For those of you who could not access the article about Rugby: --------------------- Appalachian Journal: Re-enacting Rugby's beginning Town relives day it was founded in 1880 by Thomas Hughes By FRED BROWN, [email protected] October 10, 2005 <http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/columnist/0,1406,KNS_359_6819,00.html> RUGBY, Tenn. - Oh, it was a grand collection of folks. About the grandest collection in 125 years at the very same spot where one of America's great experiments in social change occurred. There was Howard H. Baker Jr., former U.S. senator from Tennessee and ambassador to Japan; Jack Irvin, former corporate attorney turned thespian; noted Tennessee author John Egerton; Anna Joyce Alton Herr, a descendant of the colony's first manager; and Amber Brown from Johannesburg, South Africa, fourth great-niece of Rugby's founder, Thomas Hughes. They came together last week with roughly 200 other folks in Victorian garb to remember and celebrate Rugby's founding, staging the event on the same day at precisely the same hour as Hughes and his followers did more than a century ago. Baker, known for his passion for East Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau, was in rare spirits for the 125th anniversary of Rugby's founding and opening day. The famed senator and ambassador did something he said he has never done before: He read a speech. It wasn't his speech, however. It was 125 years old and first delivered by Judge Oliver Temple Perry, attorney for Rugby and Hughes. Hughes, an English author and social reformer, founded Rugby in 1880. He planned the village as an agricultural community with utopian goals. The Shangri-La was to provide work and opportunity for Britain's second sons - little rich waifs with time on their hands. The town, with its lawn tennis and afternoon tea breaks, was dedicated 11 a.m. Oct. 5, 1880. A grand stand of people gathered behind the Tabard Inn, named for Chaucer's Tabard Inn where he placed his Canterbury Tales. "Now have I told you briefly, in a clause, The state, the array, the number, and the cause Of the assembling of this company In Southwark, at this noble hostelry Known as the Tabard Inn, hard by the Bell. But now the time is come wherein to tell How all we bore ourselves that very night When at the hostelry we did alight. And afterward the story I engage To tell you of our common pilgrimage." Barbara Stagg, a descendant of the founders and current executive director of Historic Rugby, put the gathering together last week on the very day of the town's opening. Just as on that day the Tabard rang with speeches, so it did on this day, if only 50 feet away from the Tabard's foundation. On this occasion, however, the crowd gathered beneath the shade of a large white tent instead of on the inn's veranda. Afterward, they dined on box lunches and glasses of wine, which Hughes might have frowned upon, because Rugby was to be a utopia, free of sin and evil alcoholic spirits. "This is just a wonderful day to come here and remember the founding," Baker said before taking the podium. He shook hands with several of his cousins and beamed at the men and women wearing garb reminiscent of the time. He also noted a couple on horseback and a wagon being pulled by stout draft horses. A laptop computer was in use inside the wagon, which drew an ambassadorial chuckle. Representing the clergy to portray Bishop Charles Todd Quintard was the Bishop Charles vonRosenberg of the East Tennessee Episcopal Diocese. After Baker came Irvin, a splendid actor from the Cumberland County Playhouse. He was in fine fettle, as they might have said back then. His sonorous voice rose with the right inflection at the right moment. A slight breeze flitted through his pasted-on silver muttonchops. "I am considering growing my own," said Irvin. "What do you think? "I'm a retired corporate attorney," said Irvin after his lengthy Hughes speech. "But I wasn't put in jail." At 79, he said he enjoys researching Hughes and other Victorian characters to portray them in re-enactments. Amber Brown, the 16-year-old South African, was on loan as an exchange student from the Baylor School in Chattanooga for the day. She is a direct descendant of the Rugby founder and led the group in the song "God Save the Queen" at the program's conclusion. Herr, from Springfield, Pa., and also a direct descendant of a Rugby family, had quite a surprise for the group. She brought a baluster from England's original Tabard Inn, long established and around even before Chaucer pulled up a chair for a glass of ale and frivolity. The relic, she said, had been in her family for hundreds of years, and she later said her grandfather acquired it from friends in England. Stagg said she hopes the Tabard Inn in Rugby, destroyed by fire twice, will be rebuilt, and perhaps the baluster relic will have a place of honor, since it, like Rugby, carries much history. One of the best stories, however, came from a Tennessee storyteller, the writer Egerton of Nashville. In the 1970s, Egerton wrote a book about several utopias scattered about in Tennessee. One of them was, of course, Rugby. He wrote that on the "opening day, Hughes addressed the assembled residents and guests on the veranda of the inn, which the pervious night had been occupied for the first time." On the 125th anniversary, he remembered his grandfather, Graham Egerton. "I came here as a boy in the 1940s," said John Egerton. "My grandfather's father was a British civil servant. My grandfather was born in India (and) came back to England to go to school. His father was acquainted with Thomas Hughes, so when Hughes began the Rugby colony, he told my grandfather that he should go with them. "He did, but he had a terrible accident. He fell under a train, and his right hand was mangled. I only saw one picture of my grandfather. An empty sleeve was across the back of a chair. "He went to law school, married a farmer's daughter and had eight children. He was also in law school at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn., with Cordell Hull. Later when Hull was secretary of state for President Franklin Roosevelt, he made Egerton the solicitor general of the U.S. Navy. "So my grandfather made a breathtaking leap from vagabond to the U.S. government and from the Church of England to the Church of Christ," said Egerton. Senior writer Fred Brown may be reached at 865-342-6427. <http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/columnist/0,1406,KNS_359_6819,00.html> Copyright 2005, KnoxNews. All Rights Reserved. <http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/cda/article_print/0,1983,KNS_359_4145660_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html> MICHAEL PATRICK NEWS SENTINEL Rugby, Tenn., is celebrating its 125th anniversary, and Cumberland County Playhouse actor Jack Irvin, left, and Bishop Charles von- Rosenbery go over their parts for the re-enactment of Rugby’s opening day.