PARIS  — Founders’ Day will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 18,is an annual event that features a private automobile collection.

The antique cars, carriages and toys can be viewed on the grounds and in the large buildings behind the house where Hannibal Hamlin was born. Hamlin was vice president, serving with Abraham Lincoln, and this summer marks the 200th anniversary of his birth on Paris Hill.

Hamlin Memorial Library and Museum will display items relating to the Hamlin family who lived in the large house next door to the library between 1806 and 1860. Items in the collection include portraits of family members, a friendship quilt containing squares hand-stitched by Hamlin women, books, letters and other mementos.

Admission to the car exhibit is $10 for adults, $2 for children and the library exhibit is free to all visitors. Proceeds from the car exhibit will benefit the Hamlin Memorial Library.

On the common across from the library will be the annual Founders’ Day craft fair, and this year the Hannibal Hamlin Bicentennial Committee will have a table with special bicentennial activities.

Visitors are invited to hear a reading of “The Jonah,” a story written by C.A. Stephens about the elderly statesmen Hannibal Hamlin and a family of children in Norway. “Jonah” pies (small homemade fruit-filled cookies) will be sold and a few of the pies will be filled with a not-so-good-tasting filling (those are the “Jonahs”). Recipients of the “Jonah” will win a prize and all ages may participate.

Special commemorative envelopes will also be sold, which can be brought to the Paris Post Office for cancellation on the day of the bicentennial, Aug. 22. 

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