Sheep and Shawl Show and Tell

When Chris Cassidy was a boy growing up in Waterford, Sheep to Shawl was the event on the school calendar.
“When I was in the fifth grade, I was so into it,” he said. “It was a big event.”
Cassidy, an engineering teacher at Waterford High, has not lost any of his enthusiasm for the celebration of the town’s past, now in its 39th year.
Last week, Cassidy was dressed in colonial garb, complete with knickerbockers and tricorn hat, and was one of the star attractions at this year’s Sheep to Shawl, which drew students from all of Waterford’s elementary schools, as well as a group from Montville and the Solomon Schechter Academy in New London, to the Waterford Historical Society campus near Jordan Village.
Cassidy, you see, was the guy with the gun—his father-in-law’s vintage Pennsylvania musket.
As schoolchildren paid rapt attention, Cassidy demonstrated how to pour in the gun powder. He then aimed toward Rope Ferry Road,
and fired.
Cassidy explained how, instead of balls, the gun was firing small cardboard pellets.
“If it were a ball, it would have landed by town hall,” he said.
Andrea Kanter is another Sheep to Shawl veteran whose family still gets into the act.
“My daughter is at Wheaton College,” she said. “She rearranged her finals to come to this.”
While her daughter was overseeing a blacksmith’s demonstration, Kanter was minding the 1740 schoolhouse, dating back to when Waterford was just collection of farms on the outskirts of New London.
Kanter made sure the 2008 students held true to 18th-century traditions, tipping their “caps” to the teacher.
Once inside, three students dressed as period schoolmarms conducted a class.
They asked for a volunteer to recite the alphabet, and then halted her after “J.”
“J didn’t exist then,” the teacher said, and gave the unfortunate volunteer a mock rap on the hands and instructed her to sit in the corner with a dunce cap. (Quick lesson: The letter “J” entered the English alphabet in the 16th century, but apparently didn’t really catch on until later.)
Kanter said Sheep to Shawl is a great way for kids to experience history hands on.
Jerry Theiler, the director of the Waterford Historical Society, has been overseeing Sheep to Shawl since its inception in 1969.
“We want to show the kids how the town evolved from the 1600s to the 1900s,” he said.
Theiler said Sheep To Shawl was originally offered just to the town’s gifted and talented students but has since expanded to all of the town’s primary school population.
Theiler will normally spend seven weeks visiting schools, instructing students on the various antiquated trades on display at Sheep To Shawl, particularly wool-shearing and weaving.
In order to go back to the past, Sheep to Shawl needed a bit of modern convenience—namely electronic shears.
Melissa Higgins, a certified sheep shearer from Coventry, gave four sheep buzz cuts, providing the wool for the weaving demonstrations.
“In the past they would have used clippers,” she said.
And after all these years, Sheep To Shawl is still a hit with Waterford’s  modern boys and girls.
“I liked watching them make shovels and anvils,” said Jacob Turner, a student at Oswegatchie School.
Fellow Oswegatchie student Erika Gavino, who “trained” to be a carter, or someone who pushes carts, said “she learned a lot.”
Jayson Menders, also of Oswegatchie, said it “was really cool learning about the town’s history.”
“I didn’t know Waterford had this much history,” he said.