The local papers rarely print interesting history-oriented stories from out of the local area, and that's where combing the internet can really help.
Unfortunately, much of what is printed can be some not-so-good news such as historical structures either being torn down or destroyed by fire.
The stories I have for this "History in the News" posting, I'm happy to say, is all good preservation-type articles.
I hope you enjoy them:
Origins of Mysterious World Trade Center Ship Revealed
In July 2010, amid the gargantuan rebuilding effort at the site of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, construction workers
halted the backhoes when they uncovered something unexpected just south of where the Twin Towers once stood.At 22 feet (6.7 meters) below today's street level, in a pit that would become an underground security and parking complex, excavators found the mangled skeleton of a long-forgotten wooden ship.
Now, a new report finds that tree rings in those waterlogged ribs show the vessel was likely built in 1773, or soon after, in a small shipyard near Philadelphia. What's more, the ship was perhaps made from the same kind of white oak trees used to build parts of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed, according to the study
published this month in the journal Tree-Ring Research.
Archaeologists had been on-site throughout the excavation of the World
Trade Center's Vehicular Security Center. They had found animal bones,
ceramic dishes, bottles and dozens of shoes, but the excitement really
kicked up when the 32-foot-long (9.75 m) partial hull of the ship emerged from the dirt.The vessel was quickly excavated, to prevent damage from exposure to the air. Piece by piece, the delicate oak fragments were documented and taken out of the rotten-smelling mud. The timbers were sent to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, where they would be soaked in water to keep the wood from cracking and warping.
A few timbers were sent back to New York, just 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of the World Trade Center, to the Tree Ring Laboratory at Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. Researchers at
the lab dried the fragments slowly in a cold room and cut thick slices
of the wood to get a clear look at the tree rings. |
| Rings in the white oak timbers used to build the ship reveal that the vessel was built around 1773 near Philadelphia. Credit: Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. |
The team established that the trees used to build the ship — some of
which had lived to be more than 100 years old — were mostly cut down
around 1773. Then, to determine where the wood came from, the
researchers had to find a match between the ring pattern in the timbers
and a ring pattern in live trees and archaeological samples from a
specific region.
"What makes the tree-ring patterns in a certain region look very similar, in general, is climate," said the leader of the new study, Dario Martin-Benito, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH) in Zurich. Regional ring patterns arise from local rain levels
and temperatures, with wetter periods producing thicker rings and drier
periods producing smaller rings, he said.
Martin-Benito and his colleagues at Columbia's Tree Ring Lab narrowed their search to trees in the eastern United States, thanks to the keel of the ship, which contained hickory, a tree found only in eastern North America and eastern Asia. Otherwise, the researchers would have had much more difficulty in limiting their search, as oak is found all over the world. [Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep]
The ship's signature pattern most closely matched with the rings found in old living trees and historic wood samples from the Philadelphia area, including a sample taken during an earlier study from Independence Hall, which was built between 1732 and 1756.
"We could see that at that time in Philadelphia, there were still a lot of old-growth forests, and [they were] being logged for shipbuilding and building Independence Hall," Martin-Benito told Live Science. "Philadelphia was one of the most — if not the most — important shipbuilding cities in the U.S. at the time. And they had plenty of wood so it made lots of sense that the wood could come from there."
Historians still aren't certain whether the ship sank accidently or if it was purposely submerged to become part of a landfill used to bulk up Lower Manhattan's coastline. Oysters found fixed to the ship's hull suggest it at least languished in the water for some time before being buried by layers of trash and dirt.
Previous investigations found that the vessel's timbers had been damaged by burrowing holes of Lyrodus pedicellatus, a type of "shipworm" typically found in high-salinity, warm waters — a sign that the ship, at some point in its life, made a trip to the Caribbean, perhaps on a trading voyage. Martin-Benito speculated that the infestation might have been one of the reasons the ship met its demise just 20 or 30 years after it was built.
"I don't know much about the life expectancy for boats, but that doesn't seem like too long for something that would take so long to build," Martin-Benito said.
On July 1, 1863, the property was
the scene of violent hand-to-hand combat between advancing Confederate troops
and Union troops attempting to protect the western entrance to the town and the
railroad line, which still runs behind the parcel.
Excavations have been completed on
2/3 of the 3-mile construction zone spanning between the Vine Street and
Allegheny Avenue interchanges according to Blaum. He says that the remaining
1/3 of this $342 million improvement project should be completed in the next
two years.
"What makes the tree-ring patterns in a certain region look very similar, in general, is climate," said the leader of the new study, Dario Martin-Benito, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH) in Zurich. Regional ring patterns arise from local rain levels
and temperatures, with wetter periods producing thicker rings and drier
periods producing smaller rings, he said.Martin-Benito and his colleagues at Columbia's Tree Ring Lab narrowed their search to trees in the eastern United States, thanks to the keel of the ship, which contained hickory, a tree found only in eastern North America and eastern Asia. Otherwise, the researchers would have had much more difficulty in limiting their search, as oak is found all over the world. [Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep]
The ship's signature pattern most closely matched with the rings found in old living trees and historic wood samples from the Philadelphia area, including a sample taken during an earlier study from Independence Hall, which was built between 1732 and 1756.
"We could see that at that time in Philadelphia, there were still a lot of old-growth forests, and [they were] being logged for shipbuilding and building Independence Hall," Martin-Benito told Live Science. "Philadelphia was one of the most — if not the most — important shipbuilding cities in the U.S. at the time. And they had plenty of wood so it made lots of sense that the wood could come from there."
Historians still aren't certain whether the ship sank accidently or if it was purposely submerged to become part of a landfill used to bulk up Lower Manhattan's coastline. Oysters found fixed to the ship's hull suggest it at least languished in the water for some time before being buried by layers of trash and dirt.
Previous investigations found that the vessel's timbers had been damaged by burrowing holes of Lyrodus pedicellatus, a type of "shipworm" typically found in high-salinity, warm waters — a sign that the ship, at some point in its life, made a trip to the Caribbean, perhaps on a trading voyage. Martin-Benito speculated that the infestation might have been one of the reasons the ship met its demise just 20 or 30 years after it was built.
"I don't know much about the life expectancy for boats, but that doesn't seem like too long for something that would take so long to build," Martin-Benito said.
Civil War Trust to buy Gen. Lee's HQ at Gettysburg
Amy Worden Inquirer Staff Writer July
01, 2014 3:01 AM
for the Philadelphia Enquirer
GETTYSBURG - For almost a century,
the small, historic stone house on Chambersburg Road has been obscured by the
commercial buildings surrounding it.
But in 1863, it occupied a prominent
position at the epicenter of fighting on Day One of the nation's best-known
Civil War battle. That night, it would be seized and used as the headquarters
of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
On Tuesday - exactly 151 years after
the start of the Battle of Gettysburg - the Civil War Trust will announce the
purchase of the four-acre parcel and the restoration of the site to the way it
looked in 1863.
"As far as preserving a
historically significant structure and part of the battlefield, this is biggest
deal we've ever done," said Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War
Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit group that has preserved 40,000 acres of
land in 20 states. "Lee's headquarters is one of the most important
unprotected historic structures in America."
Lighthizer said the trust would
purchase the property, which includes a Quality Inn and a brew pub, from Belmar
Partnership for $5.5 million and spend an additional $400,000 to $500,000 to
demolish the modern structures and restore the historic building.
 |
| General Lee's Headquarters in Gettysburg |
By day's end, Union troops had
retreated to Seminary Ridge, and Lee, the Confederate commander, established
his headquarters at the house.
"It was the nerve center,"
historian and licensed Gettysburg battlefield guide Tim Smith said in a video
produced for Tuesday's announcement at the Lee headquarters.
The house, believed to have been
built in 1833, was occupied by a widow named Mary Thompson at the time of the
war and was co-owned by U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens - a force behind the passage
of the 13th Amendment ending slavery.
The headquarters building was opened
as a museum in the early 1920s in connection with the motel on the site.
Lighthizer said the artifacts, which
were to be donated to the trust by the owners, would be sold and the building
restored to the way it looked when Lee and his officers plotted strategy under
its roof.
Lee would go on to defeat July 3 and
retreat south after losing thousands of men in what is considered the turning
point of the war.
"This spot is where some of
most important decisions were made by an American general in the Civil
War," said Lighthizer. "It had direct impact on the future of the
country."
He said that there was no timetable
for the restoration project or reopening the house after demolition of the
modern buildings, but that the whole parcel would be donated to the National
Park Service for inclusion in the Gettysburg National Military Park.
"To the preservation community,
this land was long considered lost," Deputy Secretary of the Interior Mike
Connor said in a statement. "Thus, the journey we embark upon today is
especially meaningful: We are not just protecting a piece of American heritage,
we are reclaiming it for future generations."
18th-century
woodworking shop a rare find
By Robert Knox
Boston Globe Correspondent
November 23, 2012
DUXBURY — What experts are calling
“the rarest of the rare” and “a once in a lifetime find” — a largely intact
woodworking shop dating from the latter half of the 18th century — has
been discovered in Duxbury on the site of a private school for children.
“It is an extraordinary find,” said
professor J. Ritchie Garrison, a specialist in American material culture
who hurried from the University of Delaware to take a look at the shop
last month when he heard about the find. “It’s National Historic Landmark status.”
The 16-by-32-foot shed-like building is on the site of the Berrybrook
School on Winter Street. With the school’s approval, restoration
carpenter Michael Burrey of Plymouth explored the outbuilding, now clad in
nondescript vinyl and used by the school for storage, while taking down an old
house that once served as the preschool’s main building on the property.
He said he was stunned by what he
saw inside the building.
A drill bit bracket inside the 18th
century craftsman's shop.
 |
| Inside the 18th century woodworking shop~ |
“All the benches were there. It’s
likely to be the earliest known joiner and cabinet maker’s shop on its original
site” anywhere in the United States, Burrey said. “The woodwork on the house [being
removed] was probably built in the shop.
“The way the benches are in
relation to the windows, how the light comes in to light an area, the location
of the tool racks on the walls,” all tell of how the craftsmen used the shop,
Burrey said.
Gary Naylor of Hanson, a
specialist in antique woodwork and tools, said the shop’s interior revealed
signs of a Federalist craftsman’s workshop.
“When I saw the [foot-operated] lathe there, I knew it was a highly skilled
craftsman,” Naylor said. “A lot of different features in the building are
untouched, intact. When I turned around and saw the opening for the fireplace,
it was all coming together.”
The president of the school’s board
of directors said Berrybrook had no idea of the building’s historical value.
“We really thought nothing of it.
We had used it as storage,” Christopher DeOrsay, an architect, said
recently. “We gave [Burrey] a tour. His jaw hit the floor.”
Since then the school has had more
than a dozen experts come to see it, DeOrsay said.
Burrey showed off the shop’s
period-specific features to visitors on a recent afternoon.
Framed in original sills, joists,
and pineboard walls, the shop’s interior reveals two original work benches, one
pitted with marks from hand tools. The second was a “planing bench,” lacking
gouges or other tool scars because skilled millwork with wood planes was
performed there. The wall above the bench has shelving to hold the planes.
The planing bench also reveals a
groove added later to allow craftsmen to install a treadle lathe for turning
wood, powered by a foot pedal.
The shop also has its original tool
racks for chisels, awls, and brace (hand drill) bits, and a rack near the
ceiling for handsaws. Holes in the wall board above the joinery bench and to
the right of the window show where awls were stuck to keep them close at hand.
Sketches and hash marks on another
wall preserve the living sense of a place where woodworkers spend long hours.
Someone painted a sketch of a man standing with his back against a wall, one
knee lifted, a hand extended. Much of the outline remains, the colors dulled
but visible.
Sketches in pencil appear on
another wall, including the outline of a bird probably sketched for a weather
vane. Cross-hatchings over a door show the tallying of some quantity. Supplies?
Boards? Wainscoting panels completed?
Cuts in the wall board reveal the
location and shape of the shop’s fireplace, probably removed in the 19th
century in favor of a woodstove.
Painted in black on a joist in the
shop’s small storeroom, large digits spell out a date, “1789.” It may be a
construction date, but Burrey says some construction techniques suggest an
earlier date.
Burrey also shows visitors a
millworked “chimney surround” removed from the old house. He believes the
house’s decorative moldings were done in the shop, probably by the house’s
owner.
Garrison, who visited the shop with
a team of specialists from historical organizations such as Colonial
Williamsburg, said the shop’s interior exhibited the pattern of work for
woodworkers of the 18th century. Called “joiners” then (carpenters and
cabinet-makers today), early American craftsmen worked with wood that came
rough from the saw mill. Their first job was to plane it down to a smooth
finish.
You can see which bench is the
planing bench not only because it’s not scarred but also because it’s built
against the wall farthest from the fireplace, Garrison said. Planing produces
shavings likely to become tinder for a spark from the fireplace, and would have
been a threat to burn the shop down.
Naylor said property records show
that the shop belonged to a well-known “housewright and joiner,” Luther
Sampson, in the late 18th century. Genealogy research revealed that
Sampson was the craftsman who founded Kents Hill School in Readville, Maine.
Born in 1760 in Duxbury,
Sampson served in the Revolutionary War and bought the
60-acre Philips farm on the west side of Duxbury, home of the
Berrybrook School today. His high-quality handiwork, experts say, adorns the
interiors of many fine houses built in Duxbury in the late 18th century, when
the town was home to prosperous sea captains and merchants.
The survey team that visited the
shop with Garrison last month concluded the building was worthy of National
Historic Landmark status “due to its rarity and integrity,” Garrison said in an
e-mail after the visit.
He urged preservation of the shop.
“We won’t get a do-over with this building,” he said.
Preservation costs money, and
supporters have applied for a $35,000 grant from Duxbury’s Community Preservation
Act funds to help pay for an archeological survey of the site, some
foundation repair, and to “repair deteriorating hand-hewn sills and joists to
stabilize [the] structure.”
“While we have lots and lots of
historical houses,” Garrison said in a recent interview, “as a woodworker’s
shop it’s probably the oldest in New England” and possibly the country.
“It’s the rarest of the rare. And
who knew? Found on the grounds of a preschool.”
DeOrsay said the school’s board of
directors would be in favor of preserving the shop. “We’ll try to find out what
the best option is.”
History of
Philly Rests Under I-95
| Thursday, Jul 17, 2014
|
Artifacts detailing over 5,000 years
of Philadelphia history have been buried beneath Interstate 95 and the Girard
Avenue Interchange. Some of these relics are now unearthed and will be on
display at a free event this Thursday.
Entitled “Before and Below I-95 in
2014,” the exhibit will show artifacts discovered in the Kensington-Fishtown
and Port Richmond neighborhoods during the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation (PennDOT) Interstate 95/Girard Avenue Interchange improvement
project.
“The people in these areas
[Kensington-Fishtown and Port Richmond] are not often recorded in historic
documents,” says Douglas Mooney, Senior Archaeologist with URS Corporation,
PennDOT’s archaeological team on this project. “We are learning a lot more
about the individuals that once lived here.”
The most surprising discovery
Mooney’s team has made is the wide array of artifacts linking back to Native
American tribes. Collections of tools, arrowheads, cooking pots and smoking
pipes have been linked back to Native Americans living along the Delaware River
back to 3,560 B.C.E.
“There was this general sense that
Native Americans have been gone for years,” “But we found intact Native
American sites…they never left. In a very real sense, they have a presence here
in Philadelphia.”
There have also been discoveries
from colonial America, including the sites of former houses with plates, dishes
and clothing from daily life in the 1700 and 1800s.
“Very few regions have so much
preserved in one place,” Mooney says.
Unique to Kensington-Fishtown and
Port Richmond are the remnants of the shipbuilding, fishing and glassware
industries that once lined the Delaware River. Snapping turtle skulls, glass
objects, and fishing supplies give a glimpse of those booming businesses in the
18th through 20th centuries.
“Center City has been the focus of
history,” Mooney says. “The peripheral parts [Kensington-Fishtown, Port
Richmond, Northern Liberties] have not been given equal treatment until now.”
This archaeological expedition was a
required step before construction on I-95 and the Interchange could begin
according to PennDOT Assistant Press Secretary Eugene Blaum. Under the National
Historic Preservation Act of 1966, federally-funded construction efforts, like
PennDOT’s improvement project, must conduct archaeological excavations of the
region before the land is disturbed. This law is designed to help protect
historically significant artifacts from construction damage.
“The cost and time for the
excavation is a part of the overall plan for the [I-95/Girard Avenue
Interchange] project,” Blaum says.
“We work ahead of the construction
areas so that we don’t hold up the schedule,” Mooney says.
 |
| Finding Philly's buried past... Artifacts detailing over 5,000 years of Philadelphia history have been buried beneath Interstate 95 and the Girard Avenue Interchange. |
According to Mooney, the new
information they learn every single day from this archaeological dig has been
well worth the time.
“People will see pieces of local
history [at the upcoming free event] they have never seen before,” Mooney says.
“This is the shared history of all Philadelphians.”
“Before and Below I-95 in 2014” will
be held from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the First Presbyterian Church in Kensington
on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia.
~ ~ ~
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