Historical Voices

                                                  Will Averill 

Will, the official bio:  Will Averill graduated with a BGS in Theatre from the University of Kansas, and co-Artistic Director of Card Table Theatre, and a writer and director for The Victor Continental Show and Men in their Thirties Who Are Roommates. He has also worked extensively with middle school theatre programs to develop new and exciting works for large cast audiences. Will worked in England from 2003-2011, including productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 2007-2009. He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas, where it is either too hot, too cold, or tornado-y.  
 But, hark, there is more:  Will is the "tell-it-like-oughta-be" stand up for Kansas guy.  If you don't mind four letter words, google "Will Averill I'm from Kansas".  

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                    Howard Rivercomb Hammond as 

Howard Rivercomb Hammond is a genealogist, model builder, retired art teacher and former actor who portrays the voice of Confederate General John D. Imboden.  


Howard 's great grandfather was Confederate Lieutenant Colonel George W. Hammond, who died at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain.

 Howard builds  fantastic models of things like early iron works, and  helps  solve genealogical riddles.  He, by the way, is also related to Dr. Wiley, who (under the threat of death) led Averell's forces back from the Salem Raid.  Howard lives in Covington, VA.

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                         Donald Teter practically is

Don Teter portrays Porte Crayon through the West Virginia Humanities Council History Alive! program.  
Away from his alter-ego, Don is a surveyor. He has been a member of the West Virginia Society of Professional Surveyors (WVSPS) for over twenty-five years.  He serves on the  Board of Directors of the national Surveyors Historical Society, and other professional organizations.

In 1977, published Goin’ Up Gandy, A History of the Dry Fork Area of Randolph and Tucker Counties, 135 pages (McClain Printing Co.);  second edition published in 2011.
Don has been a consultant to the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, Historic Beverly Preservation, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike Alliance.

Don Teter's contribution to Averell's Raiders is a reproduction of Strother's voice and character that is as accurate as we could have hoped for...Don has extensively researched  his character.  It was our greatest fortune , when preparing Averell's Raiders, to run into folks like Don who were engaged in parallel studies.  

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                                            Jack Wills as

Jack is a retired English proffesor from Fairmont State U., whose primary activity nowadays 
is the restoration of Cooper's Mill in Summers County, West Virginia.  The historic grist mill sits on Jack's family property along the Little Bluestone River.  Jack's German background helped him get into character as he recorded the voice German-born T.V. Brown.                 See Cooper's Mill...

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                                      Darrell Martin portrays

Darrell is a man of great talent.  Besides being the historic firearms specialist for our film group,  Darrell handles our printing and occasional acting parts.  He was not particularly trusting when John Farrell pointed a revolver at his face, even through Darrell himself provided the unloaded weapon...!!

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                                Andrew Woodruff as

Andy is a fixture of the Southern West Virginia stage, playing leads in the Hatfields & the McCoys and other productions of  Theater West Virginia for over 25 years.  In this photo, he plays Samuel Richmond,  a Yankee simpathizer and large land owner who lived at Richmond Falls (now Sandstone Falls) in West Virginia. The production is Passing Thru Sandstone.   Andy is also often found performing at the Wohlfahrt Haus Dinner Theater in Wytheville, Virginia.

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                                            Paul Ebanosky is

Paul paints, farms, makes music, and engages in  other vocations on his mountain farm.  Paul is a former marine who served in Vietnam.  We thank him for his service to his country and to this film, as he brings to life the voice of Theodore Lang.

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Jon Averill as the voice of

Filmmaker Jon Averill assumes the role of the tragic William Henry Brown. 

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     Jim Costa is the voice of 

Since high school, Jimmy Costa has been a student of local history and old time ways.  His home and lifestyle reflect a love of history and Appalachian tradition.  Jim is a collector:  a collector of songs, old tools, old buildings, old expressions, old stories.  He is a living treasure chest of the way things were in the mountains of southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia.

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Tom Hutchison is the voice of 

Tom is a retired high school English and drama teacher who now has over 1000 Facebook friends, as he continues to mentor hundreds of his former students.  Tom has a great love for local history, and continues to partner on our historical film adventures.

portraying his 4th cousin 6x removed, General William Woods Averell

Soldier, diplomat, inventor,
public speaker, writer, historian-- though unknown by most Americans, Averell's work still affects our everyday lives...most especially his role in the development of asphalt pavement.
His autobiography, Ten Years in the Saddle, unfortunately never saw completion.  The manuscript was finally published in  1978.  Written in stunning prose, his work contains vivid portraits of American life in the 1850s and the beginnings of the Civil War.

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General John D. Imboden.

Averell and Imboden, opposing warriors, both became successful industrialists following the Civil War.  They met on several occasions in New York City to discuss the war.  Our narrative by Imboden is quoted from his letter to West Virginia 7th Cavalry officer CaptainJacob Rife, preserved in the Jacob Rife papers, Library of West Virginia, Charleston WV.

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David Hunter Strother, otherwise known as "Porte Crayon."

David Hunter Strother was one of the most famous writer- illustrators in the pre-Civil War south.  He became chief of staff to his cousin, General David Martin Hunter, on the Hunter Raid to Lynchburg.  His journal, entitled A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, was a superb resource for the Averell's Raiders film.  It is unfortunate that the chapters covering the time period of Averell's Droop Mountain - Salem Raid seem to have been lost forever.   Averell and Strother became great friends, and visited each other several times after the war.

Strother, like Averell, faded from the mainstream of American memory until recent years.

image from the West Virginia State Archives.

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Theodore V. Brown, hospital steward

Obituary from the Pharmaceutical Era, March, 1914.  Theodore Brown rode on the Salem Raid and wrote about the experience in the National Tribune.  His memoirs are collected in Kansas and California.  An entertaining radio show was prepared from some of these writings.  I'll try to locate the other links!

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Chaplain A. H. Windsor of the 91st Ohio Volunteer  Infantry

photo by Deb Allison, for FIND A GRAVE





Anthony Horace Windsor was born in Franklinville, New York on Sept. 18, 1837.  He subsequently lived in Then  Smethport, Pennsylvania and Ironton, Ohio.  Winsor
graduated from the Ohio University in 1863.  He
married Mary E. Spencer, the daughter of Rev. Robert O. Spencer of the Cincinnati Conference.  He became Chaplain of the 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. during the Civil War, and later wrote the regimental history.

Windsor was pastor to several churches until retiring due to poor health in 1886.  He died in Bellefontaine, Ohio where he  on July 14, 1912 and he is buried with his wife who proceeded him in death in 1910.    (source: Zoom Info  )

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Yankee private Frank Reader

Frank Reader wrote and edited  the  History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, formerly the  Second West Virginia Infantry and of Battery G, First West Virginia Light Artillery. 
 copyright 1890.,

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Theodore Lang, author of LOYAL WEST VIRGINIA.

          Major, 6th West Virginia Cavalry and Brevet Colonel.

Lang's book ends with Averell's farewell speech to his troops.    It opens with the following passage:

"The best testimony to an act is the testimony of one who saw the act done.  Modern criticism, not content with mere tradition, demands a record of the facts."  The full text is available online at archive.org.

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William Henry Brown

Brown was a sutler with the army during the war.  He was with Averell at Malven Hill and the Penninsula campaign, and later in West Virginia.
He encouraged Averell to run for governor of West Virginia after the war.  Brown fought Apaches with General Crook after the Civil War, then took an extended  leave of absence.  He was in love with Irene Rucker, so much so that, when Irene was marrying Phil Sheridan on June 3rd, 1875, William Henry Brown slit his wrists in a New York City hotel room.   (sources:  Thrapp, Dan L.  Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography.  University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Also personal letters to Averell in the Averell Papers, Albany N.Y.)

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James D. Sedinger

Company E, 8th Virginia Cavalry 
(Confederate Border Rangers)
Quoted from the West Virginia Archives and History
James D. Sedinger, an original Border Ranger scout, left a valuable written record of this Civil War unit's activities. This transcription ... is part of the Boyd B. Stutler Collection, West Virginia State Archives, Charleston, West Virginia. 

Sedinger was born in Monroe County, Virginia, in 1838. He joined the Rangers in 1860 at Greenbottom, Cabell County, the home of noted Confederate Albert Gallatin Jenkins. The unit was officially sworn into the Confederate Army on May 28, 1861. Sedinger re-enlisted on April 30, 1862, and was captured at the Battle of Fisher's Hill in Virginia on September 22, 1864. Although the entire account is written as though Sedinger was an eye-witness, his fate after capture until the end of the war is not a matter of record. After the war, Sedinger was very active in the Camp Garnett chapter of the United Confederate Veterans in Huntington, as well as a Border Ranger's veterans' organization. He was instrumental in relocating Jenkins's body from the family burial plot at Greenbottom to the Confederate plot in Huntington's Spring Hill Cemetery in 1892. Sedinger died on February 9, 1901.

Photo by Josh Keck

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Joseph J. Sutton

Yankee soldier Joseph J. Sutton wrote The History of the Second Regiment West Virginia Cavalry Volunteers, During the  War of the Rebellion, published in 1892.  

Full listing of historical voice portrayals, bios, pics and bios of their characters are coming soon!

General John Hunt Morgan --- Rev’d David Thompson

Private Jacob Rife ---- Rev’d David Thompson

General W. E. “Grumble” Jones ---   Rev’d David Thompson

George Caldwell --- Rev’d David Thompson

General Benjamin Kelly --- Richard L. Byrd

Boyd Stutler --- Stephen D. Trail

Otis Rice --- William H. Phillips 

Elias F. Seaman --- John W. Farrell

Lucy Breckinridge --- Gena Hart

60th Virginia Infantry --- Perry E. Mann

James E. Taylor --- Robert S. Baker