Old Sturbridge Village

Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA, is New England's largest outdoor living history museum with costumed historians at work on farms, in trade shops, and in charming 19th century homes. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, many of the homes and shops are still closed. But there were a few trade and farm workers to talk with and answer questions about what life was like in 1830. We had been to Old Sturbridge Village years ago and it was sad to see much of it still closed. Hopefully it will be fully open soon and we can return to "normal" life, whatever that is. Still, we were glad to have been able to visit at all. Their website does have 3D virtual tours and virtual videos which, while nothing compares to being there in person, does still keep the history alive. 

These pictures are from online images. I took lots of pictures while we were there but my cell phone decided, for the 2nd time in its short existence, to wipe everything out and re-initialize itself. Hopefully my friends at the electronics store can restore all my information - photos, calendar, contacts, etc. But even if they do, its definitely time for a new phone!

Gettysburg Cyclorama & Museum

Of the many documentaries and museums dedicated to the history of the Civil War, none are more spectacular than the Gettysburg Cyclorama.

First, you experience a new film titled "A New Birth of Freedom". Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the 22-minute film provides the backdrop with a dramatic look at the Battle of Gettysburg and its place in history. 

After the film you enter the Cyclorama. Originally displayed in 1884, this massive fully-restored, 360-degree painting places you in the middle of Pickett's Charge on the decisive third day of the Battle. The painting is the work of French artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux and depicts Pickett's Charge, the failed infantry assault that was the climax of the Battle of Gettysburg. The painting is a cyclorama, a type of 360 degree cylindrical painting. The intended effect is to immerse the viewer in the scene being depicted, often with the addition of foreground models and life-sized replicas to enhance the illusion. Among the sites documented in the painting are Cemetery Ridge, the Angle, and the "High-water mark of the Confederacy". The completed original painting was 22 feet high and 279 feet in circumference. The version that hangs in Gettysburg, a recent (2005) restoration of the version created for Boston, is 42 feet high and 377 feet in circumference.

Complete with shackles, swords and bullet-pierced furniture, the rare artifacts and interactive stories take you on a journey back through the events and issues surrounding the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg. The movie and Cyclorama bring the battle to life with explosions that rattle the whole room. This is definitely a must-see!

Halifax, NC

Historic Halifax, North Carolina, is called the "Birthplace of Independence." And we happened to arrive on April 12, Halifax Day, which celebrated the 245th anniversary of the Halifax Resolves.

The Halifax Resolves were the first official call for Independence by any of the thirteen colonies. Shots had already been fired at Concord, Lexington, and in North Carolina at Moore's Creek Bridge. On April 12, 1776, the 83 delegates of North Carolina's Fourth Provincial Congress, which met in Halifax, unanimously voted to call for Independence. These men could be identified by name and if captured by the Royal Governor's forces, they would have faced forfeiture of their possessions and perhaps death. They knew they were not alone, however, as North Carolina was teeming with revolutionary sentiment. Present day citizens of our country, the state of North Carolina, and particularly Halifax County, should never forget this bold step taken there on that soil.

"Resolved that the delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring Independency." -Excerpt from the Halifax Resolves

Between November 1775 and January 1776, four colonies instructed their delegates to vote against independence. However, after the Halifax Resolves, support grew, and by June 24, 1776, only New York and Maryland opposed the idea. On October 15, 1776, the Fifth Provincial Congress met in Halifax and drafted North Carolina's first state constitution, which included a 23 article Bill of Rights.

Marquis de Lafayette

After the American Revolution, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution (on November 21, 1789, in Fayetteville), having held out for the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. It was Willie Jones, a strong advocate for states' rights and an Anti-Federalist, who stood firm on this inclusion. It was William R. Davie, a strong Federalist, who pushed for and secured the ratification of the Constitution. These two remarkable leaders and statesmen worked together for America's independence, yet saw the formation of the country and way forward differently. Davie and Jones represented the conflict in the colonies between these two opposing views - Federalism, supported by John Adams, and Anti-Federalism, supported by Thomas Jefferson. That President Washington had visited Halifax as a part of his southern tour on April 16, 1791, is evidence of the prominence of the town during that era. 

The Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette, known as the "hero of two worlds," led troops in several battles of the American Revolution and was a friend of George Washington. At the invitation of the President, Lafayette came to the young country for a celebratory tour and visited Halifax in 1825. A large banquet a the Eagle Tavern was held in his honor. Before leaving town, he visited the widow of his close friend, Willie Jones.

Halifax was also important to the Underground Railroad in the U.S. due to its proximity to the river, as well as having the largest number of free blacks in the state (2,452 in 1860). This large number enabled the network to better operate and the fleeing to more easily go undetected. From the edge of town to the river is a trail that the enslaved people used for escape. Quaker abolitionists and other sympathetic whites lived across the river and offered shelter and help for the journey north. The river also provided alternate routes such as the use of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Outside the Halifax visitor's center is a stature honoring Harriet Tubman who was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, as Arminta Ross, about March of 1822, she escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses. 

Harriet was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave, but hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, she began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious.

In 1849, Harriet escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Harriet (or "Moses", as she was called) traveled by night and in extreme secrecy. She said "I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say - I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada, and helped newly freed slaves to find work. She met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.

When the Civil War began, she worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, NY, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her, and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After her death in March of 1913, she became an icon of courage and freedom.

Eagle Tavern

Life in towns such as Halifax revolved around taverns. They offered a daily opportunity for town residents to communicate, especially since churches  met, at most, once a week and county courts only met quarterly.

In 1770 William Martin purchased a lot and built a residence there in the 1760s. He converted the house into a tavern known as the Sign of the Thistle. John Smyth, an Englishman traveling in 1774, described it as "the best house of public entertainment in Halifax." It later became the Eagle Tavern.

Taverns provided a bed and meals for weary travelers and their horses, a place where games were played, balls were held, and slaves were sold. In turn, the travelers offered news from cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston and relayed stories of what was happening around the world. Some businesses even worked out of taverns, where there was always a place that a meeting could be held, debts paid, and property sold.

Colonial taverns were often called houses of entertainment as they provided a wide variety of recreation, gaming, and exhibitions. Magic acts, circus performers, and exhibits of wax figures were a few of the many types of shows that made a stop at one of the taverns in Halifax. Games offered in the taverns included billiards, hazard, backgammon, chess, draughts, whist, and quadrille. Horse racing also was popular in and around Halifax, where many champion horses were bred.

Elizabeth Prichard Horniblow

Women tavern owners were not uncommon in North Carolina. In some counties almost twenty percent of tavern licenses were issued to women. Nearly half of these were to maintain the business of their deceased husbands. Widows usually kept such licenses for only a couple of years before dropping them.

The job of maintaining a tavern would have been difficult for a woman. Many of their patrons were unsavory men who drank to excess. However, there were women, like Mrs. Fielder Powell of Cravern County, who maintained a tavern for twenty years.

Among women who operated taverns in Halifax was Mary Watson, who was granted an ordinary license in 1792, the year after the death of her husband. Martha Brantley, who received a license in 1800, was another female tavern keeper in Halifax, and Mary Fenner was operating the Farmer's Hotel in 1830. Elizabeth Prichard Horniblow operated Horniblow's Tavern in Edenton following the death of her husband.

Sir Archie

No sport or other pastime was as important or as popular as horse racing. By the 1780s a racecourse was in full operation near Conoconnara Swamp outside of town, and by the early 1800s the Roanoke Valley was the leading area for racing in the nation.

Halifax was also home to one of the most distinguished thoroughbreds ever to compete on American turf, Sir Archie. Purchased by William R. Davie in 1809 for $5,000, Sir Archie was said to be "inferior to no horse ever bred or trained in this or any other country." The descendants of Sir Archie include Lexington, Henry, and Man-o-War.

I found these household hints of the 1800s of particular interest: 

A New Way to Make Candles - Take one pound of beeswax, and a fourth of a pound of solf turpentine from the tree, melt them together, strain them; take your wick of desired length, and stretch it as you would in making a plough line; then take the composition in a thin waiter, and hold the wick down in it as you apply it from end to end; this done three times will complete the operation. The above proportion of ingredients is sufficient for a wick forty yards long. -The Southern Gardener and Receipt Book, 1839.

Pound Cake - Take a pound of butter, beat it in an earthen pan with your hand one way till it is like a fine thick cream, then have ready twelve eggs, put half the whites, beat them well and beat them up with the butter, a pound of flour beat in it, a pound of sugar, a pound of currants, clean washed and peeled, and a few caraways. Beat it all well together for an hour with your hands, or a large wooden spoon; butter a pan and put it in, and then bake it an hour in a quick oven. - The Southern Gardener and Receipt Book, 1839.

To Promote the Growth of Hair - Mix equal parts of olive oil and spirits of rosemary, and a few drops of oil of nutmeg. -The New Family Receipt Book, 1811.

Lip Salve - Dissolve a small lump of white sugar in a spoonful of rose-water and simmer with it eight or ten minutes, two spoonsfuls of sweet oil, and a piece of spermaceti of the size of half a butternut, and turn all into a small box. -The Improved Housewife, 1843.

Carpets - Sprinkle black pepper or tobacco under your carpets to protect them from moths; if soiled so as to need cleaning all over, spread them on a clean floor, and rub pared and grated raw potatoes on them with a new broom. -The Improved Housewife, 1843.

I copied these exactly so if there appear to be typos, they're not. Even the punctuation is exact. What I want to know is, how would I obtain a piece of spermaceti? Go ahead, google it

(Most of the info from self-guided tour.)

Crossing That Off the Bucket List!

Most everyone has a "bucket list" of things they want to do or accomplish before they die. One of the places I've wanted to visit for a long time is the town of Love Valley in North Carolina. I came across one of their brochures several years ago and vowed that if I was ever in the area, it was definitely a place I wanted to experience. Somehow I pictured a town similar to Tombstone, AZ - a bustling old west town full of life and nostalgia.

The town was created by Andy and Ellenora Barker in 1954 as a way of preserving the past. No cars are allowed on Main Street, but you may walk, or ride your horse there, and tie it to a hitching post while strolling along the wooden walkways, shopping at the rustic businesses or grabbing a drink or bite to eat at the local saloon.

Picture of Main Street from their website

The pictures in the brochure make you envision an adventure awaiting you. But the reviews on TripAdvisor were less than flattering. There were some positive reviews, but most were very negative and mentioned dilapidated buildings, rotting wooden sidewalks, closed up shops, mostly a ghost town.

Now, I've never been one to pay much attention to the critics. If the critics don't like a movie, I usually like it. Some of the campgrounds we've been at this year have had some negative reviews and I found them delightful. After all, some people just like to complain.

This is one time, however, I should have paid more heed to those reviews. We drove about an hour from where we were staying to visit this old west town. As we approached the area, we drove past houses that looked like junk yards. Farms can sometimes appear a bit unkempt if they have old tractors or farm implements stored haphazardly on the property. But this went way beyond that. There were dozens of junk cars, trucks, trackers and various farm implements strewn about or piled up in scrap piles. We took a drive to the rodeo arena area to find falling down fences. As we parked in the lot just outside the main street there was only 1 or 2 other cars there. 

Even deserted it should
have looked like this. It didn't!

Granted it was a weekend when there wasn't an event planned, and we are still in the middle of the Covid crisis, but this was a Saturday afternoon in April. North Carolina is warm enough in April for the "tourist" season to start.

What we found was a deserted town, shops closed, sidewalks with boards so rotten you didn't dare step on them. It was worse than a ghost town, it was a falling down reminder of how Mother Nature will reclaim anything that isn't constantly looked after. We found only one shop open - a used clothing and saddlery shop. There were no horses anywhere and only 2 other couples walking their dogs. I was so disappointed I didn't even take pictures.

Well, this is one place I can cross off my bucket list. Perhaps it might be more interesting if we visited during an event, but those sidewalks and falling apart buildings didn't happen overnight and I'd guess they won't be repaired before the next event. One review I read ended with these words, "Don't go to Love Valley. It's a dump." I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment.

Hunley

H.L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley or as CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship, USS Housatonic, although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. The Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, SC.

Hunley, nearly 40 ft long, was built at Mobile, AL, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on August 12, 1863, to Charleston. Hunley, then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise", sank on August 29, 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on October 15, 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service.

On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-displacement ton US Navy screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost.

Finally located in 1995, Hunley was raised in 2000, and is on display in North Charleston, SC, at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River. Examination in 2012 of recovered Hunley artifacts suggests that the submarine was as close as 20 ft to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's own loss.

Hunley (circled) and Housatonic replicas

Hunley: Crew 8. Size: Approximately 40 feet long, 3.5 feet wide and 4 feet high. Displacement: 7 tons. Armament: A spar torpedo.

Housatonic: Crew: 160. Size: 207 feet long and 37 feet wide. Displacement: 1,240 tons. Armament: A 100-pounder Parrot rifle, an 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbore, three 30-pounder Parrot rifles, two 32-pounder smoothbores, two 24-pounder howitzers, a 12-pound howitzer, and a 12-pounder rifle.

The Pioneer

Pioneer

The story of the Hunley actually began in New Orleans, LA, when Horace L. Hunley joined James McClintock and Baxter Watson in their venture to build a weapon that traveled underneath the water. Their first attempt was a vessel called the Pioneer, which was ready for testing in February 1862.

The Pioneer proved seaworthy, but was never put into service. Final tests were underway when, in the Spring of 1862, Union forces closed in on New Orleans. The designers were force to scuttle the Pioneer to prevent the enemy from confiscating the new technology.

Fleeing New Orleans, the Pioneer's inventors went to Mobile, AL determined to design another submersible vessel. There the Hunley was build and later sent to Charleston where she would alter the course of military history.

Almost immediately after taking control of New Orleans, the Union found the Pioneer and studied the vessel. In 1868, the remains were offered at public auction, where she was sold for 43 dollars.

The Pioneer and the lessons learned from her testing helped the Hunley accomplish her mission. Over a century later, the Pioneer's symbolic contribution to the development of submarine technology was honored with the creation of this full-scale replica.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Blocks under the tires and
leveling jacks fully extended

RV living is definitely a unique experience. Basically, we live in a tin can that's sitting on stilts - posts that extend to level the rig. At times the leveling jacks are extended quite a ways if you're on uneven ground. The RV park that we're at is set into a wooded hillside. They did their best when making the campsites, but there was still a lot of leveling to be done. One thing you don't want to hear in the middle of the night is a crash, or even 2 crashes.

I was awakened out of a deep, sound sleep last night by one such crash. I initially thought maybe the dishes in the drainer had shifted. I listened for a while but heard nothing further. Thinking that maybe I had dreamed the noise, I turned over and soon drifted off into dreamland again. A short while later I was jolted awake by a second, louder crash. Sitting bolt upright in bed, struggling to get untangled from my CPAP hose, I noticed that even Dora had jumped awake. Sammy's deaf anyway and continued to snore. Jim was still sound asleep, but that didn't mean there wasn't something amiss. Sometimes I think he'd sleep through a bomb going off.

I quickly got out of bed, put on my robe and slippers and went outside for a look around. My thought was that maybe one of the leveling jacks was about to let go. Let me go on record here by saying that it's not a common thing to be outside in the dark at 3:00 in the morning, in your night clothes, shining a flashlight around your RV. I was hoping none of the neighbors would awaken and wonder if I'd gone off my own leveling jack. It never occurred to me at the time that if there'd been anything that let go with the jacks we'd also be way off level inside, or rolling down the hill.

My exterior search showed nothing amiss. Blocks were still under the tires, jacks were still where they should be, no tree limbs had fallen on the RV, and our bikes were still chained to the front of the trailer. (If you don't remember about Jim's bike being stolen in a church parking lot on a Sunday morning, you can refresh your memory of that humorous event here. At least it's humorous now, it wasn't then.)

I came inside and searched all around the main living area but didn't find anything that could have caused a crash. Not that searching that area took me very long. It's not that big. Let's just say that if you decided to hold an Easter egg hunt, you'd only need one egg!

I decided to go back to bed and try to get a few more hours sleep. I don't know about you, but that time of night is usually my bathroom time anyway, so I went into the bathroom to pee. It was there that I discovered the source of the commotion. I had installed a shelf on the side of the shower enclosure for Jim's shaver and a hair dryer holder above that. Apparently, the sticky strips I used to secure them didn't hold and they came crashing down. My guess is the hair dryer fell first, then a while later the combined weight of that and the shaver brought the whole thing down with that louder crash.

Way to give a gal a heart attack in the middle of the night! It sounds anticlimactic now, but at the time I was really concerned, and determined to find the source of the trouble. Glad it wasn't anything serious and that we didn't roll down the hill.