Beverly Heritage Day: The Circus Comes to Town!

Downtown Beverly will come alive with the people, sights, and sounds of our historic past as our annual timeline heritage event returns Saturday, July 22nd. Come interact with Living History camps representing 18th, 19th, and 20th century eras with reenactors, demonstrations, presentations, displays, and more. Join us for a Parade of History, children’s activities and games, food, live music, and a circus sideshow performance including fire dancing and juggling!

Out of the Ashes Fire and Flow Arts will provide performances at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the Beverly Town Square. Their skilled fire and juggling acts are reminiscent of vintage side-show acts that may have traveled to rural towns in the late 19th or early 20th century. They will also be available to interact with visitors throughout the day.

Carnival activities will include Sam Winkler as a “snake oil salesman” promoting late 19 th century patent medicine. Visitors can participate in vintage lawn and carnival games, as well as craft activities for children and adults such as paper making and sewing crafts. Sketch artist J.R. Earle will be selling custom drawn caricatures.

The Parade of History at 10 a.m. will introduce the circus performers and living history characters. Activities and living history camps will be open through the day with music, tours, and food at scheduled times. A rarely seen collection of original 19th century art related to West Virginia and the First Campaign will be featured at the Civil War Art Show in the historic Laura Jackson Arnold house. The Arnold House, home of Stonewall Jackson’s sister, will be open for tours, with old-time music and ice-cream.

Cannon demonstrations will join the activities for Beverly Heritage Day this Saturday. McClanahan’s Battery will provide firing demonstrations with their mountain howitzer and 4 pounder cannon around 10:45, 12:30, and 2:45 in the living history camp behind the 1841 Jail in Beverly.

Reenactors

Reenactors and heritage demonstrators are invited to attend. For information, see

Reenactor Participant Handout: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10z9IIPGKf4IGpF0NUwc6H15Kx0_UVmnk/view?usp=sharing
Pre-Register:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/10z9IIPGKf4IGpF0NUwc6H15Kx0_UVmnk/view?usp=sharing