Historical Tidbits — Abolish Slavery!

When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. April 14, 1775 The Society for the Relief of the Free Negros Unlawfully Held in Bondage first meets in Philadelphia.  The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully …

SAVE the DATE

Come Study a Truly Astronomical Event and Its Effects with the Colonial Scientist Fort Mifflin — April 8, 202411am – 5:30 pm The total solar eclipse of June 24, 1778 was the first to be carefully observed in the newly founded United States. David Rittenhouse, witnessed the eclipse from Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson also tried to see …

Beer Recipe: 3/5th Compromise Brown Ale

Are you a Constitutional Originalist? Do you hold that the US Constitution must be followed EXACTLY as the framers intended when they wrote it? Some in our country hold that the provisions in the US Constitution are perfect and complete guidelines for how our government should operate. These people clearly CANNOT READ! “I am not …

Freedom Means NOTHING Unless You Also Embrace Tolerance

Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others. John F Kennedy As Americans we focus a lot on our Constitutional Freedoms.  Frankly, we are far more enthralled with these than most of the rest of the world for in the time since our Revolution, …

Basic Colonial Brewing: More on Decoctions

Brewers today have access to highly-modified malts.  We also have modern tools like thermometers which were prohibitively expensive luxuries not available to brewers in the 18th Century.  This means the process of extracting sugars from the grains through mashing were far less efficient in 1770 than they are today.  Decoction is a method to overcome …

US Marines in the American Revolution — A Marine Lieutenant Dies

6 April 1776 The voyage northward following the raid on New Providence was routine. An hour into the midnight watch on 6 April 1776, however, the situation changed ; two unidentified sails were sighted to the southeast. All hands were called to quarters as the distance closed, and it became clear that one of the …

The dye that causes people to die

Wallpaper with Scheel Green In the mid-1700s, Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered a copper derivative that was a particularly vivid green. Scheele’s discovery — known as Scheele’s Green — was used as a pigment for all sorts of artistic works, particularly among the European elite. Wallpaper, in particular, was made using Scheele’s Green to achieve the …

Historical Tidbits — SUGAR ACT

When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. April 5, 1764 – SUGAR ACT Sugar Act, also called Molasses Act, the Plantation Act or the Revenue Act, was passed by Parliament in an attempted to curb the …

Exposing Spies

William Wickham was Britain’s first Master Spy and head of the British Secret Service. Wickham was also the focus of a massive government scandal and Parliamentary investigation when it was found that millions of pounds in taxpayer’s money had been funneled to Wickham and then disappeared without a trace.  In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen …