Brinegar Day 2022

On Saturday, September 10, 2022, the National Park Service will host the annual Brinegar Day celebration from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the grounds of the historic Brinegar Cabin at milepost 238.5 on the Blue Ridge Parkway.    

Brinegar Day activities include demonstrations and discussions, led by NPS volunteers and staff, on a variety of folklife skills including:   

• Making apple butter  
• Pressing local apples into cider  
• Breaking, scutching, hackling, and spinning flax into linen  
• Carding and spinning wool into thread  
• Weaving a rug  
• Cooking discussion using late 19th and early 20th century methods  
• Playing the hammered dulcimer and other instruments  
• Tending a traditional garden and using plants for medicinal and other purposes  
• Making corn husk dolls

Descendants of the Brinegar family, who settled in the area in 1876, will be on hand, along with other long-time community members, to share family stories, photos, and artifacts. There are two additional program options available at 4:00 p.m. the same day. Visitors can join a caravan from Brinegar Cabin to tour the nearby Brinegar/Crouse/Brown cemetery or join a ranger-led program on site at the cabin about various Parkway animals that visitors might see or hear along the parkway.

Brinegar Cabin is now part of the larger Blue Ridge Parkway-Doughton Park landscape. The site provides a view of middle-class Appalachian farming and family life from 1885 to 1935, regularly interpreting activities such as loom weaving, traditional subsistence agriculture, regional use of springhouses, and the family cemetery of the Brinegars. More information about Brinegar Cabin is available on the Blue Ridge Parkway’s website.

Original source can be found here.