Turn of the Century Days in Roxbury bring 1898 to life!
Let's Go Back ... Let's Go Way on Back! — Turn of the Century Days
on Saturday and Sunday let everyone turn the clocks back to 1898 with style,
grace and fun. Roxbury's hometown boys of summer, the Roxbury Nine, took
the Keator Cup once again, and Brooklyn’s Atlantic Base Ball Club celebrated
a victory in the Underhand Bracket. From silhouette artist Deborah O’Connor
and the Roxbury Brass to the nine vintage base ball teams who descended on
Roxbury especially for the event and their young scorekeepers, everyone jumped
wholeheartedly into the agreeable pursuits of 1898 all weekend long.
The hungry hordes (at least 2,000 folks attended the weekend festivities) didn't leave the 19th century hungry, either: there was that infamous Dolly Eagan Fuller, Public Lounge founder, who seduced virtuous ball players into imbibing ales with their brats on Saturday, as well as wonderful eats by the East Branch, Fane’s Deli and Mary’s Cookin’ Again. On Sunday, nonprofit groups like the Roxbury Fire Department, Roxbury Rotary, Roxbury Seniors Club and Writers in the Mountains dished everything from burgers and dogs to pie and ice cream.
At the Sunday Fashion Show, in addition to a survey of four decades of fashion,
the audience was treated to a young lady’s “levée,” demonstrated
from the bloomers up. Some suffragettes gate-crashed the event, protesting
the 19th-century
styles, which they thought too restrictive of women’s freedom of movement,
not to mention the women’s freedom movement.
The Catskill Puppet Show kept even the youngest audience members enthralled,
booing the dastardly villain and helping the hapless heroine find her way.
Horse and buggy rides were provided to all the visitors free of charge, and
a popular tour of outlying Roxbury landmarks by bus was sold out. Turn of
the Century Days was the final weekend of three special heritage tourism
summer events in Roxbury this year. 
Stayed tuned to Roxbury's event listings
to find out when 1898 will be coming our way again — and be sure to
watch for our horse-drawn Ghost Tours, which will be arriving with the harvest
moon . . . .
Turn of the Century Days are funded in part by the Preserve America Grant Initiative, a program administered by the National Park service, Department of the Interior, and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Additional funding provided by The A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust & the Town of Roxbury. Presentations were provided by Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York State Council for the Humanities.
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