Tom and I are just beginning to explore this part of Pennsylvania where we are spending the summer. Within three hours of our location are over 100 national park sites. Wow! Think of all the stamps I can collect this summer. Of course, a lot of them are in Washington DC, so we will certainly …
From National Parks
Building Fort Necessity: History Lesson 3
After the skirmish at Jumonville Glenn (May 28, 1754), George Washington beat a hasty retreat with his men back to the Great Meadows. Because he was concerned about a retaliatory attack by the French, he ordered his men to construct a small fort. He called it a “fort of necessity.” Shortly after they started the …
Jumonville Glen: History of Fort Necessity
Today is the second lesson in the history of Fort Necessity National Battlefield: Jumonville Glen. In January 1754, before George Washington returned from his mission, Virginia Governor Dinwiddie sent out a small force of Virginia soldiers to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, modern-day Pittsburgh. The stockade was barely finished when a …
Ohio Company of Virginia: History of Fort Necessity
Tom and I like the smaller, historical parks where we can do living history. Fort Necessity tells the story of young George Washington leading a company of Virginia milita into the western wilderness and starting the French and Indian War in 1754. I don’t want to overwhelm you with history lessons, so I will dish …
Letters to London: Jr Rangers Write
As my final post on Fort Frederica this year, I wanted to continue the tradition of sharing Letters from London. As you may remember, the Fort Frederica Jr. Ranger program is different from most parks. One of the activities in the Jr. Ranger program is writing a letter home, as if you are a colonist …
Spiffing Up Fort Frederica National Monument
The last two years, when we have arrived at Fort Frederica, we had to do damage control. The first year was the damage to the live oaks from Hurricane Matthew. We spent hours putting limbs into a chipper. The second year we had Hurricane Irma followed by an ice storm that knocked lots of pines …
Seen Around Fort Frederica National Monument
We are back in Ohio, so I am going to use the blog posts this week to finish out our time of working at Fort Frederica. Today is kind of a hodge-podge, with each paragraph something different that we have seen or done around Fort Frederica. We worked a lot with various school groups this …
Living History Food at Fort Frederica
On Saturdays and Sundays, Tom and I do living history at Fort Frederica. We dress out in our historic outfits and do things like colonial people would do. Because it is only the two of us doing living history this year, we change what we do the two days. On Saturdays Tom blacksmiths and I …
Nature Trail at Fort Frederica National Monument
Two years ago when we were working at Fort Frederica, they were putting in a one mile nature trail. They had just finished clearing the trail in April and were getting ready to put up trail markers and signs. Then, that fall, another hurricane hit the Fort. So many pine trees were uprooted that when …
Rock Star Tom Hartley in the News
I like to tease Tom that he is a rock star at Fort Frederica. When he dresses in his British soldier uniform, people flock to him. We can have five people in the park, but Tom starts talking about his musket and suddenly there are 30 people standing around listening to him. I think there …