In 1974, Robert Erbetta was the fifth recruit of the newly founded Glover’s Marblehead Regiment. The regiment has now reached its 50th anniversary this year and Erbetta, 81, is still a participating member.
“I was a history buff then. The year before, I just got off active duty in the Navy,” Erbatta said. “I said, ‘Well, I was Navy and the founding of the Continental Navy took place here,’ so I said, ‘Alright, I’m going to reenact.’”
Glover’s Marblehead Regiment is a reenactment group of the original regiment that fought in the Revolutionary War. On Dec. 25, 1776, 500 Marblehead men who were part of Gen. John Glover’s regiment played a vital role in the successful crossing of the Delaware River.
The regiment has changed a lot over the years, Erbetta said. One of the biggest changes is an increase in accuracy, with newcomers doing a lot more research than was done originally.
To that end, increasing the number of members is something the group’s members are passionate about so they can be as credible as possible at reenactment events, Regiment Cmdr. Seamus Daly said
Currently, the group is made up of men and women of all ages with the youngest member, Luna Lawton, just 2 years old. Luna is in the regiment with her mother, Meaghan Flaherty, and father, Collin Lawton.
On a chilly but sunny Saturday in February, members of the regiment met at Fort Sewall, dressed in their traditional Revolutionary War-era uniforms.
Erbetta still has the original uniform that was handmade for him by his mother-in-law in the 1970s.
“I think I have more patches than I have original material,” he noted.
Passersby could see the different faces of the group, both young and old, that afternoon. As Erbetta recounted stories of the past 50 years, Luna was being held by her parents.
Those who join Glover’s Marblehead Regiment usually have a special interest in history. Some of the adults who have joined specifically did so because their children wanted to.
Erin Pararas signed up around three years ago when her son Aeton Pararas, who was 9 years old at the time, saw the regiment at the Memorial Day parade in town.
“(Aeton) said, ‘I need to do that,’” Erin said. “So I decided to join along with him so that we could make it a family affair.”
Erin portrays a working woman who would have been a camp follower, she said.
“Women like me would have been wives or just women who were single and needed a job,” Erin said. “I would have performed tasks for pay such as laundry, cooking, supporting the troops behind the lines.”
The regiment is open to anyone who wants to join, she noted, and there are many roles to be performed.
Aeton is a powder monkey for the group, which means if and when the troops run out of cartridges for their weapons, he brings extra powder cartridges to them on the field. Sometimes, he said, he gets the extra cartridges from the reenactors who are playing “fallen soldiers.”
The best part of being in the regiment to Aeton is being able to meet a lot of new people and travel to new places.
Bryan Ruocco and his 19-year-old son, Andrew Ruocco, have a similar story to the Pararas’ regarding how they came to be part of the regiment.
When Andrew, who is the first mate of the Glover’s Regiment landing ship, was in the fourth grade, he saw the regiment at its summer encampment and told his dad that they needed to join.
“He brushed it off and said, ‘Okay, son, I’m sure we’ll join it,’” Andrew said. “Then the next year, I said we’re definitely joining this and I grabbed one of the members of the regiment, I brought him over, and (Bryan) was forced to sign the paperwork for joining.”
The two have been with the group ever since and love it, he said.
Bryan is a private and a rifleman in the regiment.
“I carry a small firearm called the blunderbuss, and I’m dressed as an early Glover’s Regiment (soldier) before they were a part of the Continental Army,” he said.
Teaching people about how life was during the Revolutionary War is one thing that everyone in the group loves, Bryan said.
Andrew said it is “incredible” to be able to preserve history.
“We do so much work in town to make sure that the history of the war and the history of the men and women who fought in this war is not forgotten, and I think that’s a wonderful thing,” he said.
But there’s more to it than just the history aspect, Bryan added.
“I think there are a couple of layers of the greatness of serving in Glover’s Regiment,” he said. “There are times where we are on and we’re portraying Glover’s Regiment and then there are times where we’re off where we’re still in character, but we’re relaxed and it’s just the regiment and we’re singing shanties and we’re having a lot of fun. The camaraderie is really a great thing.”
