Frank Speziale photo

NORWICH – It all started with an issue of Country Woman Magazine.

After Shirley Proskine read about a Pumpkin Festival in Keene, NH where thousands of people flock and thousands more jack-o-lanterns are suspended from scaffoldings, her daughter Michelle Lorimer and a small group of Norwich residents decided to travel to the festival to see what all the fuss was about.

"We thought it would be a cool thing to go check out," said Lorimer. "So there was Gary and Holly Brightman, Joe [Lorimer] and I, George and Debby Flanagan, and Bill and Karen Lyons."

What they saw was shoulder to shoulder people, scaffoldings fifty feet in the air, and upwards of 17,000 carved pumpkins––a whole lot of orange. They decided to try to bring a similar event to Norwich in the year 1999.

"We decided to try one in '99 so we'd have it set in the year 2000," said Marilyn Oliver, Lorimer's sister and one of the founding members of the Norwich Pumpkin Festival. "That's why we started in '99."

At first, the goal was to contest the Guinness World Record for most lit jack-o-lanterns set by Keene, N.H. In 1999, the Guinness World Record was 17,693 pumpkins. The first Norwich Pumpkin Festival tallied 3,136 pumpkins. Its highest year was in 2004, when Norwich Pumpkin Festival had 7,122 pumpkins.

As time went on and the Guinness World Record grew in number––today Keene, NH once again holds the record for most carved pumpkins with 30,581 after re-claiming the record from Boston, MA in 2013––the Norwich Pumpkin Festival became less about the number of pumpkins and more about offering a weekend of free, family fun ahead of the Halloween holiday.

Oliver said, "When we started the festival we always wanted it to be a free, family fun event. So we've always kept everything free, we've never charged for anything unless you're going to buy food. But any activities and events, anything there was always free, and still is today."

In its early years, thousands of packets of pumpkin seeds were distributed to children in Chenango County each spring to grow their own pumpkins to carve and bring to the festival in October. Students at Gibson Primary and Perry Browne Elementary schools would take walking field trips with their classes to drop off their pumpkins at the festival. A traveling trophy was awarded annually to the school with the most pumpkins entered.

Lorimer said, "I think the best part was the enjoyment of the children, schools coming down, kids being all excited."