MANSFIELD, Ohio – Smoke from an open fire circled in the light breeze as banjo music strummed out the chords of Noel.
It was a Very Old Fashioned Christmas at the Mansfield Blockhouse on Thursday night in South Park.
“We try to have a Christmas event every year and this year we had perfect weather for it,” Kathleen Addlesperger said as she dug into serve a heap of plum pudding.
Pudding, mulled cider and cookies were on the menu, with light banjo music reprising traditional Christmas tunes courtesy of Keith Metcalf. Jack Johnson displayed some of his pre-Civil War weapons for curiosity seekers, too.
The event was a fundraiser for the local non-profit REACH (Richland Early American Center for History) organization. REACH is trying to raise funds to relocate the log cabin in Mifflin to South Park sometime in April, adjacent to the famed Mansfield Blockhouse.
“Then the blockhouse won’t be lonely anymore,” Addlesperger said with a chuckle. “Our (long-term) goal is to have an entire village here around the blockhouse.”
That cabin, from the same era, was dismantled last year and sits in storage. It may have been an inn on the road from Mansfield to the Canton Land Office.
Amid mild temperatures, a couple of dozen people milled around the historic Blockhouse that dates more than 200 years old. The mushroom-shaped two-story building was originally constructed to defend settlers from Indian attacks. At 16 by 16 downstairs and 20 by 20 upstairs, it could’ve sheltered approximately 50 people.
“Isn’t it something?” said Sunda Peters, president of Reach. “They had a court in here, a jail downstairs, a school, it was a multi-purpose building.”
The Blockhouse is usually only open on weekends from 1 to 3 p.m. during the summer months, and other rare events. It’s simply but solidly constructed. The mystique of the structure has captured the imagination of Mansfielders for years.
“There is more here tonight already than we had last year,” Peters said. “I feel like we’ve been successful already.”
