An eye on the past: Ranger Joe Craig a revolutionary sentry at Saratoga battlefield post (with videos)

Jul 04, 2010

By: Paul Post

Joe Craig, a ranger at Saratoga National Historical Battlefield, mops his brow as he sits, dressed in Revolution-era garb. (ERICA MILLER/The Saratogian)

STILLWATER — Joe Craig was loading Twinkies onto bread trucks when an opportunity came to serve his country and the American people.

It wasn’t in the military, but another branch of the federal government, the National Park Service. Not long afterward, Craig found himself working at the Statue of Liberty for the 1976 bicentennial celebration, and now he’s a ranger at Saratoga National Historical Park, better known as Saratoga battlefield.

Today, clad in colonial-era clothing, he’ll be reading the Declaration of Independence where about 20 people from all parts of the world will become new U.S. citizens during naturalization ceremonies scheduled for 10 a.m., at the park.

“It’s a little reminder of how different the country is from when it was founded,” Craig said. “The Founding Fathers’ ideals are what these people are looking for — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That’s our mission statement when you come down to it.”

Originally from New Jersey, where he studied history at Rutgers University, Craig has also worked at Ellis Island, Edison National Historic Site, Morristown, Delaware Water Gap and Grant’s Tomb before coming to Saratoga.

“I just swam upriver from Hoboken,” he joked.

Peaceful, idyllic, 3,000-acre Saratoga battlefield, with views stretching into Washington County farm country, is a far cry from the jam-packed Statue of Liberty mob scenes he encountered.

Regardless of where rangers find themselves, the requirements are the same, Craig said.

“I kind of like the fact that we’re slower-paced here,” Craig said. “There’s more time to interact with people. You have to like people. Sometimes they’re having a difficult day, it’s hot out. We are a service. We’re here for the people of the United States.

“You also have to be good at public speaking and have some kind of history or education background. I get nature, archaeology and geology questions all the time. It’s nice to have a general knowledge of things.”

At Saratoga, he’s especially fascinated by each participant’s involvement — either by choice or by chance.
Some British soldiers enlisted in the army for economic reasons. The alternative might have been debtor’s prison, where they likely would have starved to death.

People living in this part of the country were caught in the middle, and had to make difficult decisions, whether to remain loyal to the king or join the rebels and fight for independence.

“It was a civil war,” Craig said. “What a lot of people forget is that it drags on long after Saratoga.”

The Battles of Saratoga were fought in September and October 1777. Yorktown, the war’s last major battle, didn’t occur until October 1781, four years later.

Various battlefield features are a microcosm of choices and consequences that unfolded during the Revolution. Neilson Farm was owned by a family that took up the American cause. In con- trast, the Freeman Farm was owned by John Freeman, a Loyalist. His 12-year-old son served in the first battle. After Saratoga, the Freemans became refugees and would be wiped out by smallpox.

Other people, such as tavern owner Jonathan Bemis, were somewhere in the middle — not entirely committed to one side or the other. Unfortunately, information that might have told more about Bemis was lost forever in a 1911 archives fire.

Open year round, the park gets about 150,000 visitors per year, some who want to learn just about its critical role as a turning point of the Revolution, others who enjoy the site’s various recreational offerings from bird watching to cross-country skiing.

In addition to the battlefield, the park has several other components — Schuyler House, Saratoga Monument and Victory Woods, a new 22-acre site near the monument that just opened this spring.

“When we got the Schuyler House we got a little extra and it wasn’t cable TV,” Craig said.

A previous owner, from the 19th century, had kept the skull of Thomas Lovelace, a Loyalist spy who was hanged in Schuylerville. When the park service acquired the house, officials found the skull in a glass case.

Now, it’s fittingly interred near the park visitors center, one of many intriguing things Craig enjoys telling people from around the globe who come here each year.

“That’s one of the fun parts of the job,” he said. “You meet people from all over the place.”

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