Tim Bernier Channels John Willcocks

TIM BERNIER CHANNELS JOHN WILLCOCKS

As we climb up the hill to the little cemetery in the Deserted Village of Feltville, it is the shoes that I notice first. They look like leather dress shoes, and as I later find out, have smooth leather soles—not the patterned rubber soles of the sneakers I am wearing. I also learn that, because they are authentic to the eighteenth century, there is no difference between the shoe for right and left—so no arch support or match to the shape of the two different feet. I watch as Tim Bernier continues up the side of the cemetery hill carrying a heavy bag of documents and other paraphernalia for his turn today as John Willcocks, Senior, fazed not in the least by the slope and the eroded spots and exposed roots. I, who always blame my father’s genetics for lack of balance, pick my way more carefully.

All of the rest of Tim’s clothing is as period authentic as possible. For years, he has been channeling John Willcocks for Deserted Village events—and sometimes just for a weekend when he feels the urge to head over to the village. He always receives a warm welcome.

John Willcocks was one of the original European settlers of this place, long before David Felt ever dreamed of building the company mill town which would become Feltville. John’s father Peter Willcocks brought his wife, Phebe Badgley Willcocks, and their children across from Long Island to the wild west frontier of New Jersey. Here, Peter and his family would use the multiple resources of the site—trees for turning into building material and firewood, a stream for water power for the sawmill that created those products, copper in the hill for a copper mill, deer and other wildlife for meat and skins or furs. After the land was cleared, the family had fertile ground for the wheat which would go into their gristmill, and for their apple and peach trees, grown up to the edge of the cemetery.

John, his brother William and a cousin, Joseph Badgley, all fought in the Revolutionary War on the American side. They were buried in the Willcocks family burial ground, here on the hill overlooking Feltville’s Church/Store building. As I tell in my introduction to this site, my grandfather’s research was the basis for the federal government providing three simple white gravestones for the three veterans.

But John has two gravestones—his original stone was the only surviving stone in the cemetery when the other three were placed there. It has been encased in concrete to assure it won’t be carried off from the Village as on two previous occasions.

FAMILY CONNECTIONS

Tim was ten years old when his older brother Dan decided to do his Eagle Scout project at the Deserted Village. The boys were already somewhat familiar with the place, since their father had taken them there for tours led by Village resident Charles Hoag. Dan’s project was to build historic trails through the village and the larger Watchung Reservation of which it is part, and to write an interpretive brochure for visitors.

Tim remembers visiting the village with friends at a time when it wasn’t really open to the public. The village was still an isolated community, owned by the County, with many of the houses rented out to county employees or others. He and his friends were stopped by the County police—and it was Dan’s name that let them go on their way.

Dan (who will have a future profile of his own) became rather obsessed with the village, and after college became a Union County employee—and eventually a resident of the village, taking over the house formerly occupied by Charles Hoag and his family. Dan was pulled in to help with a walking tour event which would become the Haunted Hayride event, held each year now (except for a pandemic hiatus for two years) at the village during October. Always ready to help, Tim’s initial participation consisted of jumping out to scare kids as they came by on the wagon. Tim estimates that he has gone on to participate in 25 to 30 Haunted Hayrides.

BECOMING JOHN WILLCOCKS

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But that wasn’t enough for Tim, who began participating annually in the other major village event—Four Centuries in a Weekend. That event, sponsored annually, also in October, is actually an event held simultaneously at multiple historic houses and sites across Union County, but the Deserted Village, also the largest County historic site, has the largest turnout—and a tremendous group of volunteers and staff.

Tim joined the event, portraying John Willcocks (or occasionally his father Peter) in a rented colonial soldier costume, for several years. He enjoyed it so much that he now has several professionally tailored colonial outfits of his own. County employees or volunteers working the event will drive a small colonial desk up to the cemetery, and Tim lugs up the rest in his full colonial garb.

And what he lugs is fascinating. Tim has done more and more research each year, procuring facsimiles of original Willcocks wills and other records for visitors to look at. He was initially guided in his research by family members, his father and a distant cousin, who were doing family genealogy. Tim used the tools they taught him, and others he found along the way, to put together a Willcocks genealogy. He was especially excited when Laird Wilcox (same family, spelling of name has changed over the years), a descendant of John’s brother William, responded to a communication. Laird has stayed in touch ever since.

Tim’s Willcocks family research started before the internet and online technology had made documents more accessible. He says that he is pleased to find that new documents are becoming digitized all the time. Early on, he ordered documents from places like the New Jersey Archives; now, many of those can be downloaded as PDFs.

He hasn’t confined himself to the primary documents, reading extensively to understand what John’s daily life would have been like, so he can make the character he is channeling alive for visitors.

And, he sees his reenactments as bringing the village and its inhabitants more to life for visitors, giving them something to connect with.

It becomes not simply pages on paper, but something living,” Tim said.

More than that, it may be that he likes finding the clothing that helps make everything real. Again, online resources, such as YouTube videos from fellow reenactors have helped. One of the biggest sources of help has been a group of reenactors who act both as costumed docents and program leaders and perform historical theater as the Bachmann Players, at the Bachmann House, now a museum, and the oldest building in Easton, Pennsylvania. Tim has begun doing reenactments there, as well as at the Deserted Village.

The county makes up John Willcocks “trading cards” with a picture of Tim as John and some historic facts, but Tim hand applies sealing wax to each card—a W, for Willcocks.

Tim has taken to heading from his home in Pennsylvania over to the village on some weekends, putting up a sign that John Willcocks will be in the cemetery that day, and patiently waiting for visitors.

And the visitor response has been uniformly positive. Tim has met and spoken to hundreds of people in his John Willcocks alter ego. Some visitors are hikers simply passing through, amazed to find a colonial gentleman hanging out in an old cemetery. Many are happy to find that the cemetery and the village are so cared for as to inspire the obvious devotion Tim has. People routinely thank him for his work—especially, he says, during Four Centuries 2022.

He is constantly amazed by people who have a connection to the village. He has met Willcocks and Badgley descendants. One man told him “We live in your house,” since he and his family own one of the original Willcocks houses in Murray Hill.

He also has loved becoming part of a group of people devoted to the village— the archaeologists Matt Tomaso, Rich Veit, and Carissa Scarpa—and others like myself who volunteer time for Four Centuries and other events. Tim looks forward eagerly to continuing to introduce 21^st century visitors to eighteenth century John and his family, people he feels he has come to know so well.