Chautauquans construct a tent to the exact specifications of one built in 1870s in preparation for a reenactment on June 22; the reenactment of a historical day in the life of Chautauqua is set for Sunday.
Chautauquans have a special opportunity to catch a glimpse into the past this weekend when, from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday in Miller Park, professional reenactors will portray a historical day in the life of Chautauqua.
In the early years of the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, founded in 1874, people arrived via boat, docking at Fair Point, and pitching tents for their summer stays.
While planning the celebration for Chautauqua Institution’s sesquicentennial, a discovery was made in the archives: original directions, used by the first Chautauquans, to build their summer accommodations. Using these instructions, employees recreated one of those tents, which has been in place in Miller Park since the beginning of the season. When the reenactment, originally scheduled for the opening weekend of the Summer Assembly Season, was postponed because of bad weather, the new date coincided with the second Friends of Chautauqua Visual Arts’ Art in the Park event of the summer.
Emily Morris, the Institution’s chief brand officer, said there will be six professional reenactors present at the event. Chautauquans will have the opportunity to engage in conversation with the reenactors about what historic Chautauqua was like, what they did and more and ask questions about Chautauqua’s beginnings.
“It’s a nice additional thing to do if people are going to go down to Art in the Park and then they can walk over to the corner of the park where we’ll have the park and the reenactors,” Morris said. “People are welcome to go in the tent and ask questions of the reenactors.”
On hand will be Mina Miller Edison, daughter of Institution co-founder Lewis Miller and wife of Thomas Edison; the tent, set up on Miller Park, is located near the Miller Edison Cottage. Named a National Historic Landmark in 1966, the cottage at the corner of Whitfield and Vincent was commissioned by Miller in 1875.
It was one of the country’s first prefabricated houses, but before that, it was tent plot No. 16.
Even after the Miller Edison College was built, some of its residents — and guests — still preferred the great outdoors. Miller, his wife Valinda, and their five daughters (including Mina) would sleep in the house. The six Miller sons, however, camped outside, in a tent on a raised platform next to the porch. When he visited Chautauqua in 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant is said to have taken a nap in the sons’ tent. With some of this history coming to life Sunday, Morris thinks it will be an exciting, immersive opportunity to hear about the experiences of Chautauquans who leave lasting legacies behind.
“These reenactors take their work very seriously. They do a lot of research, so I think it will feel like a very authentic interaction,” she said.
Morris hopes that Chautauquans experiencing the reenactment will try to imagine what life might have been like on the grounds 150 years ago.
“We hope that people will come and suspend disbelief and join with us in trying to put yourself, 150 years ago, in that spot,” Morris said. “That’s where (the original Chautauquas) gathered — right there in Miller Park.”
