The air smelled of wood smoke and vinegar at the Graham-Brush House on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 23, as students from Stissing Mountain High School crouched around an open fire. A pot of white rice bubbled over the flames — lunch, just as Revolutionary War soldiers once ate it.
The two dozen students were participants in a military history class led by history teacher Neil Murray, who for nearly three decades has brought military scholarship out of the textbook and into the heart of Pine Plains. His students, dressed in 18th century reproduction uniforms, started the fire with flint and steel — no matches allowed — before marching to the cemetery to honor local Revolutionary War soldiers buried there.
“We like to bring the documentable past to life,” Murray said. “We’re not playing dress-up. They’re not costumes. They’re uniforms. Everything we do is reproducing something that’s documentable.”
Under Murray’s direction, students cook over open flames, shine replica muskets, and practice drills authentic to the era. Each activity, he said, is drawn from historical records — from Joseph Martin’s writings about eating rice and vinegar on Thanksgiving to the descriptions of Col. Livingston’s 4th New York Regiment.
“It breeds an appreciation for those who came before us,” Murray said. “It’s not just black-and-white photographs or pages in a textbook. These were real people with real lives.”
Special education teacher Shawn Maher, who served as a chaperone, looked on as the troops kept the fire blazing. Maher, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in history at the University at Albany, specializes in sensory and medical history. He sees days like this as essential extensions of the classroom.
“I think it’s important because it gets them closer to the history than just reading the book,” Maher said. “A lot of history is just words from the past, and they don’t get the experience of really being there.”
As smoke curled through the autumn air, Maher described the experience as “sensory history in motion” — a chance for students to feel the weight of a musket, smell gunpowder, and understand daily life beyond battles and strategy.
“It wasn’t all marching and fighting,” he said. “There was a lot of downtime — cooking, sewing, cleaning. We want them to feel what that was like.”
The class, called Military History, moves through the eras — from the American Revolution to World War I. Later in the year, students will stay overnight at Fort Ticonderoga, sleeping on straw mattresses in the barracks and taking turns guarding the fort at night. Another trip will take them to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome to see early airplanes and a World War I tank up close.
For Maher, those moments of lived experience matter most.
“They don’t have their phones on today,” he said. “They’re really getting that point of view — how other people lived. It’s a different perspective.”
Will Campbell, a junior, watched the rice simmering over the fire and smiled. “It’s really interesting to see history from the perspective of the people who lived it,” he said. “The organization and unison of the troops is really interesting.”
Murray has taught history in Pine Plains for 27 years. For him, the setting — the Graham-Brush House, the nearby cemetery, the legacy of local militia members — grounds the past in a sense of place.
“Part of the program is going down to the cemetery to present arms and place flags at the graves of Revolutionary soldiers,” he said. “People like Lewis Graham and Boris Graham were significant for their contributions to the Dutchess County militia and the Fourth of New York Regiment.”
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, Murray sees these lessons as vital to understanding both history and community.
“It’s important to bring to life these local treasures and historic sites,” he said. “It helps make those tangible connections and gives students a greater appreciation for the past.”