History and a mystery

Published in the Times-Beacon

History lessons illustrated for visitors, re-enactors recruited for 'indy' movie during annual festival in Stafford

By LINDA REDDINGTON

Lifestyle Editor

STAFFORD -- War may be "hell," but not at the Manahawkin Good Ol' Days Festival.

Dozens of re-enactment groups representing various Civil War and Revolutionary War era troops, along with a few local veterans organizations, were on hand Friday, Saturday and Sunday to educate and excite visitors by making history come alive.
Most of the re-enactors, along with the sutlers, vendors dressed in period costume, arrived early on Friday afternoon and set up the tents in which they would sleep for the next two nights. The tents ranged from simple canvas pup tents, held up with sticks, to elaborate, two-room tents for sutlers, who used the large front room for their sale goods and the back room as sleeping quarters.
A few made fires in the sand. Some of the Civil War outfits had iron grate stoves. All of the tents were illuminated Friday night with lanterns. Some of them were made of wood, others of metal, and all burned candles, making the assembled collection of white tents a beautiful nighttime scene along the lake.
Some re-enactors had a supper of pizza, provided by the Stafford Historical Society, while others cooked their own dinners over an open fire and some headed over to area restaurants.
Music by the Barn Burners and Valerie Vaughn floated on the air and brought passersby over to Makahawkin Lake Park to hear Irish ditties, folk songs and Vaughn's original tune, The Ballad of John Bacon.
Bill Treusch of the 11th Pennsylvania, who plays the role of Bacon in the Revolutionary War re-enactments each year at Good Ol' Days was on hand to hear the song, and after being pointed out by a couple of residents, endured an evening of Bacon jokes from his peers, including, "Bacon's getting FRIED tomorrow," etc.
Among the re-enactors who were new to the Good Ol' Days Festival this year were the Cumberland Blues, the C-Major Singers and the Camptown Shakers, all musical groups, and the Union Patriotic League of Philadelphia, which included a tent where people were encouraged to sign reproductions of authentic 1800s pledges to refrain from drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco. I ran into Tracy Culgan, one of the "temperance ladies" Friday night. Rich Bauer of the Camptown Shakers was having difficulty lacing up Culgan's corset for her. She said that when children came by, she added "taking drugs" to the list of "no-nos" on the pledge to sign. She also passed out another reproduction leaflet called The Black Valley Railroad as a warning for the evils of drink. The "railroad's" timetable started at 6 a.m. with a stop at Sippington, going on to Tippleton, Topersville, Medicine Bog, Guzzler's Junction, Drunkard's Curve, Rowdyville, Idiot Flats, Deliriumton, Demon Land and eventually arriving at Destruction. The pamphlet was originally published by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, Boston.
Culgan said she would like to have one of the Good Ol' Days supplements from last week's Times-Beacon Newspapers, so I went to get some. When I came back, she was nowhere to be found. One of the other re-enactors said she was at the bar in the Cranberry Bog.
In fact, quite a number of re-enactors, in costume, were in the Bog, much to the amusement of the other patrons. Libations notwithstanding, it was a fairly early evening for everyone, and after Taps was played on the bridge, visitors left the re-enactors alone to get some sleep for the busy day ahead Saturday.
And busy it was. Warm, sunny weather brought what may have been record crowds to the three parks, A. Paul King, Manahawkin Lake and Heritage Park.
Revolutionary War re-enactors and Civil War re-enactors took turns at battles, most of which took place on the footbridge. Naturally, it was just at the time the bridges were being cleared for the battles that festivalgoers seemed to have an extreme need to be on the bridge. The 1700s folks patiently asked them to move it along and clear the bridge for the 1800s folks, who then did the same when the Civil War groups were ready to fight.
The audience for each battle cheered or boo'ed accordingly. During one of the Civil War battles on Saturday, the Confederates were allowed to win. As the Union Army retreated, a festivalgoer, whose sympathies were evidently with the South, yelled, "Shoot 'em in the back!" One of the Confederate troops earned applause when he shouted, "Run, you blue devils!"


The smell of sulphur occasionally competed with the aromas of kettle corn, fried foods and sausage and peppers, as black powder rifles and cannon boomed across the lake and made people jump with every report.
Near tents at the lake's edge, Anita Miller of Warminster, Pa., Marie Taron of Pipersville and Kristin King of Toms River were busy cooking a ham in a fire pit. All three are camp followers with the Pennsylvania Navy group. Two of them were destined to "die" at the hands of the British (First N.J.) on Sunday, but for now, cooking lunch was the order of the day.
The festival was a paradise for children, some of whom were enthralled by the historic aspects of the events and wanted their parents to buy them everything from tricorn hats to wooden rifles, swords, flags and flutes, fifes and drums, the latter two of which were expertly demonstrated by the Florance Family Fife and Drum Corps inside their big tent. Others crowded Heritage Park for the slides, dunking booth and other inflatable attractions, magicians, balloon animal makers, a flea circus and pony rides.
A 30-foot-long reproduction railroad train, complete with coal-fired engine, also attracted children as well as their parents. The one-eighth scale (1 1/2 inch to a foot) train was built by David Schleper of Toms River. Schleper, Tim Lovington of New Gretna and several others have just received the nonprofit (501C-3) certification for their organization, the Tuckerton Railroad Steamship Co. The group is actively recruiting additional members. Anyone interested in joining can call Schleper at (732) 270-2305 or Lovingham at his shop, (609) 296-7492. Schleper said the club is trying to work out a deal with the Tuckerton Seaport to put down about 1,000 feet of track at that site and run a Tuckerton Railroad replica around it.
Tim Hart, president of the Stafford Historical Society, said he also is trying to get the railroad organization to lay down track at the Stafford Railroad Station Museum and run a train on it on weekends.
While the Stafford Republican Club was recruiting voter registration on Saturday, independent filmmaker Ron Perozzi of Cherry Hill was recruiting Revolutionary War re-enactors from the 11th Pennsylvania and the 24th Connecticut regiments to go off and shoot a battle scene the next day for a movie he is producing. Among those who volunteered to participate were Bill Treusch, Commander Mitch Baker and James Bell of the 11th Pennsylvania and Harry Stephens of the 24th Connecticut. Bell is among several of the re-enactors to have participated in movies before. Bell can be seen in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot."
Saturday night, while some crowds headed for Manahawkin Plaza for a karaoke contest and drive-in movie showing of "Grease," others came back to Manahawkin Lake Park for another historic re-enactors concert, featuring the Cumberland Blues (Union Civil War musicians) and others.
The plan was to go over to the Cedar Bridge Inn in Barnegat on Sunday for the shoot.
It didn't turn out that way. Because of the local re-enactments planned for the Sunday, it wasn't feasible for the men to leave for any length of time, so they ended up in a heavily wooded beach area in Manahawkin Lake Park for the scene.
"It worked out fine," Perozzi said. "You couldn't seen any modern buildings or anything, so it looked authentic."
He said the scene will be cut into the rest of the movie, which is finished and in its "90 percent completed rough cut." Perozzi said the film is a murder mystery, working title, "The Chest." Part of it takes place in modern day and part will be flashbacks to the American Revolution. The modern scenes were filmed in Cherry Hill and the Camden area. Other Revolutionary War era parts of the movie were filmed in Ridley State Park, Media, Pa.
"Right now, we're listening to CDs sent to us by film-scoring companies and we have to add the sound and music to the film," he said.
A graduate of the New York University Film School, Perozzi said he has made other films, but this will be his first full feature-length movie, and he promised to let Times-Beacon Newspapers readers know when it is going to be released.