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In the Swan's Shadow
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Focusing mainly on topics of interest to American Civil War living historians, reenactors, or history buffs in general, this also has a habit of wandering onto seemingly random topics such as my jewelry business and anything else that crosses my mind
Recent Posts Tagged With 'pittsburgh'
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Further information can be found on the West Overton Museums website. The place looks fabulous, hope to see you there!...
Operation Market Garden Trailer
This is the trailer to a video that will be finished hopefully this fall. All footage was shot at the Operation Market Garden reenactment weekend. It looks incredible so far. He and his crew worked very hard all weekend...I was watching. :) ...
Operation Market Garden a Success!
The weather was wonderful, the turnout was great, and the reenactors were incredible. We had a grand time and can't wait to do it all again next year!A few photos from the weekend:Photo credit goes to Alisa Barnhart for this batch. ...
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Operation Market-Garden Reenactment & Memorial Weekend Presented by the West Overton Re-enactor Society On September 17, 1944 thousands of paratroopers descended from the sky by parachute or glider up to 150 km behind e...
West Overton Photos on Webshots
We had a very nice family come over right before Old Overholt Days in July, and one of them was a photographer. He spent that day and another full one strolling around the museum and the buildings taking some of the most wonderful pictures of the pl...
West Overton's 5th Annual Heirloom Tomato Festival!
West Overton Museums' 5th Annual Heirloom Tomato FestivalAug. 22, 2009 10AM-6PMPresented by the West Overton Garden ClubAdvance tickets available online here. Adults $10, Students $6, Children under 5 are FREE. This year promises to be even bigger a...
More Twin Lakes 2009 Pictures
Beautiful shot of the coehorn going off.Loading and firing drill with mixed company.I believe this is the sunset on Saturday night.Another trainee on the coehorn.This is our coehorn mortar crew, plus one guest (he was one of our security guys)....
Twin Lakes Photos 2009 part 1
A likely looking bunch, eh? We take mix n' match to an art form. A view of camp from the bridge by the lake. Gotta love Twin Lakes. Where else would Captain Jack Sparrow be part of your artillery crew?Lee and his grandson demonstrating tinsmithing....
Civil War Letters: William H. Risk, Co. G, 11th PVI
(This is the transcript of one of the letters in the collection of myself and my research partner. William H. Risk was in Company G of the 11th. At the beginning of the war, the 11th was in a three month term of enlistment. Camp Wayne was a traini...
26th Annual Quilt Show!
West Overton Museums 26th Annual Quilt Show June 6-July 13 Opening weekend (June 6-7) includes The Supper Quilt Consisting of over 51,000 pieces of quilted material and is 15 feet in length. You won't want to miss this once in a life time opport...
Aw, come ON!
So our opening day for the museum was Saturday, and it was our first day demonstrating bread-baking. We had tons and tons of people come and see us, including a high school field trip (yes, on a Saturday). Lots of excellent questions, lots of frien...
West Overton (and me) in the news...
This appeared in the May 07 edition of the Connellsville Daily Courier. May Mart Returns to the MuseumWest Overton Museums officials have been working tirelessly to plan the events for this year's opening day scheduled for Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p...
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Saturday May 9, 2009 OPENING DAY West Overton Village Scottdale, Pa Free Admission to the Museum all daySee a Civil War encampment and bread baking in the Summer Kitchen Hours are 9am - 5pm May Mart Hours 9:3...
The Wagoner's Song
I came across this poem while doing research about the Overholt family yesterday...the poem itself is so evocative that I just had to share it. This poem is located in the archives at West Overton Museums.The poem is written by Joseph Sherrick, date...
On Bread; Commentary and Treatises from Period Books , part 2
Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. The Good Housekeeper: Or, The Way To Live Well And To Be Well While We Live: Containing Directions For Choosing And Preparing Food, In Regard To Health, Economy And Taste. Boston: Weeks, Jord...
On Bread; Commentary and Treatises from Period Books
Well, you had to see this coming. In the course of my own research I figured that I would share some of my findings with you. This source is from around 1839, which is when the summer kitchen was initially built at West Overton. It is known that a...
Well, we're getting there...
Well, Saturday saw another day in the kitchen at West Overton, and we got more baking done. We're still having trouble with properly firing the oven, therefore our time available to bake is also varying. As much as I've read about being able to fir...
Gettysburg & Stories of Valor
I haven't had a chance to look through all of the parts of this video series, but what I've seen isn't bad. It's nothing approaching research material, but good for human interest stories. The first video touches on the death of David Acheson, who ...
We did it!
Well, Sunday Karen and I decided to try firing up the oven, to see how she would behave. After a bit of a false start, we finally got it popping along and the oven was heating nicely. The key seems to be *very* dry, rather small fuel in large quan...
So what are we doing with the kitchen anyway? For Lidian
This post is in answer to Lidian's question to the previous post...it occurred to me that I never did mention what exactly we were going to do with this kitchen now that we have the opportunity to work in it.It's pretty complex, now that I've had a c...
Work day in the kitchen!
Saturday was my first opportunity to work on the summer kitchen at West Overton. The kitchen hadn't been touched since the last day of the Christmas programming, so things were pretty much exactly where we'd left them. The day was mostly spent cleani...
A Visit to the Castle
Yesterday my oldest and I went to the Barony-Marche of the Debatable Lands' monthly meeting, which was also a day of general socializing, fighter practice, fencing, and even a couple of classes to round out the day. I haven't had an opportunity to ma...
For Trinity: Mary Tepe
Perhaps one of the most famous of her kind during the (American) Civil War, Mary Tepe is the image and person most conjured in people's minds when one mentions a vivandiere. Her name has several permutations, including Marie (which is probably the n...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 6 w/bibliography
Another explosion at a Confederate States Laboratory took place in Augusta, Georgia in August 1864. There, about 18,000 pounds of powder exploded at the granulating mill, killing nine workers. It was reported that the victims were “blown to atoms.â...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 5
Another tragic explosion took place at the Confederate States Laboratory on Brown’s Island in Richmond, Virginia on March 13, 1863. Like most other ordnance factories and arsenals, the Laboratory employed many poor white young women and girls ...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 4
Sorry about this one being so necessarily long, but I wanted to get the sequence of events together and all at once. Carry on...The news stunned the Pittsburgh area. The local press gave it more coverage than news from the front the next day, Sep...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 3
September 17, 1862 was to be a fateful day for those at the Allegheny Arsenal. It was payday, and workers stood in line in small groups waiting to be paid. There was an urgent need for cartridges because General Robert E. Lee and his Army of No...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 2
I'm not deliberately being a tease with the posts; I'm spreading them out so that the posts don't go on for miles. Well...any more than they already are...Anyway, continuing:The Allegheny Arsenal, established in 1814, was in Lawrenceville, PA (now...
Women in Civil War Arsenals, Part 1
This is actually my sister's paper, which she graciously allowed me to post on my blog. ::nudges gun barrel away from her head:: Actually it's a wonderful paper about a little known or discussed aspect of women's contributions to the war effort, an...
