ELKTON: Preserving the Bee Hive

On Saturday we stopped by the Elk Creeks Preservation Society's annual Apple Butter fest, held at the Bee Hive, a complex of Colonial stone buildings just outside Fair Hill in Maryland. Two vats of apple butter were being boiled over fires and required constant stirring with long paddles.  
I enjoyed reading a photocopy of a 1794 newspaper, "The Maryland Gazette," that was on display at the restored Wallace Tavern. It listed news from Europe, as well as ships' arrivals in America and the cargo they brought. The classified ads listed rewards for escaped slaves, an announcement about an upcoming Jockey Club horse race, and a somewhat cranky posting that, due to "depradations and robberies," the landowner of Strawberry Hill would no longer be allowing hunting or trespassing on his property.

Stirring the apple butter!