Celebrate the Fourth at Hanford Mills Museum?s annual Independence Day Celebration. The event features old-fashioned fun, with two frog jumping contests, a fishing derby on the Mill Pond, tug o? war, and sack races. Visitors also can tour the historic Mill and woodworking shop and see water- and steam-power demonstrations featuring the 1926 Fitz Overshot waterwheel, the steam boiler and steam engines.
Mill staff and volunteers will be making vanilla ice cream on a steam-powered churn, chilled with ice harvested from the Mill Pond in February. Free ice cream samples will be available while supplies last. ?The ice cream is the sweet reward of last February?s successful ice harvest,? said Hanford Mills Museum executive director Liz Callahan. The ice is kept frozen in the Museum?s traditional ice house, packed with sawdust from the Mill.