RHINEBECK — The Dutchess County Fair has ended for the season, which ran from Aug. 20 until Sunday, Aug. 25.
The Dutchess County Fair designated 12 acres of the fairgrounds to showcase local livestock. This included 12 barns housing dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, and rabbits, three show arenas with daily scheduled events, and workroom demonstrations.
Besides offering dozens of themed gardens, waterfalls, and ponds filled with koi and colorful flowers, the fair also travels back in time with the “turn of the century treasures.” It features a century museum village, the firefighters’ museum, a working blacksmith shop, and a gas-powered engine show.
Classic treats like candy apples and cotton candy fed the masses at the Dutchess County Fair. The annual fair in Rhinebeck is one of the largest attractions in Dutchess County with 12 acres of fairgrounds and barns showcasing livestock, along with three show arenas, free entertainment and plenty to eat.Photo by Olivia Valentine
Free entertainment included live music, frisbee dogs, a stilt circus, racing pigs, a petting zoo, dock dogs, a fishing tank, and a VR tractor ridealong. Musicians who performed included Tracy Byrd, Kameron Marlowe, Conner Smith, Kissnation, Bluffett, and Grammy-winning artist Rick Springfield.
Agencies represented included the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office, Medical Reserve Corps, Animal Response Team, and more.
A major partnership with the fair is ThinkDifferently, implementing accommodations for individuals and families with disabilities.
“ThinkDIFFERENTLY Thursday was born half a dozen years ago with the understanding that institutions like this and places like this often are difficult for individuals with any amount of disability to access,” U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-19) said.
Elizabeth “Tilly” Strauss’, the Town of North East’s clerk, and her father, Julian, won two blue ribbons at the Dutchess County Fair for his maple syrup. From a third-generation farm in Dutchess County, Julian started making maple syrup about 14 years ago, naming it Home Farm Maple Syrup. This was his first year competing at the fair, winning four ribbons. To learn more about Julian’s syrup, visit @homefarmmaplesyrup on Instagram or email homefarmmaple@optonline.com
Photo by Olivia Valentine
The ferris wheel at the Dutchess County Fair ran all week, taking visitors high into the sky. The annual fair in Rhinebeck is one of the largest attractions in Dutchess County with 12 acres of fairgrounds and barns showcasing livestock, along with three show arenas, free entertainment and plenty to eat.
Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.
Houston has shared the stage with stars ranging from Barbra Streisand to Motown great Mary Wells. “I have had the honor of portraying Elizabeth Freeman for three years in “Meet Elizabeth Freeman” by Teresa Miller. Our first reading of “1781” is in celebration of Juneteenth, which is wonderfully symbolic and poignant.” Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery. Two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, word of their freedom finally reached slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865.
Tombstone of Elizabeth Freeman in the “Sedgewick Pie” family burial ground in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lonnie carter
MumBet, born in 1742 to African enslaved parents, was purchased at age six months by Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, for whom she worked until her thirties. Ashley helped write the 1773 Sheffield Declaration which stated, “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” Rumor has it that MumBet overheard a reading of the document. After a traumatic household experience, MumBet left the Ashley home in Bartholomew’s Cobble, walked four miles to Sheffield, and asked attorney and abolitionist Theodore Sedgwick to help her gain her freedom.
Houston shared, “I live in Sheffield near where she was enslaved, in a house she would have passed on her walk from Ashley Falls to Sheffield. I am humbled by the fortitude and inner strength it must have taken for this woman to defy norms and take a stand for her own freedom.We Americans must still stand and fight for our rights to live free.”
Elizabeth Freeman spent her years as a free woman working for wages in the Sedgewick household, saving money to buy her own home in Stockbridge, where she was a midwife and healer. She died in 1829 and is buried in “Sedgewick Pie,” the family burial plot in Stockbridge. One of her great-grandchildren, W.E.B. DuBois, born in Great Barrington, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. DuBois founded the NAACP.
Her tombstone reads: “She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper, and the tenderest friend. Good mother, farewell.”
The performance of “1781” will take place Thursday, June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main (103 Main St., Falls Village).Admission is free, donations gratefully accepted.
