My spark for living history ignited into a flame with the help and guidance of my father. When I was about seven years old, he shared with me the Disney series "Davy Crockett" and "Daniel Boone" and helped make me the King of the Wild Frontier. On a visit to the Cracker Barrel restaurant, he purchased for me a cap gun fashioned to emulate a muzzleloader. Over the next week, my father took out the cap lock and inletted a small Siler lock, installed set triggers and a brass guard and made a ramrod. Though this gun was not totally functional, he did give me a small horn that held enough powder that I could prime the lock and touch "Ole Betsy" off. I remember deer hunting with him as a child and when a deer came by that he had no intentions of shooting, he would let me "shoot" the deer. Very quickly I became used to the flash and burst of burnt gunpowder so close to my face.

     With the help of my grandmother, we made a set of clothes that I could wear, at first, to Mansker's Station then if I was ready, I would be allowed to go to the woods with the Second Company and truly live history. For the first couple of years, I carried that façade rifle on our diverse jaunts, even killed some French marines with it at Fort Loudon. Before too long, my father built my first real muzzleloader. I had gained valuable and essential gun safety practices with the Cracker Barrel rifle and now it was time to graduate. My first REAL gun was a .36 caliber rifle scaled down to fit these youthful eyes in the woods. My dad further equipped me with horn, shot bag, knife, tomahawk, and other essentials to present an accurate and complete impression of a colonial American long hunter. For almost a decade I ran the woods with the Second Company, all the while learning from its sage members and even educating some of the newer ones.

     Because of its excellence as a group, the Second Company attracted so many new and diverse members that it eventually outgrew itself. In, what I feel was a fitting tribute, several of its likeminded members including myself, decided it was time to start anew. We formed the Cumberland Brigade, of which I am captain. With our hopes of doing new and groundbreaking endeavors, we bid a painful good-bye to those that had guided us and shown us the way. This was the dawn of a new era. The Cumberland Brigade would pick up where the Second Company left off as being one of the best living history groups around. Our members are very diverse and we all have different interests, but share a common goal. We all strive for accuracy in our presentations, for the sole purpose of gaining a better understanding of what life was like 250 years ago for long hunters, scouts, surveyors, traders, Indians, militiamen, and farmers alike.

     This biography may seem to be more of a study on the Second Company and Cumberland Brigade than of me, but that is exactly who I am. I would not be doing this today had I not been guided by the members of both groups. I owe much to Captain Tom Lawrence, but there has been one person that has had more influence on me than anyone and that is my father. I have served (portrayed) as a long hunter, scout, Indian agent, soldier, warrior and much more all because of my father's unselfishness, hard work, and love of seeing me take hold of what he has shared with me. As my persona matures and graduates from the leaf litter into a better station in life, I appreciate my father's persona more now than I used to. Due to his skill as a craftsman, my dad always had a little touch of the upper middle class in his impression. I used to disagree with this, but now I realize that he has traveled the same path I had. He started out as a poor hunter, but has graduated through skill and perseverance to a wealthy and respected artisan. I will continue to walk my path, expand my research and improve my portrayal, but I will never forget those who helped guide me and teach me, though it was not always comfortable, few worthwhile things in life, ever are.