Last weekend, Chadds Ford’s Great Pumpkin Carve again delighted both the young and old with an array of amazing characters on display, writes Patricia Talorico for the Wilmington News Journal.

The open-air festival was held in a grove of the Chadds Ford Historical Society off Creek Road. The three-day celebration featured more than 60 local artists who used the Halloween staple as their canvas.

Pumpkin sculpting is a longstanding tradition in Chadds Ford, as carving became a public event in the late 1970s, thanks to renowned artist Andrew Wyeth and his son, Jamie.

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The idea came to Chadds Ford artist Jimmy Lynch in 1978 after he was gifted an 80-pound pumpkin by Jamie Wyeth.

“Jamie loves his pumpkins so I decided to find a bigger one to give him,” Lynch said at the time.

He soon found a 200- and a 300-pound pumpkin, and convinced the father-son duo to carve them in the parking lot of the Chadds Ford Inn. A crowd gathered to watch them in action, and word quickly spread. Other artists were invited to join the carving, thus beginning a tradition.

Read more about the Great Pumpkin Carve in the Wilmington News Journal by clicking here.

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