By Stephen Smoot
On the hilltop hosting Moorefield Middle School, students got to enjoy a half day of exploring local history.
For some of them, that local history also is the history of their own families going back centuries.
Eighth grade history teacher Lucas Moyers helped to organize the day. He explained that the day helped to introduce the students to “hands-on history” that helps them understand, in some ways, better than learning in the classroom.
Much of the land between the school and the roads had some kind of activity that hearkened back to earlier, sometimes even frontier times. A bank of several kettles, each manned by a group of students, held bubbling apples. Steam from the kettles and smoke from the fires billowed into the chilly, but thankfully dry, air.
Jacob McCausley balanced the stirring stick, way longer than he is tall, as he carefully stirred the liquefying apples in the kettle. Outside, flames licked the cast iron exterior, but inside the apples cooked in bright and clean copper.
At that point, midday had almost arrived. He stated that the students would be “stirring for another hour or so, then we add the brown sugar and the cinnamon and all that stuff.” They started about 7:30 in the morning, several students deployed to each kettle, taking turns keeping the apple mixture in motion.
On the rise near Route 55, a mountain howitzer commanded the view, tended to by the McNeill’s Rangers contingent of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A period tent, a display table with replicas of weapons and authentic artifacts, and a Confederate national flag flapping in the breeze greeted students.
Earlier in the morning, they had excitedly gathered for demonstrations of the equipment and munitions typically used by Confederate soldiers. Many of the students who witnessed the demonstration likely descended from the actual soldiers who fought in and around the Potomac Highlands.
Although the area and state commander, David Judy, as well as the unit historian Kenny Shobe, was on site, Shad Hines, Bill Wolfe, and Dennis Neff manned the outpost. Each had a different version of a period uniform, including officer and enlisted versions.
They also had a haversack, swords, Minie balls, and examples of different items that a cannon might fire from exploding shot down to grapeshot.
Grapeshot is when whatever is available gets stuffed into the cannon and fired like a massive shotgun.
Hines explained that the SCV had come to participate for about 10 years. He added “if you grew up here in Hardy County, there’s a likelihood that one of your ancestors served in the Confederate 62nd Infantry.
Connections between the living history shown at Fall Fest and the present abounded on the day. Another station demonstrated a favorite of both frontiersmen and also the American Indians from whom they adopted the delicacy fry bread. After watching it come together, all got a chance to sample it with jarred apple butter from last fall.
Deanna Shirk manned this station, and also described one a few feet away. There, students got to work with natural dyes from plants such as beets, turmeric, and different berries. Others practiced basket weaving. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources brought a small, but speedy looking watercraft as well as a live fish demonstration.
The Hardy County Community Foundation supported the day with a generous grant. American Woodmark donated supplies, including the wood for the apple butter fires. About 25 eighth grade students pitched in to slice up the apples.
