SMETHPORT – Approximately 60 enrichment students in grades two
through six from Smethport and Coudersport attended the Civil War
Bucktail Seminar Friday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and Hamlin
Lake Park in Smethport.
The students attended four one-hour-long workshops that showed
the Civil War years from the perspectives of Union and Confederate
soldiers and civilians.
Clarence Walker and Tom and Kyle Nobles, Civil war battle
reenactors with the 42nd Pennsylvania Co. I Bucktails 13th
Pennsylvania Reserve, conducted sessions about guns and ammunition,
knapsack items, and troop drills and maneuvers. Prior to the lunch
break, the students and teachers walked to Hamlin Lake Park, where
they were joined by John Stengel for a demonstration and firing of
a reproduction of a Civil War cannon.
Stengel, of Cuba, N.Y., led a workshop that gave the students a
view of the Civil War and Reconstruction by soldiers from the
South.
Dennis Murray, a teacher in the St. Marys Area School District,
provided a blacksmithing demonstration. When he made a bolt for a
cannon carriage, he was assisted by striker, or blacksmith’s
assistant, Ben Ragosta, a student from Coudersport. Nate Becker
recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Advanced students from Smethport Area Junior-Senior High School,
Kari Rinaman, April Alfieri, Kayla Carr and Bobbi Mitchcell, led an
activity session that demonstrated the making of Civil War toys
such as yarn dolls and parachutes.
Theresa Daniels, enrichment teacher from Coudersport, provided
gingerbread and hardtack for the classes to sample during
lunch.
Jovanna Porter is the enrichment teacher from Smethport.
Fifth and sixth graders from Smethport prepared “The Civil War
Inquirer,” a publication that contained a collection of letters
from the front during 1861-64.
From the Coudersport students came “The Liberator,” an
abolitionists’ journal that carried a collection of entries from
slaves’ diaries.
Colleen Nobles and Fay Leet of Smethport attended the seminar,
dressed in fashions of the Civil War era.
