Henry-
You should definitely contact the staff at the Hans Herr House and Museum in
Lancaster, PA. That house was a 1719 German home of the same traditional
structure, and they claim it to be the oldest standing structure of that
type in the Western Hemisphere. The Herr house is built upon a foundation
with a partial basement carved into the sandstone, and as I remember the
house has a small hole cut through the first floor into the basement. There
is a depression carved into the basement's sandstone floor, which may
correspond to with the hole above in the floor/roof, but they are not
certain.
I know they'd love to talk with you about it because the museum director and
staff find their feature to be quite a mystery...
They can be reached at:
1849 Hans Herr Dr.
Willow Street, PA 17584
(717) 464 4438
http://www.hansherr.org/
[log in to unmask]
Cheers,
Tim Scarlett
On 3/14/02 1:14 PM, "Henry Cary" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello,
> I am grad student currently writing my thesis on the 1752 Moravian mission
> house site of Hoffnungsthal, in northern Labrador. The house is a classic
> German flurkuchenhaus with a central chimney and divided into a large
> kitchen on the south and two smaller rooms on the north. Inside the stone
> foundations we uncovered a feature of six bricks arranged in a circular
> pattern with an internal diameter of about 10 cm. The brick feature is
> close to the north-east corner of the house (on the opposite end of the
> house from the kitchen/hearth opening). I think it might be a post-hole,
> but its pretty small and what's it doing in that corner of the house? Does
> anybody have any ideas?
> Thanks
>
>
> Henry Cary
> Archaeology Unit
> Queen's College,
> Memorial University of Newfoundland
> Prince Phillip Drive,
> St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
> A1C 5S7
> ph. (709) 737 3016
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
*******************************************************************
Timothy James Scarlett
Incipient Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Program in Industrial History and Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295 USA
Tel (906) 487-2113 Fax (906) 487-2468 Internet [log in to unmask]
MTU Website: http://www.industrialarchaeology.net
SHA Website: http://www.sha.org SIA Website: http://www.sia-web.org
*******************************************************************
"The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but
to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons."
--- Dr. David Butler, Observer, 1969
|