Water Under the Bridge

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Gettysburg! September 12, 2019

September 12, 2019

Gettysburg!

Last weekend I had an unanticipated treat – a trip to Gettysburg! My daughter Elizabeth had to deliver her daughter Rachael to music camp in Johnstown and decided to piggy-back a visit to Gettysburg onto that trip. It was easy for me to accept an invitation to tag on along behind her.

She is heavily involved in a symposium on the premiere of a play that will be presented in the Charity Randall Theater at the Stephen Foster Memorial building on the University of Pittsburgh campus at 7:30 pm on September 14, 2019. The play is based on one of the fundamental subplots in the drama of the Battle of Gettysburg, the overpowering friendship of two key antagonists in the conflict – Confederate General Lewis Armistead and Union General Winfield Scott Hancock.

I have been attempting to help her enhance her understanding of the events leading up to the battle, the battle itself, and the role these two leaders played in it. The opportunity to revisit the battlefield was too much for either of us to pass up. In addition, I wanted to see first-hand the monuments commemorating the three local companies we discussed in a recent column –Company C (149^th Pennsylvania Infantry), Company H (62^nd Pennsylvania Infantry), and Company K (1^stPennsylvania Cavalry).

After depositing Rachael in Johnstown, we arrived in Gettysburg just in time for lunch. The closest restaurant to our intended first stop had the unlikely name, “Gettysburg Eddie’s”. The moment I saw the picture of an old-time baseball player as part of the restaurant’s logo, I immediately thought, “Eddie Plank!”

My father grew up in Quincy, about twenty-five miles from Gettysburg. He was a dedicated Philadelphia Athletics fan; their superb left-handed pitcher, Eddie Plank, a Gettysburg boy, was his favorite player.

In 1949 Harry Keck, the sports editor of the Sun-Telegraph, encountered another great pitcher, Lefty Grove, at a Dapper Dan dinner and wrote a nice article about him in his column. It included the statement, “Lefty Grove … holds the record for victories by a southpaw”.

Reading this precipitated an explosion in our living room, followed by a sarcastic letter to the editor informing Mr. Keck that he had no business writing about baseball if he didn’t know that Eddie Plank’s 324 career wins were more than the paltry 300 Grove accumulated. It is easy to see where I got my predilection to nit-picking!

The restaurant honoring Plank in his home town was good enough that we returned there for lunch the next day. My father would be thrilled to know that his boyhood hero is still revered there.

We then went to the Diorama, a privately-owned exhibit that is billed as “the largest military diorama in the United States”. It does present an excellent three-dimensional view of the large area around Gettysburg where a series of battles occurred the first three days of July,1863. The thirty-minute narration of the sequence of events in those three days does help viewers obtain a perspective of their overall scope and relationship to each other. Nonetheless I felt that it could have been more effective, probably another example of nit-picking.

From there we went to the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center. Like so many other National Park Service facilities, it was quite impressive. We watched a short film narrated by Morgan Freeman that did a good job of placing the battles at Gettysburg in perspective relative to the Civil War and the survival of the Union.

We then toured the Cyclorama and enjoyed a brief presentation on the battles with it as a background. It is certainly wonderful that the Park Service has retained and rehabilitated this magnificent work of art. It covers a circular wall, one hundred feet in diameter and forty two feet high; its circumference is 377 feet. French painter Paul Phillippoteaux actually produced four identical cycloramas depicting the Battle of Gettysburg.

He came to Gettysburg in 1882 and made volumes of sketches, interviewed survivors of the battle, and hired a photographer to take panoramic pictures of the background. Eighteen months later he and his staff finished the initial version and installed it in Chicago. It was so successful that a duplicate was ordered and installed in Boston in 1884.

Twenty years later the Boston exhibit closed: the cyclorama was sold to an entrepreneur who dismantled it and moved it to Gettysburg in time for the 1913 Anniversary celebration. Eventually it was acquired by the Park Service and installed in the Visitor Center in 1962. A massive rehabilitation project in 2008 has ensured its viability for many years to come. Remnants of the Chicago version are in storage at Wake Forest University.

A third version was displayed originally in Denver; there is no record of the disposition of the fourth version. It is known that one of these two versions was cut up to make tents for Indians on a Shoshone Reservation in the early 1900s.

Although there are inaccuracies in the painting, its overall scope more than makes up for them. The details are excellent and their cumulative effect accurately depicts the enormity and intensity of the conflict. The focal point of our interest – Armistead – is shown on horseback; it is well documented that he led his brigade on foot, through the Union line at “the high-water-mark of the Confederacy”.

We can excuse Phillippoteaux for personalizing his work by including a self-portrait of himself in a Union uniform, leaning against a tree. A wounded Abraham Lincoln being carried to a shelter where a surgeon is amputating a soldier’s leg is a bit of a stretch however. Nonetheless the Cyclorama is magnificent; kudos to the Park Service for salvaging it for posterity.

We then toured the Museum and marveled at its exhibits, video presentations, and artifacts. Again, the cumulative effect of so much of our heritage is overwhelming.

With a few minutes of daylight remaining we drove to the nearby Lydia Leister House, primarily to pay homage to my cousin Jeanne Bohn. Lydia Leister was a widow whose farm was located on Cemetery Ridge. When the battle began she took her children to safety. General Meade appropriated her modest two room frame house as his headquarters.

After she retired as a school teacher, Jeanne began volunteering at Gettysburg, re-enacting the role of Lydia Leister. At one of our family reunions she donned her nineteenth century costume and performed for our behalf. The combination of her extensive knowledge of the Gettysburg events and her ability to replicate the rural drawl dialect of that era brought Lydia to life for us. Lydia certainly was not happy about the way those “Ginruls” left her house.

Our final stop was the “Friend to Friend” monument in the Cemetery Annex. It was erected in 1993 by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, to honor Freemasons who fought on both sides at Gettysburg. The monument is capped by a magnificent statue of Union Captain Harry Bingham administering to a severely wounded Rebel General Armistead.

According to well accepted stories, after breaking through the Union line with a small number of men from his brigade, Armistead was hit by musket fire and fell. Captain Bingham came to his aid. When the wounded Armistead asked to see General Hancock, Bingham told him that his friend had also been wounded and removed from the battlefield.

Armistead then gave Bingham his watch and requested it be given to Hancock’s wife. In the statue Bingham has the watch in his left hand. The watch is a key component in the play that Elizabeth is promoting; confirming its significance in this marvelous sculpture was relevant.

We then checked into our hotel and set out to find dinner. An excellent choice was the Farnsworth House Tavern. It is associated with the historic Farnsworth House Inn, which was occupied by Confederate sharpshooters throughout the battle and is purported to have over one hundred bullet holes in its walls. We ate outside in a lovely garden, serenaded by a strolling violinist in a Victorian dress, and topped by a piece of authentic “Shoo-fly Pie” for dessert.

The next morning we set out on a self-guided auto tour of the battlefields and were rewarded by finding all the specific sites and monuments that interested us. We located the monument to the 149^th Pennsylvania Regiment, not far from McPherson’s Barn and viewed the “Railroad Cut”, where Company D fought and where Benjamin Kerr was captured. We then drove down Confederate Avenue along Seminary Ridge with its view of Cemetery Ridge where the Union forces were entrenched.

Then up over Round Top and onto Little Round Top. General Warren’s statue there was every bit as impressive as I remembered from the first time my Uncle Joe took me to see it, eight decades ago. From there we drove through Devil’s Den and the Wheatfield where we found the 62^nd Infantry monument right where Company H fought so valiantly.

After taking a loop to the east to Culp’s Hill, we returned to Hancock Avenue and Cemetery Ridge, the site of Pickett’s Charge and Armistead’s downfall. We found the modest monument marking the spot where Armistead fell, and, not far from it, the monument to the 1^st Pennsylvania Cavalry with its fine statue of a dismounted “horse soldier” – I wonder if he was from Company K?

We visited the Pennsylvania Monument and found plaques for all three companies. The most emotion I felt all day was reading Richard Lesnett’s name, knowing he had survived this battle only to expire the following year from wounds received at Hawes Shop, Virginia.

Also nearby is the statue to Father Corby, the young chaplain of the Irish Brigade who gave general absolution to his charges on the morning of July 2. A statue of him was erected on the very boulder on which he stood, in 1910. Father Corby later became the third president of Notre Dame University; in 1911 a duplicate statue was installed on the South Bend Campus.

In the statue Father Corby is depicted as having his right arm raised to the heavens. It was automatic that some Notre Dame football fan would eventually name the statue “Fair Catch Corby”. This is grossly sacrilegious, but at the same time grossly humorous. I suspect South Bend is the one place one could get away with it.

Visiting Gettysburg this time, equipped with specific knowledge and specific interests to be investigated, was a memorable experience. It is remarkable that a subject so extensively documented still possesses so many nuances that have not been resolved.

My perception has been that the first two days of the battle were minor skirmishes and that Pickett’s Charge overshadowed everything that had preceded it. I was surprised to learn that there were more casualties on the second day than either of the other two, and that the third day had the fewest. The intensity of the battles each day was remarkable.

Driving around the battlefield also changed my perception – the length of the battle lines was six or seven miles long! Small wonder that communication and coordination were such problems. Looking across the open fields between Seminary and Cemetery Ridges, from both directions, engenders ominous feelings. Except for Little Round Top, “high ground” wasn’t nearly as relevant as I had thought.

The strategy and tactics are fun to contemplate and second guess, probably more so than in any other major encounter. More puzzling is the motivation of the combatants. William Faulkner’s famous quotation in “Intruders in the Dust”, regarding the obsession of every young Southern man with “not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863” records his explanation of one view point. I still cannot fathom why 165,000 men were so willing to destroy each other.

I am grateful to Elizabeth for dragging me along on one of the most memorable experiences I have had. Perhaps her symposium and the performance of the play will help clarify things for me.

Railfans' Research Center. September 5, 2019

September 5, 2019

Railfans’ Research Center

Five and a half years ago Jim Fry donated his collection of railroad memorabilia to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society to become the nucleus of their railroad exhibit in the caboose annex at the History Center. His contribution included 140 books and pamphlets, plus thirty-four VHS tapes related to railroading.

My column, dated February 13, 2014, reported on the wide variety of material in the collection – detailed descriptions of specific railroads, technical books dealing with rolling stock, scenic railroads all across the country, model railroading, etc. – and predicted it would become the basis for a major asset for railfans.

Recently I had the occasion to spend some time at the History Center looking for information on the Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny Railroad, and to be updated on the status of the Society’s collection of railroad related information. I have been aware of individual additions in the ensuing years, but really had no idea how extensive they have been.

At this point the accumulation of documents and memorabilia has created a valuable research center for anyone interested in railroading, and particularly as it concerns our local railroads.

Both of Gene Schaeffer’s fine books dealing with the Montour Railroad are included – the original 1997 volume as a paperback and the subsequent, 2008, hard backed cocktail table size book which is full of wonderful photographs.

David Aitken’s “The Little Saw Mill Run Railroad: Its Life and Legacy” is another treasure. Mr. Aitken donated a copy to the Society after making a presentation on that subject at one of their program meetings.

The Chartiers Valley Railroad (later the Chartiers Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad) is expertly documented in three copies of “Keystone”, the official magazine of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society. Doug Mahrer’s fine description of that topic is included in these issues; the Society is grateful to Mr. Mahrer for this donation.

The history of the current Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad is well covered by Howard V. Worley, Jr.’s “Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad” and by “The Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway: The Story of the High and Dry”, by Mr. Worley and William Poellot, Jr.

The latter book contains five photographs that are specifically relevant to Bridgeville – a coal train on the viaduct at the foot of Vanadium Road, a locomotive on the interchange with the Pennsylvania Railroad on the B & M Branch, a 1937 wreck on the bridge over Chartiers Creek south of Bridgeville, and two shots of the well documented 1907 wreck north of Bridgeville.

When the Wabash Railroad went into operation in 1905 there were four passenger trains each way between Bridgeville and Pittsburgh. Inbound trains left at 6:23 and 8:26 am and at 12:38 and 7:28 pm. Trains from the city arrived at 6:23 and 10:22 am and 4:42 and 5:23 pm. Scheduled time for the 9.2 miles was between twenty two and twenty seven minutes. A one-way ticket to Pittsburgh cost thirty two cents.

“Three Feet on the Panhandle” by Larry L. Koehler and Morgan J. Gayvert is a comprehensive review of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad, the wonderful narrow gage line that extended the Chartiers Branch twenty eight miles into Greene County.

The same railroad is discussed in a massive document produced by Mike Carrozza and presented to the Society in a large three ring binder. Entitled “Sixty Miles to Waynesburg”, it is a remarkable collection of photographs, maps, time tables, and other documents focused on railroading in the Chartiers Valley. In addition to being a dedicated RailFan, Mike was a retired railroader with a distinguished career in that industry.

The title of this collection celebrates the fact that it was possible to travel by train the sixty miles from Pittsburgh to Waynesbug, a trip that took about three hours, if all connections were properly made. His title page includes the comment “Including Branch Lines and Intersecting Railroad Lines”; the detail by which this comment is implemented is unprecedented.

Three other loose leaf binders contain valuable railroad related information. One is a collection of articles by Peter Roehm dealing with the Wabash Railroad. Bob Kurchena has put together a binder full of memorabilia from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Dana Spriggs printed out a large number of newspaper articles dealing with the murder of Pennsylvania Railroad station agent James Franks and compiled them in a binder.

Two belated donations from Jim Fry were a pair of handsome books dealing with railroad art – “In the Traces: Railroad Paintings”, by Ted Rose; and “The Railroad Artistry of Howard Fogg”, by Roland C. Hill and Al Chione. Jim had sent them to me, assuming they might provide source material for me to sketch. After I copied a dozen or so of Fogg’s paintings, I, belatedly, delivered the books to the Society. Both books contain very impressive railroad art.

The extent and variety of railroading information that the Society currently possesses, especially as related to our local area, is unique. Our challenge is to find ways to communicate it to a niche group, railfans.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Bridgeville: What's in a Name? August 29, 2019

August 29, 2019

Bridgeville: What’s in a Name?

Most of us are familiar with the accepted story of how Bridgeville got its name. In the early days a Virginian named James Ramsey had a warrant for “Purity”, 102 acres in the western half of what is now Bridgeville. He assumed his property extended to the center of Chartiers Creek.

At the point where the Black Horse Trail, the main road from Washington, Pa. to Pittsburgh, crossed Chartiers Creek, Ramsey made significant improvements and stationed a toll collector there to charge the local farmers for passing through.

This idea did not set well for the locals. In 1793 they built a barge at Canon’s Mill (Canonsburg), loaded it with flour, waited for a heavy rain and high water, and floated a cargo to the Ohio River for shipment onto New Orleans. This action prompted the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a bill declaring that Chartiers Creek was a navigable stream.

The main consequence of this was moving Ramsey’s property line back above the high-water line, making it possible for the local farmers to build a toll-free bridge there. The site was also significant because Colonel Noble’s “Trace”, a crude road connecting his storehouse at Noblestown with trade routes to the East, also crossed the creek at that point.

The bridge was an immediate landmark; “Meet you at the Bridge” became a popular saying. Naming the nearby village “Bridgeville” was an obvious consequence. We are sure there are flaws to this story, but in principle it probably is accurate.

Recently John Schneider asked me when Bridgeville actually got its name. I guessed, “In the 1830s”. Since then I have had the opportunity to search through old newspaper archives looking for the earliest appearance of the name in print. My source is a website called “Newspapers.com” which has archived thousands of old newspapers and provides a powerful search engine to its users.

Based on my research it appears my initial guess was good; the October 5, 1830, “Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette” includes an endorsement of “Shears” by John McDowell and Daniel Hickman, Bridgeville.

According to their statement, “We the subscribers have purchased and made use of Shears made by P. A. Bemis & Co., Pittsburgh, and consider them superior to any in use in this section of the country”.

Bemis & Co. must have found the endorsement to be effective; they ran it ten more times that year, thirty five times in 1831, and twice more in 1832. We presume Messers. McDowell and Hickman used shears to shear wool from sheep. At any rate this is the earliest mention of the name Bridgeville we have found in old newspapers.

The next mention was also in connection with an advertisement, this one for Darley’s Arabian Heave Remedy. It appeared in the December 26, 1851 “Monongahela Valley Republican”. The medicine was intended “for the cure of Heaves, Thick and Broken Wind, Coughs, Colds, and all diseases that affect the wind of Horses.”

The advertisement utilizes five paragraphs to sing the praises of the product and ends with a list of local establishments where it can be obtained, including “H. H. Morgan, Bridgeville”. This of course refers to Hugh Morgan who had a well-known store (and Post Office) on the east side of the Washington Pike close to the location of our current post office.

The November 4, 1854, issue of the “Pittsburgh Gazette” contains legal notice reporting the seizing of property owned by Jeremiah M. Sample as the result of litigation brought by John F. Wrenshall. The property in question is one and a half acres “situate in the village of Bridgeville, Upper St. Clair on which is erected a blacksmith shop”. The notice also indicates the property is bounded by McLaughlin Run; the blacksmith shop may well be the one that survived until the late 1930s.

Five months later, March 31, 1855, the same paper reported that property owned by Jonathan Middleswarth, in Bridgeville, “a two-story frame store house with back building” had been seized as the result of litigation by Samuel Freyer. Apparently our current obsession with going to court dates back to the earliest days of our community.

By 1856 politics had taken center stage in Pittsburgh. The September 18 edition of the “Pittsburgh Gazette” devoted four full columns to a description of a massive parade in support of John C. Fremont’s campaign for the Presidency as candidate of the brand new Republican party. According to the article a crowd of nearly 100,000 Pittsburghers enthusiastically witnessed the parade.

Sure enough, the description of the parade is the report “The Rich Valley, Woodville, and Bridgeville delegations followed; every wagon was ‘loadened’ with flags and bushes”. Rich Valley was the Post Office for the Borough of Mansfield, the portion of what is Carnegie today east of Chartiers Creek.

On August 9, 1862 the “Pittsburgh Gazette” reported a “War Meeting at Bridgeville” at the hotel of Mr. Boyd. We presume this is the hotel in what is now “Lower End”, shown on the 1876 map as “Mrs. Jones’ Hotel” and later operated by Matt Mallory and then Lou Kaufman.

On June 30, 1867, the “Pittsburgh Daily Post” reported the discovery of an unidentified man who had drowned in Chartiers Creek in the vicinity of the County Poor House. “Esquire Shaffer, who resides near Bridgeville” empaneled a jury that declared the victim “found drowned” and had him buried at the Poor House.

Although the formal incorporation of Bridgeville as a municipality was still decades away, it appears that the name had stuck by the 1860s and was recognizable to the general public.

Gettysburg. August 22, 2019

August 22, 2019

Gettysburg

I have been interested in the battle of Gettysburg since I was a small child and my Uncle Joe took me for a tour of the battlefield. I am currently revisiting this interest because of a project in which my daughter Elizabeth is involved. The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh is sponsoring a performance of ‘Gettysburg”, “a poetic expression of the ill-fated friendship between Confederate General Lewis Armistead and Union General Winfield Hancock and the unseen wounds of war”.

The play will be presented at the Charity Randall Theater on the University campus at 7:30 pm on September 14. It is a serendipitous confluence of two significantly different cultural icons – Japanese Noh theater and legends from the Battle of Gettysburg.

As part of her research on Gettysburg Elizabeth asked me about the participation of units from this area in the battle. I was aware of the three volunteer companies – Company D of the 149^thPennsylvania Volunteers Regiment, Company H of the 62^nd Pennsylvania Volunteers Regiment, and Company K of the 1^st Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve Cavalry – who were at Gettysburg.

The story of Company K, organized in Bridgeville in the summer of 1861, is recorded on the Bridgeville Area Historical Society website under the “Bridgeville History” heading on the mast head.

My brother, Joe, discusses Company D extensively in his book, “Almost Forgotten”. It was organized in the Robinson Run area in August, 1862, under the command of Captain James Glenn.

Company H was organized in the Upper St. Clair/Bethel area by Captain Thomas Espy on July 4, 1861. They served admirably as part of the Army of the Potomac until their mustering out in August, 1864. Captain Espy was wounded and captured at Gaines' Mill on June 27, 1862. He died nine days later. Samuel Conner was promoted to Captain as his replacement and commanded the company for the duration of the war. Espy is memorialized as the namesake of Grand Army of the Republic Post 153; its headquarters are now the Civil War Room at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall in Carnegie.

Following its disastrous defeat at Chancellorsville in early May, 1863, the Army of the Potomac consolidated its position at Fredericksburg and waited for General Lee to make the next move. Following the tragic death of Stonewall Jackson, Lee reorganized his Army of Northern Virginia into three Corps, commanded by Generals James Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Richard S. Ewell, plus J. E. B Stuart’s Cavalry. Union General Hooker had his Army subdivided into seven (smaller) Corps, commanded by Generals John F. Reynolds (I), Winfield Scott Hancock (II), Daniel Sickels (III), George C. Meade (V), John Sedgwick (VI), Oliver Howard (XI), Henry Slocum (XII) and Alfred Pleasonton (Cavalry).

Lee had convinced Jefferson Davis that the time was ripe for an invasion of Pennsylvania, up the Shenandoah Valley and into the Cumberland Valley. On June 3 Ewell’s Corps moved out. Hooker began to move Union troops north, east of the Blue Ridge which . Six days later there was a massive cavalry battle at Brandy Station, the largest ever fought in North America. Company H and the 62th, part of Meade’s V Corps, saw action at Kelly’s Ford, about five miles east of Brandy Station, as part of the battle. For the first time Union cavalry held their own against J. E. B. Stuart. Company K, now led by Captain J. H. Williams, was heavily engaged in the battle.

At this point Company D and the 149^th, part of Reynolds I Corps, were still in position near Fredericksburg; they didn’t begin to move north until June 17. On the other side, Ewell’s Corps was well past Front Royal, with Hill and Longstreet not far behind.

On June 22 Company H found itself in a small skirmish at Aldie, then continued its march North. On June 26 they crossed the Potomac at Edwards Ferry, where they learned that Stuart had passed through several days earlier, on his ill-conceived expedition behind the Union Army. By June 28 they were encamped near Frederick, now under the command of George Sykes. Their previous commander, George C. Meade, had replaced Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac on that day.

Company D learned of the change in command at midday on the 28^th when they moved into an encampment near Frederick after marching eight miles. Company K was nearby; it was the first time they had bee north of the Potomac in twenty months. Lee’s army was somewhere on the other side of the Blue Ridge; their intentions unknown. Everyone sensed the certainty of a major battle in the near future.

Company K moved on the next day, reaching Middleburg at 2:00 am on the 30^th. After a short rest they were back on the road at daylight, arriving and camping at Taneytown in the afternoon. Company D marched twenty-five miles on the 29^th, encamping near Emmetsburg. On the 30^th they crossed into Pennsylvania, camped at Brown’s Farm, five miles south of Gettysburg on the Emmetsburg Road. Despite the anticipation of bad things to come, they enjoyed the prospect of pay day, the last one many of them would enjoy.

Company H and the 62^nd marched nineteen miles through Frederick and encamped at Libertytown on the 29^th. On the 30^th they were on the road again at 4:00 am and reached Union Mills, ten miles short of the Pennsylvania border, twenty-three miles later. By now there were reports of Rebel troops in Chambersburg, York and Carlisle.

Company D was the first to be engaged. At 9:00 am on July 1, they moved up the Emmetsburg Road toward Gettysburg, and soon heard the first guns of Buford’s engagement, west of the village. They left the Emmetsburg Road and moved west to Seminary Ridge, which they followed to the Hagerstown Road. At the Seminary Building they “stacked arms … and awaited events”.

The events turned out to be a wholesale assault by General Henry Heth’s division that drove them back to a position on McPherson’s Farm on the Chambersburg Pike. After heavy fighting there the company withdrew into Gettysburg and eventually to the safety of the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. Company Commander James Glenn assumed command of the regiment; he was the highest ranking officer still alive. Although they had been driven from the field, their efforts had delayed the Rebels long enough to permit Meade’s army to consolidate on a defensible line.

Corps Commander John Reynolds was killed during the action and replaced by Abner Doubleday. Company D’s casualties were seven or eight, out of a probable complement of fifty. According to “Almost Forgotten” one of the casualties was Benjamin Kerr, captured by the enemy. He later escaped and rejoined his company, only to be captured a year later and die in a Confederate prison.

In the meantime Company H, with the rest of Sykes’ Corps, had marched twenty miles through Hanover and was within five miles of Gettysburg at Bonneauville, on the Hanover Road. At 6:00 am on July 2 they moved into position on Cemetery Ridge, south of XII Corps on a “desperately hot day”. By 3:30 the day got considerably hotter. Because of a series of unforeseen circumstances Sykes’ Corps was broken up into brigade sized units (a brigade is three regiments, about fifteen hundred men).

General Sickles had moved his III Corps forward, leaving Sykes’ Corps vulnerable. The third brigade, which included the soon to be famous 20^th Maine regiment, was sent to occupy Little Round Top. Company H and the second brigade was marched to the Wheat Field, with two other famous battlegrounds, the Peach Orchard and Devils’ Den on either side.

At the height of the battle their Division commander (a division is three brigades), General James Barnes, ordered a retreat from what appeared to be a highly defensible site. The ensuing confusion turned into a rout back to Little Round Top. Company H’s casualties were enormous – three dead, nine wounded, and seven captured. Barnes’ decision was widely criticized. Ironically it was the only time he, a West Point classmate of Robert E. Lee, ever commanded troops in battle.

Company D played a minor role in the battle at the Peach Orchard late in the evening, suffering no casualties. On July 3 they were subjected to heavy artillery fire prior to Pickett’s Charge, but were too far from the brunt of the attack to be able to participate. The remnants of Company H protected an artillery battery on Little Round Top and were subjected only to sporadic sniper fire.

And what of Company K, whom we left at Taneytown on June 30^th? The evening of July 1 they were ordered forward to Gettysburg. After marching all night they reached the battlefield at 9:00 am on July 2 and were immediately deployed to a position behind the left center of the line as support for the reserve artillery of the Cavalry Corps. The next day they were subjected to the full brunt of the Rebel artillery barrage – one hundred artillery pieces.

Although Company K is reported to have been in reserve, they did suffer casualties, including one documented fatality – Joseph McClanahan. It appears likely that they were part of the reserves that swept back the Rebels from the “High-Water Mark of the Confederacy”, Armistead’s climbing over the wall at “the Angle” and capturing two Union artillery pieces before being cut down by the onslaught of Union Reserves.

It appears to me that all three local companies performed admirably at Gettysburg. In retrospect it is easy to imagine Armistead’s spirit wandering the battlefield, hoping to get reassurance that his friend Hancock has forgiven him. I am eagerly looking forward to the performance of this play and its presentation of this question.

The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. August 15, 2019

August 15, 2019

The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad

As I mentioned last week, the highlight of my recent trip to Colorado was a memorable trip on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. We drove from Alamosa to Antonito, making certain to be there in time for the scheduled 10:00 am departure.

Sara had purchased Tourist Deluxe tickets for us, which gave us access to a car outfitted like a dining car with four person tables on one side of the center aisle and two person tables on the other. Our car was the sixth of seven cars in the train, directly following an open gondola car that provided an opportunity for passengers get “close up and personal” with the environment.

The railroad is descended from the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, which was chartered in 1870 to connect Denver with El Paso, Texas. It soon became obvious that a route west to Salt Lake City was more lucrative, so the D&RG went no further south than Alamosa; at least it did reach the Rio Grande River at that point.

In 1880 the D&RG was extended south as far as Santa Fe and west to Durango and Silverton, as narrow gauge (36 inches) lines. The western route was known as the San Juan Extension. It proved to be profitable and operated both freight and passenger trains until the mid-1960s. The D&RG abandoned the San Juan Extension in 1967.

The following year both Colorado and New Mexico established railroad authorities and jointly purchased the portion of the San Juan Extension between Anonito, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, renamed it the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, and have operated it successfully as a tourist railway ever since.

Leaving Antonito our train headed to the southwest on the San Luis Valley floor (elevation about 7900 feet above sea level) with sage brush as far as one could see in either direction. Sara commented that, unfortunately, it was so dry there that there was no grass growing there, thus making it unsuitable habitat for sage grouse. In the distance we could see a flat-topped rise that appeared to be a classic mesa.

After about seven miles our route made its first of eleven crossings of the Colorado/New Mexico border. Eventually it turned and climbed up the face of the mesa, an elevation change of about six hundred feet. The surface of the mesa consists of material eroded from volcanic depositions and transported here. We are now in a region of rabbitbrush and mountain mahogany, small shrubs.

Soon the train began to climb off the mesa and up into the foothills, employing long horseshoe loops with the sharp curves that the narrow gauge permitted. We came into an area dominated by ponderosa pine trees, many of them dying because of bark beetle infestation. The danger of forest fire in this area must be severe.

At the Big Horn wye we ha reached the 9,000 foot elevation and were beginning to encounter aspen trees. They occur in massive groves, reproducing from shallow roots that propagate laterally. We are soon high on the side of the mountain, with the stream Canada Jarosita in a canyon five hundred feet below us. Next we pass the remnants of Sublette, New Mexico, the site of a section foreman’s dwelling years ago.

The first tunnel, through weathered volcanic ash, is appropriately called the Mud Tunnel. Once through it the train passed through spectacular scenery with volcanic pinnacles, spires, and pedestal rocks at every turn of the perpetually twisting route. Unlike the Mud tunnel, the Rock Tunnel had to be blasted out of PreCambrian rocks (nearly two billion years old!). Once through it we were now high above Toltec Gorge, with views of the Rio de Los Pinos far below us.

Back in Colorado after our sixth border crossing we arrived at Osier and detrained for lunch. The eastbound train, from Chama, had arrived earlier and its passengers were well through their lunch. Sara, Claire, and I elected to choose the salad bar for our lunch; turkey and meatloaf were other choices. Osier is connected to civilization by Forest Road 103; it is impressive that the caterer can staff and supply the cafeteria so capably.

Back on our train we crossed Cascade Creek on the Cascade Trestle, 137 feet high and 408 feet long. It was constructed by the Pittsburgh-based Keystone Bridge Company, an Andrew Carnegie enterprise and predecessor to the American Bridge Company, in 1881.

To reach the highest point on our journey, Cumbres Pass, we had to negotiate another long loop with a hairpin curve at its middle, Tanglefoot Curve. The pass, at an elevation of 10,015 feet, is the highest point reached by any narrow-gauge railroad in North America. Colorado State Highway 17 also goes through this pass; we will go through it on our bus trip back to Antonito. The pass is also the lower boundary of the subalpine life zone, characterized by heavy snow in the winter, luxuriant wildflowers in the Spring and Summer, and very few trees.

There is a sign at the pass showing the crossing of the Continental Divide Trail. This is deceptive; the actual Continental Divide is about twenty miles farther west. From Cumbres Pass west the track begins a rapid descent on a four percent grade (dropping four feet every hundred feet). Consequently, in addition to stopping for water, the train crew conducts a brake test here before proceeding onward.

Our route now took us around Windy Point, an outlook high above Wolf Creek Valley, and then across the headwaters of Wolf Creek. We then proceeded to follow the valley to the southwest, high on the mountain above it, eventually crossing into New Mexico for the final time. The incessant squeal of the locomotive’s brakes was a constant reminder of the steep grade we were negotiating.

The Lobato Trestle is a smaller version of Cascade Creek, also constructed by the Keystone Bridge Company nearly one hundred and forty years ago. We assume from its age that the material from which it was fabricated was wrought iron.

At this point we entered “the Narrows”, an interesting geological phenomenon. Farther up Wolf Creek the valley has the classic “U-shape” associated with valleys that have been carved by glaciation. Apparently a glacier coming in from the side produced a terminal moraine that interrupted the glacial carving, leaving the original narrow, V-shaped valley.

The western terminus for the Cumbres and Toltec is Chama, New Mexico. Back below 8,000 feet we had returned to an environment of cottonwoods and willows. The railroad complex there is impressive, including a rare coaling tipple that provides coal to the tender.

At Chama we were met by a C&TS tour bus which comfortably returned us to Antonito on the aforementioned Route 17. It paralleled our train route to Cumbres Pass, then went far enough north to reach the Conejos River valley which we followed back to Antonito.

Our locomotive was number 484, a member of the K-36 series. The letter “K” is from the designation “Mikado” for this style; in 1897 Baldwin Locomotive Works built a group of narrow gauge locomotives of this type for the Emperor (Mikado) of Japan. The wheel configuration is 2-8-2; two non-driven pony wheels, eight driven wheels, and two non-driven trailing wheels. The numerical designation “36” defines the magnitude of the tractive force developed by the locomotive, in thousands of pounds. The K-36 can develop 36,000 pounds of tractive force.

Baldwin built ten narrow gauge K-36 locomotives for the D&RG in 1925; the C&TS has five of them still in operational condition. The Durango and Silverton has another three. As a railfan I am happy whenever I can hitch a ride on a scenic railroad, even if it is pulled by a diesel engine. Nonetheless the thrill of riding behind steam is an order of magnitude greater. We are very fortunate that organizations like the C&TS have been able to restore and maintain these wonderful old steamers. What a thrill it would be to ride up the Chartiers Valley behind steam!

The trip from Antonito to Chama is a lesson book in geology. Sara’s “Colorado Roadside Geology” book reported that the gift shop in Antonito had a book specifically discussing geology on the C&TS. Sure enough, I was able to find “Ticket to Toltec”, an excellent book initially written by a geologist, Doris Osterwald, in 1976, and apparently updated recently by her daughter, Becky. It contains a comprehensive “mile-by-mile” description of the geology of the route. I spent most of the trip cycling between the open gondola car to soak in the experience and our dining car where I could refer to the Oserwalds’ book.

Similarly the trip is a lesson book in environment and botany, with the changes in flora obvious as the elevation changes. And let’s not forget hydrology and the role that streams play in creating the landscape that we see today. The synergy between geological features and the watersheds that define them is a science all its own.

It goes without saying that this was a marvelous experience for me, certainly one of the most memorable of my many railfan adventures. Many thanks to Sara for making it possible! And, thanks too to all the workers and volunteers who make it possible to keep this tiny bit of history alive.

Rocky Mountain High. August 8, 2019

August 8, 2019

Rocky Mountain High

I have just returned from another exciting trip to Colorado, to visit my daughter Sara and her family. There is so much to see there that it would take a lifetime to take in all the sights.

This time we decided to begin with a ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway. Sara and my granddaughter Claire met me at the Denver airport early one evening and drove west on I-70 past the Continental Divide to Frisco, where we checked into a Ramada Inn.

My flight had been quite pleasant, but the positive experience of the “Friendly Skies” was damaged by the fact that the one piece of luggage I had checked didn’t show up at baggage claim in Denver. Sara quickly learned that it was coming on a later flight and that it would be delivered to our motel in Frisco before morning. It was a minor inconvenience, as past experience had taught me I should carry all my essentials in my carry-on bag.

The next morning we learned that the lost bag had been picked up by a delivery service and would arrive at Frisco late that afternoon. Sara then arranged for it to be diverted to the Holiday Inn Express in Alamosa where we would be staying the next two nights.

After breakfast we got back on I-70 and followed it through spectacular scenery to its junction with Colorado Route 91, “the Top of the Rockies Byway”, which eventually brought us to Leadville. This route took us through the Arapaho National Forest up the western face of the Continental Divide to Fremont Pass (11,318 feet above sea level), with “fourteeners” Quandry Peak, Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Cameron, Mt. Democrat, and Mt. Bross in rapid succession east of us.

Colorado is blessed with fifty-three peaks at elevations more than 14,000 feet above sea level. Alaska has twenty-nine “fourteeners”; the rest of the United States, fourteen more. Each one is worthy of a sight-seeing expedition; the plethora of them in Colorado is an embarrassment of riches. This brought our total to nine, having seen Mt. Evans, Mt. Bierstadt, Torreys Peak, and Grays Peak the previous evening.

Just north of Fremont Pass we had driven through the area where Climax Molybdenum operates a massive open pit mining operation, capable of producing 15,000 tons of molybdenum a year. The huge pit on the side of the mountain and the large tailings reservoirs nearby are stark reminders of the classic challenge of extracting minerals from the earth with a minimum of disruption to the environment.

Leadville itself is an excellent tourist attraction. At an elevation of 10,152 feet, it is the largest incorporated municipality in the United States. In its heyday in the late nineteenth century it had the largest population of any city in Colorado except for Denver. Celebrities associated with Leadville include Doc Holiday, the James brothers, the “Unsinkable Molly Brown”, and Meyer Guggenheim.

We took advantage of the opportunity to explore Leadville’s silver mining past by visiting the remnants of the Matchless Mine, in the foothills east of the city. We then elected to take a drive on the “Trail of the Silver Kings”, a network of roads that allegedly connected the sites of numerous productive mines of the past.

The brochure for this trail should have reported that it was suitable only for four-wheel high clearance vehicles; the Chevrolet Cruze that Sara had rented was not of that category. As soon as the road left Matchless Mine it turned from asphalt to dirt and then quickly to a completely unimproved mountain road Sara was a good sport as I skillfully navigated our return to civilization. I reminded her of a time years ago when we had a similar experience in a station wagon in West Virginia, ending up driving on a railroad right-of-way berm till we found a paved highway.

After a pleasant lunch in the Tennessee Pass Café we walked around “downtown” Leadville till Claire found an ice cream parlor to provide us with dessert. We then headed south, on Colorado Route 24, which we had joined just north of Leadville. We were now in the valley of the Arkansas River with the Sawatch Mountains to the west and the Mosquito Range to the east.

Mount Massive dominated the western skyline at Leadville; Sherman in the Mosquito Range, and Elbert a few miles farther south boosted our count to twelve. All the fourteeners had some snow cover remaining, a glorious sight late in July.

An indispensable companion throughout the trip was Sara’s copy of “Roadside Geology of Colorado”. I think we bought it when Sara and Jim first moved to Colorado. Its identification of exposed rocks at highway cuts and discussion of the geological events that produced them adds a lot to my sightseeing enjoyment. Sure enough, at the village of Granite we were able to stop and investigate a massive granite hillside.

South of Buena Vista we stopped at a “Point of Interest” and were learning the history of water rights in that area when Sara received a text message from “Nick”, the delivery service agent who was driving to Alamosa with my bag. Turned out he was only fifteen minutes behind us on the same route. We were happy to wait there till he arrived; he was happy to have avoided the long remaining drive to Alamosa.

At about this point Route 24 takes off to the east, a route we will follow on our return north. We continued on south on Route 285, “the Collegiate Peaks Byway”. The Sawatch fourteeners continued with Princeton, Antero, Tabeguache Peak, and Shavano, each equally majestic. At Poncha Springs we crossed the south branch of the Arkansas River, which joins the main river as it begins it long journey east to the Mississippi.

Our route then climbed out of the valley and up to Poncha Pass (9,010 feet) between the Sawatch range on the west and the Sangre de Cristo range to the east. From that point we descended rapidly into the narrow north end of San Luis Valley. We left route 285 and took route 17 on to Alamosa.

The San Luis Valley is a dramatically different environment. “Bigger than Connecticut”, it is a high (7,600 feet) desert with sufficient water to become the headwaters of the Rio Grande River. Seventy five miles wide and one hundred twenty five miles long, it was created when parallel north-south faults occurred during the Laramide Orogeny permitting the basin to remain level as mountains were uplifted on both sides.

The San Luis Valley is also a hotbed of UFO conspiracy advocates, with numerous reports of cattle mutilation. Locals call route 17 “the cosmic highway”. A well-known tourist attraction is the UFO watch tower, adjacent to which are some carefully placed rocks “that are the opening to a parallel universe”. We bypassed it, having our hands full with this universe.

A legitimate natural wonder in the valley are the Great Sand Dunes. Remnants of an ancient inland sea, the dunes cover thirty square miles and are seven hundred feet high in places. Colorado is indeed a geologic museum.

We checked into a Holiday Express Motel in Alamosa and enjoyed dinner nearby at a Chili’s Restaurant. The next day we rode on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway, a fine experience that will be documented in next week’s column.

Our trip north the next day retraced our previous route as far as the junction of route 285 and route 24 south of Buena Vista. At this point we took 24 to the northeast, through a high pass in the Mosquito Range and into another montane valley. Our destination was the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, south of the village of Florissant, on the Gold Belt Tour and Scenic Byway, route 1. To an outsider, Colorado’s obsession with identifying the mountain roads as scenic byways seems like overkill. To quote someone else’s comment, “there is a postcard in every direction in Colorado”.

The Fossil Beds Monument was well worth visiting. It is the site of an ancient lake where millennia of deposition of diatoms accompanied by numerous nearby volcanic eruptions have produced a rich treasure of fossils, primarily Eocene Era (thirty-four million years ago) plants, insects, and small animals. In addition, there are numerous petrified stumps of large redwood trees of that time.

We toured the museum, watched the obligatory film, followed a trail to the petrified stumps and a typical fossil shale outcropping, then ate a picnic lunch in a shelter near the Visitor Center. The picnic was particularly nostalgic, reminiscent of many predecessors in similar locations where our children were young.

Sara and I had just had a discussion of the merits of the federal government taking over the health care system, with my commenting that I was concerned about the government’s ability to do anything well. This was obviously the wrong thing to say to a government employee, and certainly this specific site is a perfect example of something extremely well done. Perhaps we should assign the responsibility for health care to the National Park Service.

I also came away from this visit with a renewed respect for paleontologists. I suspect I see this as merely one more subdivision of historical studies; at any rate I am impressed with the work they do and with the insight into our environment they provide.

From Florissant we drove east to Woodland Park, then followed route 67 north through gorgeous scenery in Pike National Forest, with Pike’s Peak (our seventeenth fourteener!) to the southeast. This is the region devastated by the Hayman forest fire in 2002. For quite a distance the ridges to the west of the highway were peppered with the trunks of dead trees. I was surprised at the absence of new growth despite the fire occurring seventeen years ago.

We eventually found our way to route 285 and then to I-470 and fought our way north to Fort Collins, through rush hour traffic. The Interstate highway system is outstanding, but it still is overtaxed everywhere it goes through urban metropolises.

Sara and Claire were excellent travelling companions. As is true of most third children, they are both easy going, “half-full glass” type persons, eager to try out new things and very slow to complain about things that go wrong.

The highlight of the rest of my visit with Sara’s family was attending two performances of the musical play “Matilda”, in which Ian played the role of Nigel. I was completely unfamiliar with this show, which is based on a novel by Roald Dahl about a precocious young girl with psycho-kinetic powers. Nigel is one of her classmates.

Once I figured out what the play was all about, I was able to appreciate the accomplishments of everyone involved in it. It was produced by a theater arts academy that provides aspiring young actors and actresses with a three-week-long workshop culminating in the performance of a challenging musical drama.

This is the eighth major play or musical in which Ian has performed – four with this academy and four with the high school. The Academy will be repeating its workshop for younger students next week, again to perform “Matilda”. Ian is going to help this effort as an intern; Claire is trying out for a role in the show.

In the meantime Nora is eagerly awaiting the next school year; she will be a Freshman at Rocky Mountain High School. This week she is off to Estes Park for a three-day workshop with next year’s Student Council members at the school.

My trip home was uneventful; I even was able to find my luggage in baggage claim. All told, it was a wonderful trip. Nonetheless, “East, West, Home’s Best!”

Whiskey Rebellion, 2019. August 1, 2019

August 1, 2019

Whiskey Rebellion, 2019

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago the brand new United States government faced its first major domestic crisis when a large group of farmers in western Pennsylvania rose up in opposition to an onerous excise tax on the production of whiskey, threatening armed rebellion. We have been aware of this momentous event for many years, but continue to be eager to learn more about it.

Fortunately there are a number of local organizations dedicated to enhancing our understanding of this significant bit of our heritage, primarily in the form of memorial festivals. Thanks to fortuitous scheduling this year we were able to spend two weekends in July enjoying these festivals.

The first weekend was in “little” Washington, which has staked its claim on being the focal point of the Rebellion on its favorite son, David Bradford. Their festival is always rewarding; this year was no exception. It features a series of realistic re-enactments of Whiskey Rebellion events by the “Historical Street Theater” on South Main Street in downtown Washington. This year we were particularly impressed by a confrontation between John Neville and John Holcroft which clearly defined the issues that led to the rebellion.

The Washington Festival includes live music concurrently in three different venues, with genres including archaic, Celtic, bluegrass, and contemporary folk. My favorite this time was the Beau Street players, four local musicians who perform early American and Baroque music.

Food is always a major part of such festivals. I settled on a cup of lemonade and a corn dog for my lunch and was surprised when my dog turned out to be a “foot long”. I eagerly attacked the end of the dog and immediately encountered a problem with the spike down its middle. Nibbling around the side worked for a while, till the remainder was so small it fell off. Sounds like a good engineering problem. At any rate, I enjoyed the portion I didn’t lose.

I rode the shuttle bus to Washington Park to the re-enactors encampment where I watched Wayne’s Legion go through its “School of the Soldier” drill. They, of course, are old friends from Woodville Plantation who provide credible re-enactments of eighteenth century soldiery at events all over the country. Rob Windhorst, Dave Frankowski, and Dan Ragaller are fixtures with this group.

My final stop was at the Pioneer Room of the George Washington Hotel where I was delighted to find Andrew Knez Jr. with a table of his masterful artwork. One of Andrew’s masterpieces is “Remembering”, a portrait of Iroquois war chief, Logan, examining one of the few artifacts remaining from the massacre of his family at Yellow Creek.

In preparation for the painting Andrew commissioned the crafting of a prototype for the artifact, a knife and sheath, which he proudly showed me. The sheath is exquisitely made, with a pattern that depicts the sad tale of Logan and his family. The knife itself is made from an eighteenth century file and the handle includes a tiny piece of wood from the famous elm tree under which Logan gave his famous “Logan’s Lament”.

Andrew is indeed a treasure; the contribution that he continues to make to our understanding of life two centuries ago is immense and is exemplified by the scholarship upon which his paintings are based. We are extremely fortunate to have an artist of his caliber in this area.

The following weekend my focus shifted to Woodville Plantation. I have enjoyed their re-enactments of the events at Bower Hill in the past; this year they were supplemented by “Market Faire”, a recreation of an eighteenth century community market. This turned out to be even more impressive than I had anticipated.

No eighteenth-century fair would be complete without a medicine show; this one featured Dr. Balthasar, impeccably portrayed by re-enactor Mike Follin. The combination of his high-speed auctioneer patter and his interaction with the audience would convince even the most reluctant customer to shell out a few bucks for his elixir, guaranteed to cure whatever ails you.

For this specific event the Neville Plantation was able to import the villain whose influence brought about the Whiskey Rebellion, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton himself. Portrayed by re-enactor Pete Fernbaugh, Hamilton convincingly presented the federal government’s rationale for the Excise Tax of 1791. He and a re-enactor portraying a rebellious farmer (John Holcroft?) performed a cute musical skit as part of the presentation.

Also entertaining was Jack and Maddie’s Turnip Wagon, a curio show featuring children’s peepshows, marionettes, hobby horses, and period songs. In addition fiddler Zac Gordon provided a selection of eighteenth century tunes, accompanied by a tap-dancing puppet, as well as providing mandolin accompaniment to a young lady playing a primitive flute.

A variety of wares were available from an impressive group of sutlers. Master horner Willy Frankford displayed the products of his remarkable scrimshaw work on powder horns and other historical artifacts. The Liberty Pole Spirits distillery offered seven different whiskeys including two that are authentic throwbacks to the Monongahela rye whiskeys of 1794. I presume they paid Mr. Hamilton’s tax.

I purchased a large pewter spoon from “Muggs and Juggs” and learned that it had been cast from an original mold that identified the original manufacturer. Other sutlers were selling period clothing, antique reproductions, and blankets. Three different re-enactors enhanced the eighteenth century motif by emulating native Americans.

I was pleased to see an encampment of members of the 8^th Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Line re-enactment unit. One of my neighbors and close friends, Mike Mongelli, was active in that organization a few years ago. He served as model for Andrew Knez Jr.’s painting “The Sentry” which depicts a bedraggled member of the 8^th at Valley Forge, warming his hands over a fire.

Although I had seen the re-enactment of the Bower Hill battles before, it was a treat to see it again. Even though you know it is all make-believe, re-enactments do an excellent job of providing contemporary viewers with a rough idea of what actually occurred.

My lunch at Woodville was at the Atria tent, where their cuisine equalled that of their restaurants. I chose a “Chopin’ Blocks Best” a BBQ beef brisket on a weck, which turned out to be an excellent decision. Of course, I was too embarrassed to inquire what a “weck” was; since then I have learned it refers to a kimmelweck roll, an invention of a German baker in western New York. In Pennsylvania Dutch, kimmel means caraway and weck is the word for roll. So much for my linguistic skills!

My schedule did not permit me to take in the Whiskey Rebellion re-enactment at the Oliver Miller Homestead this year. The combined effect of the re-enactments at each site is synergistic; together they provide a vivid picture of these climactic events. Watching re-enactors depict Marshal Lenox and John Neville attempt to serve a writ on William Miller will always be more effective than using one’s imagination to portray it.

It was a treat to see the re-creation of an eighteenth century market; our congratulations to Dan Ragaller and all the Neville House Associates folks for making it happen. I certainly hope this is the first event of an annual series.