County fair

“ The county fair is a great psychological institution, because it causes people to want things and then to think they need them. The worst of it is the less able I am to buy a thing the more I want it and seem to need it. ”

“ Why, there are hundreds of them," declared Jerry, when they had reached the little town and were driving down the main street.
"How would you like to go to the fair?" suggested Uncle Billy with his eyes twinkling with merriment.
"Oh, do you really mean it?" questioned Mary. "I've always wanted to see a county fair."
"So have I," echoed each of the others.
[Pg 26] "All right; it's a bargain," nodded Uncle Billy. "You all wait here," he told the girls a few minutes later, as he helped them out of the wagon, "while I get some one to bring the car into town." ”

“ BY the time Billy had made good his escape from the Baby Show, the grounds were crowded with merrymakers. The annual county Fair was an event that no farmer and but very few of the townspeople of Licking County would willingly miss, and the genial sunshine had brought thousands of sightseers out on the first day, for such ideal weather could not be expected to last long at that season of the year. ”

“ Having taken out the obstructions, unnecessaries, and excrescences, I should enter on a constructive program. I should then begin to make a fair. I assume that the fact of a person living in a community, places on him responsibilities for the welfare of that community. We should make the county fair one of the organized means of developing this welfare. Therefore, I should assume that every citizen in the county, by virtue of his citizenship, is a member of the county fair and owes to it an allegiance. ”

“ We have lost our rural cohesion because we have been attracted by the town and the city, and we have allowed the town and the city to do our work. I think it would not be difficult to organize a pageant, or something of the kind, at a county fair, that would make the ordinary vaudeville or sideshow or gim-crack look cheap and ridiculous and not worth one's while. ”

“ On occasions of a political convention, or a circus, the town takes on a festive aspect, and the roads leading to the square are filled, all day long, with wagons that have come from the further edges of the county. During the three or four days of the County Fair, too, there is great activity between the village and the Fair Grounds, and, if it be a dry summer, the air between those places is merely one huge cloud of dust. Occasionally the pretty little Opera House has an entertainment that draws out such of the citizens as have no very severe religious scruples against the theatre. ”

“ One feature of constant interest in any growing American community is the annual county fair. As a yearly jubilee, a display of products, and a general "get-together" agency, this characteristic feature of American rural life is entitled to a large place. It co-ordinates industries, creates enterprise, kindles ambition, and promotes the spirit of mutual helpfulness in pre-eminent degree. The Walla Walla fairs have had essentially the familiar features of all such institutions ”

“ In addition to the pleasures and social diversions which that annual rural festival—the county fair—affords, it is an educational force that is not sufficiently appreciated by those who live beyond the reach of its spell. ”

“ The scope of the fair may be judged by noticing the objects for which premiums were offered, viz. : Farms, dairies, butter, cheese, cattle, sheep, swine, bread, flowers, household manufactures, ladies' department, farming implements, plowing match, field crops, orchard and shade trees. From the foregoing it will be seen that the agitation in re- lation to organizing county agricultural societies, begun in Yamhill County in the fall of 1853, resulted in the movement extending into four counties, each of which had a successful county fair almost simultaneously the next year. ”

“ Hugh told him. “The programme we laid out for to-day will carry over to-morrow as well. I want to say to you now that every fellow has done himself and the troop proud by his work to-day. I’m sure the people of Oakvale appreciate what we’ve tried to do for the success of the County Fair.” ”

“ They have become, to a certain extent, localized in the vicinity of the towns where the fairs are held; and yet they do not possess the vigor which institutions positively local would enjoy.
The town clubs hold annual fairs; and these fairs should be made tributary, in their products and in the interest they excite, to the county fairs. Let the town fairs be held as early in the season as practicable, and then let each town send to the county fairs its first-class premium articles as the contributions of the local society, as well as of the individual producers. ”

“ This not only emphasizes the leadership role of Antes, but also points up the good fortune of the Fair Play settlers in having one of their community participate in the framing of the new State government. Although the Fair Play settlers lived beyond the legal limits of settlement, they were very much involved in its political affairs.
Aside from the General Assembly and the Constitutional Convention, these pioneers of the Northumberland County frontier placed three men on the county bench, one of whom was presiding judge. [41] Fair Play men became justices of fair play in the county courts. ”

“ President, H. P. Isaacs; vice presidents, Anderson Cox, and W. H. Newell; treasurer, J. D. Cook; secretary, R. R. Rees; executive committee, Charles Russell, T. S. Lee and A. A. Blanchard. Under the management of this society the first county fair was held on October 4, 5 and 6, 1866.
Another organization, known as the Washington Territory Agricultural, Mining, and Art Fostering Society, undertook the maintenance of fairs in 1870. In September of that year the first of a series was held until 1873. Finding that the grounds were too far from the city they were sold and the fairs discontinued. ”

“ The County Fair I FOUND Professor Maturin deeply pondering, the other evening, the season when the county fair stirs semi-rural communities, all over the land, with anticipation, realization, and fresh reminiscence. “No one of our institutions for pleasure or profit,” said he, “is more firmly established; and yet students of local manners and customs and of social psychology appear to have given it small attention, and there is no notable record of it in literature, save that by Mr. ”

“ So now a boy that’s staying with us—we have a refreshment parlor and nobody comes to buy anything—and he wants to buy some tents and we have to make a lot of money so will you please have them have the County Fair in Berryville this year so lots of people will go past our summer-house?
“We have lemonade and he calls to the people and tells them, only there ain’t any people. But lots and lots and lots of people come to the County Fair from all over, don’t they? ”

“ The value system of Fair Play society can be analyzed in terms of the expressed ideals and beliefs, the conduct, and the material possessions of the pioneers who settled along the West Branch during this period. Journalists, diarists, and pension claimants offer recorded evidence of the ideals and beliefs of these settlers. Their actual behavior gives us some understanding of conduct as value. And finally, the probate records of the Northumberland and Lycoming County courts contribute some documentation concerning the material values of these frontier inhabitants. ”

“ Many such fairs are still held in every county, and they connect the present day very closely with the life of bygone days. It is "all the fun of the fair" which draws people to them mostly nowadays, but in some of them there is still important business done; people are attracted to them for trade as well as for pleasure.
3. Some of these fairs are held in big towns, such as Lincoln and Carlisle. At Barnet a great horse fair is held every year in September. But some big fairs are held away from any large town, [Pg 119] such as the big sheep fair at Weyhill, in Hampshire. ”

“ In analyzing the local leadership roles which these various settlers filled, additional and pertinent conclusions become apparent. In the first place, the Fair Play men were obviously not the top leaders of the community. Henry Antes may have served as their spokesman in 1775, and it is quite possible that Robert Fleming was a member of the tribunal, but both were more important as county leaders. Secondly, Fair Play men were members of the Committee of Safety, a fact which suggests that their efforts may have been coordinated. ”

“ One of the white bankers in Macon County has established an annual prize to be given to the Negro farmer who raises the best oats on a given plot of land. The editor of the county paper gives an annual prize to the school in the county that has the best spelling class, the contest to take place at the annual Macon County Coloured Farmers’ Fair. At these fairs exhibitions are made of vegetables and grain raised by the children on the school farms. There are also exhibitions of cooking and sewing done by the children in the public schools of the county. ”

“ If our county offices are worth $30,000, and there are other little after-claps and soft snaps, and walk-overs, worth, say $10,000, and the boys, say, are willing to do the fair thing, say, blow in fifteen per cent, to the central committee, and what they feel like on the outside, then politics, instead of a burden and a reproach, becomes a pleasing duty, a joyous occasion and a picnic to those whose lives might otherwise be a dreary monotone. ”

“ After an extensive examination of the lists of public officials for Northumberland County, the tax lists for the same period, the records of the Fair Play men and the Committee of Safety, the accounts of the frontier forts in the region, and the military records of these settlers, it becomes evident that only three men can be considered as regional leaders and not more than seven or eight as local leaders. ”

“ Of course, not every Grange is awake to its opportunities; but as a rule, where a live one exists it is the acknowledged leader in social movements.
It is not uncommon for Granges to hold fairs for the exhibition of agricultural and domestic products. The State Fair of New Hampshire has been largely managed by the Grange. In many cases Granges as organizations will exhibit at the ordinary county or district fair. Picnics and field meetings are coming to be very popular [Pg 152] in some states. ”

“ The best part of the fair would be the folks, and not the machines or the cattle, although these also would be very important. I should make the fair one great picnic and gathering-place and field-day, and bring together the very best elements that are concerned in the development of country life.
I should work through every organized enterprise [Pg 170] in the county, as commercial clubs, creameries, coöperative associations, religious bodies, fraternal organizations, insurance societies, schools, and whatever other organized units already may exist. ”

“ An enterprise of the kind that I project need not necessarily be held on a fair-ground of the present type, although that might be the best place for it. If there is a good institution in the county that has grounds, and especially that has an agricultural equipment worthy of observation, I should think that the best results would be secured by holding the fair at that place. ”

“ Among other things accomplished in this county, a fair association has been formed; medical instruction has been introduced into the schools; a public library and hospital have been built; the school system of the county has cooperated in all educational work; both town and county merchants have offered prizes to members of the boys' clubs; also for cooking in the schools, and have put women's restrooms in the stores for the use of the public.
There is now an active girls' canning club in every community in the county, attended by the girls and also by their mothers. ”

“ There is scarcely a county in New England, scarcely a State in the Union, but has had a fair of some sort or other. Most of them report better exhibits and larger attendance than ever before. Some few report a falling off in attendance. That all these fairs have done exhibitors much good is doubtful; that they have benefited the thinking portion of their attendants is unquestionable. Unfortunately, the thinking portion of a farming community is lamentably small. ”

“ But if there had been so much as a hint about holding a county convention anywhere else than in the Tyre Court House—then, to use Abe Beekman’s homely expression, you would have seen the fur fly! Other towns might indulge their modern and mercenary tastes in county fairs, railroads, gas, reservoirs and the like, to their hearts’ content, but they must keep their hands off political conventions. ”

“ You see the town folks was always gittin' up somethin' new for the fair, and that year I'm talkin' about it was a t'u'nament. All the Goshen folks that went [185] to town the last County Court day before the fair come back with the news that there was goin' to be a t'u'nament the third day o' the fair. Everybody was sayin', 'What's that?' and nobody could answer 'em till Sam Crawford went to town one Saturday jest before the fair, and come back with the whole thing at his tongue's end. ”

“ I was told that the combined display of the two counties was poorer this year than either was in the habit of making alone.
There was racing and ornamental riding, one day, by young women, and those who took premiums were girls of but fourteen and sixteen. Another popular feature of these county fairs was "firemen's tournaments," in which different companies held contests of speed, equipped with all their paraphernalia. ”