The Battle of Gwynn’s Island, better known locally as the Battle of Cricket Hill, will be reenacted this weekend on the hot grounds of the Gwynn’s Island Park. The musical “Crickets on a Hill” told the story last weekend in the cool auditorium of Mathews High School.

Both events memorialize the “first battle of a new nation” which took place on our own shores five days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The shot heard ’round the world may have been fired one year earlier in Lexington, Massachusetts, but the cannons that drove English government forever from Virginia were fired 242 years ago Monday at Cricket Hill. ...