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Brownsville shop owner sells 19th century wares, clothing

By James Pletcher Jr. 7 min read

Her hair braided and wearing a shopworn red and gray plaid dress in a 19th century style, Cheryl Hough looks nothing like a 21st century business owner. Which is exactly the look she’s going for.

Hough operates The Shopkeep, a sutlery in the Flatiron Building in Brownsville where she sews custom-tailored Civil War uniforms and Victorian-era apparel for historic re-enactors and sells reproductions of a variety of accouterments that any 19th century visitor would quickly recognize.

Hough, who became a Civil War re-enactor four years ago, was born in Brownsville, raised in New Jersey, and returned to Brownsville for her senior year in high school. However, she left again “because I had to go to New Jersey to find a job.’

That was in the late 1960s. Hough and her husband, Lewis, last year moved to Brownsville from the Chambersburg area where she had operated her store for several years.

“We lived in Waynesboro between Gettysburg and Chambersburg for a while before setting up our shop near Chambersburg. But it was getting too crowded out there so we decided to move here,’ she said.

The store remained packed in crates and boxes from July until last month when she reopened it in the historic downtown Brownsville building at 71 Market St.

Using seamstress skills developed when she was a young girl, Hough focuses on sewing historically accurate period clothing to fit the individual customer.

She began sewing in high school, an avocation, she said, “that I loved. All the way through high school, I made my own clothes. There was a competition about making it from wool. I didn’t know anything about Civil War uniforms,’ she admitted, but she turned out a well-made enlisted man’s pants and a shell jacket.

She displays both in her shop as samples of her work. However, she “got away from sewing’ until she became interested in Civil War re-enacting.

The Civil War history bug bit her in earnest when she began doing research on five original letters in her husband’s family written by his great-great-uncle, who died at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Hough said she began researching the historic side of the conflict.

“I wasn’t always interested in history,’ she admitted. “I almost failed a class on Civil War history at California University the year after I got out of high school.

“I refused to give up my Northern myths,’ she said, adding that today she would like to apologize to the instructor, who she said was “obviously of Southern origin.’

Today, she does all she can to dispel some myths that “have carried over into re-enacting.’ For example, Hough explained, women of the period “were not all rich,’ so those who appear in lavish costumes are not representative of the majority of their sex during that period.

“Work dresses the average woman wore are like what I am wearing,’ she said, referring to the red and gray plaid dress. “A woman might wear that same dress for years,’ she added. It also had an unique waistline to accommodate “her many pregnancies.’

“It’s just like fashion today. It fluctuates now as it did then,” she said, adding that drop sleeves are one mark of Civil War-era clothing.

Another myth she quickly debunks is that all United States Army soldiers during the war wore the same uniform. “If you look at pictures from the time you can see they weren’t all identical. There were many differences. Officers, for example, had to buy their own uniforms,’ many of which were tailored to suit the buyer.

“That’s what I want to give my customer. I could sell off the rack but I don’t want to.’ She creates all items for the client. Using hand stitching and a machine, Hough said she can produce an enlisted man’s uniform pants or a jacket in about one working day.

Hough’s charges for a typical pair of enlisted man’s pants are about $120 and $140 for a jacket. A plain “no frills, unlined sack coat’ goes for about $75.

She plans to branch out to include clothing from the Edwardian period – about 1900 to World War I. Victorian styles, she said, are “anything from about 1840 through 1900.’

As a re-enactor, she is a member of the 62nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which was organized in Pittsburgh and drew members from Washington. “One of its officers, Jacob Bowman Sweitzer, was even from Brownsville,’ she said, adding she is writing a historic profile of him. The re-enactment group has about 15 members from all over the country.

“We have done demonstrations at Nemacolin Castle in Brownsville and during National Pike Days. We will be at Perryopolis this year,’ during that community’s annual pioneer days program.

She is also available to present interpretive programs on the Civil War to schools or organizations. “But I will not say we fought that war to free the slaves. Up to 20 percent of the Union army deserted when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. There were other reasons it began. It was the politics of the time. There were two countries that existed under the same flag before the Civil War. We had created two separate cultures.

“I like to teach things they don’t teach in schools,’ she added.

Her reason for getting so involved in history and research is simple.

“I worked for 20 years in accounting, and I hated every minute of it. But I did it because I had to help support my family. This I do because I love it,’ she said, adding that her four children are quick to warn people “not to mention the Civil War to me.’

She also feels downtown Brownsville is a good place to do business.

“Downtown is where our heritage is and playing on that heritage is what will attract people. You can’t compete with a Wal-Mart or TGIF restaurant. You have to look to the past. It will take guts by people here to take a chance and it will work. I had a lot of reservations about coming back to Brownsville. I could have gone to Washington or Uniontown. But I’ll hang on as long as I can until other people see it will work. I don’t quit.’

She remembers Brownsville from the late 1960s when “You didn’t have malls and shopping centers. You could find everything you needed in Brownsville.’

Her shop offers a variety of period reproductions ranging from beeswax candles to writing sets complete with quill pens and ink.

There are also a lot of items that can translate into earlier periods, such as the American Revolution and the French and Indian War. Picking up a large tin cup from a shelf, Hough explained “George Washington would have used something like this at Valley Forge. They used the same style cup during the Civil War.’

Items for sale are a mix of domestics and imports. Finding them all, she added, was “like a nightmare. For some of the leather, I had to become my own importer. Even the CIA would have had a hard time funding some of it.’

However, she would prefer to find local craftsmen. Her wrought iron goods currently come from a supplier in the Western U.S. but shipping costs are making it prohibitively expensive. “If someone came in her tomorrow and said they could do my wooden stuff at a reasonable price, I’d jump at it,’ she said.

“I’ll do my part to keep it local.’

The shop is open from 10 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Hough said she may expand that into Sunday during summer. She also advertises on her Web site, www.theshopkeep.com.

The telephone number is 724-852-1772.

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