Re-living old times

What was it like to live in the lower Cape Fear region three hundred years ago?
Some young Cape Fear Museum visitors learned Saturday through hands on experience.

Museum educators said that toys, for one, were more for teaching than playing. Both boys and girls, for example, played with dolls–training to become parents. That is, when they had time to play. In those days, children were put to work as early as three.

Six year-old Daniel Morvai took on some chores of his own.

“I made butter and this little toy,” said an excited Morvai, who was visiting the museum from Hungary. The toy, called a whirligig, is a piece of string threaded through a button and was one of the few diversions for kids in colonial times.

The Colonial Wilmington workshop will be held at the Cape Fear Museum on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the rest of month.