Friday was my first day of interpreting at The Fort at No 4. Volunteering can be just about anything helpful to The Fort, interpreting means attempting to bring The Fort back to life.
The first thing is that you are supposed to be wearing garb. I don’t have good garb. I’m embarrassed, but it is good enough for now. Better garb will be coming soon. I’ll soon have period correct shirts, vests, and pants. If I can find my moccasins, I will be all set.
It took a while to get into the process. I finally remembered something Mr. Pete, from YouTube said, “I’m not a machinist with 20 years of experience, I’m a machinist with 20 years of doing the same thing.”
I do not have to give a different presentation to each group that comes through. I can use the same one over again, changed to match the needs of this group.
We had multiple classrooms of 4th graders come through. My final presentation went something like:
Hellos
Making sure everybody is there, that everybody is paying attention, and that the responsible adult is in the room with us.
Engage
I start by asking them where they are, what the room they are in is used for. This led to some interesting suggestions, one student suggested that this is where somebody would sell the things the blacksmith was making.
Somewhere in there, I get them to look up in the rafters. We have two children’s coffins there.
Bring them into the past
The coffins are a good starting point for discussions. We talk about why there are children’s coffins. How many children died during the 1750s. We discuss how cuts, scrapes, illnesses can all lead to death. We end with how soap and water do a great deal to keep people healthy.
This is where I emphasize that coffins are one of the few things that we would actually be making, we just need so many of them. What we mostly do is repair things.
What do we repair?
We talk about how today, when we break something, we throw it away and replace it. How it only takes a day or so to get a replacement.
From there, we discussed things breaking in the 1750s. How if we were to throw it away and replace it, we would need to get it from Boston. One of the things that we figure out is how long it takes to get to Boston and back. Once that is in hand, we elaborate on the cost and the lost opportunity costs of going to Boston.
Once there, I pick a broken yarn counter and bring their attention to it. We try to guess what it might be. Finally, I tell them it is a “yard stick”, how it works and why it is used.
They then identify that it is missing spindles, which need to be replaced.
The Shave Horse
This is the point where we start doing some hands on. I’ll have one or two students come to the shave horse, teach them how to use the shave horse and a draw knife.
From there, once they are getting a nice shaving, I tell them “make it round.”
This almost always gets a response. They get started, then I tell them that we have to go faster because we need 6 done in the next hour.
This gets laughter as they suddenly understand that this is real work.
We stop, I put the draw knife away, send the student back to the group.
At this point, I hold up a fancy spindle and tell them that now that we have a round piece of wood, we require it to look like this.
The Lathe
Through questioning, they figure out that we need to use something else. Something that allows us to shape round things.
This is the introduction to the treadle lathe. We discussed a little about how it works. Then I have the responsible adult pick a victim to come be my apprentice. The apprentice is responsible for providing power to the lathe.
I let them figure out how it works, then get them positioned. They attempt to get the flywheel to go around. We had no successes this time, some came close, but we didn’t have a single apprentice get the wheel to make a full revolution.
At this point, I demonstrate getting the lathe to spin and show how that can be used to spin the work and get shavings.
Conclusion
It is more work than I expected. I made many shavings today, but didn’t actually accomplish anything. I’ll be back up there on Wednesday of next week and also Friday.
This is worth it. I hope you can find a place like The Fort at No 4 and find the time to help. Bringing history to life is an amazing rush, even if it is hard work.
Comments
3 responses to “Interpreting at The Fort at No 4”
This article just brought a smile to my face. I love how you make it real. The learning and experience is invaluable. You are making lasting memories. Thank you for bringing history to life. Using hands on experiences gets kids to be engaged. Thank you for what you do.
I’m sure those kids had no idea how complex 1750’s era life actually was or how much work a young person was expected to do.
They did not, but we work very hard to explain it to them. The area we now call New Hampshire was the first place in the world to mandate education of children. So not only were those children expected to learn to read, write, and do basic sums, they were also doing all the normal chores that children did at that time.
One of the things I press on the kids is that, by the ripe old age of 16, most of the ladies will be married and having children of their own. They were breeding their own work force.
The age of the kids coming in is usually around 10 years old. I like to point out that, at 10, the boys would be out hunting with dad, tending to the animals, helping to hay the fields and plant and sow and weed. All of that in addition to attending school. The girls would be cooking, cleaning, mending, sewing, laundry, helping with younger children, milking, making things like cheese, butter, salt pork, etc… Their work would be never-ending. On top of that, they would also be expected to create their own “hope chest” or “trousseau,” a chest with things to take with them when they were married and moved to their husband’s home.