Ortonville- Plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Old Mill are underway.
At the village council meeting on Nov. 14, Historical Society President Tom Stowell presented a list of proposed activities for the year-long celebration to start in January.
The suggested ideas include a historic baseball game with the Rochester Grangers; an old-fashioned church service; historical re-enactments; an historic homes tour and various demonstrations of crafts and labors from the 1800s.
The Historical Society is asking the council and township board to become involved and help choose activities and sponsor contests. The Brandon Township Library will also be involved and have set times for several events for the first four months of the year. At 7 p.m. January 19, Colleen Stringer will present a program on the local history room at the library located at 304 South St.; at 7 p.m., Feb. 15 the library hosts the ‘Life and Times of Harriet Tubman? when an impersonator speaks as Harriet Tubman; a pioneer cooking demonstration will be at 7 p.m. March 6, when Patricia Massey will talk about Michigan’s culinary history and tell about food cooked in the late 1800s and how it was prepared; and at 1 p.m., April 8, Ralph the Peddler will be at the Old Mill, 366 Mill St., weather permitting. Ralph will talk about things a peddler might have had on his wagon in the 1880s.
‘All these things are meant to be educational, but they’re also meant to be fun,? says Stowell.
A special musical presentation is also being planned. April Verch, a fiddler, will perform at 7 p.m., Jan. 15 at the Old Town Hall, 586 Mill St.