Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Exploring pieces of living history
The history that we learn in school tends to center on wars, land acquisitions, political achievements, and advances in industry. Rarely do we hear about plants, yet the influence of the plant world runs like a thread through human history. This hit home to me in different ways last weekend when my fiancé Charlie and I visited the new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.
The main draw for us was to see the field tent in which George Washington lived and worked during the war. It was a goosebumpy moment when the screen lifted at the end of the video (“Washington’s War Tent”) and we were finally face-to-face with the tent. Amazing that these eighty-eight yards of cloth had not just been kept and handed down, but had also survived for two hundred and forty years in our humid east coast environment, not to mention the danger from mice and insects.
Seeing the tent brought the past up against the present for me in a way that objects of metal, china, pewter, and silver have never done. Those objects were never alive. The fabric of this tent had been. But the video didn’t tell enough of the story to satisfy me. How was it that the fabric had survived so well? I spoke with one of the museum staff and learned that the old tent didn’t look so good when the museum acquired it. Not only did it have some holes and tears in it, but chunks of the tent had long ago been cut out wholesale as souvenirs. It had taken over five hundred hours of conservation work to make it look new again.
I also learned that the tent was made of linen, much stronger than cotton. I imagine that this is part of what helped the tent survive. Linen also has natural anti-microbial properties and repels insects. That must also have been a factor in the tent’s longevity. (http://www.brahmsmount.com/blog/cotton-vs-linen-whatsthe-difference/)
Farther into the museum (“American Liberties 1765-1775”),
Charlie and I stood under a life-size model of an American elm tree that once stood in Colonial Boston. It was the first so-called “Liberty Tree,” one of dozens of giant, old trees that would eventually be used as gathering places for revolutionaries throughout the thirteen colonies in the 1760s and 1770s.
Inlaid within the trunk of the model was a section of the liberty tree from Annapolis, Maryland. The tree, taken down after being irreparably damaged by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, had been the last standing
liberty tree. We could touch a piece of once-living history. This was another goose-bumpy moment, to think back to an earlier time when a tree could serve as a symbol of freedom and the courage to stand firmly rooted in principle.
It also reminded me of the story of the Charter Oak I had learned growing up in Connecticut. How early colonists hid the 1662 charter from King Charles II — which granted them selfrule — in the hollow trunk of an ancient oak tree, to prevent King James II’s later attempt to revoke the charter. (https://connecticuthistory.org/the-legendof-the-charter-oak/)
Finally, in the next gallery
(“The War Begins 1775”) we saw on display one of the support timbers from the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, near where “the shot heard ‘round the world” was fired, sparking the Revolutionary War.
The tough fibers of the flax plant — made into a lasting emblem of America’s bid for freedom. Tall, spreading elm, tulip poplar, and other great trees, sheltering crowds of patriots and providing a symbol of the quest for liberty. A one thousand year-old oak tree — used to shelter freedom. And an ordinary-looking piece of wood that colonial patriots and British troops alike walked over centuries ago.
It was an inspiring day. Reminder: The Great Backyard Bird Count starts tomorrow. For information, go to http://gbbc.birdcount.org/
Pam Baxter is an avid organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton. Direct e-mail to pamelacbaxter@gmail.com, or send mail to P.O. Box 80, Kimberton, PA 19442. Join the conversation at “Chester County Roots,” a Facebook page for gardeners in the Delaware Valley. Go to Facebook, search for Chester County Roots, and “like” the page. To receive notice of updates, click or hover on “Liked” to set your preferences.