Independence Day

Independence Day - Sturbridge, Massachusetts

Article by: © Michael Schuman 2012

There is nothing like a good base ball game on the Fourth of July. And this is nothing like a good base ball game.

For one thing, it's a base ball game, emphasis on two words. The base ball itself is a cushy, beanbag-like blob of a ball, the bat is a lopped-off broomstick, the bases are sticks and the rules are…well, whatever you want them to be.

The setting is the Independence Day Celebration at Old Sturbridge Village, the granddaddy of New England's living history museums, located in the real-life town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts in the otherwise heavily non-touristed landlocked south-central portion of the Bay State. Independence Day in this farming community stuck in the year 1838 is celebrated with a wealth of period patriotism and activities, including that base ball game on the village common.

This is nearly a decade before Alexander Cartwright will write down a set of uniform baseball rules, so just about anything goes on the diamond. If the villagers decide that batters should run the bases from left to right, so be it. And there are echoes of the kickball games we played in fourth grade recess; a base runner is out if "soaked," the 1830s term for being directly hit by thrown ball -- underhand only.

Games aside, there is a hearty dose of reverence in the day's activities. In the white-steepled meetinghouse bordering the common, an Independence Day service takes place. A sturdy male voice inside booms, "Fellow citizens: More than a half century has fled since the sons of Columbia fanned the sacred fire of liberty upon the altar of American independence."

He continues, "There has been no revolution known in the history of mankind so memorable in its consequences…" The pews are filled with onlookers, some from the 19th century and wearing black coats or white frocks, others from the 21st , donning shorts, tee-shirts and Red Sox caps.

Josiah Snow, a Southbridge, Mass. patriot wrote those words to celebrate the Fourth of July more than 150 years ago. Today they are part of the recreated Independence Day service. While the village common was at the time the geographical center of most farming communities, the spiritual and governmental center was the meetinghouse. True separation of church and state was years in the future and theology mixed with nationhood was common. So was a two-hour-long meetinghouse service, which mercifully is reduced to a half hour for modern day visitors.

It was also customary in the 1830s to read the Declaration of Independence from the pulpit. So as many people as possible can hear the most famous document in American history, tradition is altered a bit. A drum roll and a slew of musket shots introduce the declaration recitation at 2 p.m. where a state senator has the honor of orating the words penned by Thomas Jefferson in downtown Philadelphia's Graff House in 230 years ago. At the end of the reading, the names of the original signers and the states they represented are called out, and tourists let out cheers when their home states are mentioned.

According to Old Sturbridge Village chief historian and museum scholar Jack Larkin, "By this time, most people viewed the Declaration of Independence with a good bit of reverence. Its language was beginning to take on the sacred quality that it has for us today. Quite a few people would have had it virtually memorized."

Indeed, some who were alive in the 1830s had fought in the American Revolution. The names Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Saratoga and Yorktown were as sacrosanct to those veterans as the names Midway, Guadalcanal, Normandy and the Bulge are to those who survived World War II.

Like today, the majority of workers would have taken Independence Day off. Unlike today's laborers, they would have not been paid for it. For the sake of 21st century visitors, it's business as usual here. On the 70-acre Freeman Farm, a short walk from the common, hired hands are feeding chickens and pitching hay. Inside the Freeman Farmhouse a woman is putting the finishing touches on a 19th century treat called tomato pie, made with tomatoes, eggs, nutmeg, sugar and cream.

Plying their trades for the visiting public are the potter, the blacksmith, the storekeeper, the mill workers and the tinner (technically not "tinsmith" since he bends and folds but does not hammer or smite metal). Come here at the right time and you may walk away with a souvenir; when we visited the tinner gave out a couple of heart-shaped cookie molds he had just crafted to some lucky kids.

Real young children in the 1830s would have had their hands full with more mundane chores, from picking wool to pounding spices or taking the seeds out of raisins in the kitchen. After chores were finished it was playtime, but how could kids amuse themselves in the days before the invention of plastic and computer chips?

The residential Fitch House was recently reconfigured into a kind of interactive 1830s-era children's museum called "A Child's Life." Parents have a chance to learn the rigors of child rearing in the 1830s while youngsters can occupy their hands and minds with period parlor games. Ours tried their luck with a Jacob's ladder, a chain of small wooden slats connected by cloth. The Jacob's ladder can be extended or compressed into the shapes of various animals and buildings, although a healthy dose of imagination may be needed to visualize these subjects. Then again, that may be more of a problem for grown-ups than kids.

Such interactive playtime is not limited to the indoors. On the common, especially in the afternoon, you might see children rolling hoops or tossing and trying to catch them on two sticks, the main activity of a 19th century game called The Graces. Outside the Bullard Tavern visitors can try their hands at ninepins, a primeval ancestor of tenpin bowling. Anyone want to try for a perfect 270? Taking place near the Fitch House are ongoing games of jacks and jump rope, activities that occupied children's time back in the dark ages.

A little known activity of early 19th boys was raising toy hot air balloons. Throughout the summer, including the Fourth of July, miniature versions of the color-bedecked aircraft will be set off by staff members at the end of the day, an 1830s version of today's traditional celebration-ending fireworks displays. Expect a wide a variety of results. We witnessed one balloon that burned, a few that traveled several yards and another that floated high into a tree, then to the amazement of cheering onlookers seemed to lift itself from the branches to land without a tear.

Want to hear a bit of period music? Visit the parsonage barn for Tunes and Tales of Old New England, where you may hear the resonant tone of fifes and drums rendering such period hits as "Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself," "Jefferson and Liberty" and "Captain Money's March."

Don't know these songs? Where have you been? People in the 1830s can't get them out of their heads.

Independence Day Dates, Location and Further Information

Independence day falls on the 4th July each year and is celebrated across the USA. Old Sturbridge Village is just off Route 20 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts (Massachusetts Turnpike [Interstate 90] , exit 9 or Interstate 84, exit 2.). For more information check out the Old Sturbridge Village website.

More Independence Day