Photo submitted to Times Observer A reenactment of Braddock’s defeat in 1755 will be part of a French & Indian War reenactment planned for May 11 and May 12 at Hearts Content.

The French & Indian War will be more than just history in Warren County come May.

A reenactment is on tap for Hearts Content on May 11 and 12 that is expected to draw as many as 200 reenactors to the Allegheny National Forest.

In addition to the reenactors, a blacksmith utilizing colonial-era practices and a Benjamin Franklin impersonator as well as artillery firings will highlight the weekend event.

The encampment will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 12.

Admission and parking to the event are free.

Jim Brown with the French Creek Living History Association said this would be the first reenactment event held at Hearts Content.

“We will do a couple of battle demonstrations,” Brown said. “I think we will get a pretty good response.”

Brown said Hearts Content is an ideal location because of the “old growth” forest there.

“(These are) forests that would have been in existence in Pennsylvania in the times of the French & Indian War,” he explained. “Back then it was pretty much all wilderness.”

The reenactors would be portraying Braddock’s 1755 defeat outside of what is now Pittsburgh.

Brown said Hearts Content is an ideal location because the battle “took place in an old growth forest.

“(We are) going to try to reenact that battle along the trail in the woods there to the best of our ability. When we try to reenact, we try to reenact in places that have the landscape of” where the battle occurred.

Reenactors, he said, would be coming from “all points” – Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Brown said that he has been coordinating a long-running reenactment at Cook Forest State Park that is still going today and is “one of the largest publicly attended events in the state park system.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the Association at (814) 694-3684.

He said it will “be a good thing for the family (to) get a little less on French & Indian War history.”