Barbara Bockrath is a very knowledgeable and experienced living historian who has been working for the Oliver Miller Homestead (near South Park) for the last 20 years. Oliver Miller emigrated from Ireland in 1742, set up shop as a trader and rum merchant for awhile, and eventually became one of the earliest settlers on the Western Pennsylvania frontier. In 1770, he and his wife and ten children traveled by packhorse across the Allegheny Mountains and built a log cabin near Pittsburgh which five succeeding generations of the Miller family continued to call home. Today, Barbara conducts tours and designs educational packets for visitors to the site. In addition to portraying specific women such as Oliver Miller’s daughter, Barbara often portrays a laundress traveling with Captain William Trent’s company during the French and Indian War or a civilian member of the Pennsylvania Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Barbara is an active member of a local group of re-enactors, “La Compagnie Le Boeuf,” but she has also been involved in living history events in Williamsburg and was invited to a one-week living history festival at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia in 1999.
 

Exasperated by the paucity of interest in the fascinating history that lies buried right here in our own backyards, Barbara is passionate about bringing local history alive. In addition to her teaching experience at the Miller Homestead, Barbara has also conducted Immersion Field Studies for the Chartiers Valley High School and served as a guest speaker at Carnegie Mellon University. Barbara’s presentations topics include: