Tuesday, July 20, 2021

   Williamsburg Update #9

Josh Rachita, Historical Interpreter  

*Josh is interning for the summer at Colonial Williamsburg.*

July 18, 2021

Hello All,

            This week was a very special week for me! My family got to visit and see me working in the shop. This week I started some new projects. I kept working on the fireplace shovels, and I also am working on a flesh or meat fork for cooking. I also took a trip to Wilson, North Carolina with my host this summer. In Wilson there is a collection of large pinwheels/weathervanes, called whirligigs, made by a local farmer. When he died, they were brought to a park downtown.

            The first Rachitas came to Williamsburg in 1957. My grandfather, who was thirteen, was here with his parents on a family trip. This was also the first year that Queen Elizabeth came to visit. When my dad was four, my grandfather decided to start a family tradition by coming back every summer. With the exception of last year, there has been a Rachita in Williamsburg every year since 1971. I think that is quite an accomplishment and has certainly impacted my path in life. I first attended the family trip in 2005. My sister and I dressed up as colonial people and did all the sight-seeing. I also came back in 2017 and met with the master blacksmith, Ken Schwarz. We discussed career paths, blacksmithing technique, and he suggested that I apply for the summer internship someday. I know for a fact that meeting helped me to narrow my focus on the type of blacksmithing and my career.

            Vollis Simpson was the farmer that made the whirligigs. He lived in the 20th and early 21st century. As he aged, his huge collection of towering sculptures fell into disrepair. In 2010, the city moved many of them downtown and made a park so people could enjoy them. Because many had broken down from years of exposure, they had to reproduce some of them that could not be restored. I thought that this was very interesting as it is essentially what we do in the blacksmith shop every day! A reproduction of an 18th century object has the same principles as 21st century reproductions. They also are in the process of creating a formal museum near the park. It was very cool to see the establishment of a new museum and see new history being written. It’s a great reminder that the events happening in our present day will one day be remembered by those of the future.

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    The photos this week are me in the magazine in 2005 while wearing a costume my grandmother made for me, my grandfather in the stocks at CW in 1957, and then whirligigs at Vollis Simpson Park in Wilson, North Carolina. 







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