Jake Book - Getting immersed in history | Immersion Events, The ShirtTail Mess, History & More

Hi, I’m Ethan, I love muzzleloading, today were talking with Jacob Book of the shirt tail Mess living history group. We're talking with Jake about his passion for living history how he got started in muzzleloading and how that led him to where he is today with a passion and a drive for immersive eighteenth century events. So Jake why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what got you into muzzle loading and living history.

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Jake Book, 2023

It's not so much what got me into muzzle loading it's more so I got my dad into muzzle loading that's kind of where the story begins right dad started in the early seventies you know he was always in the history he grew up in the era of Fess Parker and Davy Crockett in the Alamo and Daniel Boone. As most people know, that era film making and storytelling esspecially geared towards younger people, with like those Disney live action movies there was a lot of history, you had the

“The Light in the Forest” and Johnny Tremain and there was a lot of media leading towards the bicentennial or our frontier history, there was a lot of interest in that and they were making movies and television based on those things. I feel like my dad was a common story for that age group.

Jake then and now

Dad was an athlete who went to college and at the university of Northern Iowa. There was a  professor by the name George Glenn and  you'll find you'll find George in the very first Book of Buckskinng and along with my dad's picture in there. He started at the school at a good time as there was a program where the professors could run their own class or club. Jacob’s father joined one ran by George Glenn, it was called  “muzzleloading firearms, modern sports and historical perspective”. Jacob’s dad would go on to participate in the club and purchase his own muzzleloader, he was really hooked.

George Glenn would later have a muzzleloading business, Book’s father worked for him and then eventually started his own business in the early eighties. He along with Smoke and Fire and Townsends at the time, became a staple of the vendor community of that time. Jacob and his father knew the late Townsend Sr. when they started by selling lanterns at the NMLRA shoots in Friendship, Indiana.

“A the time, Smoke and Fire was just selling like pottery I think is what she did at the time.”

Later on, Jakes father would transition out of the 18th century and begin participating in 19th century “Western” style camps and shoots. “Dad and a couple of his friends decided within that organization they started a little group called “Seventy Sixers” which was like the name sounds you know they were gonna do everything, document everything there to a specific place and time in 1876. They kind of got made fun of for it you know, they're like “well that limits you get access to”, but that’s the point, it limits us and gives us something that we're trying to achieve. It's a challenge to focus on a particular region in a particular year. “Anybody who is a fan or knows about a band called the white stripes  you know Jack White is famous for limiting the tools that you can use to create art and by doing so he has to challenge himself even that much more. I think some people think having everything at your disposal is more fun  but I think sometimes those limitations can be really  fascinating.

The kind of historic accuracy his father sought would lead Jake down his own path for the 18th century. Like many young people who grew up in the hobby, Jake took a few steps out of muzzleloading for a while while he set up his own life. Unlike many though, he stepped back in with a full stride and a goal to connect with history like he hadn’t before.

“Looking back at pictures, I just like shake my head, like what in the world was I was I doing” Jake said. I responded, “You were learning.”

Many times we can become hyper-fixated on the end goal, an accurate impression, but sometimes as cheesy as it sounds, the journey is part of the end goal. Without Jake’s trial and error, I don’t think he’d be the living historian he is today. Having gone through the journey himself, he’s in a position now to provide contextual advice and information to people like me on how to improve in a kind and educational manner.

As time went on, even though growing up in the hobby, the research that was available start to change really rapidly as the internet kind of exploded. It's amazing how much stuff is out there and so so there was a real movement in that direction and I found out about really where it all changed for me was I found out about the Augusta county militia. I've known about it for a while but I found out they had an event coming up and I was really trying hard  I've been going to all the local events the market at Locust Grove and various places and I usually would follow on with the unit there and I was trying to do better then I found out that the ACM  was doing an event there in Virginia called   “Woburn farm”, it was an immersion event and which what which we'll get to I guess in the escalation and I wanted to go and so I looked at their site they have usually the beginning of an immersion event they'll publish the standards that you have to be at with your clothing and your gear so I put something together that I thought was good and  it forced me to acquire some things and get some new things to make sure I could fit the standards. I experienced a little bit of that before but that really took the cake.

“What made that event special was we got there without going into all the details we got there we slept on the ground with our blankets around a campfire by a creek and one point  Alan Krauss was in command and told us like “Hey we're gonna go walk down to where we're gonna lay the ambush in the morning for the British (who didn't know we were going to do that). We're doing this by moonlight and just those kind of moments where you're like walking through the dark single file with your arms and you're talking about laying this ambush from British, I mean you don't even really have to act  it's not like you're going to like play-acting mode where you're like “oh we will attack the British here”,  you just talk about it because it's what you're about to do.”

Jake would go on to describe the Woburn Farm event and recount his actions during the skirmish at the creek. Even in his recounting of the event, it sounds like something you would read in a historic journal from the time. I felt immersed as I listened.

Our discussion this week with Jake is well over an hour long and I encourage you to listen to it to get a better understanding of Jake’s passion as well as the feeling one can get from getting immersed in history.