“Raid on Township #1” in Monterey, 18-19 Sept.

This weekend, 18-19 September, the Bidwell House Museum in Monterey, Massachusetts, will present “Raid on Township #1,” a two-day Revolutionary War living history event.

The event description says:

Visitors will experience a recreation of raids conducted by British Regular Forces along with Native and Loyalist allies in the Mohawk Valley after the Saratoga Campaign. From 1778 to 1783, battles were fought all over upstate New York and the “frontier” over control of land that had long been in dispute between the Native Americans and colonial settlers.

Visitors will be able to view:

• two public battle reenactments (tactical demonstrations) 
• American and British/allied camps 
• Cooking and sewing projects, and talks on clothing 
• Demonstrations of muskets, artillery, and other weapons
• Sutlers (vendors) 
• Military medicine and midwifery
• The roles played by women and children who either followed the army or struggled on the home front

The schedules for both days start at 10:00 A.M. The tactical demonstrations will take place in the early afternoon. The camps will close to the public at 4:00 P.M. on Saturday and 2:30 P.M. on Sunday. Food will be available for purchase on the grounds.

People who wish to attend this event must buy tickets in advance for one or two days’ admission through Eventbrite. There’s limited parking, and thus limited attendance. A day’s admission for an adult who isn’t a member of the museum costs $20, but that daily price goes down if you buy a two-day ticket or join the museum. All kids under the age of twelve can get tickets for free. The museum asks that all visitors wear masks while on the site.

The Bidwell House Museum is set on 192 acres of forests and trails in what was once Housatonic Township #1 in the Berkshires. The oldest part of the house was built around 1760 for the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell (1716-1784), the first minister of that area. Back in 2012 I shared a news story about a museum intern cracking Bidwell’s cipher to understand one of his sermons.

The township’s original meetinghouse was located just to the south of the minister’s house, and both stood near the Boston Post Road. Later, the community split into the towns of Monterey and Tyringham, and then New England’s farm economy faded, leaving the house (expanded somewhat in the early 1800s) in sylvan isolation on the Boston Post Road.

In 1960 clothing designers Jack Harris and David Brush bought the Bidwell house, restored its exterior, and furnished it in late 18th-century style using the minister‘s probate inventory as a guide. After that couple’s deaths, their house opened as a museum in 1990.