|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
A Civil War Menu: McClure's Bean Soup Celebration
| Article
# : |
11271 |
|
|
Section : |
CULTURE
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1993 |
2,510 Words |
| Author
: |
Mary Margaret Pecht
Mary Margaret Pecht is agriculture editor, religion editor,
columnist, and reporter for the Lewistown, Pennsylvania,
Sentinel. |
For five days each September, a slice of Civil War camp life comes alive as the aroma of bean soup, cooking in open kettles, wafts over the tiny town of McClure, Pennsylvania.
In a scene that has been reenacted for more than a century in this quiet, conservative town of one thousand, family, friends, former residents, and soup lovers converge for a celebration known as the McClure Bean Soup, swelling the little town's population close to seventy-five thousand.
Participants squeeze onto approximately twenty acres to stroll the midway, browse through vendors' displays, attend political rallies, listen to entertainment, greet friends, and renew acquaintances under the great old trees of Cold Springs Grove. One can get a tattoo, buy a tombstone or a painting, snack on cactus taters at a vendor's stand, or feast on roast pork at Papa Sam's Hog Wallow concession. Many come to eat bean soup, cooked over wood fires and served by local residents in Civil War dress, and to preserve a heritage started more than a century ago.
Early celebrations
McClure was founded in 1871, when the Lewistown and Sunbury Railroad established a station there and laid out a town around it. At that time Bannerville, some five miles away, was the big town of western Snyder County. It consisted of a couple of dozen houses and businesses clustered along Old Stage Road.
McClure was home to many Union veterans of the Civil War. In the triumph of victory, they had forgotten the blood and smoke of battle and the hardships of camp life, and they yearned for the companionship of their comrades-in-arms. In response, the camps of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) were born.
The Capt. Michael Smith Post 335, GAR, was organized at a meeting on the second floor of Joseph Peters' blacksmith shop in Bannerville on July 23, 1883. The membership consisted almost entirely of soldiers who had fought in Company F of the 184th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Here veterans recounted their legendary battles while serving with the Army of the Potomac--Cold Harbor, Hatcher's Run, Petersburg, and Appomattox. Until 1890, Post 335 held encampments at which dues-paying members and veterans recalled comrades who had died in battle or in Confederate prison camps. Bean soup, the most fondly remembered camp food, was the centerpiece of the menu.
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
