Video: Andrew Jackson Period Reenactment

[bitsontherun VzYPUHFc]PONTOTOC, Miss. (WCBI) — Living history was on display at Longbow Trails in Pontotoc County last week as re enacters trace the route of Andrew Jackson from from Natchez to Nashville.

From a camp in the Zion Community along the Natchez Trace is where Union County and New Albany school children stepped back in time Friday.

Reminiscent of the period in the nation’s past, the spot along the Natchez Trace is actually the same as it was around 1813 when General Andrew Jackson and his men came that way.

“They are seeing the same hills, the same vistas in the distance, if you will, that you saw 200 years ago. It might be a little different foliage but basically the same roll of the land if you will,” said Peyton “Bud” Clark, descendent of William Clark, who helped lead the Jackson re-enactment.

The school children get to learn about crude methods of medicine and how to make fire for the camp where Chickasaw Indians once roamed.

At another station in camp, they learned how to make bullets fast to shoot at those Indians and possibly the British.

“As my father use to say, the proof is in the pudding. So if you pan your camera around at the faces of the kids you know they tell the story. That they are having fun, that they are interested. And they go away from here not only having enjoyed themselves, but learning something along the way,” said Clark.

And it seems so appropriate and fitting to have the great great great grandson of brave explorer and frontiersman William Clark to pass on information to the next generation, about a time when for national hero Old Hickory, every day was a new adventure.

“We’d like to give them a taste of what life was like back then. And a hunger to learn more,” said Clark.

President Andrew Jackson got the name Old Hickory from troops on the battlefield who said he was as tough as old hickory wood.

Categories: Local News

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