1750s were a terrifying time. The frontier was a “theater of bloodshed and cruelty," wrote 24-year-old George Washington to Gov. Dinwiddie of Virginia in the summer of 1756. French and Indians raiding parties had “laid Maryland and Pennsylvania waste, as low as Carlisle.” English settlers “are flying with the utmost consternation” back to the east, he reported on August 5, 1756.

A month later, Washington reported that, "The frontiers of Maryland are abandoned for many miles below the Blue Ridge, as low as Frederick-Town, thro' which place I am credibly informed no less than 350 wagons, transporting the affrighted families, passed in the space of three days.”

I was surprised when Jim invited me in for breakfast. Entering the old barracks, I found a room of five groggy reenactors tending a fire and boiling coffee in an old iron pot hanging over flames in the fireplace. Everyone was already in uniform, except Sgt. Dustan Black, who was still sitting in long johns on the mattress in his hard wooden bunk.

A few minutes later, park ranger Bob Study came through the barracks door.  I kidded him, asking him how he let these guys stay for free in the state park. “Oh, they pay for it,” he said laughing. “We work them hard. The park can’t afford staff to talk with the visitors, so these guys meet with people all day long.”

We sat at the old wooden table and talked about the old Fort’s heritage, and I learned that the original stone walls are largely original. When the Civilian Conservation Corps restored Fort Frederick during the Depression, they needed to add only a couple of feet of new stone to protect the top of the battlements. They reconstructed some of the wooden barracks and other buildings based on archaeological work.

After the ranger left, I ask the men what it is like to actually spend the night in the fort. I could see the authentic wooden bunks were tiny and uncomfortable. One of the soldiers admitted they added some foam rubber.

footsteps in the empty rooms above.

But the big question was: Did they hear anything strange, any spirits from those tragic years still lingering around?

The commander, Captain Phil Woodbury, dressed smartly in a bright red officer’s jacket, quickly dismissed the idea of ghosts. But others in his company weren’t so sure.

“How do you explain the sounds of regularly paced footsteps when there is no one there?” asked Sgt. Black, who had worked as an employee in the fort for seven years. “It’s not the expanding of the wood. Many times I saw a cartridge belt or canteen out of the corner of my eye.”

Everyone fell silent at this comment, lost in thought. We all knew the past is still very much with us. Sitting with these gentlemen in their authentic Colonial uniforms, in this hallowed place with a fire crackling in the old stone fireplace, the past seemed even more alive.

Private Roy Long broke the silence by announcing he was off to get some French toast. We marched across the parade ground to a smoke-filled kitchen where a woman in simple white bonnet fried up bread in an iron skillet over a hardwood fire. Fruit and a stack of thick bacon sat piled up on plates nearby.

We were glad to do our part. For the entire weekend, not a single attack from French or Indians was reported. Under our care, the realm was safe.