Upon registration, students and classes receive a “Welcome to the 18th Century” packet and are then dispatched to presentations and encampments. For information, call 30 or visit Friday, – 9 a.m. It’s been 256 years since Ingles made her trek through the Kanawha Valley and New River area, and her remarkable story is woven throughout each day of the primitive encampment as well as current rural Appalachian culture. Demonstrations are based on the availability of individual interpreters. Some of the life skills and demonstrations planned each of the three days include: the importance of trade, animal care, spinning and weaving, music, salt making, edible native plants, and medicinal native plants as early healthcare, finger weaving, blacksmithing, candle making, lye soap making, hunting skills, tomahawk throwing, plant dyes, toys and games, wood working, hide tanning, Indian pictographs, women’s and men’s roles, and frontier cooking and foods. Presentations are not lecture-style: audience participation is encouraged. The interpreters engage visitors in conversation and with on-going actions and work life typical of the 18th century. The presentations are part of a three-day encampment with more than 20 interpreters and tradesmen and women staged in primitive encampment settings.

The 2011 event will be presented at Beech Fork State Park near Barboursville. Visitors and guests are introduced to the ways of our pioneering ancestors through demonstrations and the portrayal of life in 1755 that Mary Ingles lived and encountered. – The Legacy of Mary Ingles, in its 23rd year, is an 18th century living history weekend.

Beech fork state park