Muskingum County History Holiday Weekend in Putnam is Back After a Decade

Who said the holiday season couldn’t consist of historical learning?

After a decade, the Muskingum County History is back with their Holiday Weekend in Putnam that holds many events informing the community on historical times.

Tomorrow during the holiday weekend festivities, the community will be able to meet Frank Capra, who will be portrayed by Chris Hart, a Living Historian. He will take the guest back and reminisce about his famous movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that was released in 1946.

“I started doing this about 15 years ago. I thought it would be fun. I saw some actors doing this and I thought, well maybe perhaps I can try this, so one of my very first things I did was I found a Titanic survivor an actual gentleman who was set to go down the ship and miraculously survived and so I brought his story to life and people seemed to like it, and so I just started looking for places there might be a story,” Hart said.

Earlier today, Hart portrayed a Civil War Veteran placed in 1895 that invited the guest to a holiday party while sharing a timeline where he was within the four years during the Civil War before Christmas.

Peter Cultice, President of the Muskingum County History said these types of events really highlight the history of Zanesville and it’s involvement within the Civil War.

“Putnam was founded by people from the New England area. Zanesville was founded by people generally from Virginia and Maryland so the two sides of the river didn’t get along and there was confrontation between the two sides for a period of time, but Zanesville Muskingum County has had their fugitive slave cases in court here,” Cultice stated. “There’s just a great deal of very interesting, although history is very messy, but very interesting history of what took place in the significance of Muskingum County and Ohio.”

The Ohio Symphony Orchestra will also be there next Saturday playing Christmas music along with Civil War music, Stephen Foster songs played by Steven and Lisa Bell on Sunday at the same time.

All events are from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Dr. Incease Mathews House at no cost, but donations are always accepted and appreciated to help support the programs.