BETHEL – Visitors to Bethel enjoyed good old-fashioned fun at the town’s 25th annual summer heritage festival Saturday. Sudbury Canada Days offered old-time craft demonstrations and exhibits, games for adults and children, and a bean supper, among other activities.

Armand and Betty Beaudette, visiting the area from Connecticut, brought their grandchildren for the day. “It’s what we do when we come up here,” said Armand Beaudette, “all the little fairs.” While he pitched horseshoes, his grandchildren enjoyed the childrens’ games.

Grandson Frankie Galley won the first-place trophy for the clothespin drop. “Aw, it was cool,” he said, demonstrating how he knelt on a chair to attempt to drop clothespins into the mouth of a glass milk bottle.

“It’s supposed to be an old game that the settlers used to do,” he explained. Galley’s cousin, Kayla Lane, took the third-place ribbon for the ice cream eating contest.

Elissa Dyer, of Upton, described the other childrens’ activities. Dyer won first place for her Molly Ockett costume in the childrens’ parade, which included a doll to represent Suzanne Merrill, the first white child born in Andover, whom Molly Ockett delivered.

Dyer said she also participated in a three-legged race, an egg toss, and “pennies in pines,” in which children searched for pennies hidden among pine needles.

Adults and children both competed in badminton and croquet tournaments, games enjoyed by early residents of Bethel. Stanley Howe, executive director of the Bethel Historical Society, which organized the event, said that people like the festival for its “downhome-ness” and lack of commercialism. “We knew it’d be fairly slow because of the weather,” he said, but he was pleased overall with the turnout.

In addition to playing games, visitors were able to watch demonstrations of old-time crafts. Area artisans demonstrated chair caning, weaving on a loom, spinning yarn, and woodworking. There were also farming and logging tools on display.

Sudbury Canada was Bethel’s original name. The land was granted to residents of Sudbury, Mass., in 1768, and named in honor of their unsuccessful attempt to conquer Canada in 1690. The town was called Sudbury Canada until its incorporation in 1796. Sudbury Canada Days honors the town’s heritage.