There's this cool place down in the Annapolis area called Historic London Town and Gardens. The scenery is beautiful, as is the Brown House, but the coolest thing by far are the two lapped, non-insulated reconstructed 18th century buildings that I called home a few weekends ago.
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| The busy tavern |
For one weekend, the small area in London Town was turned into a functioning 18th century community. One of the buildings served as a tavern, which fed all of the interpreters all day, and the other as the tailor shop. I worked in the tailor shop all weekend, portraying the Alexander Ferguson, Jr., the eldest son of the recently deceased patriarch.
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| Measuring a client for a new coat. |
It was quite interesting playing a real person, especially one that I had almost no information on other than an name and birth date. I had to think about who this guy was, what was he like at this particular moment in time, and then I loaded as much crap as I possibly could into my truck to try to turn a carpenter shop into a tailor's shop and household.
It was a fun weekend. I prefer to travel light to living history events, but I also don't like sites to look like museum pieces. They should look functional and lived in so that people don't think they're in a museum. I spent the day trying to sell prospective customers on new articles of clothing, while trying to settle debts from my recently deceased father's estate. No one commissioned any clothes, and no one paid their debts. I was unsuccessful for the day.
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| Looking fly and drinking claret |
The highlight by far was the duel between myself and a ship's captain to settle an aforementioned debt. We conscripted children to carry messages back and forth all day slowly escalating the debt, until we eventually fought a duel in the center of town. We chose spectators as our seconds, who tried (and failed) to resolve the dispute. As we trash talked each other to the spectators, our seconds were taken through the dueling ceremony and then we loaded our pistols (loaded with blanks), leveled them, and fired.
Unfortunately, it was below freezing, so my steel pistol misfired, and my opponents naval pistol only ignited in the pan. It was a bit of a let down, but the crowd (and fellow interpreters who had no idea that a duel would happen) was excited and on edge. Afterwards, we had a glass of Port in the tavern and all was well.
Will I do it again. Heck yes, there's a ton of good history happening at London Town and the interpretation is stellar. It's a hidden gem, and you should go if you get the chance.
