HISTARCH Archives

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

HISTARCH@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
George Myers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:21:48 -0700
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (54 lines)
One I was involved with, I am not sure meets the criteria, though it is 
in  or adjacent to the New York State Urban Cultural Park at Sacketts 
Harbor, NY (last I heard there were 14, i.e., Buffalo, NY Theater District, 
the area in Ossining, NY next to the Sing-Sing Prison and the first 
Croton Aqueduct exhibit, a Erie Canal Lock in Syracuse, NY, and some 
others) which resulted after the Berger Co., found some scattered 
human remains in their shovel tests and were kind enough to visit from 
their work at nearby Fort Drum, NY to relocate the datum they had used, 
even though the client had not paid them.

The parade grounds at Madison Barracks is an adaptive reuse of historic 
resources that were built on for a planned retirement community on 
Lake Ontario and part of what was once the largest military site in the 
US and some say the "birthplace" of the US Navy, over the War of 1812. 
A small extant cemetery is there, with cast iron fence from Buckingham 
Palace as a token of peace offered after the hostilities, which in an 
invasion of what has become Toronto, a bombproof there blew up in 
preparation of a "special weapon" which killed Zebulon Pike (western 
explorer/ officer of Pike's Peak fame) which resulted in the retaliatory 
bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD and the burning of the 
White House. Zebulon Pike was returned in a barrel to Sacketts Harbor 
and thought to be buried in said cemetery though at the time it was not 
clear to us working in the what has become known as Fort Pike but at 
the time Volunteer Fort, manned by then grayed veterans of the 
American Revolutionary War.

When other remains were found in the parade field, where by the way 
Ulysses S. Grant first served after graduation from the West Point 
Academy (later as a Captain on Governors Island, NYC) we called the 
coroners office (as required in most states of the US when human 
remains are found, or you might be charged in messing with a crime 
scene) as the remaining buildings are used as rental units (the main 
barracks had fallen down perhaps in one of the northern NY state 
earthquakes, a 5.1 I experienced at Fort Drum in 1983) but they only 
offered there services to work on the weekends as the remains were 
definitely historic. We thought the shallow finds disarticulated discards 
of war or other processes until, near the surface, Angela Schuster, now a 
senior editor of "Archaeology" magazine and I discovered 
the "archetypal" coffin outline, however for someone of a quite short 
stature of perhaps disarticulated by war. That stopped one of the 
condominiums rapidly going up around us and the area of the 
former "parade field" was left alone, I hope, At least that was the way I 
remember working there for Greenhouse Consultant, Inc., with William 
Sandy, RPA (who markets flotation processing and the equipment). 

It was at one time decidedly "urban" today, still has that feeling, 
though many of the structures of the former installation that had fallen 
into disrepair were once taken out on the ice of Lake Ontario where they 
sank I was told. Some estimates of the circa 1812 era place the 
population at about 35,000 conservatively. Over 20 people were hung 
for military infractions, some for simply falling asleep while on guard 
duty and said to have begun the revision of military justice in the US 
services.

ATOM RSS1 RSS2