Whitesbog Blueberry Festival
The 31st annual Whitesbog Blueberry Festival takes place June 28, 2014, at Historic Whitesbog Village, 120-34 Whitesbog Road, Browns Mills, New Jersey.
This annual celebration of all things blueberry – the official state fruit of New Jersey – takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The festival features the pioneering work of Whitesbog’s own Elizabeth C. White and Dr. Fredrick Coville to domesticate the very first high bush blueberry. There’ll also be plenty of music, crafts, art, food, wagon and walking tours, lectures, living history actors, demonstrations and children’s activities. But the real star of the show is, of course, the blueberries.
The Pinelands, New Jersey’s blueberry and cranberry industries and the region’s rich cultural history intersect in delicious ways in this corner of the state. History buffs can tour and explore Whitesbog’s Ice House, Suningive, Elizabeth Coleman White’s historic home and office, visit Rutgers’ first Cranberry Research Substation, tour a cottage that depicts what life was like for Whitesbog’s workers in the 1920s and shop in Whitesbog’s authentic General Store.
Fresh fruit enthusiasts will delight in picking their own blueberries at the celebration. Whitesbog is home to the world’s oldest test fields for domesticated blueberries, which will be open at the Blueberry Festival to give people an opportunity to experience firsthand a bit of our State’s agricultural history.
All proceeds benefit the Whitesbog Preservation Trust in their continuing efforts to restore and interpret Historic Whitesbog Village and the surrounding Pinelands.
Whitesbog is administered by the State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Parks and Forestry as part of Brendan T. Byrne State Forest.
(Photo courtesy of Whitesbog Village)
