Paul Brennan isn’t your typical tailor. In fact, he doesn’t even have a sewing machine. Instead, his workshop is filled with hand-hewn tailor’s tools that would look more at home on a film set or a historical farm.
Brennan is a Revolutionary War reenactor and Veteran’s Service Commissioner from Monroe County. Currently he’s working on an 18th century gentleman’s coat, made of green silk with around two dozen hand stitched button holes. Each one can take him 30 minutes to complete. The coat is just the latest of some fifty garments he’s made since he started reenacting in the ‘70s.
“They say the first thousand button holes are the hardest. Well, I’m way beyond that,” Brennan said with a laugh.
Brennan makes these historical recreations by hand, sometimes taking up to 80 hours of painstaking stitching and delicate embroidery. His passion started at an early age, not with a love of fashion, but a love of history.
“I always read stories about Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone,” Brennan said. “I just loved the concept of the 18th century people emigrating from Europe to the east coast and then to unsettled land and how much courage that must have involved to do something like that.”
Bicentennial origins
When he got out of the Airforce in 1972, the country was getting ready to celebrate the Bicentennial. He got involved in the planning of the local celebration in Sullivan County, New York and ended up dressing in 18th century civilian clothing for events.
In the ‘90s he found organized reenactment groups, and he hasn’t looked back.
Brennan estimates that he’s done over 160 reenactments across 11 states. He’s worn his handmade garments at battlefields and forts in throngs of hundreds. He’s ridden horseback, cooked over fires, slept in tents and been filmed for the PBS documentary “The American Revolution” by Ken Burns. He’s even managed to incorporate his career as a land surveyor into his hobby, portraying a geographer for several years.
Occasionally, on the way to an event, he’ll stop in the modern world.
“If you run into Walmart or you stop at Cracker Barrel, people are looking at you [funny]. But if you actually talk to people, the next thing you know you are having wonderful conversations about ‘What are you doing dressed like that? Where are you going?’ It’s opened up a whole new avenue,” Brennan said.
His wardrobe is filled with the historical style clothing that makes people so curious. He has more 18th century style clothing than modern day garments. But the green coat he’s sewing now won’t join them. He’s making it for a friend who publishes a history magazine. In return he’s getting a lifetime subscription.
That sort of bartering is common in his social circles. Through the hobby he’s met blacksmiths, tinsmiths and other artisans whose work fills his home.
“A lot of people probably don’t realize how big the reenacting community is. I probably have more friends that reenact than I have friends that don’t reenact,” Brennan said.
They’re the reason Brennan is in Ohio. A few of his fellow reenactors moved here and inspired him to do the same.
He mostly travels out of state for reenactment, but he’ll show up in his homemade garb for a parade or festival or two.
Life in Ohio
Brennan has found another way to live in the past: He built his home in Jerusalem, Ohio in the 18th century style, with a woodshop where he makes black powder rifles and a tailor shop inspired by the place he learned to sew historical garments.
“This [the tailor’s shop] is actually based on the milliner's shop out of Colonial Williamsburg. Given that my hobby is a major part of my interest, my life, I wanted to be surrounded by the things that I love,” Brennan said.
Rural Monroe County allows him to further immerse himself in his dream of 18th century America.
“Out here you are on your own. Nobody is into your business. You’ve got friends that are there to help you if you need it, but they are not going to interfere with your life. So this is a very good place for me.”
There’s also a surprising amount of Revolutionary War history in the area. After the war, the newly formed US government paid many of the veterans in land – with plots across Ohio. An estimated 7,000 Revolutionary War veterans are buried here.
Sewing all those button holes by hand has given Brennan a deeper appreciation of those veterans.
“I love this country. This is the best country in the world, and when you look back to the people who created this– a lot of our founding fathers were 25 years old. Can you imagine that happening today? I can’t. I just so much admire the determination and the people,” Brennan said.
He does have one quibble with some of last weekend’s celebrations though.
“We’re not celebrating the birth of the country. We’re celebrating the Declaration of Independence,” Brennan said.
Brennan points out the constitution wasn’t signed for another 11 years; that’s the date he considers to be America’s birthday. But hopefully he’ll cut birthday-celebrating Americans some slack. Afterall, most people haven’t spent half their lives in the 18th century.