Founders Day Festival Highlights Music, History

Planning is still underway for the First Annual Founders Day Festival, and members of the Pickens County Historical Society will be taking part.

On Monday, PCHS board members approved opening the Hagood-Mauldin House and Irma Morris Museum during the festival, which is slated for Saturday, September 22.

Board members will have the home open for tours from 11am – 4pm during the Festival, which is slated to run from 10am to 8pm or 9pm in the evening.

Founders Day is free to attend and will feature a huge gathering of musicians from around the area.

Old time, country, bluegrass and folk music will be featured during the festival and eight bands with local ties will play the main stage during the festival.

The festival will also feature “open mic” segments, allowing both individuals and groups to jam throughout the day.

In the evening, all musicians will converge for what organizers hope will be the largest jam in the history of Pickens and perhaps the Upcountry of South Carolina.

The festival will conclude with contra dancing.

“There will be dancing on Main Street,” said Wayne Kelley, PCHS vice-president.

Founders Day will also include vendors selling traditional arts and crafts and food vendors selling a variety of items, including homemade ice cream.

In Legacy Square, experts will provide demonstrations on blacksmithing, quilting, making musical instruments, gunsmithing and more.

Pickens Revitalization Association Director Kristen Henry told Patch earlier that the festival will feature games that would have been played at traditional country fairs in the early days of Pickens County.

Special vintage vehicles will be on displayed during the festival and living history reenactments will be staged with muskets, long rifles and cannon firing demonstrations.

Visitors will have a chance to fire an authentic cannon!

“There's a lot going on,” Kelley told board members.

During Founders Day, the historical society will display an 8 ft. model of the monument to General Andrew Pickens, the county's namesake, that they hope to erect somewhere in Pickens.

Gen. Andrew Pickens himself will be on hand at the festival, telling people about his life, including fighting in the Revolutionary War. Festival-goers will able to have their pictures taken with the general as well.

For more information about Founders Day call the PRA at 878-0105 or visit historicpickens.com.