The Webb-Deane-Stevens Trip

Hi everyone! We're sorry that we didn't post much for two months (or two moons, haha!). We were away on trips and getting ready for school. I'm now in third grade!

This post is about the Webb, Deane, and Stevens houses in Wethersfield, CT. We went there back in August with our friends, Kelly and Mathis and Aiden. They are from France, just like Lafayette!

When we got to Wethersfield, we got some energy by eating....FOOD! Then we walked down the road to the Webb House to buy tickets. Our tour actually started at the Silas Deane house.

Walking to the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum

Silas Deane helped plan and gave money for the battle at Fort Ticonderoga. He went to France to help try to convince the French to help the Americans in the Revolutionary War. Here are some pictures of his house.

Sign at the Silas Deane house

In front of the Silas Deane house with our tour guide

 That door is called a Dutch door. The top and bottom can open separately. I knew what it was when the tour guide asked us!

The "Best" Parlor

Back Parlor

Kitchen

 Sadly, all the yummy FOOD is fake.

Meat smoker in a closet above the kitchen

Pretty dress

 I'm standing in front of the dress because I wish that I could sneak under the rope and put it on. Sadly, I couldn't. P.S. It would probably be too big.

Fire Screen*

 *Mom's going to tell you about the fire screen.

Beauty practices in the 18th century consisted of wearing cosmetics made out of beeswax to cover the common scars left behind by smallpox. Fire screens were placed between an individual and the fireplace to prevent the wax from melting. It's where the phrase "melt your face off" came from. 

Next we went to the Isaac Stevens house. This house was built after the Revolutionary War, but we still have a picture to show because there was a children's exhibit. I want to see if you can identify which children are boys and girls. Children back then wore dresses and had long hair (unless they were babies with no hair).

Which are girls and which are boys?

  
Here's a hint: girls have dolls, sewing materials, and flowers. Boys have animals, fishing rods, school books, and stamps.

I also learned about bathrooms at the Stevens house. If you lived back then, you would have to go to the bathroom in a chamber pot and wipe with a corn husk. It does not sound comfortable!

At least you didn't have to get out of bed to use the bathroom!

The last house was the Joseph Webb house. This is where the Battle of Yorktown was planned!!!! (Duhn, duhn, duuuuuuuhn!) George Washington and Rochambeau met there in 1781.

Sign outside the Webb house

Front of the Webb house

Plaque outside the Webb house

The bedroom where the battle was planned

On the right is the original wallpaper. On the left was a reproduction of it. They decided to keep the original because they found King George's stamp on the back. Here's a picture of a picture of the stamp.

King George's stamp

Downstairs in the house there is the Yorktown Parlor. It is filled with a bunch of murals that a later owner had painted. His name was Walnut Butter* (teeheehee). He loved George Washington so much that he wanted everybody's faces to be the exact same as George Washington's. He wanted everyone to have shoes on, but in real life their uniforms would've been torn and they wouldn't have shoes because they had just gotten done defeating the British in the Battle of Yorktown.

*His name was really Wallace Nutting

Georges, move on out!

"What do you think, George?" "I don't know, George, what do you think?"

Too many shoes!

It was fun having my friends from France with me on this trip, especially since we saw where the Americans and French got together to plan our victory!

The French-American alliance is still strong!

 

The Guns of Fort Ticonderoga

Hello, hello! How are you doing? I've had a great week, and I can't wait to share it with everybody.

The first thing we did was go on a family field trip to the Great Escape. That has nothing to do with the Revolutionary War. But on the way there, I read this book called One Dead Spy. It's about Nathan Hale. He was the most famous American spy during the Revolutionary War. I like that it was really funny and it looks like a comic book. I liked it so much, I read it again the next day.

  

I had a chance to read it the next day because we went to Fort Ticonderoga. The book talked about Henry Knox (you might remember him from another blog post) taking guns from Fort Ticonderoga on the Knox Trail to Boston. It was nice to read about something before I went there! If you're interested in this book, you can look up Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. It's a series from all different wars. 

Fort Ticonderoga is really important because it had a lot of supplies, especially cannons. Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont won the first victory for the Americans there in 1775.  Then Henry Knox delivered the cannons to George Washington. 

The fort has been around ever since the French and Indian War (that was before the Revolutionary War), but the British won it from the French. (Interesting information: George Washington used to be a British soldier. He is the one who started the French and Indian War!)

Fort Ticonderoga is next to Lake Champlain. The view there is amazing! These are some views from outside the fort buildings, but inside the walls.

This is the parade grounds in the very middle of all three parts of the fort.  

 

 Speaking of three, the fort was blown up three times. It was blown up once during the French and Indian War and twice during the Revolutionary War. It was never blown up by the winners, but always by the people who lost the fort! They did that because they didn't want the other side to be able to use the fort. 

This is a sleeping quarter. And again, speaking of three, three thousand soldiers lived at the fort during the French and Indian War. It would have been really crowded!

 

We got to see the cannons go off in the afternoon. We watched a four pound shot cannon. Some of the cannons at the fort were eighteen pounders! This is a four pound shot.

 

This is a sloooooooow motion video of the cannon. Don't be alarmed!

Across the lake is Mount Defiance. It's how far some of the cannons could shoot. In this picture, the arrow is where it could shoot and the ball is the cannon. The arrow is pointing at a flag pole, which you cannot see. It's really far away!

These are some baby cannons. (* They're called "mortars.") We're going to call them baby cannons. 

  

Here are some other weapons, including a gun and sword.

 

This is a "gabion." The French weaved them and filled them with dirt to make the walls. They didn't use tacky glue (haha!).

 

These are some models of the fort when it was first being built. It was all tents. 

Remember that book we talked about? This is a model of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold taking over Fort Ticonderoga.

And here's the same spot in the real fort.

This is a famous painting of "Knox the Ox" bringing the cannons back. (Knox the Ox is a nickname people from the war called Henry Knox.) They also had a model of the painting.

In one of the rooms, they had a cannon pulling machine. We failed horribly to lift the cannon. It was real and it was heavy!

The last stop at Fort Ticonderoga was the King's Garden. This is where they would grow all their crops. It didn't look as nice as it does now. The picture on the right is a picture of a tadpole. They had tons of them in a fountain! The tadpoles were cute. The picture on the left is a picture of the beautiful scenery. I think my grandma is going to like that picture!

 

Thank you everybody for reading this blog post. We already have our next adventure planned, so keep watch for that. Peace out, guys!

Bennington!

How are you guys feeling? You're getting two posts in one day! Yesterday, we went on an hour drive to the Bennington Battlefield. The Bennington Battlefield was where they had a battle outside the border of New York and Vermont. The British got there first, led by General Baum. He was going to try to get supplies for the British army. The British army needed supplies because they were getting supplies from Canada, but they were getting further away from Canada. It was a long journey, and they were running out of supplies. In Bennington, VT there was a Continental storehouse. General Burgoyne heard the storehouse wasn't very protected. But he was wrong!

General Burgoyne sent General Baum to get the supplies. John Stark was a general from New Hampshire. He led American soldiers to save the supplies in Bennington. This is a map of the hill that the battle took place on.

It's made out of copper (that's the same type of metal that the Statue of Liberty is made out of). The arrows show you where all of the Americans, British, and Indians (who helped the British) went to battle each other. John Stark sent his soldiers in different directions. He sent 100 soldiers to the front of the hill to be a diversion. In the meantime, he sent the rest of his soldiers around the back of the hill. That group split up, so one group went to the side of the hill and the other group went up the back. The British were surrounded! They were defeated by the Americans. General Baum was wounded and died in a house nearby.

The British lost, so they didn't have enough supplies. They went back to Saratoga. General Burgoyne's horses grew tired, and they used too much of their supplies. They didn't have enough supplies for the Battle in Saratoga. Burgoyne surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga two months after the Battle of Bennington.

Here are some more pictures of the battlefield.

Memorial to John Stark

Memorial for Massachusetts Soldiers

Close up of the map

Close up of Gen. John Stark's camp on the map

After we went to the Bennington Battlefield, we went to the Bennington Battlefield Monument. We had to enter Vermont to do that. (My mom went to college there at Bennington College*. I got to see it, but I don't have any photos. It was a good place. I kind of want to go there when I grow up.)

The Bennington Monument is located where the Continental Storehouse was. That's what the British were aiming for. This is a memorial.

 

The Bennington Monument is 306 feet and 4 inches tall.  Do you see those fish-gill lines close to the top? That's where we were. We got there by elevator. It took a little while to get there. The view was amazing. It was beautiful. It was the most spectacular view ever. I could see into New York!

Bennington Monument

View to New York and the battlefield

Here's a picture of a solider carrying a gun outside the monument.

Inside, on the first floor, there's a diorama of the Battle of Bennington. It was really cute. I think it was cute because the soldiers are little. But it does not look like it would be fun to fight in a battle and get wounded.

 

Another cool thing was this kettle. The kettle was left behind by the British on the field at the Battle of Saratoga. A farmer claimed it as his own and then gave it to the Bennington Monument.  It's now called "General Burgoyne's Soup Kettle." The tour guide told me I could fit inside of it. I would feel steaming hot about getting eaten for dinner. Ew!

Outside the monument is a statue of John Stark. 

The last picture is my favorite part. The Moose! He's funny and cute. He is right outside of the Bennington Battle Monument. He has nothing to do with the battle, but I like him.

 

Well, that's all for now! See you guys next time!

*I attended Bennington College for one semester after high school.  Unfortunately, it was financially impossible to continue after that. I still remember the school fondly and loved getting the chance to go back and visit the gorgeous campus.