History geeks like me tend to look for interesting bits of information about the past in every place we visit, so it’s fun to camp in areas with displays that share that information. But some of us with a history obsession also like to take things a step further on occasion and try to get a sense of what it was actually like to live in a past era. Some interpreters call it “living history” or “living archaeology.” Some call it “reenacting.”
Many call it crazy. To be fair, if people from the past could see the amount of effort and expense we put into trying to recreate their daily life, they would agree that we are the types of “troubled souls” who should be locked away in Bethlem Hospital (i.e. Bedlam)
I started out in the hobby when I was preparing to write one of my early books, Restitution. I wanted to learn how to cook using 18th Century implements so that I’d understand my heroine’s daily routine. My Sunday afternoons with the volunteers at Jerusalem Mill taught me a fair bit about cooking, but my experiences there and camping at events could only give me a brief glimpse into what life might have been like in Maryland in 1774. I learned just enough to know that if I lived then, I’d be miserable and probably never stop complaining.
But that hasn’t stopped me from returning to Maryland to participate in colonial encampments on occasion. And here’s what I learned during the most recent event.
Historical Camping Events
Our current society has more time for leisure than any civilization has ever enjoyed before, so there are many different types of historical camping events. Some events have strict rules about historical accuracy, where everything must fit a particular time period (at least to all appearances). Other events are more a historical fantasy site where anything that looks old-fashioned is welcome.
The focus of events can be very different. Many of the juried events patrolled by accuracy enforcers are aimed to educate the public. People who are not participating are invited to watch, and often to interact with historical participants who want to teach about life in the past. Military reenactments are often events of this type. I’ve lurked on some online chat groups where reenactors complained about what to my mind are petty inaccuracies in uniforms of participants, such as the trim being the wrong width. In the evenings when the members of the public leave, these reenactors will sometimes let down their hair and engage in wildly inaccurate behavior such as discussing modern movies instead of 18th Century topics of conversation.
Other historical camping events are intended to create a certain atmosphere for participants, and members of the public may be allowed to enter only at limited times. Some of these events are designed to cover a larger range of time, and there is more an effort to create general sense of the past rather than to replay a specific moment in time. Precise accuracy is not required. It’s the spirit that matters.
The “Old” Fort Frederick Market Fair
Over the years, the historical camping event I’ve participated in most frequently is the Fort Frederick Market Fair, which is held every April in a state park that features a reconstructed stone fort from the French & Indian War period. The first year I attended as a day visitor and ended up staying over with a friend. That year was the last year the fair was held as a “rendezvous,” which is type of encampment designed to evoke the sensation of a encampment during the fur trade era, covering essentially anything earlier than 1840 in the U.S. The original rendezvous events occurred when fur trappers who’d been out in the western wilderness on their own for a year brought their pelts to a main camp to sell to traders. Then they spent all their money on booze, women, and gambling before heading back to the wilderness for another year.
The modern recreation rendezvous events are probably a little cleaner and a little less raucous than the original events, but the focus can tend to be more on raising hell rather than history. What I loved about this first experience was that overall sense that I’d entered a different time and place. There were no bright lights – only candles and firelight, and that difference alone is instantly exotic. Even when traveling to a remote place alone, most modern campers will rely on a modern flashlight that puts off a focused, bright beam. The absence of electric light instantly changes the look and feel of a place, particularly when people are gathered together in that place.
At my first encampment, there were thousands of people dimly visible around campfires and canvas tents and tipis eating, laughing, playing music. I felt like I’d stumbled into the best of the past—an enjoyable fantasy that I wanted to experience again. As soon as I got home, I started putting together my own “period” camping gear, such as silverware with fake wooden handles and folding camp stools from Walmart.
The “Modern” Historic Market Fair at Fort Frederick
A conflict among leadership changed the Fort Frederick event drastically the next year. It is now limited to the 1750-1790 time period. Campers now number in the hundreds rather than the thousands, and there are people patrolling to ensure that nothing is visible that doesn’t conform to the time period.
Just as in the past, there is a large market with vendors selling period reproduction merchandise. Among the visitors roaming the streets of the market you will see people dressed in elaborate 18th Century attire that is accurate down to the last hair on their wigs. Music is less spontaneous and less frequent, but more accurate to the time period. I walk around in awe at some of the recreations. But it’s not as much fun as in the past.
Lessons Learned this Year
I don’t cook as much as I used to in camp, but I do enough to remind myself of reasons why I’m grateful to have a modern kitchen at home. For instance, when I get up at home, I walk to the kitchen in my nightshirt, fill the coffee pot with water from the sink, measure some coffee into the filter basket, push a button, and sit down. The process of making coffee requires approximately 20 seconds of work on my part.
When I’m camping at an 18th Century event, the process takes close to an hour on a good day. First, I have to get dressed since I’ll be out in the open. I put on a shift, which is an undergown, and then I have to lace up my stays, which are sort of like a combination between a corset and a back brace. Then a pull on and tie a couple of skirts known as petticoats, and an open gown over the top of those and I have to pin it closed without stabbing myself. One lesson learned this year—I bought longer pins and a decorative piece of fabric known as a stomacher so I could close up my gown and still be able to breathe.
To be “period correct,” I should put up my hair and cover it with a cap and put a kerchief around my neck and chest, but coffee is more important than accuracy. Once I’ve pulled up wool stockings and put on shoes, I’m ready to go into the “kitchen” outside my tent. Then I need to fetch water for the coffee pot – the “well” is a spigot only about 50 yards away. On my way there I realize I should have straightened my stockings – they’re already giving me a blister. Back to camp I trundle with my water, which I need to pour into the kettle to heat. No push button for that.
Instead, we have to build a fire, and when I say “we,” I mean my husband, because it didn’t take him 20 minutes to get dressed. He did, however, have to collect kindling and chop firewood into small enough pieces that we can start a fire and regulate the temperature. Within only another half hour or so, we’re ready to add coffee grounds to the water and wait for it to brew.
The coffee is ready by lunch time.
Nothing new there this year. I dd learn, however, that if you buy a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a vendor and pour it into a period-correct redware mug, no one can tell that you didn’t spend all morning making it over the open fire.
My most important lesson this year involved eating—specifically, what not to do after eating. Remember that I said to be accurate when I got dressed, I should have put on a kerchief around my neck and over my chest. But neckerchiefs annoy me so I skipped that step. And that meant that whenever I ate something crumbly, I ended up dropping crumbs down the front of my gown. For some reason, this is the first year it has happened, and it happened frequently. So I got in the habit of leaning forward and hanging my head down to shake out various parts of the diet that were sinking down into my clothing. Unfortunately, I eventually dislodged a large piece of cookie directly into my eye. And that hurt far more than I would have guessed.
Next year, perhaps I will start wearing kerchiefs.
The experience I intentionally attempted this year for learning purposes was to take a hike along the river to see what it would be like to walk six miles wearing stays. However, we took McCoy’s Ferry Road, which did not track along the river to McCoy’s Ferry as expected but turned inland and ended at a set of railroad tracks. Instead of experiencing a long hike along the river, we experienced a short but no less strenuous “walk” that involved scrambling over fallen tree trunks and through leafy branches all while encumbered by three layers of wet petticoats. It provided another small glimpse to a past I’d rather not live in. It is much easier to wear pants and wait for someone with heavy equipment to clear fallen trees for me.
——————————-
Thanks for reading. My experience as a living history volunteer and camper helped influence my book Restitution a great deal. When I decided I needed to add a scene earlier in the narrative, I even ended up using the village at Jerusalem Mill because it fit the storyline perfectly. And the publisher used a photo of the building where we did our cooking for the cover of the book.
My experience working by candlelight and wearing period clothing also helped me figure out some of the issues my heroes and heroines would have to deal with in my Regency stories such as Change of Address or The Appearance of Impropriety.
In the story that I’m currently writing, with a working title “Disenchanted,” my heroine ends up traipsing through the woods and fields quite a bit, so I’m hoping my experience with McCoy’s Ferry “road” will help me understand where she is going to encounter problems.
I haven’t decided yet whether she will have trouble with cookie crumbs…