Come to the Rock Hall Country Fair in Lawrence

The two-day Rock Hall Country Fair is on schedule for the second consecutive year, after being canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Conceived 37 years ago by longtime Rock Hall Museum director Linda Barriera, the fair celebrates early America, and connects the past with the present through crafts, historical educators and entertainment.

Amy Vacchio, who became the director of the museum after Barriera died in April, described the fair as a “big deal.” “It’s a wonderful place for the community to go,” Vacchio said, referring to the museum, which is owned and operated by the Town of Hempstead and where she has worked for 23 years. “It represents our history on Long Island and in New York. It predates the Revolutionary War and is a wonderful asset. It’s an example of surviving Georgian architecture, and the fair is a wonderful community event.”

Rock Hall, in Lawrence, was an 18th-century sugar plantation that belonged to Josiah Martin. Born and raised on the Caribbean island of Antigua, Martin decided, at age 68, to move to the South Shore of Long Island, drawn by its proximity to the ocean and New York Harbor.

While still managing his plantation in Antigua, he bought 600 acres and built Rock Hall in 1767. During the American Revolution, American patriots occupied the home.

In the 1820s, the estate began to decline, and the Hewlett family took over the land from 1824 to 1948. Rock Hall was a busy farm home, with wealthy guests using it as a summer guesthouse and then the Hewletts using it as a summer home. By the 1930s, however, the historic home was no longer occupied.

The Hewletts gave the house and the land to the town, and it became a town museum in 1953. The now 3-acre site, at 199 Broadway, hosts programs and events, and the grounds are the site of archaeological digs conducted by Hofstra University, and occasionally the backdrop for movies and televisions shows.

“This is a big event, where over 1,000 people come to Rock Hall and are exposed to this house built in 1767, and hopefully come back to one of the classes that are offered,” Doug Sheer said of the fair. Sheer is president of the Friends of Rock Hall, a 50-year-old organization that supports the museum through fundraising, buying needed items that “fill in the gaps,” he added.

This year, the fair, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., will feature performances by the National Circus Project and offer workshops for children. The Bob Stump Band will perform bluegrass and other American music. The Five Towns Early Childhood Center will help visitors make scarecrows, and there will be a pumpkin patch, antique cars, craft vendors and pony rides.

“The Rock Hall Country Fair offers attendees an opportunity to travel back in time and see how Town of Hempstead residents lived back in the colonial era,” Town Supervisor Don Clavin wrote in an email. “This historical fair is also mixed with a traditional fall festival that includes pumpkin patches and fall-themed arts and crafts. We’re proud to partner with the Friends of Rock Hall in hosting this beloved event at the Town of Hempstead’s most historical home.”

Craft vendor Mindy Druw travels across the country, from upstate New York to West Virginia and Ohio, and brings the minerals and rocks she finds to the country fair and sells them. “I’ve come to the fair for several years and it’s really, really nice,” Druw said. “The children are really interested in the rocks and minerals.”