I recall years ago waiting for a car repair reading a jovial exchange
of letters and memos, in the "Smithsonian" magazine, imagined between
Donald Trump... (who I worked for in historical archaeology on the
proposed "TV City" project in the west-side rail yards of Manhattan
Island, once site of the Haddersley Forge, by interviewing a
descendant of its legacy. Under that site (never built) was the forge
of the people who made the free trial, "Peacemaker" cannon, (the
biggest, best, etc.) which exploded aboard the U.S.S. Princeton,
killing two Cabinet members, and a Congressman, Senator Gardiner of
Gardiner's Island, NY. The Senator's young daughter, Julia, and future
First Lady, precipitated, thought in part by this tragic event, was
below decks with the older widower, President Tyler when it exploded,
which the designer of subsequent Rodman cannons also witnessed. The
Haddersley Forge was also the site of "the world's largest single cast
of an ocean-going steamship crankshaft," a record) ...AND Henry David
Thoreau. It was about when the property around Walden Pond in
Massachusetts was threatened with development (by a NYer too. Since,
limnology research has cored the pond and a remarkable natural history
deciphered thereby). I found the article very entertaining, as it was
about the time of Mr. Trump's burst into the limelight, with ensuing
"deal" board game and book, not necessarily in that order. "TV City"
was one of the first tests of NY's FOIL, I think, the "Freedom of
Information Law" and the research done placed on public record for
review as many nearby residents feared the economic repercussions (and
other) from it.

I was read Ralph Waldo Emerson (not responsible for "Where's Waldo?"
but the publisher of "American Scholar" a journal still in print) part
that admonished Thoreau to write to make money, yet if he had, perhaps
we would never had heard about the goings on in America then and the
philosophical spirit of one man, who would stand up for justice and
American idealism and present social criticism as part of the American
Transcendentalism, that Emerson represented, that triangle of Man,
Nature, God, I was taught it represented. The exchange was hilarious!

Today, March 9, in a somber reminder of the 1862 Ironclad warships USS
Monitor and CSS Virginia fighting to a draw in the Battle of Hampton
Roads:

Congratulations on the publication!

George Myers


On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:54:52 -0500, Robert L. Schuyler
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> All HISTARCH list members will be pleased to know that one of our younger
> colleagues has just published a major work
> of the history of historical archaeology related to the "recluse" at Walden:
>
>          Donald W. Linebaugh
>
>          2005    THE MAN WHO FOUND THOREAU:  ROLAND W. ROBBINS AND THE RISE OF
>                  HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN AMERICA.
>
>                  U of New Hampshire Press/U Press of New England
>
>          It is now available.
>
>                                                                          RLS
>
> At 07:39 PM 3/9/2005 +0000, you wrote:
> >there's always the excavation of thoreau's cabin at walden pond...
> >i always kick myself i didn't buy a copy of the report when i went out visi=
> >ting back in '88...
>
> Robert L. Schuyler
> University of Pennsylvania Museum
> 3260 South Street
> Philadelphia, PA l9l04-6324
>
> Tel: (215) 898-6965
> Fax: (215) 898-0657
> [log in to unmask]
>