The context in which this one was found was in the fill for a railbed at the
West Point Foundry, in Cold Spring, NY. Interestingly two of the foundations
excavated as "Foundry Houses" were very similar to Glassey's "Virginia house
pattern" and it would not be that much of a stretch to think that some of the
first founders there in maybe the first Federal installation for the
production of cannon for the Navy, were Virginians. Out of four almost
exactly the same foundation sizes, they are the highest on the hill and were
twins of each other, the others added later it seems, the same size. This was
done during a remediation of heavy metal contamination of the Constitution
Marsh by a factory commissioned to produce batteries for Nike missiles.

I signed an agreement not to speak about it with Malcolm Pirnie, Inc. for ten
years without talking to them first, or I was given the impression I would
not work any longer on the site. The statue of limitations and other
developments now allow me to speak here on this subject. I have also been
around the foundries at Fort Drum as part of an original survey, and would
like to see some policy about unexploded ordnance out of the Federal 106
regulations that would place the responsibility not in the fieldworker but in
the Government for clearing and working intensely along side day and night if
need be with archaeologists when they're "sacred" sites are being tested.
This group may not know of it but in the last weeks unexploded ordnance has
been blowing up all around West Point Military Academy after lightning
strikes, and it is still rumored that across from the remains of Fort
Clinton, on the west side of the Bear Mountain Bridge, on Anthony's Nose, the
east side of the Bear Mountain Bridge, is still unexploded ordnance from the
early twentieth century when Iona Island, below the bridge, a Federal
Ordnance yard blew up in the second decade (?) of the twentieth century. Is
this country so poor it can't assign EOD service were required? Are they
ill-equipped to help? Is this an accident waiting to happen? I am sore about
being tricked into doing remote surveys that were actually a hunt for "1
million shells."

George J. Myers, Jr.