Sherman students listen to a Native American impersonator describe life more than 200 years ago in what is now Ohio.
For a while on Tuesday Sherman Elementary School students were transported to the Ohio Valley of the late 1700s.
They met costumed impersonators of Native Americans and the captain of a frontier settlers’ militia. They touched beaver and wolf pelts and examined settlers’ wooden tools and Indian arrowheads.
Ashland artist Linda McFarlin brought her Living History Exhibition to Sherman for a first-ever visit to Mansfield City Schools. In addition to half a dozen colorful impersonators the daylong program featured many of the artist’s detailed and lifelike drawings of the Ohio Valley in the 1700s.
“I want to take you back to when Ohio was a dark, scary place,” McFarlin told students who packed the gym for a morning assembly. “The Indians, French and English were fighting for the Ohio Valley. The fur trade was very important.
“Can you imagine being a frontier person and walking through these dense woods?” she asked, displaying one of her drawings on a slide screen. “You could bring only what you could carry. A gun and a knife were important. You had to have them to survive.”
McFarin, owner of Pine Manor Galley and Frame Studio in Ashland, is an adjunct instructor at North Central State College. She has taken her Living History program to schools throughout northern Ohio.
After the 30-minute assembly, students were divided into small groups to visit several indoor and outdoor stations manned by the history impersonators. There they learned more about the lives of Native Americans and early settlers, heard Native American music played on wooded flutes and got to examine and touch period artifacts provided by McFarlin.
Also participating were Chris Larson from Gorman Nature Center and several members of the Spinners and Weavers Guild contracted through Malabar Farm.