PROVO — Dress a few volunteers in Colonial regalia, grab a few muskets and flintlock pistols, and you have a setting that harks back to the founding of America.

Crandall Museum's Colonial Days Celebration opened with musket fire and a cannon shot Thursday morning, then moved into a grand march of a handful of costumed re-enactors who included drummers and a Colonial military guard.

Provo "royalty," Mayor Lewis Billings and Utah County commissioners, also were in the march — some, including Billings, in Colonial attire.

A Colonial village has been set up in a residential area behind the museum. For the past four years, neighbors have opened their yards to thousands of patrons celebrating the founding of the nation and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Last year, some 18,000 people attended the event, which continues from 10 a.m. to dusk Friday and Saturday at 275 E. Center.

Benjamin Muhlstein, founder of The Quintilian School of Oratory, in Overton, Nev., re-enacted a Patrick Henry speech Thursday, ending with the famed words, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

Meanwhile, volunteer Jim Watkins offered tours of the museum, while Wallace Saling, who works at the museum, volunteered at the Benjamin Franklin printing-press-replica booth, where visitors can purchase a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

At another booth, Gary Tom, a native Paiute Indian dressed in official regalia, played one of his flutes and gave a historical lecture.

The event also remembers the founding of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a display of how the Book of Mormon was printed, along with entertainment recalling the movement west and the settling of Utah.

"We're sensitive to every group," project director Dann Hone said.

E-MAIL: rodger@desnews.com