It’s the spookiest time of the year at the Village! Celebrate all things Halloween and autumn at the 24th Annual Pumpkin Festival. This fun, free event will take place on the grounds of Historic Cold Spring Village on Saturday, Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Rain date: Sunday, Oct. 18) and is presented by the Lower Township Rotary Club. Admission is free! Guests are encouraged to donate non-perishable goods to the ‘Share the Harvest’ Food Drive.
Families can enjoy pumpkin painting and games throughout the day. A variety of crafters will sell their wares along the Village’s shell-paved lanes. Vendors will be selling hot dogs, funnel cake and other snacks. Visit a haunted house at the Village Barn and hop on a fall hayride through the farm. Don’t miss the Children’s Halloween Parade at 11 a.m. Please call the Lower Township Recreation Department at (609) 886-7880 for parade registration information.
Historic Cold Spring Village is a non-profit, open air living history museum that portrays the daily life of a rural South Jersey community of the Early American era. Its mission includes the preservation of 26 historic Cape May County buildings, history education and promoting heritage tourism. The Village is a museum for all seasons. During the summer months, interpreters and artisans in period clothing preserve the trades, crafts and heritage of “the age of homespun.” From October to May, the emphasis is on teaching history through school trips to the Village, classroom visits by the education department and interactive teleconferences with schools throughout the United States. The Country Store is open Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. throughout the fall for holiday shopping. The Village is located on Route 9, three miles north of Victorian Cape May and a mile and a half west of the southern end of the Garden State Parkway. For more information, call (609) 898-2300, ext. 10 or visit the Village website at www.hcsv.org.