Explore, Play, Create and Learn at Fort Nisqually’s Sewing to Sowing, a Living History Day

Discover the daily routines that shaped life during the 1800s from 11 am to 4 pm on Saturday, April 27, during Fort Nisqually’s Sewing to Sowing: A Living History Day.

Come into the Fort’s buildings or explore the outdoor areas and mingle with several dozen re-enactors. They’ll be cheerfully cooking in the kitchen, spinning yarn in the Laborers’ Dwelling, or hammering in the blacksmith’s shop while woodworking and spring gardening takes place outdoors.

Guests are invited to participate in hands-on activities such as 1800s games, butter churning and laundry techniques or take a turn at the rope-making machine.

Letitia Huggins' 1862 sewing machine will be on display and demonstrations of a similar Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine will show how these early machines worked.

Ladies in the Laborers’ Dwelling will demonstrate their spinning wheels and answer questions about the yarn-making process. At the Kids’ Outstation, youngsters can play quoits, graces and checkers, grind coffee, and walk on stilts to their hearts’ content.

The garden will be abuzz with both big, fat bumblebees and busy gardeners. Peas are already in the ground, and they will soon be joined by more than two dozen other crops—everything from beans to turnips. Ask gardening questions, and perhaps watch the progress of the Dominique and Speckled Sussex baby chicks exploring the Fort’s newly completed chicken run..

While at the fort, explore the new special exhibit "A Good Piece of Work to be Done with the Axe,” which begins April 27 and runs through August 4. Learn how the men of the Hudson’s Bay Company used just a few hand tools to shape the square timbers of the Fort’s Granary and other buildings. Their work resulted in a more weather-tight and finished looking structure than a typical log cabin. One of Western Washington’s earliest European-built log structures, the Granary was built in the “post-in-sill” style used by the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is one of the few surviving American examples of this style and will be undergoing restoration in 2013.

Admission Charged