Glover’s Regiment and their friends transported visitors to the Revolutionary era during their annual reenactment of an 18th-century military camp at Fort Sewall Saturday.
Around 100 people wearing 18th-century garb chatted with visitors and flitted between tents and tables. Cannons and muskets were fired during battle reenactments, children partook in a military drill, and members of Glover’s Regiment demonstrated 18th-century craftsmanship, including butter churning, candle making, blacksmithery, laundry and weaving.
“Just about every battle is like a big family reunion,” said Bob Deisle, who has participated in reenactments for 60 years and joined Saturday’s festivities from central New Jersey as part of the 25th Continental Regiment.
Long-time Marblehead residents Katie and Tim Sullivan echoed this sentiment, saying that the best part of the event is spending time with family.
Katie Sullivan, who gave visitors samples of her hand-churned butter at the reenactment, said she first became involved with Glover’s Regiment when she brought her father to the encampment 15 years ago as a birthday gift. Since then, they have returned year after year with their three children, sleeping over in the tents and participating in the festivities.
Now, Katie’s father, Raymond Sullivan, a retired general surgeon, is Glover’s Regiment’s camp surgeon.
“I love the excitement from the crowd,” Tim Sullivan said, adding that the music he heard at the reenactments inspired him to take fiddle lessons.
Around 600 people visited the encampment throughout the day, hailing from all over New England. Lynn Dixon, who attended the event, said she was visiting the area from Florida and stayed an extra day to check it out.
Patrons participated in guided tours through the camp to learn about 18th-century ways of life, including medicine from camp surgeon Raymond Glover and candlemaking from Kathleen Pondelli.
Pondelli, from Somerville, joined the Glover Regiment nine years ago and annually demonstrates candlemaking. Marblehead resident Pam Crowell, who had attended the event for years, said she loved Pondelli’s handmade candles and had bought a “lifetime supply.”
Katey Corrigan from Beverly demonstrated 18th-century laundry practices at the encampment. One of the major diseases at the time spread through fleas, she said, so women who joined the soldiers to do their laundry played a crucial role.
Corrigan’s table included a bucket hanging from a wooden stand, representing how women would boil the soldier’s clothes to remove dirt and sterilize them. In a wooden basin, she demonstrated hand washing a shirt in soapy water and then beating it with a wooden paddle instead of scrubbing, which preserved the integrity of the hand-woven fabric of the time.
“There are roles for everyone,” Corrigan said, adding that women would charge soldiers about a quarter of their wages for laundry and would wash for around 10 soldiers.
Robert Keenan from central New Jersey, who is part of the 25th Centennial Regiment, makes the buttons that read “25” on his authentic uniform himself by using his grill to melt down lead scraps. Keenan said he planned to make buttons for his fellow soldiers once the weather is cooler, as many of them had contributed lead mugs and scraps to be melted down.
Thirty years ago, Keenan went to a battle reenactment in western Massachusetts. After the battle, he knocked on the door of the group’s trailer, and a respectable-looking man answered the door and said, “Ah, a recruit.” Ever since, he and his wife, Kathy, have been dedicated members.
Representing the British, Capt. John Langan, commanding officer of the 16th Queen’s Light Dragoons highlighted the importance of reenactor’s uniforms. The dragoons’ red coats and bear-fir-topped hats are authentic pieces that they receive permission from the British government to wear.
“I’m so happy to be in Marblehead. It’s a beautiful town,” Langan said.
He began reenacting at 14 after attending one for the first time as a child. He thought the British “looked so great,” but his Irish mother was skeptical. Eventually, she allowed him to join.
“The greatest part about being an American is that all that history belongs to you, no matter your origins… It doesn’t matter if you became a citizen yesterday,” he said.
Father and son Simon and Dylan Brown joined Langan as trooper and corporal of the 16th Queen’s Light Dragoons. Simon officially began reacting at 10, after a chance encounter with a reenactment group during a visit to Boston with his mother.
“It all kind of spiralled from there,” Dylan Brown recalled with a laugh.
The journey through history continued on Sunday at Abbot Hall, where bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell spoke about his 2021 book, “The Indispensables.”
