Bruce Keefer, as portrayed by Reed Kruger, recounts his life during last year's “Echoes from Our Past” Historic Cemetery Walk. This year's event will be offered in two sessions on Saturday at North Side Cemetery.

The Butler County Historical Society is tweaking this year's cemetery walk with a few new features.

For example, this year the actors playing the characters from Butler's past come not from Butler but from the Pittsburgh community theater scene and the 63rd Pa. Volunteers Civil War re-enactment group.

“In the past we used Butler Little Theatre people,” said Jennifer Ford, the executive director of the historical society. “We were talking with them, but then everything fell apart and they closed up.”

Ford said she has been involved with the Pittsburgh theater scene since 1969, so she invited actors from there.

Members of the Civil War re-enactment group will be portraying the Union Army veterans in the history walk.

The “Echoes from Our Past” Historic Cemetery Walk will take place in two sessions at 11 a.m. and at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the North Side Cemetery.

Ford said of the actors and re-enactors “will be in full costume, and they will have family and friends dressed in period clothing walking around the cemetery. It will look like the cemetery has come to life.”

Because of social distancing concerns, Ford said the historical society is limiting each session to six groups of a maximum of six people each.

Every group will start at a different gravesite and be led by a guide.

Face masks are mandatory.

Sara Donaldson, the society's collections manager, said “The tour will last about two hours. There is no rain date. It's a walking tour, so wear walking shoes and bring an umbrella.”

This isn't a ghost walk, but rather a look into county history as costumed actors stand by their namesakes' graves and describe the historical events of their lives.Ford said all the monologues have been researched and written by her.“But I told the actors 'I am not Shakespeare and the text is not sacred.'”The actors had three weeks to rehearse their six-minute monologues.In another departure from cemetery walks of the past — this is the seventh put on by the society — the actors won't be dressed in historically accurate clothes taken from the society's own collection.Ford said, “In the past they used actual historic clothing and objects from our collection.”She said the society couldn't risk damage to the increasingly fragile materials, so this year the actors will be providing their own costumes, which suits Ford's vision for the walk.“What I really want people to focus on is the stories. You don't need costumes and props to do that,” she said.

The characters in this year's cemetery walk include:- James Campbell, who was the sheriff who arrested and later executed Sam Mohawk for the 1843 murders of the Wigton family- John McMaster and Andrew Williams, soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War- Chris and Myrtle McQuistion. McQuistion was a family with deep Butler roots and a long tradition of being lawyers. Chris McQuistion went to Bucknell University where he boxed and was on the football and baseball teams. Myrtle McQuistion came from California and moved to Butler after her 1904 wedding- Dr. Jacob Atwell, who was on the front line of the fight against a typhoid epidemic in 1903-04- George Stamm, who owned and operated a brickyard on property that later became Lyndora.

The Bucknell University baseball team circa the 1890s is shown in this Butler County Historical Society photograph. Chris McQuistion, whose family had deep Butler roots, played football and baseball for Bucknell.

James Campbell, the sheriff who arrested and later executed Sam Mohawk for the 1843 murders of the Wigton family, is one of the Butler County historical figures featured in this year's cemetery walk on Saturday.