The article focuses on Michael L. Welch, Jr., who uses first-person interpretation of Revolutionary figures in teaching history at the Sandwich Middle School.
The article explains:
Welch primarily portrays Major General James Warren, a leading revolutionary in Massachusetts who also served as president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress during the American Revolution. Welch heard that the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth had Warren’s sword…The photo above, which the museum shared on social media a few weeks before this article appeared, may show one of those awkward moments when Welch looked at the sword and wondered about sharing doubts with curator Anne Mason.
“I connected with the curator, who was very helpful in lining up a time to go in and look at the sword,” Welch said. “I was given the attribution of the sword, how the sword was passed down through the Warren family and donated. I photographed it extensively, I scanned it, I made a 3D rendering of it, and the whole time I am looking at this sword, I am like, ‘There is something off about this sword.’”
Welch had seen a sword like Warren’s before, which was believed to date back to 1764-1765. As he continued to examine its pommel, guard and counter-guard, Welch determined the sword was not a general’s sword; it was a mass-produced sword made much later, after the American Revolution.
Welch identified the sword as a Model 1796 Hanger carried by British sergeants, a discovery that “broke his heart,” as he did not want to say anything to the Pilgrim Hall Museum.
After confirming his assessment with an expert, Welch did indeed discuss those findings with Mason and her colleagues. The museum will add that information to its files and assess how it displays the hanger. As Welch points out in the article, the fact that this sword was made in 1796 doesn’t mean it wasn’t owned by James Warren; his son James, Jr. (1757–1821), a Continental marine officer who lost a limb in 1781; or another member of the family. It just doesn’t go back as far as the Revolution.
Just like Pitcairn's pistols, which turned out to be Crosbie's of the 38th... later generations want to to put two and two together and are shocked when it tunes out to be five. They want a direct connection with their ancestors, even when it isn't real. File under: pieces of the True Cross.
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