On Christmas Eve 1778, on a small German farm in Frederick County, a widowed mother named Glenda asks a captured Hessian soldier what he did before the war. He was a traveling actor, he tells her. "So you've never done anything useful?" she answers. That exchange comes from Reiner Prochaska's play A Revolutionary Christmas, and in its review of the original production, the Frederick News-Post singled it out as the moment that set the show's lighthearted tone.
The play comes back for five performances, December 3 through 6. This time it runs as the county's final theatrical production of the U.S. Semiquincentennial year, paid for by a grant from the Frederick County U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. The venue matters as much as the play. It is in Catoctin Furnace, outside Thurmont, the village where some real Hessian soldiers ended up once the war was over.
A prisoner on the farm, Christmas Eve 1778
The story belongs to the Kober family. Franz Kober, his widowed daughter-in-law Glenda, and her two children, Johann and Fiona, are waiting for Franz's youngest son, Richard, to come home from the German Regiment of the Continental Army. Richard shows up with an escaped "Hessian" soldier, a jäger named Peter Morsberger, and the family can't agree on what to do with him. The Eventbrite listing describes Richard as a wounded veteran of the 8th Maryland German Regiment who has recaptured the prisoner.
Prochaska wrote the play out of his own background. "Being a German immigrant and being an artist here in Frederick, I've always been interested in the German history here in Frederick," he told the Frederick News-Post during the original run. Maryland Ensemble Theatre premiered the play in 2014. In that production, Prochaska played Franz himself, and some of the dialogue between Franz and the prisoner is in German.
The paper's reviewer called the play "as enjoyable and heartwarming as it is refreshing," and also found that the curtain fell "rather abruptly," with at least two plot points left open. That was on purpose. Prochaska told the paper that director Suzanne Beal convinced him to cut his written resolution, and "we eventually decided, let's leave it up to the audience." Other critics of the 2014 premiere were more mixed. TheatreBloom called it a "quaint tale… richly populated with local flavor" but noted slow pacing, and DC Theatre Scene rated it "Somewhat Recommended," faulting the restrained action while praising the emotional ending. All of those reviews were written about the original production, not this revival.
What happened to the real Peter Morsbergers
Peter is fictional. The men he stands in for were real, and the record of where they went explains why this revival is going up in Catoctin Furnace.
In the 1770s, construction began on stone barracks on a hilltop at the south end of Fredericktown. Before the buildings were finished, the site became a makeshift camp for British and Hessian prisoners. Visit Frederick's history of the Revolution in Frederick notes that many people in the area were German, so some of the Hessians held there later settled in the county. Johannes Conrad Engelbrecht was one of them, and his grave is in the small cemetery beside the Evangelical Lutheran Church in downtown Frederick. The Daughters of the American Revolution says the barracks held prisoners from Saratoga, Trenton, and Yorktown. It also cites a January 30, 1781 letter from a British prisoner of war to Governor Thomas Sim Lee describing the barracks as unfinished and in use as a prison.
A National Park Service historic resource study of Catoctin Mountain carries the story up the mountain:
"One of the most immediate impacts was the introduction of a new group of German immigrants to the area--Hessian soldiers, many of them former prisoners of war, who decided to stay in the New World. Some apparently found employment in the furnace, eventually becoming key operators."
That passage comes from the NPS study's second chapter. The furnace work came after the war, not during captivity. The play leaves its prisoner's future open, while the study puts some of the real men at work in the Catoctin ironworks.
The house that holds the audience
All five performances take place indoors at Collier's Log House, 12607 Catoctin Furnace Road. The Eventbrite page header shows 12610, but the listing's own description, the historical society, and Visit Frederick all give 12607.
According to the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, it is the only double log house still standing in Catoctin Furnace. It was home to furnace worker families for more than two centuries. Nobody knows exactly when it was built. The larger south section is thought to date to around 1810 and the smaller north section to around 1830. Inside, the two dwellings share a common wall, with a brick chimney at each end. The building served as the society's headquarters for more than three decades, until the Museum of the Ironworker opened, and it is now interpreted as a typical home for two furnace families in the nineteenth century.
The surrounding village gives a sense of scale. A public sale notice in the Frederick Town Record on July 13, 1811 described the furnace complex as having 15 to 20 houses for workmen. The 1876 county tax assessment counted 50 tenant houses. Ten of the original worker houses still stand along Catoctin Furnace Road, four of stone and six of log. The audience will be sitting in one of them, inside the community the NPS study says some Hessians joined.
Belsnickel tells the same story two weeks early
The German thread continues past the play. The Saturday performances fall during the historical society's annual Traditional Village Christmas on December 5. The society lists wreath decorating with bows, bells, pinecones, and holly, with wreath proceeds going to CFHS. There will also be handmade gifts, hot mulled wine, apple cider, heirloom-recipe baked goods, a blacksmith making gifts and tools, and punched or painted tin ornaments for children. Admission is free.
Children can also have their picture taken with Belsnickel. The society explains that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Christmas in Catoctin Furnace included a visit from Belsnickel to the homes of German immigrants about two weeks before Christmas. He brought treats for good children and carried a switch for naughty ones. In the play, Franz Kober misses the Christmas traditions of his youth in Germany. A few steps outside the log house, the village shows those traditions being carried on.
Planning the run
The historical society's events page says reservations are required, and tickets are sold through Eventbrite.
- Thursday, December 3: 7 PM
- Friday, December 4: 7 PM
- Saturday, December 5: 3 PM and 7 PM
- Sunday, December 6: 3 PM
The show runs 1 hour and 10 minutes with no intermission. The News-Post described the original production as "only an hour and a half" long, so the 2026 run time is shorter.
Adult tickets are $25. The listing gives the reduced price as "$15 for teenagers aged 15 and under, seniors 65+, college students with student ID, and active-duty military members." Children 7 and under get in free, and tickets are also sold at the door 30 minutes before curtain. No parking instructions have been posted for this show. The shuttle arrangements printed on the society's page are for its spring Maryland Iron Festival, so they don't apply in December.
Thurmont has its own event on December 5. Thurmont Main Street's 23rd annual Christmas in Thurmont, which is free, runs 10 AM to 3 PM at the Guardian Hose Company Fire Hall on North Church Street. That makes a full Saturday possible:
- Christmas in Thurmont at the Guardian Hose Company Fire Hall, any time from 10 AM to 3 PM.
- Traditional Village Christmas in Catoctin Furnace for wreaths, mulled wine, and Belsnickel photos.
- The 3 PM or 7 PM performance of A Revolutionary Christmas in Collier's Log House.
Christmas in Thurmont ends at 3 PM, the same time the matinee starts, so if you want to see both, the evening show is the easier fit.
If an evening in Collier's Log House gets you curious about the old houses along Catoctin Furnace Road and the rest of north county, the Allwein Team would be glad to share what we know about the history and the homes up that way. Book your free consultation, and if you go to the play, come tell us what you made of the ending.
