Tom Carson: November Road Trip, Part II

This is Tom Carson, a docent at Pricketts Fort, near Morgantown, WV. Tom spends weekends and other spare moments showing visitors what a militiaman looked like and how he operated as a soldier during the late American Revolution-Early America era.

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Tom was generous with his time (I ask a lot of questions - maybe too many) and seems to love what he does at the park. He was dressed in attire he had sewn and carried a reproduction, fully-functional flintlock musket he made and demonstrated firing for visitors. The only anachronistic touches to his costume I could see were his designer eyeglasses, his wristwatch and his boots.

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Tom explained that the green sprig in his hat was worn as a symbol that the revolution was still alive, the tri-color cockade represented an alliance with the French against the British, and the deerskin pouch at his waist represented the friendship of some Native American tribes in the area. I asked if the design on the pouch, the red crosses on a dark field, had any meaning, or were just for design aesthetics only. He said the design didn't have particular significance, but the colors did. Black and red colors, whether as face-paint, or shield colors or on breech cloths, signified that the man wearing them was a warrior, on the "warpath", who was prepared for battle against his enemies.

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The metal box at his waist, its strap slung across his opposite shoulder, held musket balls and powder cartridges. Powder cartridges are made of paper, rolled like one would roll for hand-made cigarettes, filled with black powder instead of tobacco, and tied at each end with string.

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On the other hip, there is a leather pouch. I asked Tom what it was for.

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"That's my pocket," he answered. Pants weren't usually made with pockets. Women wore pockets on the outside of their dresses, as well. (Hmmm...another research project for Google.)

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Dangling from his left side (on our right), Tom had a linen brush and what looked like a metal toothpick hanging from opposite ends of a chain. Those are tools for clearing unburnt powder and soot from the firing mechanisms of his musket. The brush is used on the powder flash pan, and the pick clears soot from the primer opening, called the touch-hole, of the firing chamber.

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Tom built his musket from a kit, carving the wood for the stock himself. The musket stock is made of walnut. The barrel is steel. The flash pan is made of steel and brass, and there are small brass escutcheons along the stock. It is a very handsome piece of craftsmanship. You can tell Tom has put a lot of care into the construction and the maintenance of his musket.

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After I bugged Tom for about ten minutes with my endless stream of questions, he announced to all of us in the meetinghouse that he was going to go fire the musket, if we were interested in seeing such a demonstration. Roughly half the visitors in the room filed out behind him to an open space beyond the stockade walls.

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There, I had one of the most thrilling experiences of my life!

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(http://www.prickettsfort.org)

(C) Martha McLemore