Apple Festival 2000 will take place on Saturday and Sunday, October 7 and 8, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Bement-Billings Farmstead on Route 38 in Newark Valley.

The festival will feature live entertainment, a Civil War encampment with North and South skirmish daily at 2:00 pm, period foods, juried craft vendors, and craft demonstrations of the 1800's.

Live entertainment will be provided by Kimball and Gamble, Java Joe Jammers, Bunn Hill String Band, Cranberry Jammers, Diamonds in the Rough, and Storytellers.

Period foods will include salt potatoes, homemade vegetable soup, BBQ beef and turkey, apple desserts such as apple pie and apple crisp, and homemade root beer and root beer floats.

Demonstrations of traditional 1800's crafts will include butter making, blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, cordage and basket making, and soap making.

The festival is the major fund raisin event for the Newark Valley Historical Society which started in 1976. The farmstead is on the land which was first settled in the 1790's by Asa Bement as part of the Boston Purchase. The society is chartered by the New York State Department of Education and has as its mission to educate the public about life in the nineteenth century. This event endeavors to fulfill this mission as well as entertain its attendees.

There will be free parking and tours of the Bement-Billings House.

Admission at the gate is $4 for adults, $3 for students (ages 6-18) and seniors (65 or older), and free for children 5-years-old and younger.