Courtland Heritage Day 2009 will be held Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Courtland. It is sponsored by the Southampton County Historical Society and the Southampton Heritage Village/Agriculture & Forestry Museum.

Heritage Day promises to provide a wholesome and fun outing for the whole family. Visitors will see how the older generations lived, how hard they worked to make a living and how they made the items in their homes and on the farm.

Craftspeople from Virginia and North Carolina, many in period costumes, will demonstrate old crafts, with many craft items for sale. Demonstrations are expected on how to make lye soap, butter, and hominy, cracklings and lard rendering, crocheting and knitting, and Williamsburg and farm baskets, along with exhibitions on quilting, whittling and wood working, painted items, folk art, and rug weaving on a circa 1920 loom. Wendell Goss, a local trapper, will demonstrate how to handle and tan fur.

Entertainment by “Shiloh Grass,” a local bluegrass band, will take place twice during the day. Dulcimer music by Janet Vincent and friends from Murfreesboro will be heard resonating around the grounds. Visitors can see and hear the history of antique cars, trucks and tractors.

Rick Francis will be on hand at the Rebecca Vaughan House to talk to visitors about Nat Turner.

John Soderberg will make miniature hay bales with his baler and steam engine. E.L. Vann will be on hand to sharpen handsaws, saw blades, chain saw chains, knives and scissors for a fee.

Lunch will be for sale on the grounds. Barbecue, Brunswick stew, hot dogs, snacks, apple jacks and soft drinks will be available.

In addition to all the special activities, visitors are welcome to tour the Agriculture and Forestry Museum and all of its outbuildings, as well as the Heritage Village, which includes a country store, a one-room school, a country dwelling, a doctor’s office, a smoke house, an old post office and two outhouses, among other buildings.

Admission to the Ag and Forestry Museum is $3 for adults and $1 for school age children. Preschoolers get in for free.

For more information, call 654-6785 or at updikes@earthlink.net.