Day event.  As usual I try to put into words the importance of a "Community Day"... yet trying to word it to entice even those not from the immediate community to come out and join their neighbors.  I have put on 20 of these, give or take a year.  So with that in mind I invite you to circle Memorial Day Monday, May 30th, on the calendar and come to our town and see what "rural small town America" still has going for it.   So with that thought in mind....... 

Tommy Hoe playing at last years event!

On Memorial Day Monday, May 30th, the Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum will be hosting the 21^st Annual “Eaton Day”. 

The day, which is held in the Hamlet of Eaton on Route 26, is an opportunity for the Town of Eaton residents past and present to enjoy history, memories and good homemade bake goods with special activities thrown it!

The theme of this years event is "Preserving the Past for the Future" a statement that is a perfect description of the importance of the Old Town of Eaton Museum that is proud of the many artifacts and stories that are preserved within its 200 plus year walls.

The Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum hold “Eaton Day” in an effort to raise money for the upkeep the museum building and to put on and fund the event each year.  The mission of the group being to responsibly sustain the museum building and contents as a significant evolving repository of local history and artifacts through fund raising, tours, and celebrations of which “Eaton Day” each year is an important part.

The group feels it is important for the citizens of the Town of Eaton to recognize that the artifacts housed within the walls of the Eaton Museum, those heirlooms that may come to us in the future and those people, both living and dead who form the tapestry of our community are, in fact, our inheritance.  Also, by engaging the community, on Eaton Day, they hope to protect the Town’s shared heritage and leave a legacy for the future and the future of the Old Town of Eaton Museum.  

The “Day”, that  features, a huge bake and pie sale, tours of the museum, food, crafts & rummage tables, basket raffles, as well as entertainment and history, with its theme of Preserving the Past for the Future, is a perfect explanation of the museum’s goals.  Eaton Day starts at 9am and goes to 4pm, with special presentations starting after the parade, which this year is in Morrisville.

Come join the Eaton Community for an old fashioned day of fun and community pride, Eaton Day!

Some clips from the past!

Another one of those weeks...Towpath Day, Erie Canal, and some summer FUN!

This week has been trouble and I thought I would pass all of it by and bring via the blog an event scheduled for this weekend.  My friends at the Erie Canal Park in Camillus, Liz & Dave Bebee and all there volunteers, are holding Towpath Day.  Earlier this year I spoke there to the new and old volunteers and I always marvel at the new things and the new history that is available..so here is the "skinny" on the upcoming event...really worth a visit!

Towpath Day in Camillus

The summer is heating up and as usual the Camillus Erie Canal Park on DeVoe Road in Camillus will be celebrating Towpath on August 8, from 10-4.

The park, located on the first enlargement of the canal where it crosses the Town of Camillus, is about seven miles long and features many displays on the history of the canal, the area near Gere Lock, which was lock number 50, as well as the newly restored Nine Mile Creek Aqueduct. The first enlargement of the Erie Canal was completed in 1862 with a depth of seven feet and a width of seventy feet with 32 active aqueducts at a length of 350 miles.

At the park site just off of Devoe Road is Sims Store, the centerpiece of this fun, family event!  Sims  is a replica of a store as it would have looked in the 1850’s. The actual store was located a couple miles away near Belle Isle and Gere Lock. This beautiful rustic building houses maps of the canal, photos, and models of the locks, aqueducts and canal boats and looks much the way it did during the days of travelers along this historic waterway.

This year’s theme is “Boats Afloat on the Erie Canal”! and features the Rotary 5 K Mule Skinner Race which begins at 9 AM, the Circus Boat  where there will be "kids stuff" featuring Make and Take from the Home Depot,  and old fashion games. There will boats and wagon rides with crafts, raffles, demonstrations including Mules, Lock Demonstration and  a Steam up.

The Showboat will include the Morris Dancers, Dr. Tom Dooley Chorus  and Jason  the  Entertainer/ Magician.

 So come out for a Summertime Fling with great food and music by Diamond Someday and the Soda Ash 6.

For more information call 315-391-7020.  Or go to www.eriecanalcamillus.com. Admission is Free and parking is available by shuttle cart transportation from DOT site, which is near by!

Here is a video I did for them this year...enjoy!

Memorial Day Monday is Eaton Day, nostalgia, history, & the All American Pie Sale await you!

Dr. Gawn as part of Eaton's float on the 4th of July

Another Sunday in Eaton, more pleasant than many lately as Mother Nature has come through with a rainbow of green colors with a bit of purple... as the lilacs finally opened down here.  We still had two nights this week in the low 20’s… but the days have improved.

I have been putting together clips of video taken 20 years ago on Monday, and I started wondering what the town will look like and who will be here in 20 more. 

The Eaton History Day that started in1995 has been put on to bring the community together as a  celebration of what is right with living in a small and historic rural town.  Nothing is wrong really, except perhaps the distance for many to go to work…but now we have so many beautiful cars to do it…no longer needing a horse and wagon.  What is sad,  is that most people don’t realize what caused a loss of community.  We no longer used it.

You might say, “use it”… yes, use it.  We lost our grocery stores and businesses because we no longer need to shop in town or near by.  In the old days money that was paid out came back to the community or stayed in it supporting “the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker”.  100 years ago there were 4 stores, barbers, Doctors, machine shops, mills, and all kinds of small business.  Today we have a Price Chopper and Walmart people shot at.

There were 3 churches in town then, luckily we still have one on “Back Street”, it has been working for 182 years.  As a mater of fact when the bell rings on Sunday… as I write the Sunday blogs for you…  it has been ringing like that since 1848.  It reminds me that the community is still alive.

Eaton still has a mini-mart and gas station, though remnants of the old Tower Gas Station are still in town housing the Post Office. We have a volunteer fire department... that still rushes to help those in need in the community.  We still have that Post Office… something that is also disappearing from rural America.  Our cemetery is still kept up and by the original Eaton Cemetery Association that was formed by George Morse in 1856.

We also have a museum that keeps the history for the Town of Eaton and the community, although the Town does not run it. 

So this is where you as a member of the community come in.   Come out to Eaton before or after the parade… that this year is in West Eaton.  Have a hot dog and soda like the old days, buy a pie at the 200 year old American institution of Pie Sales to raise money, join the Friends of Eaton Society that keeps the museum alive buying a commemorative 220^th History Book (You can buy it for those special people who can’t come to the event this year)…  listen to the speakers that this year will include Harry Riggall Historian of West Eaton and Mary Messere former Madison County Historian....and enjoy HISTORY AND THAT THING CALLED AMERICANA.

If you were at the original Bicentennial in the parade, or watching Dr. Willabee Gawn, at the Cemetery, at the Church,  at the cutting of the giant Birthday Cake… then you can view yourself on a video that will be playing during the day….Memories for sure!

The kids in it are now full grown and many have children of their own... many faces have disappeared from view... though they now rest on the hill in the cemetery or in a nursing home, and unfortunately some of us are a bit heavier…but we are there enjoying that day.  So come out and enjoy this one!!

*The museum will not be open for the day, but Back Street Mary will giving a tour of the Cemetery at 2 PM.