Town of Rowlesburg celebrates annual Chestnut Festival

ROWLESBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — The town of Rowlesburg hosted its 16th annual West Virginia Chestnut Festival at its community park on Sunday, providing an opportunity for people to have some fun and learn about the American Chestnut.

People from all over the United States stopped to take in the roasting of the chestnuts and as the day progressed, along with laughter, music, and activities for people of all ages. Chestnut seedlings were sold, as well as handmade furniture, arts and crafts, locally sewn quilts and honey.

Director of the West Virginia Chestnut Festival Robert Sypolt talked about the importance and history of the festival.

“Well chestnuts, the American Chestnuts was a vital tree back in the early days for early sellers provided shelter, log cabins, defending, the food for the pigs that they would fatten up, as well as the wildlife that provided food for early settlers,” Sypolt said. “It was a very functional tree, the problem is our generation really cannot appreciate the value that has because we never had the true experience of trees being 100 foot tall and six or eight feet in diameter, and just a very valuable tree in the past and we hope to bring it back to be a vital part of the future.”

Sypolt added that it is important to educate the younger generation to promote saving a planting the American Chestnut trees and develop them back into our forests again. The West Virginia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation hosted its Scientific and Technical Session where the latest developments in the efforts to restore the American Chestnut Tree to forests and farms throughout the eastern U.S. were presented and discussed.

The festival wraped up with the Gala Chestnut Banquet held in the auditorium featuring a lavish variety of foods. Continuing with tradition they had the annual ritual of “blessing the new wine” or “Chestnut-Vino Novello” that was observed, as well as the crowning of Dr. Lewis Cook and Vicki Miles Cook as “Mr. and Ms. Chestnut”.

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