26th Strawberry Festival Helps Start Season

GREENFIELD – Combine history, delicious strawberry-based treats of all kinds, patriotic music, crafts and hands-on demonstrations of how things used to be done for a surefire way to bring out crowds.
Upper Township Historic Preservation Society has found over the 26 years of the festival that hundreds of quarts of strawberries served in a variety of ways is the foundation for a much-loved and anticipated annual fundraiser for its preservation projects.
“We had 600 quarts of strawberries, 40 homemade loaves of strawberry bread, 100 jars of homemade strawberry jams and we are pretty well cleaned out and it’s only 11 a.m. and we still have a few more hours to go,” exclaimed Marge Bixby, a member of the society.
Assisted by her granddaughter, fourth grader Cheryl Connell, and friend Luke Eisele of Petersburg, a ninth grader at the county’s Vocational School, Bixby said eager visitors had arrived well before 9 a.m. even though the festival did not open until 10 a.m.
A highlight of the annual festival is the opportunity for visitors to tour the Gandy Farmstead built in 1815. In addition to viewing the farmhouse itself, which has no indoor plumbing and very tight sleeping rooms on the second floor, visitors also could see the farm’s working well, outdoor ice box, herb garden, barn and granary.
“Mrs. Gandy lived here until 1950 without running water or electricity and cooked over a wood burning stove which also provided heat. Even though her children lived across the street and wanted her to move in with them she was very happy with her setup here, having an outhouse right out the door and an icehouse for the summer,” explained longtime society docent Carol Ann Williams of Petersburg, a retired Upper Township teacher who was dressed in replicas of early 18th century garb.
“The farmstead is unique in that it has still-existing ‘noggin’ of porous brick and plaster with fine hair as binder which was excellent for insulation.” Inside the farmhouse was considerably cooler than the hot and humid weather outside.
According to Williams, the original 17-by-20 footprint of the house still stands on granite stone piers. The house retains many of its original features such as hand-hewn wooden hooks to hang guns and the cast iron crank that held cooking pots in a large original brick fireplace.
The farmstead is one of three historic properties the society maintains; the other two are the historic one-room Friendship School on Route 9 in Palermo built in 1830, and the 1894 Railroad Station in Tuckahoe.
The farmstead was offered to the Historic Society in 1996 by Gandy family descendants and was built by Joseph Falkinburg as a tenant farmhouse for John Wesley Gandy.
Gandy and his wife, Emma Lavinia Van Gilder, were descendants of Cape May County pioneer families. Gandy was not only a farmer but also a minister, district superintendent of schools, manager of the Cedar Swamp Meadow Company and a constable.
The Gandy Farmhouse was built in 1815 and was the roof over the heads of farmers, shipbuilders, seafarers, and preachers through the centuries.
To contact Camille Sailer, email csailer@cmcherald.com.