TURBOTVILLE -- It isn't just one day and they go back to their video games.
Youths who make paper, bricks, barrels, rope and yarn, write like scribes of old and can churn butter -- as they demonstrated at Warrior Run-Fort Freeland Heritage Days on Saturday and Sunday -- work on their "trades" throughout the year.
"I'm an outdoor kid," said Ben Morris, 15, of Danville, as he stood atop a log propped about 8 feet high on giant sawhorses.
He and his friend Chris Adams, 17, of Watsontown, on the ground, manned opposite ends of an authentic 1790 pit saw, a 5-foot long blade with handles on each end. "It would take two men two days to saw two logs," Morris explained.
That's how they made lumber to build with.
It's pretty labor-intensive, he admitted, but he finds video games boring.
So, too, must many of the other youngsters on hand for the two-day festival crafts, demonstrations, food, lectures and re-enactments.
Ten-year-old Dave Witmer knows so much about old-fashioned paper-making he sounded like a college professor.
"In 1850, they didn't have wood fibers, they had cotton," he said. "What they would do is, after their clothes were too old to use, they would sell them to a ragman. The ragman would sell them to a papermaker.
Beaten to a pulp
"The papermaker would soak the clothes for three or four weeks until the fibers were very loose. Then they would hire someone about 15 to beat it to a pulp.
"Then they would scoop it up out of the water in a wire screen. The contents of the screen would be dumped on a piece of felt, another piece of felt put over it, and then pressed."
The resulting paper was thick, with a texture something like that of a paper towel. It was called dekkel.
Wyatt Kirkendall, 12, would rather be woodworking than working a Playstation.
He was using a special chisel to form a stave, one of the thin, narrow strips of wood that are used to form the sides of a barrel. Levi Watson, 18, of Montour County, was working beside him.
It's the art of coopering, explained Rich Normholdt, Warrior Run-Fort Freeland Heritage Society member, who helps mentor kids in the organization's apprentice program. "We don't recruit them; they come to us," he said.
About 150 young people from at least 15 neighboring counties are in the program.
"It isn't just one day a year," Normholdt said. "They know they have to make a commitment of five to seven years to master their trade."
The apprentices were on hand for the 28th annual Heritage Days event, on the grounds of Heritage Society land. Hundreds more kids were participating more casually than apprentices, but seemed well enthralled, too.
"Kids love history," Normholdt said, "but they want hands-on experience."
And they don't seem to care of their hands get muddy, blistered or inky.
No erasing
Willow Bechdel, 12, of Mifflinburg, and Laura Hamm, 7, of Lewisburg, were re-enacting the duties of scribes.
Willow is a member of the Regina Hartman Society of Children of the American Revolution. Hartman was a girl captured by the Indians, she explained.
Often, in olden times, she said, there was only one person in a village who could write. That person was known as the scribe. The scribe would be asked to make birth documents and other records and write letters.
Willow was using a pen dipped in ink; Laura a feather.
The were learning how it was not to be able to erase or delete.
"I make a rough draft and then do it again, Willow said.
Scribes often worked in conjunction with a fraktur, she said. Frakturing is a Pennsylvania-German art combining a calligraphic-like lettering with designs in sayings and documents.
Brick by brick
Ryan Kilgus, 13, of Turbotville, was giving demonstrations on brick-making.
He picked up a brick-size wooden mold.
"You mix sand and water and put in the mold like greasing a pan," he said.
"Then you put the clay in and press it down. Scrape it level and then turn it upside down and drop the clay out."
You let the new brick air dry for three or four weeks, he said, then you put it in a kiln for a week.
"The first few days you have the kiln on low or medium, then for the rest you put it on high."
Then you have a brick.
He added that the traditional red color of bricks comes from iron in the clay that turns red.
"Everything we do here is something we can prove was done here on the grounds," said Roberts Franks, president of the Heritage Society.
If the kids keep up the traditions, a little bit of the 18th and 19th centuries will be preserved.
"It's very interesting to do what our ancestors did," Levi Watson said.
"It's OK to live a little in both worlds."
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Youths preserve skills of past for Heritage Days event
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