Looking All the Way Back on History Camp 2022

Many of the sessions at last month’s History Camp Boston were recorded, and the videos are going up on the web now.

I started the morning with a talk on “Digging and Debunking: Using Online Tools to Investigate the Myths of American History.” I’m not sure I actually got to all the topics promised in the description:

From Founders’ quotes to inspirational legends to details that historians have repeated for so long that nobody considers where they came from, our history abounds with assertions that we should be skeptical about. This workshop discusses how to assess such historical tales and tidbits. It will share tactics for using Google Books and other free resources to pinpoint when and where stories arose, and lay out the dynamic of “grandmother’s tales,” “memory creep,” and other ways legends spread. And every so often these techniques reveal that a story almost too good to be true is supported by solid evidence.

Then again, I wrote that description in late 2019, so I’m just glad that I got to this talk at all. (The blog posting I used as a visual aid and online starting-point is here.)

At the end of the day I was part of a panel on “Using New Media to Present History” organized by Michael Troy of the American Revolution Podcast, with Jake Sconyers of HUB History and Larisa Moran of History Dame.

A panel of podcasters, bloggers, and video bloggers discusses how new forms of media are transforming the presentation of History. We will discuss how podcasting and other new media differ from traditional media, why they reach new audiences, and trends in how presenting new media is continuing to change.

As usual, those sessions conflicted directly with others I’d hoped to attend, so I’m pleased that many more talks were recorded. Here are videos of other History Camp Boston 2022 sessions on aspects of Revolutionary America:

• Matthew Wilding and Mary Adams of Revolutionary Spaces on “Gamifying History: Roleplaying the Revolution”
• Salina B. Baker on “General Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution”
• Nancy Rubin Stuart on “Poor Richard’s Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father”
• Steve Butz on “Shays’ Settlement in Vermont”
• David Dalrymple on “Captain Patrick Ferguson’s Experimental Corps of Riflemen”
• Roberta DeCenzo on “The Last Civilian Royal Governors of Colonial Massachusetts”
• Andy Volpe on “Re-Engraving Paul Revere: The Boston Massacre”
• Judy Cataldo on “The Bloody Flux of 1775, Looking at the Little Picture”
• Scott Nadler on “Inconvenient Founders: Thomas Young and the Forgotten Disrupters of the Revolution”

Plus you can see four presentations on aspects of the Salem Witch Trials! Talks on early westward expansion and Salem’s mercantile flowering and racism in early recorded pop music! Lots more! If more videos come on line after being reviewed, I’ll post more links.

History Camp Boston is a project of The Pursuit of History, a non-profit corporation that produces History Camps in other metro areas, the upcoming online History Camp America, and the weekly History Camp discussions with authors. I’m on the organization’s board. If you’re grateful for this content and want to see more such gatherings, please consider a donation to The Pursuit of History through its webpage.

Fort Ti Receives Gift of Weapons Collection

Fort Ticonderoga has announced that it has received the donation of a substantial collection of historical weapons. Grafton H. “Grif” Cook and Barbara W. Cook of Niles, Michigan, built this collection over many decades, starting when Grif received an 1866 French bayonet for Christmas at the age of six. (Which I imagine might have led to the giver receiving some words from Grif’s parents, even in 1936.)

Fort Ti writes that the collection contains 132 weapons from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries. More than half are swords, of many designs. A quarter are British military pistols, including “the all-metal pistols carried by officers in Scottish regiments including the famed 42nd Royal Highland Regiment or ‘Black Watch’ during the 18th century.” The rest are muskets, hunting guns, blunderbusses, and a Ferguson breech-loading rifle (another example shown above, courtesy of the Hampshire Museum). Fort Ti explains its significance:

In 1776 Captain Patrick Ferguson of the 70th Regiment of Foot perfected and patented the breech loading mechanism of this rifle and developed the gun for service in the British army. A limited quantity of these rifles was produced for military service and small number was produced for private use. The Ferguson rifle in this collection was produced for private use.

The loading mechanism is unique in that the user pivots the trigger guard which unscrews a threaded breech screw, allowing the user to load the gun quickly without having to use a ramrod to push the ball down the barrel. A trained user of the Ferguson rifle was able to fire up to five shots per minute versus three shots per minute with a typical musket.

The Cooks’ gift also includes an extensive library of printed material about the weapons. In the coming months Fort Ticonderoga’s curators will be cataloguing the collection and figuring out how to make it available to researchers and the public.