They Also Rode To Warn

The Research Project: THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN Main Menu
 
This project started in the 60s while I was a graduate student at Fresno State College in Fresno, California. I had been assigned a committee of professors for my thesis and the head advisor had given me the go ahead on my proposal to do a thesis on the enhancement of Social Studies in the Elementary School on stories in song of little known heroes of the American Revolution. I was elated and that summer left for home ( Wayne, New Jersey, named after General Anthony Wayne of The American Revolution). My plan was to travel from Bennington, Vermont to Richmond, Virginia to find sites and go through historical society records to locate and document information on these little known heroes. I had already read several books on the subject and had a number of these Little known Heroes already lined up in various states. Authenticity was most important but I realized from my reading that sometimes legends and fact can be misleading and intertwined. When I arrived back that Fall to Fresno State College, I had amassed a great deal of information from my research, however, I found to my dismay that my head advisor had been called away on some sort of exciting Fellowship award and they had assigned a new head advisor. My project seemed to this professor to be too ambitious as I had detailed how I would write and produce a series of radio and TV programs (as I had a BA in Speech with an emphasis on Writing, Directing and Producing Radio and Television Programs.) Still the head advisor, recommended that I change my direction and write a concentrated research on Televisions effects on teaching in the classroom. 
 
So, not to be deterred, I continued to use the research for other classes in the Speech and Drama Departments and wrote and produced the series: THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN with Peter Francisco, hero of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, a radio program, and Sybil Ludington, heroine of the ride to warn her fathers men of the British troops burning the town of Danbury, Connecticut, which would be a TV program. I went on to write a series of songs that was going to feature just the Riders who rode to warn. Many projects intervened over the years as I became a full time teacher (and husband and father of 2 girls and two boys!). By the time I was teaching 5th grade at the Lemoore Naval Air station in Kings county, California, I got back to They also Rode To Warn and was keynote speaker at a Lemoore Highschool graduation ceremony featuring songwriters of history. I was asked by the DAR in Fresno to present a number of my songs for a TV special at KFRE-TV in fresno and was honored to do so. 
 
Recently I had found three more who Rode To Warn, so the total is up to twelve. The criteria I used included having to have good sources that were well documented. A number of names that came up in reading and on the Internet didnt quite make it. Plus if there were several books out on that particular person, it added a lot of credence to that person. The first six are on the CD: THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN. The second six will be on a forthcoming CD: THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN - PART II. Also included in the first CD is They Also Rode To Warn, a panorama song of the theme with a medley treatment using one of my favorite ballads of the American Revolution: Fish and Tea. 
 
Sybil Ludington, Betsy Dowdy, Jack Jouette, William Dawes, Dicey Langston, and Susannah Bolling are featured in the first CD. In the second, Tempe Wick, General Israel Putnam, Mammy Kate, Jane Thomas Black, Catherine Barry, Lydia Darragh, Emily Geiger and Paul Reveres Other Ride are featured. The states they represent include, New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to New Hampshire in Paul Reveres Other Ride. 
 
In progress at this time is the second CD, however, since I started a second career after retiring from teaching, namely, I operate a commercial Recording Studio (TealMoon Recording Studio in Redding, California), I try and accomplish my projects in between the others I am recording. 
 
I am also in the process of developing a series of Lesson Plans for teachers to use the songs in various grades that emphasize American history, Literature and Teacher Training in college. I know as many teachers do also, that in order to efficiently use material in the classroom be it books, audio visuals, songs on a CD, you must have some well designed assistance to get the material going smoothly during a unit of study. I recommend that to use THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN effectively, the elementary school teacher should plan on a four weeks unit using one to two songs per week, depending on the class. Writing in various forms, performing, Illustration, playwriting, narrating, radio or TV drama, Internet Research, creating wordsearch activities and crosswords puzzles based on vocabulary from the songs, finding and reporting on other heroes of the American Revolution found on the internet, and reading and sharing these projects are some of the various possibilities to focus on during the 4 weeks unit on Heroes and Heroines of the American Revolution. 
 
 
So from Dr. Thomas Ewing, a direct descendant of one of the Tea Burners in the last Tea Party of the American Revolution, who I interviewed in Greenwich, New Jersey, to The Richmond Historical Society who let me research their archives and hold the sword (Saber rather) presented to the hero of the Battle of Guilford. Courthouse, North Carolina, Peter Francisco. (the sword was given to Peter by a Colonel William Mayo who fought with Peter at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina), I proudly present THEY ALSO RODE TO WARN and hope you will enjoy the daring and patriotic deeds of these honorable heroes and heroines that I came to know in research and story and enlivened them in song. Hopefully children, teachers, parents, librarians and anyone interested in American History (I hope that is everyone!) will come to know them too. I am particularly honored by the direct descendants who have emailed me on these songs I have written and thank you for your interest and support. The direct descendants of Dicey Langston, Sybil Ludington, and Jack Jouette have emailed me so far. 
 
Bernie Griff - May 27, 2003 (Revised August 7, 2005)
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