Play highlights Weathersfield in the Revolution

Supported by a grant from Vermont 250, residents and former residents of Weathersfield are bringing a piece of that town’s Revolutionary War history to the stage, with two performances of a play performing a play based on a 250-year-old document discovered in a vault on July 11 and 12. Both performances are free  and open to the public.

We Most Ardently Desire centers around an associate pledge from the provincial government of New York that town archivist Patti Arrison found several years ago. “And then at the end I saw it was signed July 1, 1775, and so I had to figure out what it was,” Arrison said.

Thanks to a grant from the Vermont Historical Society, Arrison researched and wrote the story.

The play depicts a debate that took place in 1775 among the 24 patriarchs in Weathersfield about whether to sign the formal complaint against the British Parliament, ultimately rejecting the authority of the British crown. Now, 250 years later, that event is coming back to life on the stage. Arrison said many of the themes from 1775 hold true today. “Worries about tariffs and taxation, worries about arrests without due process. Worries about loss of freedoms that should belong to every British citizen,” she said.

John Waite, a Weathersfield Proctor Library trustee who encouraged the writing and performance, said the play offers timely lessons. “History doesn’t rhyme, but it does resonate. And we are at a time in our own history where people are questioning the legitimacy,” Waite said. His character eventually signs the pledge. “All governments require the consent of the governed.”
The production serves as a way for our small towns to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday while preserving local history.

There will be two performances:

• 6:30 p.m. Saturday, July 11 at the Weathersfield School, Schoolhouse Road off Route 5 in Ascutney, and
• 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 12 at the Fort at No. 4, 267 Springfield Road in Charlestown, N.H.