1 week Ago By gneese
The Greene County Historical Society Museum kicked off its 2025 season with an array of historical re-enactments and demonstrations Saturday and Sunday. Past years have launched with a pancake breakfast or a 5K run, said Matt Cumberledge, the GCHS’s executive director. This year, they decided to make a splash with something more historical-themed.
“Not that this is a large-scale event, but it’s of a much bigger scale than we would have typically done in the past,” he said. The Waynesburg museum was open for self-guided tours. Outside, historical re-enactment groups played out scenes from the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, Whiskey Rebellion and Civil War.
In the Civil War battle, the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Co. went up against the 31st Virginia Company H. Though there were no major Civil War battles in Greene County, the area sent plenty of people to fight, Cumberledge said.
“Back then, this was all rural farmland,” said Ryan Jones of Brave, a member of the 31st Virginia Company. “So who is going to get up and fight? Well, that farm boy who’s told he’s going to go and fight is going to be the one that does it. And this is just showing our respect to them.
” Chris Taylor of Waynesburg has an even closer tie. He learned his great-great-grandfather had fought in the 140th. “I found out that information and I decided I wanted that,” he said.
“I’ve enjoyed it ever since I started doing it.” A bigger engagement is planned for October, with 40 to 50 people on each side. For Saturday’s battle, the two sides developed a short battle based on the terrain — a narrow clearing with a hillside where snipers crept.
After a series of volleys back and forth from shorter distances, the Confederates forced the Union army into retreat. The Whiskey Rebellion group, part of Wayne’s Legion, offered an abridged take on a pivotal moment of the conflict, when an angry group attacked and burned down the home of tax inspector John Neville. In response, George Washington led 12,000 soldiers to quash the rebellion and gather up the major players in the insurrection to stand trial.
Members of the group also do full-scale re-enactments at the actual Neville home in Woodville, located in Collier Township. They said it’s rewarding to point out a more obscure corner of history to people. “People that have lived there all of their lives have never known what was going on essentially in their own backyard,” said Tim Regaller of Collier Township, who played an Army soldier.
Delilah and Shane Yeager of Carmichaels brought their daughter Kylie, 8, who enjoyed watching the soldiers fire back and forth. But the family also enjoyed seeing how people used to live. “You wouldn’t think that an 8-year-old would be into the history, but since Mom and Dad grew up in that type of history from our parents, we took it and gave it to her,” Delilah said.
“Now she’s interested in all this old antique stuff.” The day also featured demonstrations of vintage skills, from weaving to Native American crafts. Terry Tallion of Somerset displayed vintage American, British and French surveying equipment, the oldest being a compass dating back to 1720.
The principles — algebra and trigonometry — are the same today, even if the measurements have gotten more precise, said Tallion, who began surveying professionally in 1971. Researching the history of surveying has given him a greater appreciation for what they endured; the Mason and Dixon surveying expedition required a team of hunters for security against people trying to kill them. “You didn’t jump in the Suburban, drive to the job, do your job and then go home,” he said.
“There were six months they were out serving.” An open-hearth cooking demonstration came courtesy of Kate Cunning, a living historian and docent with the Bradford House in Washington. For Saturday’s meal, she did a modern and colonial mashup, imagining what burgers would have been like in the 18th century.
For one thing, they wouldn’t have been beef. The cows were too valuable, put to purposes like plowing and providing milk. “In this area, where it was very plentiful, it was sheep and pigs,” she said.
So she made lamb burgers, sourced from Ross Farms in Eighty-four, with her 18th-century kitchen pepper blend. For Sunday, she planned to make a goat curry. After 15 years as a living historian, she never gets tired of “making a mess.
” “It’s very important to teach people about history and be as accurate and gritty as they can about it, or they’re not learning real history, in my opinion,” she said. “So it always helps to be hands-on, and people are experiencing ‘This is how hot that fire was,’ ‘This is how bad that smelled.’ Once you really get a full-on assault to the senses in the 18th century, you have a little bit more respect for it.
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