MANSFIELD, Ohio – For one day this holiday season, Oak Hill Cottage will be occupied by versions of former residents.
In addition to its regular holiday tours, the Ghosts of Christmas Past event will haunt the cottage from 2 to 5 p.m. Dec. 12, giving the historical house its first venture into “living history.”
“Some of the people here, like Jeff Mandeville and Margie Cutnaw, they’ve done living history with Paul Lintern and the things that he organizes, as well as the Marion Historical Society,” said Alan Wigton, president of the Richland County Historical Society. “But we’ve never done anything in Oak Hill, so this is new to us.”
Mandeville heads Oak Hill’s activities and is a volunteer at the Richland County History Museum in Lexington. Cutnaw, a retired teacher, is a cottage docent.
The premise for Ghosts of Christmas Past is that the people who have lived in the house, such as John Robinson and Dr. Johannes Jones, will return to visit, according to Wigton.
“So that means people from time periods going back to the guy who built the house (Robinson) to the 1950s and ’60s when Leile Jones Barrett still lived here,” he said. “It involves costuming our people for eras of a 120-year spread.”
During the tours, the house will be full of music, including a piano player in the parlor, a player piano, and organ music in the second-floor hallway. The idea, Wigton said, is for it to feel like a “busy house.”
Guides for the tours will be led by actors portraying Jones Barrett – Dr. Jones’ youngest daughter and final owner before the Richland County Historical Society – and her two nieces.
Cutnaw will portray Jones Barrett for the event.
“We’re hoping for a huge turnout,” she said. “I just think it’s so cool that we’re doing something totally unique.”
In character, Cutnaw said she’s been living in the house since 1965.
Tour groups for the event will go through the house in 10- to 15-minute intervals, depending on the size of the group, according to Cutnaw.
“We’ll just talk about the rooms in first-person,” she said.
Wigton added that actors portraying past residents won’t do much or any talking and will instead be acting as if he or she is alone.
“We have Brad Preston, who is the great-great-grandson of Dr. Jones of the Jones family that lived in this house,” Wigton said. “(Preston) will be playing Dr. Jones, and his wife, Betty, is going to be Dr. Jones’ wife, Francis.”
Tickets for the special event are $5 for adults and $1 for children.
In addition to the new event, the holiday tours are starting on a new date – Nov. 29.
“In past years, we’d always started the week before Thanksgiving, and we didn’t do that this year,” Wigton said. “We decided that the Sunday after Thanksgiving would be soon enough.”
Tours are from 2 to 5 p.m. every Sunday between Nov. 29 and Dec. 27. Like Ghosts of Christmas Past, tickets are $5 for adults and $1 for children.
A gift shop also was opened this year at Oak Hill, which is in the summer kitchen. Wigton said tours now start there.
“They buy or tour tickets and see our four-minute intro video in the room next to that,” he said. “Then they’re sent up to the front door. We’ll be doing the same thing for the Ghosts of Christmas Past tour.”
The holiday decorations throughout the house this year are more in the tradition of the Victorian era.
“It’s really a different experience,” Cutnaw said of the holiday season in Oak Hill. “We always tell people who come through on the regular Sunday tours to come back for Christmas because we’ll have it all decorated.”
Cutnaw also did the holiday floral arrangements in the house.
“I try to make them as over the top as possible because that’s what they were all about,” she said. “Victorians believed too much was not enough.”
For information about Oak Hill Cottage, visit oakhillcottage.org or its Facebook page. Additional information about Ghosts of Christmas Past is available on the Oak Hill’s Facebook events page.
