In June 3, 1769, after months of planning, the skies that had been cloudy for several days cleared over East Norriton, Pennsylvania. David Rittenhouse waited nervously for the moment when Venus would briefly become visible as it passed across the sun. This transit was an extremely rare event and according to computations by Edmund Halley, …
Continue reading “And then he fainted just before the whole spectacle began”
A bounce is a drink made with a mixture of alcohol and sweetened cherry juice. The earliest reference for such a drink is 1693 where it was referenced in W. Robertson’s Phraseologia Generalis as a “mingled drink” called cherrybouncer. Sometimes cherry brandy (Kirsch) was also called bounce as the two beverages are very similar. The …
Continue reading “Man does not live on beer alone — Cherry Bounce”
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. May 29, 1787 – At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the Virginia Plan calling for a bicameral legislature, an executive, and a judiciary branch of government was proposed by …
Living near Philadelphia, I tend to have a very East Coast view of the American Revolution. After all, the BIG battles in North America were in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and Virginia. America west of the Mississippi River was a far of land deep in New Spain for most Americans in 1777. Not …
Continue reading “The Westernmost Battle of the American Revolution — Fort San Carlos”
I need your help with the Moland House. This will be my second year planning the annual reenactment at Moland House. Last year, I took reins of organizing the event after Jo-Anne Mullen has decided to step down from organizing the event. We’ve had some growing pains trying to live up to the 15 years of tireless …
Four years after the United States won its independence from England, delegates convened in Philadelphia to compose a new U.S. Constitution. The current constitution, The Articles of Confederation, ratified several months before the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provided for a loose confederation of U.S. states, which totally were sovereign in most of their …
Continue reading “The SECOND Constitutional Congress Meets in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787”
In May of 1754, war broke out between Great Britain and France. The earliest hostilities in what would ultimately become a global conflict were in North American and included colonist from each country as well as several tribes of Native Americans. While major battles of this war, often called the French and Indian War in …
Under Muslim rule in Spain, Jews were largely protected from persecution. This led to an explosion of Jewish culture and learning in Iberia and a very prosperous merchant class. With the Reconquista and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, many Jews began fleeing from Spain because of the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition and, …
The Game of High Jinks Today when we talk of “high jinks” (or more commonly high jinx), we typically mean horseplay but in the 17th century, “high jinks” was a boisterous drinking game characterized by the antics and boisterous or rambunctious carryings-on that this game originally produced. The name is derived from the Scottish word …
They say “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”[i] and this has become my view on mead. Technically, mead should not be part of my portfolio[ii] as it was not particularly popular in colonial America. Keeping bees and processing honey into mead, while a straightforward and simple process, was not nearly as …
Continue reading “Colonial Hospitality – Spiced Pineapple Mead”
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 