NEWLAND — One day each year, numerous area families and organizations convene on the Square in Newland to share scrapbooks, swap stories and tell tales of ancestral lore as individuals, families and guests gathered for the 2024 Avery County Heritage Festival.
This year’s edition took place under a mostly sunny sky on Saturday, June 29, as Avery Countians and people from across Western North Carolina gathered to learn more about their “kith and kin,” or, in layman’s terms, family and friends. Among the activities during the event were period-dressed portrayers of the famed Over the Mountain Men, such as Steve Ricker, who shared the story of the Battle of Kings Mountain from the first-person perspective of a local soldier. Attendees were entertained by several musical guests throughout the day, ranging from the Avery Junior Appalachian Musicians to the Dee Raby-led Avery Community Band and the dulcet tones of local band Boone and Church. Local guitarist Jesse Smith and friends were also in on the act, hunkered down in a corner of the Square picking tunes and jamming over the course of the festival.
The festival offered anyone in attendance the opportunity to learn myriad details about their lineage. From perusing storyboards of historic family photos and visiting with keepers of family stories and memories of those long gone to seeing demonstrations of wood turning by local artisan Lucas Hundley and yarn spinning from Michele Dearmin of Owl Hollow Farm, a talent which her great grandmother from Avery County taught her to do when she was only 8 years old.
“This is a part of who I am,” Dearmin expressed during previous festivals. “It’s in my blood.”
Visitors to the festival found a number of vendors offering wares, ranging from authors on hand with books accenting local history to tents selling microwavable cozies and craftspeople with drawings, glassworks and bead creations, to many tents around the Square remaining active with patrons looking to purchase that special gift or even some sort of written memento of their own family.
In conjunction with the America 250 Project celebrating the nation’s Semiquincentennial (or 250th anniversary since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776) taking place across the United States in 2026, Avery County is already ramping up efforts to identify and detail facts and information on the county’s own Revolutionary War families and soldiers. Avery County Genaology Society members were on hand with a booth sharing details of the upcoming event, as well as the group’s efforts to recognize those ancestors who helped win independence for the nation.
According to Avery County Museum director and Chair of the Avery County Historical Society Aneda Johnson, officials were excited about the participation at the festival, reporting large numbers of visitors not only to the festival grounds, but to the adjacent Avery County Historical Museum, where guests could take a tour of the facility and the historic depot and caboose stationed there that documents the long lineage of Avery Countians across varied walks of life and occupations.
“I was really pleased with the turnout and all the wonderful people that we had,” Johnson said. “We had SAR DAR, the Hickory Ridge Homestead and the Over the Mountain Men. We had good weather and great music. This year, we left opportunities for storytelling as we are moving toward America 250 and the importance of highlighting Revolutionary War history.”
Johnson noted that more than a dozen families, as well as other associative branches, were represented in booths or with individual representatives at the Heritage Festival this year, adding that the interpretive demonstrations are always a popular attraction during the event which she hopes the festival can expand greater moving forward.
“A lot of people are always interested in seeing the demonstrations and, hopefully that will bring more people to the festival. We hope to have even more of those demonstrations next year,” she said.
As the event wound down and local favorites Boone and Church played their final song, a rain shower fell over the field. However, the raindrops failed to dampen the spirit of homecoming and familial camaraderie that binds local mountain residents, some tracing a half-dozen or more generations that call Avery County home.
“Everybody plays a part,” Johnson added following the conclusion of the day’s activities. “I love how everybody has and makes whatever contribution they can make to help the festival all work together. It made for a very successful day.”
To visit local history throughout the year, the Avery County Historical Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday during the months of May through September, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday and Friday during the months of March and April, and closed December through February. For more information, call (828) 733-7111, email averycountymuseum@gmail.com or visit the Avery County Genealogy Society on social media.
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