Revolutionary War Talk - February 20, 2013

Pictures on Smugmug
Audio of soliloquy 
Dr Zeiss Info
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Today, at our church, Dr. Tony Zeiss, President of CPCC and a novelist, acted out a first person account of  Revolutionary war veteran, Thomas Young.  Thomas Young was a devout Christian and a Patriot who  went to fight in the war at age 16.  He fought many battles in the war, two of them being in Kings Mountain and Cowpens.  The act was done as a reminiscence of a war veteran in 1828 and was very professional.  I can't recall every name used in the soliloquy but he knew plenty of actual names and where they fought, how they died - even the names of some of the horses.  I do know our Patriot "army" was an unorganized group of farmers who just showed up to fight because they were for the cause of freedom and liberty.  Back then, churches couldn't end their names with the word, church, since that was reserved solely for the Anglican church (now the Episcopal church in America).  That is why we hear so much about "meeting houses" when we read history.  We would have been the Presbyterian Meeting House or the Baptist Meeting House, etc. The Anglican Church would not recognize marriages from a Meeting House and would send clergy to legitimize marriages that sometimes had teenage children witnessing their parent's "wedding".  Also, contributions to Meeting Houses had to be shared as a tax to the Anglican Church.  Patriots were known as Whigs. None of this made the Whigs (Patriots) happy so they fought.

After the soliloquy, Dr. Zeiss had some books to sell about Thomas Young and his battles.   We also had a soup and salad lunch following the meeting.  He happened to know a lady at the table where I was sitting and sat with us.  He is into so many interesting and rewarding things and is so at ease with speaking that he said he had to be reminded to show up here this morning.  He had to leave as soon as he ate because he has to do a tv show taping.  He also talked about a community leadership meeting he is attending tomorrow in hopes of attracting more jobs to the area.  We talked about both the Summer Theater and the Culinary School at CPCC and it was a great listen.  We also talked about wood carving classes they used to have and its connection with our church's men.  He said many of them took the class every year and really miss it now that it is gone.  Sadly, the equipment got old and the fear was someone would get hurt using it so the class is no more.

He said he does reenactments around the area and named several.  I will have to go on line to learn more about when these are and where.  He mentioned a newsletter called the Dandelion which might be helpful with this.

What a great morning.