The Better-Than-Fair Fair

Now that the Fourth of July and its attendant knee-high corn have come and gone, it’s fair to say that it’s fair season in Vermont. In fact, all across America, agricultural aficionados – often called farmers – are selecting their best animals and vegetables (but rarely minerals, more’s the pity) to show off to both official judges and the general public.

The fair has roots in ancient times – though, as far as we know, it isn’t so antediluvian as to be depicted in paleolithic cave paintings. Around, say, 650 B.C., there is evidence that fairs as commercial events, where merchants and traders displayed and sold their wares, were taking place in Rome. The word “fair” comes from the Latin word feriae, which means festivals.

During the Middle Ages, some fairs had a religious aspect to them. Because they often occurred on various church holidays, fairs promoted opportunities for people to worship when they weren’t bartering for livestock and apple pie. Plus, accompanying entertainment featured music and dancing that depicted Biblical stories. (The fried foods, carnival games, horse races and amusement rides were still centuries in the future.) Much earlier, ca. 570 B.C., the prophet Ezekiel in his eponymous Book of the Bible said, “Tarshish [probably a city, though its location is unknown] was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.”

Still later, fairs in Europe were held for economic reasons as they promoted the trading of goods. As early as the twelfth century, English towns were organizing annual fairs with the permission of the Crown.

An altogether different kettle of fishmongers is the Renaissance Faire, an outdoor gathering where a historical setting, most often the English Renaissance, is recreated with LARP, or live-action role playing. Vermont’s Renaissance Faire took place in June, but if you don’t mind a little road trip, you can still experience one this year in Connecticut, Maine, New York, and Massachusetts. Wait, here’s another one!

Fairs in the United States informally began in 1807 when Elkanah Watson exhibited two sheep under an old elm tree in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Watson had worked in New York as a banker and businessman and had also been an advisor to President George Washington. In the latter capacity, he occasionally sailed to Europe to study agricultural practices. After he retired, Watson moved to Pittsfield, where he raised Merino sheep that he had brought back with him on one of his across-the-pond jaunts. So proud was he of their fleece that he felt compelled to show off their owners. Watson was flabbergasted at the result, writing, “Many farmers, even females, were attracted to this humble exhibition. If two animals are capable of exciting so much attention, what would be the effect of a display on a larger scale with different animals.”

Watson acted on that last thought and, three years later, organized the first Berkshire (Massachusetts) Cattle Show, a supremely successful venture in which farmers entered 386 sheep, 109 oxen, nine cows, three heifers, two calves, and one male hog. I could find no record of whether these 510 critters were formally appraised or if any blue ribbons were awarded, but competitions in years to come would include the meticulous evaluation of phenotypic breed traits such as udders, legs and feet, and frame.

Future fairs further featured plowing competitions, demonstrations of the latest technological advances, and a chance to try out products of various and sundry manufacturers. The fair had evolved into a modern-day cultural melting pot where rural people could learn about life in urban America and city dwellers could see what in tarnation was causing all the hoopla surrounding agriculture and rural living.

The earliest agricultural fair in North America was the Hants County Exhibition in Windsor, Nova Scotia, which began in 1765 and has been held annually since 1815. (Fifteen years earlier, Windsor was the birthplace of ice hockey. But you knew that.)

In 1791 the Town of Winhall (Bennington County, not Hants County) received its state charter, which permitted the town to hold two fairs each year. Six years later, the village of Bondville, an unincorporated village within Winhall, held the first fair in Vermont. A surge in fair awareness followed and by the 1840s, annual fairs were taking place in Bennington, St. Albans, and Burlington, and in Caledonia, Orleans, and Addison counties.

In 1846, a field near Castleton was the site of Vermont’s first State Fair, though it was initially called the Rutland State Fair. These days, the State Fair takes place at the Vermont State Fairgrounds in Rutland.

The Tunbridge Fair, which began in 1867, became noted for its “tradition of insobriety” and as a place where “the carnival spirit runs rampant.” In the 1960s, a crusading minister arrived in town to get rid of the fair’s “drunkards’ reunion” reputation. (He apparently succeeded.)

This year, the prospective fairgoer still has plenty of opportunities (well, ten, anyway) to partake of that quintessential Vermont summer experience, as the table below shows.

“State Fair,” a musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, tells the story of an adventure at the Iowa State Fair in 1946 and features the too-memorable song “It Might As Well Be Spring.” Now that I think of it, except for the sour pickles competition, it has no connection to Vermont’s State Fair.

“Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!” says Lorenzo in Act 3, scene 4, of W. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and I can’t think of a better attitude for Vermont fairgoers to have during this year’s better-than-fair fair season.