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Oliver Miller Homestead celebrates Day of Thanks

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Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Tom Noonan of McDonald stokes a fire while he works in the blacksmith building on the grounds of the Oliver Miller Homestead. Noonan was demonstrating how to make everyday items that were used during the late 1700s.

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Joe Hancsak cooks sausage and slab bacon during the Oliver Miller Homestead Day of Thanks, a pioneer Thanksgiving celebration.

SOUTH PARK – A flurry of snowflakes fell at the Oliver Miller Homestead at South Park Sunday as re-enactor Joe Pelan, playing the role of Miller himself, introduced “Rev. John McMillan,” who delivered a sermon from the porch of a log house on the property.

Inside the homestead’s historic stone house, Bev Chatham, appropriately attired in a petticoat, apron and bonnet, stoked the fire in an open hearth and fire pit, where a chicken was cooking.

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Alex Brown of South Park chops wood that is used at an outdoor fire pit at Oliver Miller Homestead. The homestead, site of the first shots fired in the Whiskey Rebellion, hosted a day of thanks, a Pioneer Thanksgiving.

The activities were part of the homestead’s Day of Thanks, an 18th century Thanksgiving event held annually at the Whiskey Rebellion site.

While Thanksgiving wasn’t officially recognized until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a “national day of thanksgiving” on the final Thursday in November, pioneers gathered with family and friends in the fall to celebrate their good fortune.

“The farmers gave thanks for the good harvest,” said Pelan, a former Canonsburg resident and president of Oliver Miller Homestead Associates, volunteer curators who renovate and maintain the buildings and grounds. “Once their crops were in, they’d gather their friends and have a little celebration before the nasty weather kept them indoors. It was a chance to gather and give thanks.”

On display at the event were foods commonly cooked during the 18th century: Scotch eggs (boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat, jokingly referred to by one docent as the original Egg McMuffin), turkey, squash, biscuits and pumpkin pie.

While turkey was on the menu on Sunday, Pelan said the Millers and their neighbors more likely would have prepared pheasant and small game.

Visitors milling around the property’s buildings, which include the Stone House, a springhouse, a smokehouse, a barn that contains a small museum, a woodworking shed, and a replica of the log cabin replaced by Stone House – also watched volunteers demonstrating pioneer crafts and cooking outside.

Re-enactor Joe Hancsak manned the fire pit, where he turned thick slices of bacon, which were sizzling alongside sausage and cornmeal mush.

Nearby, in the fully equipped 18th century blacksmith shop, Tom Noonan of McDonald, dressed in a period-appropriate leather apron and plaid cap, demonstrated how to make basic items used on the farm.

Pulling double duty was volunteer Alex Brown of South Park, who played folk tunes on the fiddle and chopped wood.

Oliver Miller, a farmer who cultivated grain and used it to make whiskey, had 10 children, and his sons served in the Revolutionary War.

“Another reason for Miller to be thankful is that all of his sons fought in the Revolutionary War and all came home,” said Pelan. “They gave thanks that their boys got home safely.”

In 1772, Miller built a log house that became a meeting spot where the Rev. John McMillan held services and baptized babies.

The Oliver Miller Homestead also marks the spot where the first shots of the Whiskey Rebellion were fired in 1794.

The homestead’s Stone House, which replaced the log home in 1830, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The homestead is open to the public every Sunday from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

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