Living history tells the tales of long-gone soldiers.
By: Jessica Beym
Cranbury’s history is full of stories waiting to be told. Stories about family and friendship, about struggle and loss. Stories about people whose names are remembered through the ages and immortalized on monuments and in books.
Every so often, those stories can come to life.
On Oct. 22, from 2 to 4 p.m., they will come to life again when the Cranbury Historical and Preservation Society hosts a Civil War living history event at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury.
"It’s going to be a really different type of event," said Jerry Pevahouse, member of the Historical Society and the co-curator of the museum.
Rather than re-enacting battles, or setting up a camp that resembles the era, the Civil War re-enactors will be bringing the members of Cranbury’s Company H, 14th Regiment back to life through a 30-minute pageant to be held in the church hall.
The pageant will be followed by presentations at the Civil War soldiers monument in the Brainerd Cemetery.
The idea and script for the pageant came from Mr. Pevahouse, who since 1990 has been researching Cranbury’s Civil War history and the biographical stories of the era’s Cranbury residents.
"Over the years I’ve collected their stories and followed their descendants down through the years," he said.
The pageant script is centered on the story of the Stults family and all of the people living in the community during the war. The re-enactors will portray six main characters, one of them being the Rev. Joseph Gaston Symmes, an outspoken, abolitionist of Cranbury’s Presbyterian Church during the Civil War era.
During the pageant, there also will be music and singing reflective of the period.
"It’s not so much about the war, but it’s about the people, their personalities, and their ambitions," said Mr. Pevahouse.
Afterward, the re-enactors will move to the cemetery and present the stories of 15 characters while standing by their corresponding tombstones.
Having the living history event at the church and on the cemetery grounds is significant, Mr. Pevahouse said.
"During that time, the church was a center for the people of Cranbury," he said.
The Rev. Symmes had the Civil War monument erected shortly after the end of the Civil War. The monument bears the names of almost 100 area soldiers who died during the war. Many of the soldiers are buried in the cemetery.
"Cranbury absorbed a tremendous loss. Company H lost more men than any other company in the whole regiment," said Mr. Pevahouse.
While he’s worked with the Historical Society and the re-enactment group on many other events, he said, this is the first time he’s written a pageant such as this.
Mr. Pevahouse has worked to retell this tale by researching archives of The Cranbury Press, reading the regimental history written after the war, and reading letters recovered and kept by the Historical Society.
Some of the descendants of soldiers and their families will be attending the living history event, including Susan Danser of Pennington, whose great-great grandfather Charles V. Everingham was apart of the company. Cranbury resident Robert Dreyling’s ancestry dates back directly to the Stults family.
The families whose ancestors passed the soldiers’ tales through the generations have helped Mr. Pevahouse recreate a close resemblance to the truth.
"We want to bring (the characters) back to life as accurately as possible," said Mr. Pevahouse. "After a while you really begin to feel like you know them."