Site Visit: Riley's Farm

For this month's blog post, I examine the best known Living History site in Southern California, Riley's Farm. Riley's Farm is known for a number of things, like apples and history. They operate a fully functional farm and orchard while during the spring and autumn months host school groups for historical themed education tours. While they offer many different time period tours and related amenities, their Revolutionary War era tour is the most popular and the flagship program of Riley's Farm.

British redcoats: The 4th Regiment of Foot

From the moment the students, called scholars, come bounding off of the buses, they are met with costumed living historians. If they are unfortunate, they are met with a redcoat British soldier who in merciless tones barks them into straight lines in soldierly bearing, the plain clothes colonists are more personable but just as firm as maintaining order. Each group of about 30-35 scholars is grouped into a "township" with a historical flag and the scholars remain in this group as they round-robin rotate between various classes. The flag and labeling colors determine if the township is "British" or "American" during the afternoon's mock battle. Once all the schools are assembled in townships upon the public house grounds (the tavern is a restaurant and bakery), they are given the morning instructions, such as the locations of the privy (restrooms), the function of a shilling (a reward for a good answer, volunteer action, or other do-goodery that can be accumulated for a prize at the end), and an explanation that this is all in good fun for the sake of experience and learning.

Master Rollain

Classes in the Revolutionary War tour include drilling with sticks in preparation for the afternoon mock battle, learning the nuances of etiquette, learning about the accouterments of soldiers, trying their hand at 18th century games, and experiencing some of the injustices of the maritime Vice Admiralty court, Stamp Act, and Quartering Act, to name a few examples. Classes are taught by the living historians in First Person, as if it were the 18th century. Once rotations are finished for the morning, the townships line up for a ration. The ration is one piece of corn bread, one piece of beef jerky, one piece of cheddar cheese, and one apple with a cup of lemonade. While meager to our modern point of view, it is brought to the attention of the scholars an account of a young boy about the scholar's age who wrote an account of receiving a handful of rice and a teaspoon of vinegar for his ration and was grateful to have even as little as that since food was so scarce in Washington's army at times. Most schools bring the students actual lunches in addition or opt out of the rations. During the lunch time, scholars could peruse the mercantile for souvenirs or purchase baked goodies from the Bakery once the line the teacher and adult chaperones make to order their lunches dies down.

Battle is joined!

The most exciting part of the scholar's day is the mock battle. Following the rations and the townships line up again an introduction is made regarding the historical context in which the reenactment will take place. The battle is supposed to be a recreation of the battle of St. George's Tavern, in Roxbury, MA just outside of Boston. Just like what happened, the British forces will advance upon the tavern which the colonists are defending. The townships are divided into the two respective sides with a formal parlay. Once the terms of the parlay are rejected the two sides have the chance to use their drill skills marching, "loading", and "firing" their sticks. They do not get too close as some students may get carried away, but it is very exciting to receive a "bayonet charge" or march upon well entrenched troops behind a stone wall.

Wrapping up

Following the battle the students are sat down to hear the final thoughts of the day regarding each and every one of their roles in protecting American freedoms. "Freedom is not free, it was paid for by the men and women who served and continue to serve. It is this reason that they say that Freedom is a chain and we are the next link in the chain. The very future of the republic sits upon the green right now." After the final dismissal, the scholars have a last chance to purchase from the Mercantile or get pictures with their favorite Living Historian before they board their vehicles to go home.

Concluding exhortation to understand our rights, liberties, and responsibilities as citizens

The experience blurs the line of education and entertainment. This sometimes gets the nickname "edutainment". There are many that are concerned with making education so palatable as to be a performance without accurate, meaningful content that it becomes not an educational experience at all, but a fun time that only deals with enjoyable topics. As far as entertainment goes, many of the staff members are actors and many are education or history buffs, so there is a mix of the two aspects. Classes are designed to get the students involved and participate and engage in the material. While the colorful characters and humor make a great and entertaining morning, it is hard to gauge exactly what the students are receiving from this time. This illustrates one of the struggles of interpretation: how to ascertain what students learn or receive when they leave and what sticks weeks, months, or years later. When asked about what they learned that day, the scholars respond with a general understanding type of answer, like "I learned about weaving." But the success of the Revolutionary War era program with the public, private, and home-schools of southern California demonstrates that what Riley's Farm does, they do well and continue to attract scholars mainly during the spring, but also in the autumn. It is certainly worth experiencing, even if only to get one of their famous 5lb apple pies.

You can visit Riley's Farm's website for more details and booking for a school group here: Riley's Farm