Algonquin fest features cemetery walk
The upcoming Downtown Algonquin Fall Harvest Fest offers a taste of food and history for all ages.
After snapping up your fresh fruits and veggies for the last time this season at the Algonquin farmers market this Saturday, the Algonquin Historic Commission invites you to bring the family to its eighth annual cemetery walk.
On this year's walk through the 157-year-old Algonquin Cemetery, local actors will bring six figures from the past who are buried there back to life.
Those figures are:
Ÿ Maria Morton, who with her husband Edward owned Morton House Hotel, a Victorian-era summer resort hotel on Routes 31 and 62. Today, a Shell gas station sits in its place.
Ÿ John Johnston, an undertaker and furniture maker from the late 1880s through 1910.
Ÿ Belinda Gillilan, one of the town's early settlers. She arrived by covered wagon in 1835.
Ÿ B.B. Stewart, a telegrapher for the Chicago & North Western Ry. station in Algonquin during the 1880s. He later became its station master.
Ÿ Carl and Leona Zange, a pair of early settlers in Algonquin. Leona also taught in a one-room schoolhouse on the east side of the town.
The walk has a suggested donation of $1, a small price to pay for learning about Algonquin's rich history.
“Lots of the newer communities, they don't have the history that we enjoy in the Fox River Valley. And I think there are certainly some very interesting stories to be told, said Jeffrey Jolitz, chairman of the Algonquin Historic Commission and the walk.
The farmers market portion of Harvest Fest runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will be held in the parking lot a block east of Route 31 on South Harrison Street.
There will be free games for kids, a craft fair, a pumpkin decorating contest and a sidewalk costume parade that begins at noon.
Organizers ask that you bring nonperishable food to the farmers market to support the Algonquin/Lake in the Hills Food Pantry.
A free shuttle drives off every 20 minutes starting at 10:45 a.m. and will take everyone from the farmers market to the cemetery walk, which runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The cemetery is on Route 31 and Cary-Algonquin Road.