Heritage Montgomery Days This Weekend

Oakley-Cabin-A-Parent-in-Silver-Spring

My family and I recently visited the Oakley Cabin in Brookeville, MD

18th Annual Montgomery County Heritage Days This Weekend, June 27 & 28

Although storms are predicted for this weekend, rain cannot keep our area’s history down!

Each year, Heritage Montgomery hosts the annual Heritage Days Celebration on the last weekend in June. This countywide festival offers us families the chance to explore and learn all over Maryland’s Montgomery County. Learn about local history as it applies to agriculture, African-American communities, transportation, astronomy and local arts. Many venues offer musical entertainment, activities and crafts for children and refreshments.

All celebrations? Totally free!

My family and I visited the Oakley Cabin African American History Farm and Park two weeks ago, a site where a free African American family lived. The historic site now hosts periodic re-enactments with a Black history perspective. Unfortunately, the cabin is too small to hold storytellers and musicians indoors when Saturday storms hit so the event there planned for Saturday has been canceled. However, this site is a great place to visit on days that it is opened by park rangers (the 2^nd and 4^th Saturdays of the month from 12:00 – 4:00 pm with free guided tours, April through October), although my family and I looking forward to the next historic celebration held there.

Check out all the events that are still happening, no matter the weather!

Some of my favorites ….

Saturday and Sunday

Boyds Negro School
19510 White Ground Road, Boyds
This one-room structure was the sole public school for African American children in the Boyds area from 1895-1936. Children’s activities include calligraphy, button necklace craft, marbles, and horseshoes.

Button Farm Living History Center
16820 Black Rock Road, Germantown
See examples of plantation life in 1850s Maryland including an heirloom garden, heritage breed animals, newly restored period buildings and a slave cemetery. Demonstrations, petting zoo, and Underground Railroad passport activities for visitors of all ages.

International Latitude Observatory

100 DeSellum Avenue, Gaithersburg

Explore this restored 1899 observatory, one of six built around the world to determine the “wobble of the earth.” Solar observations (weather permitting), entertainment, and children’s activities.

King Barn Dairy MOOseum

18028 Central Park Circle, Boyds

Learn about the history and technology of dairying. Exhibits include a Ford Model T milk delivery truck, wooden milk wagon, model railroad, and life-sized model cows. Visit the playroom, make crafts, or “milk” a model cow. Saturday only: Balloon Man will make hats for children (noon-2 pm); live farm animals. Sunday only: Talk to the family from Beneva Farm; Miss Regina’s interactive music activity (1-2pm) for children ages 1-4.

Sunday only

Germantown Bank

19330 Mateny Hill Road, Germantown

Visit this 1922 bank, with a walk-in vault and period safe deposit boxes. See the exhibit, Germantown History and enjoy songs of the ‘20s & ‘30s led by “Banjo Man” Frank Casssel. Guided walking tours of Historic Germantown, a railroad town dating to the 1880s.

Josiah Henson Park

11420 Old Georgetown Road, N. Bethesda

Tour the historic Riley farm where Rev. Josiah Henson was enslaved from 1795 to 1830. Henson’s 1849 autobiography inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s landmark novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Explore an archaeology dig; make your own set of marbles. Tours on the half hour, noon-3pm. Park at the Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center, 5900 Executive Blvd.

Brookeville Academy

5 High Street, Brookeville

Guides in period attire will talk about life in the early 1800s. Exhibit of artifacts uncovered by archaeologists at the Madison House. Sit at the Academy’s desks for a penmanship lesson. Half-hour walking tours of this “U.S. Capital for a Day” highlighting Brookeville during the War of 1812 at 2 & 3pm. Refreshments.