As America celebrates its 250th birthday this year, a piece of 18th-century military history on display at the Harlin Museum is highlighting a direct line from the winter at Valley Forge to West Plains.
The museum’s military exhibit features a Revolutionary War mess kit once carried by Joshua Wayland, a fifer and drummer for the Continental Army, shared museum President Cleo Cockrum. The historical artifact offers a tangible connection to the daily life and diets of early American soldiers, who relied on such kits to prepare and eat meager rations of salt pork, flour and hardtack.
According to historical and genealogical records, Wayland was born in 1760 in the British Colony of Virginia. He served from February 1777 to 1780 in Captain John Gillison’s Company of the 10th and 6th Virginia Regiments. Documents show Wayland endured the brutal 1778 winter encampment with Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge, where he, like many others, fell ill.
Wayland survived the harsh winter and later played the fife at the execution of Major John André, the British officer whose capture exposed Benedict Arnold’s treason, according to Harlin Museum records. Genealogical documents show he also participated in the siege of Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va.
Generations later, Wayland's descendants carried his legacy — and his mess kit — to Missouri.
His son, Dr. Abraham Wayland, settled in Clark County, in the northeastern corner of Missouri. His son, Rev. Robert Van Lear Wayland, eventually moved his family to West Plains around the turn of the 20th century. When Robert died in 1916, he was buried in West Plains' Oak Lawn Cemetery.
The mess kit eventually passed to Robert's grandson, Wayland Ford Sr. Born in 1896, Ford was a veteran of both World War I and World War II. He and his wife, Madge, lived out their lives in West Plains, and it was Ford who ultimately presented his great-great-grandfather's mess kit to the Harlin Museum to preserve the family's incredible history. Ford died in 1982 and is also buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery.
Visitors are encouraged to view the mess kit and other local artifacts in the military exhibit at the Harlin Museum, 405 Worcester St. in West Plains. Museum operation hours are from noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
Visitors can also follow the museum’s Facebook page @HarlinMuseumWP for important updates including schedule changes.
