The Five Mile House, one of the oldest buildings in Coles County and current museum, will finish out its seven-month season of activities with its second-annual Fall Festival on Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

The festival was previously scheduled for Oct. 14, but was rescheduled to this Sunday because of weather.

Tom Vance, a Charleston resident and president of the Five Mile House Foundation, said it was postponed to this Sunday because of rain and high winds.

Sunday’s event will be a copulation of all the different living history activities the site does throughout the year.

Living History is when educators and interpreters dress up in period clothing and complete tasks in the manner they were done at the time they are interpreting.

“We will have yarn spinners, open hearth cooking, a blacksmith, a wooden bucket maker and the house will be open for tours,” Vance said.

Vance said the cooking would include pressing apples to make cider as well as jarring the apples, as the people would have done in the 19th century.

“We will also have Lorelei Sims, the Charleston blacksmith there,” Vance said. “She has a full set of letters and will be using them to burn names into barn board for people to take home.”

Vance said the ultimate goal of the event is to educate.

“We just trying to do something different, and give people the opportunity to see living history,” Vance said.

The Five Mile House received its name from the fact that when it was built it was located exactly five miles from the Coles County Courthouse.

It is believed to have been built in the in 1830s or mid-1840s.

Vance said many stories surround the house, which is one of the reasons it was turned into a museum in 1999.

“One of the stories it that it was supposedly a stagecoach stop,” Vance said. “We do know for sure that main road went right past it so we know that Abraham Lincoln traveled past it and it is pretty likely he stopped in there in his travels.”

Lincoln had family and friends in the area and also practiced law in the 8th Judicial Circuit, which at the time included Champaign, Dewitt, Macon, Mason, McLean, Menard, Sangamon and Tazewell counties.

Vance said that throughout the museum’s seven-month season they put on about two programs a month, including a school program for local schools.

The program focuses on teaching the children about life in the 19th century.

The Five Mile House is located at the intersection of Illinois Routes 16 and 130.

Amy Wywialowski can

be reached at 581-2812

 or [email protected].