IMPORTANT EVENT NOTICE
Unfortunately, due to increasing costs, Crazy Crow Trading Post will no longer be able to maintain the Event Calendar by updating or adding new events.
The pages will remain active for a time as there are a number of events with current information and past events that may help you contact the sponsors for new information concerning location, dates & times!
Please do NOT contact Crazy Crow about these events, except for corrections to events with 2020 dates that are incorrect. Email date corrections directly to eventcoordinator@crazycrow.com. PLEASE DO NOT CALL, as we have nothing to do with the events and have only provided the listings as a free service.
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2019 Gathering at Macktown

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The Annual Gathering at Macktown on April 27-28, 2019 at Macktown Living History Educational Center in Rockton, Illinois lets you experience pre-1850s frontier life. Take a step back in time to experience American frontier life through the 1840’s. At the Gathering at Macktown, you will meet traders and trappers, French voyageurs and Native Americans. Enjoy food and mercantile vendors, demonstrations and black powder shooting. This Gathering at Macktown takes place on the last full weekend of April each year.

On the early frontier, a Gathering was a special time once a year when trappers, traders, settlers and Native Americans came together to trade, share news, have sporting contests and ofttimes even marry. More civilized than an early Rendezvous, since it now included settler families, it was a greatly anticipated event that could last for several days.
In this living history event, the Gathering at Macktown, visitors can feel themselves transported to a different time. Whether tasting homemade root beer or period foods, visiting the Native American village and experiencing a woodlands lifestyle, learning the proper way to throw a tomahawk, or strolling through a historic site seemingly untouched by time, they will experience the 1650-1850 eras of exploration, trade and early settlement.

Gathering at Macktown

Visitors can talk with voyageurs, trappers, Native Americans, militiamen, settlers and craftsmen who have gathered to trade news and goods. There will be black powder shooting demonstrations, archery demonstrations, canoe landings, demonstrations of old-time crafts and skills, bag pipes and Janesville Drum and Fife Corps will perform – and more!!
Tour original buildings on a national historic site, Macktown Living History Educational Center, and meet Stephen Mack as he shares his home with you. This living history presentation of American life from 1690 to 1850 is a family-friendly event with plenty of hands-on activities, music and much more!

So, why just read about history when you can experience it! Reenactors at the Annual Gathering at Macktown have studied the time period, and love sharing what they have learned with camp visitors. The Gathering is expected attract about 100 reenactors roving in about the camp in period attire.

There will also be chances for guests to try out archery (times to be determined). Children will enjoy when the Candy Cannon is shot! (Shooting candy out of a cannon for children to gather.) There also will be a paddle dance, comparable to the The Virginia Reel during the Civil War.

Admission
Adults $7
Students $5
Children under 6 Free

Gathering at Macktown Mini-Gallery

Saturday & Sunday
9:00 a.m. – Voyageur Landing & Opening Ceremony

Event held rain or shine
Free parking
More information, call 815-624-4200.

Location
Macktown Living History Center
2221 Freeport Rd.
Rockton, IL 61072
(815) 624-4200

For More Information
Call (815) 624-4200; Email macktown1@frontier.com

About Macktown
The Winnebago County Forest Preserve District, which owns the land on which Macktown and the trading post once sat, and the Macktown Living History Education Center are working to restore Macktown to its 1830 – 1846 historic condition.

Macktown was founded in the mid-1830’s by Stephen Andrew Mack Jr., and his wife, Mary Hononegah. In prosperous times, Pekatonic boasted of the Mack’s two-story home and store, a furniture store, a school room, a shoemaker’s shop, a tavern, a trading post, fur trapper’s cabins, and other homes belonging to the population of 200 to 300. A ferry and bridge traversed the Rock River.

Gathering at Macktown

Mark your calendar today so you won’t miss the next Annual Gathering at Macktown at Macktown Living History Educational Center in Rockton, Illinois.

Tags: Gathering at Macktown, Indiana Mountain Man Rendezvous, Indiana Rendezvous, Indiana Voyageur Rendezvous, Macktown Rendezvous

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IMPORTANT EVENT NOTICE
Unfortunately, due to increasing costs, Crazy Crow Trading Post will no longer be able to maintain the Event Calendar by updating or adding new events.
The pages will remain active for a time as there are a number of events with current information and past events that may help you contact the sponsors for new information concerning location, dates & times!
Please do NOT contact Crazy Crow about these events, except for corrections to events with 2020 dates that are incorrect. Email date corrections directly to eventcoordinator@crazycrow.com. PLEASE DO NOT CALL, as we have nothing to do with the events and have only provided the listings as a free service.
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