Maine Forest and Logging Museum celebrates annual Living History Days.

BRADLEY, Maine (WABI) – The Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Bradley Maine celebrated their annual Living History Days Saturday, October 5th, and Sunday, October 6th.

The event, which ran from 10am to 3pm, featured horse-drawn wagon rides, fresh-pressed cider, and reenactors bringing us back to colonial and civil war times.

The Maine Forest and Logging Museum is a nonprofit organization focused on presenting Maine’s forests through a cultural lens.

The museum hosts a myriad of events, but it’s Living History Days that bring patrons to the era of sawmills and blacksmiths.

The heart of the reenactments took place at Leonard’s Mills, the site of an actual pioneer settlement that has since been rebuilt.

Besides reenactors, the site features a plethora of tools and machinery that would have been used at the time, from looms to sawmills.

Living History events began in the 1980′s with the first event featuring bean hole beans.

These celebrations have since only gotten bigger, showcasing to modern audiences what the various facets of colonial life would have been like.

It’s not just fun and games though — events like this provide a learning opportunity for children and adults alike.

“There’s so many museums where you come out to see things, and the best you can do is get twenty feet away behind a wall or a rope or something. Here you can come up and actually touch things and interact with people, making them work, and it’s a lot more fun. You can learn a lot more actually seeing things, going and helping out with it, they’re always looking for more volunteers and people want to come out and help,” said Chris Reuby, a volunteer at the museum.

“Take stock and see how far we’ve come from 1863, take stock and see how much we’ve learned. We don’t want to go backwards. We can’t go backwards. The clock only goes in one direction, it goes forward,” said David Sulin, one of the Civil War reenactors at the event.

Living History Days has concluded for this year, but will return October 4th and October 5th next year.

More information about Living History Days and other events can be found on the museum’s website at maineforestandloggingmuseum.org

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