This past week we welcomed some 180 seventh graders from Scotts Ridge Middle School to our campus. They came to search for answers to “Who was victorious in the Battle of Ridgefield — the British or the Americans?” They spent the day rotating among three stations: the museum, where they watched skits performed by costumed re-enactors; the Garden House, where they did primary source document research; and the Carriage Barn, where they learned about a soldier’s life in the Revolutionary War and got a hands-on lesson about field medicine and herbal remedies for Colonial diseases.
Although a tactical victory for the British — after all, they vastly outnumbered the hastily assembled militia forces, easily demolished the barricade erected on Main Street and proceeded to torch multiple Patriot houses, including Timothy Keeler’s tavern, a target of their cannon fire — the Battle of Ridgefield turned out to be a strategic victory for the Colonies seeking independence. The British never again attempted to invade inland Connecticut and had to realize that the Continental Army as well as the militia were a force to be reckoned with.
The goal of this full-day program was to use key primary source documents and narratives from the museum’s collection about the Battle of Ridgefield to teach students that oftentimes there are different perspectives on the same historic event, depending on who’s telling the story.
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