The United Methodist Church in Bridgton, site of the American Revolution exhibit. Rory Sweeting/Community Reporter

The Bridgton Historical Society is hosting a traveling exhibit run by the Daughters of the American Revolution commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States by highlighting 12 firsthand accounts of the Revolutionary War.

The American Revolution Experience, which is jointly run by the DAR and the American Battlefield Trust, opened April 12 and runs until Wednesday, April 23, at Bridgton United Methodist Church, which is owned by the historical society.

Sherry Edwards, treasurer general of the national DAR and a resident of Bridgton, helped bring the exhibit to western Maine. Edwards said that she heard about the exhibit, which is currently traveling across the country in two copies, at the most recent DAR Continental Congress last year. She explained that the tour is expected to run into at least 2026, with Kennebunk’s Brick Store museum also planning to host the exhibit later in April.

The introductory panel of the American Revolution Experience. Rory Sweeting/Community Reporter

In addition to the DAR’s nationwide celebration, the Bridgton Historical Society is also in the early stages of planning events for next year’s anniversary, coordinating with other historical societies in the region on the experience of western Mainers during the American Revolution.

The timing of the exhibit’s showing in Bridgton coincides with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the war, as immortalized by famed Maine poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Edwards said that she had attended a few DAR events in Lexington and Concord earlier that week, in which DAR members visited various historic sites, witnessed a battle reenactment, and attended a banquet in the lead-up to the anniversary of the battle.

The exhibit came in the form of 12 panels and two interactive kiosks. The kiosks allow guests to watch three videos, one telling the story of the entire war, and one each focusing on the northern and southern campaigns.

The core of the exhibit came in the form of the personal accounts presented on the panels, that show a wide variety of perspectives on the war, and what freedom meant to different people. These include loyalists and Patriots, women and Native Americas, free and enslaved Black people, and French and Spanish allies.

One of the most striking examples of intersecting allegiances and divisions was how the war affected the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, presented in the exhibit through the stories of Han Yerry Tewahangaraghkan and Joseph Brant, two members of the confederacy who fought on opposite sides of the war. Brant, known as Thayendanegea in his native Mohawk, allied with the British to preserve his people’s sovereignty, while Tewahangaraghkan led a group of his fellow Oneida in support of the Continental Army. The American Revolution Experience website, operated by the American Battlefield Trust, notes that the two men fought one another at the Battle of Oriskany in 1777.

A set of panels highlighting the firsthand accounts of Button Gwinnett, Robert Kirkwood, Winsor Fry and Henry Dearborn. Rory Sweeting/Community Reporter

The exhibition also highlighted the issue of liberty for Black Americans, telling the story of Harry Washington, an enslaved man belonging to Gen. George Washington, who sought freedom in the British Army, while free Black men William Flora and Thomas Carney, as well as Winsor Fry, who was born into slavery, chose to side with the Patriots. The exhibit’s website, noted how all four men found success after the war, with Carney and Fry receiving pensions from the U.S. government, Flora operating a livery stable, and Washington living the rest of his life as a free man in British-controlled Nova Scotia.

Another set of panels depicted the involvement of foreigners, including French and Spanish commanders Francois-Joseph Paul de Grasse and Bernardo de Galvez, who fought in support of the Americans, as well as Prussian Charlotte von Riedesel, who followed her husband during his service with the British Army.

Other perspectives include that of Button Gwinnett, an English-born signer of the Declaration of Independence, Henry Dearborn, future secretary of war under Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Lushington, the Quaker leader of an all-Jewish regiment of the Continental Army.