How Haddonfield is using new voices to tell old stories about the American Revolution
Each year in June, the Redcoats invade Haddonfield, marching up Kings Highway and doing battle with Minutemen bent on separating the Colonies, including New Jersey, from Mother England.
The Skirmish, as it's known, is a daylong event featuring historic re-enactors, tours of the borough's historic sites and a musket-and cannon-fought "battle" between British soldiers and American revolutionaries. But ahead of the Skirmish, several other events highlighting often unheard voices of the American Revolution will take place.
"Unheard Voices of the American Revolution" is a joint effort between the Friends of the Indian King and Camden County College. Among those represented during the series of reenactments and discussions: Black people, Loyalists, Jewish people, Freemasons and women.
Feathered fun: What to know when string bands strut on Haddon Avenue
Joe Murphy, a founder and board member of the Friends of the Indian King Tavern and Museum, said it's important to offer people a more complete version of the history they may take for granted.
"It's good for people to have a fuller understanding of their history and the role different groups of people played," said Murphy, who's owned a home in the borough since 1979 and whose office is a short walk from the Kings Highway coffeeshop where he met the Courier-Post.
"It gives them a more nuanced view of our history."
An attorney and author with a background in ethics and compliance and a degree in political science, Murphy drew comparisons to our current societal landscape.
Black Founders in Philadelphia: Finding a Philadelphia abolitionist's South Jersey connections
"There's the simplistic view: People were being oppressed and they fought against that," he said. "But there were some people who simply didn't care; they just wanted to live their lives. There were some people who were remaining loyal to their country (England). ... There were nuances in opinion; it wasn't simple then just like it's not always simple now."
Paraphrasing a line from the 1972 musical "1776," Kim Hanley said many people have a vision of Revolutionary heroes like George Washington springing, fully formed on his horse, from the pages of history. But that's not the whole story, and the Founding Fathers, all wealthy white men, weren't the only ones fighting for freedom or forming a new nation.
"It's important to give our citizens an understanding that it wasn't just a bunch of white men on horses fighting a bunch of other white men on horses," said Hanley, who's portraying Abigail Adams in a "debate" with her husband, John, over the rights of women at Haddon Fortnightly on May 25.
"There were other people who were here and contributed to this story, people like Phillis Wheatley," an enslaved woman and poet "who was pouring her heart out in support of a freedom she knows she may never see."
Abigail Adams, in a series of letters to her husband, urged him to "remember the ladies" as he and his fellow delegates debated what freedoms they wanted to secure for the new nation. "Her letters were published before women's suffrage became part of the narrative," Hanley explained. "They're really the first of their kind with a woman's voice and opinions, and they're strong ones. You hear what she's struggling with, trying to maintain a home, a family and a farm so John has something to come home to, to give him something to fight for."
American Historical Theatre actors like Hanley and Daisy Century (who'll portray Wheatley April 26 at Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Haddonfield) help bring home the ideas found in the Constitution's first words.
"It's 'We the people, in order to form a more perfect union,'" said Hanley. "We weren't complete and (the Founding Fathers) knew that. They knew there was more to do. We weren't perfect and we're still not there yet, but we have to keep working toward that perfect union."
The following events are free, but pre-registration is requested by visiting www.camdencc.edu/arts/cce/the-center-mini-courses-registration/
Phillis Wheatley: An Enslaved Poet (April 26 at 6:30 pm, Lutheran Church of Our Savior, Haddonfield, free) Daisy Century
African Americans in the Age of Revolution (May 3 at 1:00 pm, Camden Campus, CTC Conference Center, free) Kendra Boyd
Fighting for the Crown: Colonial Loyalists (May 17 at 6:30 pm, Lutheran Church of Our Savior, Haddonfield, free) Herb Kaufman
We Were There Too: Jews and the American Revolution (May 24 at 7:00 pm, Cherry Hill Library, 1100 Kings Highway North, Cherry Hill) Norman H. Finkelstein
Freemasonry and the American Revolution (May 31 at 6:30 pm, Lutheran Church of Our Savior, Haddonfield) John Herd Couch Minott
The John and Abigail Adams Debate is $17.76 and takes place May 25 at 7 p.m. at Haddon Fortnightly, 301 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield. Register at https://tinyurl.com/mvrdwm4y
Phaedra Trethan has been a reporter and editor in South Jersey since 2007 and has called the region home since 1971. Contact her at ptrethan@gannettnj.com, on Twitter @wordsbyPhaedra, or by phone at 856.486-2417.
Support local journalism with a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: American Revolution: Haddonfield NJ offers new voices to old stories
