We are planning on two movie nights during the field session. Last year we posted a poll to decide which movie to watch. National Treasure 2 was the winner and a good time was had by all who attended.
Since we are having two movie nights, I will take the top two vote getters and we will watch those.
Now is the time to start suggesting movies (historical and/or archaeological) for the poll.
Just comment on this post with the name of the movie and at the end of this week I will put a poll up with some of the suggestions.
Polling will continue until the end of the first week of May (May8).
- Peter
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Planning is Time Consuming
The PTAP team has been pretty quiet for the last few weeks. Part of the reason is that we are in planning mode. It is amazingly time consuming to try to organize several phases of fieldwork, especially with Jim in Annapolis and I in Ohio.
Jim posted the event schedule for the ASM field session just a few days ago. That schedule took us almost a week to produce by itself. I have created several versions of an Excel spreadsheet entitled "The Plan" which lays out what areas of Port Tobacco that want to work on for each day of the ASM field session and the entire month of June. To create this I needed to estimate how long it will take us to excavate a unit in each area of the site. This is complicated by the fact that some areas of Port Tobacco have less than one foot of artifact bearing soils while others extend down for more than five feet. Anyone who excavated in the Wade House cellar last summer knows that it can take days to dig just one of those deep units, even with 10 people assigned to that unit.
Aside from the actual excavation, we are trying to allow time in our schedule to accommodate some special groups. There will be two large groups of high school students at Port Tobacco on May 28 and 29. This visit corresponds to the days that we will be continuing work on the Native American area of the site and we have invited members of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe to come work with us. Gabrielle Tayac, a Piscataway who works as a historian for the National Museum of the American Indian will visit Port Tobacco on the 28th and treat our volunteers to a lecture about Native culture and history in the region. We have also invited members of the African American Heritage Society of Charles County to come visit us while we excavate the home of James Swann, a free African-American who ran a tavern in Port Tobacco before the Civil War.
In addition to the more intellectual aspects of fieldwork, we have to deal with ordering Port-A-Johns, and installing temporary shower facilities at the site for the crew and for any volunteers who want to camp out at the site during the ASM field session to control costs. We need to acquire cooking implements and some food staples (can't BBQ without BBQ sauce!). We need to clean out the field house and get it setup to be home to the 8+ staff members who will be living there for 2 weeks and the interns and myself who will call it home for 5 whole weeks.
So, stick with us through the logistical downtime and you will be rewarded with field updates from 6 weeks of non-stop fieldwork.
-April
Jim posted the event schedule for the ASM field session just a few days ago. That schedule took us almost a week to produce by itself. I have created several versions of an Excel spreadsheet entitled "The Plan" which lays out what areas of Port Tobacco that want to work on for each day of the ASM field session and the entire month of June. To create this I needed to estimate how long it will take us to excavate a unit in each area of the site. This is complicated by the fact that some areas of Port Tobacco have less than one foot of artifact bearing soils while others extend down for more than five feet. Anyone who excavated in the Wade House cellar last summer knows that it can take days to dig just one of those deep units, even with 10 people assigned to that unit.
Aside from the actual excavation, we are trying to allow time in our schedule to accommodate some special groups. There will be two large groups of high school students at Port Tobacco on May 28 and 29. This visit corresponds to the days that we will be continuing work on the Native American area of the site and we have invited members of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe to come work with us. Gabrielle Tayac, a Piscataway who works as a historian for the National Museum of the American Indian will visit Port Tobacco on the 28th and treat our volunteers to a lecture about Native culture and history in the region. We have also invited members of the African American Heritage Society of Charles County to come visit us while we excavate the home of James Swann, a free African-American who ran a tavern in Port Tobacco before the Civil War.
In addition to the more intellectual aspects of fieldwork, we have to deal with ordering Port-A-Johns, and installing temporary shower facilities at the site for the crew and for any volunteers who want to camp out at the site during the ASM field session to control costs. We need to acquire cooking implements and some food staples (can't BBQ without BBQ sauce!). We need to clean out the field house and get it setup to be home to the 8+ staff members who will be living there for 2 weeks and the interns and myself who will call it home for 5 whole weeks.
So, stick with us through the logistical downtime and you will be rewarded with field updates from 6 weeks of non-stop fieldwork.
-April
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Progress
The crew was in the field today on another project...we found an Early Archaic site...but our Port Tobacco work moves apace. We expect to be in the lab Monday because of rain...that should give us time to re-bag the rest of the artifacts recovered during the March campaign. I doubt that we will get them catalogued Monday, but soon...
Jim
Jim
Friday, April 17, 2009
Field Session Event Schedule
Below is a tentative schedule of events for the ASM field session. There might be some small changes on the weekends with the Maryland Historical Trust offering lunchtime mini-workshops on soils description, troweling, etc. Stay tuned for updates.
Jim
Jim
| Day | Event | Start | End | |
| 5/22/2009 | Mobilization | |||
| 5/23/2009 | Scott's monument repair demonstration | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/23/2009 | Evening reception | 7:00 PM | 9:00 PM | |
| 5/24/2009 | Soils description workshop | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/24/2009 | Ethics Workshop | 6:00 PM | 8:00 PM | |
| 5/25/2009 | Pete's mapping demonstration | 4:00 PM | 5:00 PM | |
| 5/26/2009 | Movie/Pizza night | 6:00 PM | 9:00 PM | |
| 5/27/2009 | Allison's Johnson Island Military Prison ceramics talk | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/28/2009 | Gabrielle Tayac talk | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/29/2009 | Port Tobacco talk | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/29/2009 | Law Workshop | 6:00 PM | 8:00 PM | |
| 5/30/2009 | Staff lecture on Civil War sites | 12:00 PM | 1:00 PM | |
| 5/30/2009 | Movie/Pizza night | 6:00 PM | 9:00 PM | |
| 5/31/2009 | Afternoon fete | 5:00 PM | 8:00 PM | |
| 6/1/2009 | Demobilization |
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Historic Ceramics Workshop
The annual field session presents an excellent opportunity for participants to hone skills in such areas as soils description and artifact identification. Traditionally, workshops on such subjects are held at lunchtime or in the evening during the field session. During this field session (May 22 through June 1) we will continue the tradition...but we will also break with it in a way that I think will benefit everybody.
Thanks to Dr. Patricia Samford, the MAC lab at J. Patterson Park & Museum will host a ceramics workshop on May 16, 10 AM to 2 PM, in the MAC lab conference room. I will serve as instructor and, using materials from Port Tobacco supplemented with slides and handouts, provide participants with the necessary tools to identify most historic ceramics as they emerge from the ground. I expect all workshop participants to become proficient ceramic identifiers after spending just a few days in the field at Port Tobacco.
Please bring a lunch and whatever scholarly apparatus (notebooks, pencils, etc.) you think necessary. This is a CAT event, but it is open to all ASM members. See you there.
Jim
Thanks to Dr. Patricia Samford, the MAC lab at J. Patterson Park & Museum will host a ceramics workshop on May 16, 10 AM to 2 PM, in the MAC lab conference room. I will serve as instructor and, using materials from Port Tobacco supplemented with slides and handouts, provide participants with the necessary tools to identify most historic ceramics as they emerge from the ground. I expect all workshop participants to become proficient ceramic identifiers after spending just a few days in the field at Port Tobacco.
Please bring a lunch and whatever scholarly apparatus (notebooks, pencils, etc.) you think necessary. This is a CAT event, but it is open to all ASM members. See you there.
Jim
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
More on Mrs. Wheeler and George Atzerodt
Always on the lookout for interesting information, Elsie, gave us some more information concerning the Lincoln Conspiracy and Port Tobacco.
In the book, Life, Crime, And Capture Of John Wilkes Booth by George Alfred Townsend,
"Atzerott had been in town just prior to the crime. He had been living with a widow woman named Mrs. Wheeler, by whom he had several children,and she was immediately called upon by Major O'Bierne. He did not tellher what Atzerott had done, but vaguely hinted that he had committed some terrible crime, and that since he had done her wrong, she couldvindicate both herself and justice by telling his whereabouts. The womanadmitted that Atzerott had been her bane, but she loved him, and refusedto betray him. His trunk was found in her garret, and in it the key to his paint shop in Port Tobacco. The latter was fruitlessly searched, but the probablewhereabouts of Atzerott in Mongomery county obtained, and Major O'Biernetelegraphing there immediately, the desperate fellow was found andlocked up. A man named Crangle who had succeeded Atzerott in Mrs.Wheeler's pliable affections, was arrested at once and put in jail. Anumber of disloyal people were indicated or "spotted" as in no wiseangry at the President's taking off, and for all such a provost prisonwas established."
What was it that Mr. Crangle was arrested for? Did he have any information that helped in the investigation? Was the aforementioned paint shop the same shop he was using with his brother in their carriage repair business?
There are a few references to Mr. Crangle that Elsie has passed along. Nicholas B. Crangle was a tailor doing business out of Port Tobacco as late as 1868 and was listed as on the jury during court terms in the early 1870's.
We'll try and find out more about Mr. Crangle and of course, continue our search for Mrs. Wheeler's house and the carriage shop of the Atzerodt brothers.
- Peter
In the book, Life, Crime, And Capture Of John Wilkes Booth by George Alfred Townsend,
"Atzerott had been in town just prior to the crime. He had been living with a widow woman named Mrs. Wheeler, by whom he had several children,and she was immediately called upon by Major O'Bierne. He did not tellher what Atzerott had done, but vaguely hinted that he had committed some terrible crime, and that since he had done her wrong, she couldvindicate both herself and justice by telling his whereabouts. The womanadmitted that Atzerott had been her bane, but she loved him, and refusedto betray him. His trunk was found in her garret, and in it the key to his paint shop in Port Tobacco. The latter was fruitlessly searched, but the probablewhereabouts of Atzerott in Mongomery county obtained, and Major O'Biernetelegraphing there immediately, the desperate fellow was found andlocked up. A man named Crangle who had succeeded Atzerott in Mrs.Wheeler's pliable affections, was arrested at once and put in jail. Anumber of disloyal people were indicated or "spotted" as in no wiseangry at the President's taking off, and for all such a provost prisonwas established."
What was it that Mr. Crangle was arrested for? Did he have any information that helped in the investigation? Was the aforementioned paint shop the same shop he was using with his brother in their carriage repair business?
There are a few references to Mr. Crangle that Elsie has passed along. Nicholas B. Crangle was a tailor doing business out of Port Tobacco as late as 1868 and was listed as on the jury during court terms in the early 1870's.
We'll try and find out more about Mr. Crangle and of course, continue our search for Mrs. Wheeler's house and the carriage shop of the Atzerodt brothers.
- Peter
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Progress
Anne and Stephanie spent the day re-bagging material from the March campaign that Anne and Scott washed on Saturday. There is still a pile of material to wash, re-bag, and catalogue before we can complete the report. More of the same tomorrow.
The Charles County Archaeological Society holds its monthly meeting at the College of Southern Maryland, Learning Center Room 102, this evening at 7:30. The subject: online historical research.
Jim
The Charles County Archaeological Society holds its monthly meeting at the College of Southern Maryland, Learning Center Room 102, this evening at 7:30. The subject: online historical research.
Jim
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