Learning to Appreciate the Price That Was Paid for Independence

No one can be certain which side fired the first shot at the Battle of Lexington in 1775. And so it was, when that famous skirmish was re-created on the lawn at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda on Friday, the first shot was left as a mystery.

You knew the Fourth of July was going to be a bit different at the Nixon Library if you drove by and saw the Betsy Ross flag--13 stars--waving in the warm breeze by its front fountain.

The library this holiday weekend has become a temporary living history encampment with re-created American and British troops. Visitors Friday soaked up all kinds of Independence Day fervor.

The first 200 through the door got a free slab of apple pie. For background, visitors could hear the voice of Jimmy Stewart, most appropriate this week of his death, on tape discussing the life of Pat Nixon.

Next stop was a huge scroll replica of the Declaration of Independence. Visitors enjoyed signing their own names below John Hancock’s.

Many were wide-eyed at the exhibits of colonial clothing, dance lessons from the era, woodworking demonstrations, cooking displays, a wandering minstrel, and a chance to see how the old flintlock rifles worked. Blanks were fired instead of real charges, but you could still smell the gunpowder around the encampment, set up in the shade of the huge pepper tree that Richard Nixon’s father had planted as a sapling in 1912.

Throughout the day, there were lessons to be learned by children and adults alike:

A good soldier could fire 15 rounds from these muskets in three minutes. . . . You think of the 13 colonies as British. But Delaware was actually a Swedish settlement. . . . Tobacco leaves in that period were sometimes used as money.

It was a day just to remember the things that are good about America. To me, there was something immensely satisfying about seeing 6-year-old Sho Tsubakiyama of Los Angeles sign his name to the Declaration of Independence. His mother, Margaret, is a native Californian, his father, Kiyohide, was born and educated in Japan.

“The Japanese people have a very intense interest in American history,” Margaret Tsubakiyama told me.

The appeal of the Nixon Library covers many different fronts. Kiyohide Tsubakiyama, for example, had studied acupuncture in China. The Fourth, he and his wife explained to me, seemed an appropriate time for them to tour the various exhibits related to President Nixon’s China visits.

The first people in line--and the first to get pie--were Eleanor and Gordon Schott of Placentia. Eleanor Schott teaches elementary school and says she loves weaving the American Revolution era into her class lessons.

As I was leaving, I came across Karen and Richard Coyne of Aliso Viejo in the parking lot. They were enjoying their own picnic in a shady spot. Karen Coyne, an accountant, explained why they had come:

“I had just turned 18 when the voting age was lowered. My first chance to vote for president, I voted for Richard Nixon. We wanted to enjoy the flag ceremony. This just seemed a good place to be today.”

The encampment, and free pie to early visitors, continues at the Nixon Library all day today.

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Both Sides Now: Don Dooley, who works in the Yorba Linda Planning Department, used to be one of us, a proud member of the Delaware Regiment. But a few years ago, Dooley joined the British. He’s now in a reenactment group called the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

Dooley, you see, just loves history. And to really understand it, he says, you have to see things from the other side once in a while.

He was among the soldiers fighting in the mock battles at the Nixon Library. (In case you’ve forgotten, the British won the Battle of Lexington. Later in the day Friday the soldiers fought one with Americans victorious, at Cowpens.)

“We do enjoy the uniforms, the weapons and all that goes with it,” Dooley said. “But mainly, we do this because of the camaraderie. We’ve all got some expertise about a different part of the era’s history, and we enjoy bringing it altogether as friends.”

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In the Light of Day: There is a remarkable document now on display at the Nixon Library. It is an 1823 replica of the Declaration of Independence. Volunteer docent Jo Lyons, who researched its history, told me about it:

The original Declaration had been on public display at the U.S. Patent Office for many years after it was signed. In 1820, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams noted that it was beginning to deteriorate from exposure to the air. He ordered 200 copies engraved. The engraver wound up making 201, keeping one for himself. One of those copies--the first ever--went to Joshua Predeaux of Maryland, a member of the Electoral College.

Predeaux’s copy wound up somehow with a former slave, who sold it to Maryland ancestors of Wilbur Wright of Yorba Linda more than 130 years ago. That copy made its way to Missouri and Nebraska before family members passed it on to Wright. He donated it to the Nixon Library.

The library displays it only three months out of six, to protect it from the light. To give you an idea how valuable it is: Only 32 of those 201 copies are known to exist now.

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Wrap-Up: Later in the day, I hopped over to Buena Park to visit the late Walter Knott’s re-creation of Independence Hall--with its to-scale Liberty Bell--at Knott’s Berry Farm.

I sat with other visitors in the benches in the back of its re-created meeting chamber for the 2nd Continental Congress. Its 15 tables--13 for delegates to the colonies, one for congressional President John Hancock, and one for the recording secretary--are draped in green cloth. Each has a lit candle, a goose quill pen, a copy of the Declaration, and a Bible.

As you stare at the empty tables, the audience listens to recorded voices of the Founding Fathers debating independence, the sound moving from table to table. You can almost see John Adams in his granny glasses and the clicking of his colonial shoes as he walks and talks: “Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish . . . when we are in our graves, our children will honor this day. . . . Independence now, independence forever.”

When the vote in this reenactment is finally cast--12 for independence, one abstention (New York)--and the show closes, the audience all clapped and cheered. I stayed for a second showing, and that audience clapped and cheered too, even though there were no actors to receive their applause.

As I returned to my car, I thought about the final words from one of the 56 signers of the Declaration, uttered in that radio-like drama: “I wonder if future generations will remember what this declaration cost this generation.”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com