Annual March In At Valley Forge

Valley Forge, Pa. - Members of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment re-enactment group, local authors, Park rangers and others will commemorate the Continental Army's historic winter of 1777 march-in to its Valley Forge encampment site on Saturday, December 19.

From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Valley Forge National Historical Park, period costumed Park rangers and volunteers will ceremoniously march attendees from the Visitor Center one-quarter mile to the Muhlenberg Brigade area. There, around reconstructed huts on the ground where the original 6th Pennsylvania Regiment stayed 232 years ago, regimental re-enactors will share stories of soldier life during the encampment.

At the Visitor Center, artist Michael Ticcino, of Audubon, and Schuylkill River Heritage Area co-authors Kurt Zwikl and Laura Catalano will sign books. Ticcino's coffee table book, Valley Forge: Traditional Land, Contemporary Vision, is a collection of beautiful photographic imagery of the Park. Zwikl and Catalano penned Along the Schuylkill River to document the river's history, moniker as the "River of Revolutions" and boundary along the Valley Forge encampment site. 

Park Archivist Dona McDermott will showcase a small collection of important 18th century documents from the encampment, the preservation of which will soon be enhanced through a Save America's Treasures grant. Among them are two land grants from William Penn, General Washington's headquarters orderly book and a first edition of Baron Friedrich Von Steuben's Manual of Arms.

At the Visitor Center, a George Washington interpreter will interact with guests and the Colonial Revelers will perform period holiday songs. Refreshments will be served and the Encampment Store will be open for holiday shopping. The event is free and open to the public.