The famous soup kitchen served up hearty beef, carrot, tortellini, chicken vegetable, split pea and ham soups and corn and clam chowders. There was plenty of delicious bread to dip in the soup, including oatmeal, Irish soda, corn, sunflower bread and baking powder biscuits.

Beth Lawton’s Ampersand Band and the Hawthorne Hoedown entertained the crowd. Eric Johnson and his Wild Goose Chase Border Collies demonstrated their herding skills on a flock of Kaki Campbell ducks.

The gift shop was open for business, while Joe Mondel managed the silent auction. Early American crafts makers showed of their weaving, spinning, and blacksmithing skills. Bill Holland’s tent was filled with his luminous watercolors. It was a beautiful day in Austerlitz.

Next week the society will host a walking tour through the Spencertown Cemetery entitled “Shadows from Austerlitz’s Past.”  The tour coincides with the society’s 2009 calendar highlighting the twenty-six burial grounds in the Austerlitz area. Visitors will gather on the Spencertown Green for cider and donuts and then follow a ghostly guide on a stroll among the marble markers.

The 2009 calendar is dedicated to Marion Wambach Kern, who as the town historian knew the value of cemetery records for genealogical purposes. Marion and her husband, Donald Kern, undertook the care and maintenance of fallen and buried stones in many of the twenty-six cemeteries in Austerlitz. They spent untold hours restoring and deciphering data from the burial sites. That information was published in 1985 in a book entitled Cemeteries in the Town of Austerlitz.

History and Halloween, what a wonderful autumn treat.