BERLIN—
While the agricultural product this area is
most associated with these days is arguably poultry, a century ago it
was peaches and this weekend will include a townwide celebration of
this drupaceous fruit, on the grounds of the Taylor House
Museum.
Susan
Taylor, curator of the Taylor House Museum, said the Berlin Peach Festival
attracted 2,000 to 3,000 visitors last year. Attendees will have an
abundance of locally-grown peaches and
peach dishes to choose from, along
with peach-related products on Aug. 3.
Mayor
Gee Williams will lead off Saturday’s events with a ribbon cutting,
assisted by Little Miss and Little Mister Berlin Peach 2012 at 11
a.m.
There
will be a myriad of activities for
peach lovers including a peach
pie-baking
contest and three pie-eating contests.
Various craft and gift
vendors will be on
hand and there will also be demonstrations
and lectures and
food available.
Activities
for children will include juggling
by Cascading Carlos, an
old-fashioned
(cup)cake walk, photo cut-outs
and temporary peach tattoos.
Entertainment
will
be provided by Frank Nanna’s fine fiddle and
3 Sheets, a trio that hails
from the eastern shores of Maryland and
Virginia, playing Celtic,
nautical, traditional
and contemporary music. Dr. Paul
Ewell will be on hand to
discuss nautical
history.
The
Calvin B. Taylor House Museum,
which is located at 208 North Main Street,
will
be open for tours.
The
Calvin B. Taylor House was built
in 1832 and has been home to Robert J.
Henry,
who was instrumental in bringing
the railroad to Berlin, and Calvin B.
Taylor.
Taylor was a teacher, lawyer and
founder of the Calvin B. Taylor
Banking
Company. The Berlin Heritage Foundation
launched a lobbying effort that
led to
the town purchasing the house and lot in
1982 and to turning it over to
the foundation
to administer as a town museum.
Several
downtown merchants will
sponsor tie-in activities as well, such as
the Atlantic
Hotel, which will be serving
peach crushes using fresh local peaches
for
cocktails, cobblers, barbeque for ribs,
desserts, salsa for fish and sorbets.
Victorian
Charm is exhibiting a peach themed
window display, including peach colored
clothing
and merchandise from
Fresh Produce sportswear, Spartina handbags
and Tropical
Trends hats.
“Starting
Wednesday, pretty much
everything we do will have peach in it,”
said Robin
Tomaselli of Baked Dessert
Cafe. She said the shop would offer
peach dumplings,
the official dessert of
Berlin; peach bars; peach cobbler; peach
cake and
peaches stuffed with sorbet.
Cupcakes
in Bloom will be offering
cupcakes, peach-flavored lemonade and
whoopie pies.
There
is no cost to attend the festival.
Funding for this event was in part
provided
by the Worcester County Arts
Council, Maryland State Arts Council
and
the National Endowment for the
Arts. The rain date for the festival is Aug.
4,
from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The
peach festival celebrates the history
of what was once the town’s
most
prominent business, a horticultural
nursery owned by the Harrison
family.
This year’s event will include a commemoration
of the 100th anniversary
of
a historical meeting of the Wilmington,
Del. Chamber of Commerce that
was
hosted by Berlin’s J. G. Harrison and
Sons Orchards on July 31, 1913.
The horticultural industry meeting
was the preeminent
event of its time, explained
Harrison descendent Sandra
(Harrison) Dewey, who
recruits other
descendants to participate in the events.
She described the
first year of the festival
included a Harrisons celebration that
also served as
a family reunion.
Harrison
Orchards, which operated
from 1884-1962, was the world’s largest
agricultural
nursery in the 1920s, according
to Taylor. At its peak, Harrisons owned
more
than 3,000 acres within the nursery
industry, she said. The meeting came on
the
heels of Harrisons developing an innovative
technique for eradicating pests
and
disease that had been blighting orchards
throughout the region.
Taylor
said the logo used for this
year’s festival T-shirts and posters were
from
Harrison’s 1908 catalog design,
which features Ray, Crawford Late and
Elberta
peaches.
A
mural of a Hale peach that was
painted of the building that currently
houses
the Go Organic natural foods market
was said to even have a Hollywood
connection.
According to Taylor, as movie
director Gary Marshall was walking
through
town prior to filming of the movie
“Runaway Bride,” starring Julia Roberts
and
Richard Gere, he spotted the mural
and decided to name the fictional rural
town
featured in the movie Hale, Md.
The
annual peach pageant for 2013
will be sponsored by Berlin Main Street
during
the Second Friday Art Stroll event
on Aug. 9 at 6 p.m. Contestants ages 4-7
can
sign up during the festival and must
be a resident of Worcester County. For
the
pageant they must be accompanied
by a parent or guardian, the dress code
is
“Sunday Best,” and no flip-flops. Deadline
for registration will be no later
than
5:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 at either the Atlantic
Hotel or the Treasure Chest.
The
pageant will be held on the hotel
porch. Contestants will be judged on
their
poise, personality and stage presence,
according to Lisa Hall, who is
coordinating
the pageant. The winners will
represent the town at various
function
throughout the year, she said.
In
the event of a tie, the winner will be
determined by answering a question selected
by
the judges, according to Hall.
For more information about the pageant,
call
Hall at 443-614-6135.
On Aug. 11 at 6 p.m., contemporary
music band Picnic will
perform at the
foundation’s third concert on the lawn
this season. Bring a
chair and a picnic.
For information about the Peach Festival
and concert
series, call 410-641-
1019 or visit taylorhousemuseum.org.