L'Hermitage/Best Farm Open House

Dear Friends,

The Monocacy Living  Historians finally participated in our first official event, and I'm so excited to tell you about it!

Photo by Craig Kuhn. Used with permission.

There are three events on Monocacy's schedule this year during which we are going to open one of the houses on our battlefield. This is a big deal because, up until our sesquicentennial two years ago, the public had never been allowed inside the houses; even now these events are the only times this year the public is allowed inside 2 of the 3 houses. When we acquired these properties, they needed a lot of TLC - as, let's be honest, do all historic properties - and I suspect our team was eager to see what secrets these houses were holding about the families that lived in them. These houses are a reflection of the people who called them home, and some aspects of their lives would only be recorded in the structure and changes of the house itself.

Our first open house was at L'Hermitage, a.k.a. the Best farm. L'Hermitage is a particularly exciting house to interpret because it has a rich and unusual history for this region. There's still much we don't know, but maybe I'll do another blog post one day about some of the history we do know.

A couple weeks before the event, Diane and I met Ranger Tracy to go through the house and review talking points, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the park library with Tracy, asking questions and looking through photographs. Tracy would give three formal presentations each day in the stone barn, while Diane and I were responsible for guiding visitors inside the house and providing less formal interpretation. Since I'm still researching the family that lived there during the battle, I knew very little about the other families that had lived there. We were basically starting from scratch, and the park's reports were a huge help.

We knew that I would be dressed out in mid-19th century clothing, but Diane's Civil War wardrobe wasn't going to be ready in time. As luck would have it, Diane has also portrayed the time period in which the house was built. Sometimes things just fall into place, and  Tracy approved Diane dressing out in late 1700s clothing to portray the era of the original family while I dressed out in early 1860s clothing to portray the era of the family living there during our battle.

Both Diane and I had a grand time, and many of our visitors were vocal about being glad they came out. As you can see from the photo above, we had a lot of people come through! The counter tended to get stuck, but we think about 500 people came through the house each day that weekend. We had another living history unit that came out and set up little tents/booths, but we were so busy I didn't have much time to visit with them. I did notice that it was brutally hot under their tents, while it was wonderfully cool inside the house. The family that began L'Hermitage was from the Caribbean, and the house includes architectural features designed to keep the house as cool as possible. They may have regretted that in the winter, but I can attest that it's wonderful in the summer.

I mentioned earlier that part of the park's study of the L'Hermitage/Best house was to uncover some of its secrets. Unfortunately, one of those secrets was a massive termite infestation that had likely been eating away for years. Because parts of the house were in imminent danger of collapse, they redirected their efforts to stabilize the house and preserve what was left. As a result, we had to limit the number of people who could go through the house to about 10 at a time. The line got a little too long for comfort - a lesson for the next events - but with rare exception, everyone seemed very understanding of the wait.

More importantly, Diane and I showed the park staff that we could be a true asset to them when doing programs. We took away a number of ideas for next time, but we ended the weekend feeling very good about the contribution we made toward fulfilling the park's mission.

We're tackling the Worthington House next month, so wish us luck!

P.S. The photo above was taken by our park's volunteer photographer. He does incredible work, so I encourage you to click here to explore some of Craig's other photographs.

It's Finally Here!

Ever want something so badly you can't talk about it because, even though the rational part of you knows you're being ridiculous, you're afraid to jinx it? That's how I've been for the past several months about the Monocacy Living Historians.

Our group evolved from some volunteer work I was already doing at the park and from some volunteer work Diane was doing at a different park. When I first began volunteering at the battlefield, they  had a few military units that would help out with firing demonstrations, but the park itself just wasn't set up for civilian living history.

While Diane and I had a lot of ideas, we decided to scale our approach to something that would be just a step above what the park was already doing. Since the  houses on our battlefield are usually closed to the public, we pitched the idea of being outside docents: someone who could greet visitors outside the house, point out interesting tidbits to visitors, answer questions, and help create a visual to promote understanding. Our acting Chief of Interpretation tentatively approved the idea, so I rolled up my sleeves to dig further into my research while Diane rolled up hers to assemble a mid-19th century wardrobe.

The word that drives us is respect. Respect for the park service, their mission, their assets and limitations; respect for the families we were talking about; and respect for our visitors. This drove our decision to be as accurate as possible with our impressions, both appearance and activities.

The four primary families living on our battlefield at the time of the battle are (in the order of social prominence): the Thomas family, the Gambrill family, the Worthington family, and the Best family. As we grow, we can branch out to neighbors, friends, business associates, etc. That gives us a nice range of socioeconomic backgrounds to portray, and a seemingly endless need for more research.

As we make progress with our group, we plan to post about our events, our research, and our projects. I hope you'll join us on our journey!