Michilimackinac’s Artillery Posted August 6, 2020 Over the past few years the staff at Mackinac State Historic Parks has diligently been adding reproductions of Michilimackinac’s artillery throughout the site to provide visitors an accurate representation of what the site looked like in the 1770s. Join Curator of History Craig Wilson as he takes us for a tour of Michilimackinac and its artillery.
Archaeology Update Posted July 24, 2020 Trade ring with what can be interpreted as a “V.” Halfway through the archaeology season we have found some interesting artifacts, the end of some features, and more questions. Cufflink, or sleeve button, with an image that could be a classical or religious figure. The root cellar in the southeast corner of the house has yielded exciting artifacts for several seasons. This summer began the same way, with a button and part of the bone handle from a knife. Now some horizontal planks are appearing, possibly evidence of a wood floor. We tentatively identified a second root cellar in the center of the house late last season. This still seems to be the case. Several interesting artifacts have come from this area. The first was an intact engraved brass “Jesuit” trade ring. Iron breech plug from a flintlock muzzleloader. The design can be interpreted as the letter “V,” the Roman numeral “V,” or something more abstract. The second part was part of a cufflink, which would have been called a sleeve button by its eighteenth-century owner. It has a glass or rock crystal set with an intaglio bust. The bearded man could be a classical or religious figure. More research will be done on this piece over the winter. The final artifact, so far, was an iron breech plug from a flintlock muzzleloader. It blocked the end of the barrel where it connected to the wood stock. It was discarded because the tang broke off. It is only the fifth gun part found in the house. We are eager to see what else this area has in store for us. Interior post, located about five feet below the colonial surface. For six seasons, we have been excavating around a post in the interior of the house. We have finally reached the bottom, six and a half feet below our datum, probably about five feet below the colonial surface. It is sitting on a flat rock. Located near the southeast root cellar, it could have been a structural support for the rowhouse unit. Given its depth, it could also be a remnant of the first (1715) fort. We are exploring both possibilities. What will the second half of the season hold? Stay tuned to this blog and the MSHP social media channels to find out. If visiting Mackinac is in your plans for the summer, come out and visit the site in person. We are excavating in the middle of Colonial Michilimackinac, and work will continue daily (weather permitting) through August 22.
At Last… Posted June 15, 2020 The site being prepared for the field season. The plastic containers protected wood posts under the plastic sheeting and straw over the winter. After a very long wait, MSHP archaeologists were excited to remove the straw and plastic sheeting from the archaeological site and begin preparing the site for excavation. Unfortunately, there was a lot of slump, especially along the north wall, so there is a lot of clean up ahead. The next step is to re-establish the grid strings used to record where features and artifacts are found relative to the overall master map. This will be our fourteenth season of excavation at House E of the Southeast Rowhouse. The rowhouse was constructed in the 1730s and this unit was owned by Charles Gonneville for most of the French era at Michilimackinac. By 1765 the house was owned by an as-yet-unknown English trader. Our initial research question for the project was how does an English trader’s house look different from a French-Canadian trader’s house? The early answer is that there is more trade silver and ceramics. This trader not only had fashionable furnishings, but dressed stylishly as well, based on the sleeve buttons and other adornment items we have recovered. Our main goals for this summer relate to the deep features previously exposed. We think we are nearing the bottom of the root cellar in the southeast corner of the building and hope to complete its excavation this season. There are two more deep features, which intersect, in the west and south-central areas of the house. We hope to better define them this season. As with any archaeological excavation there will be surprises that raise new questions. You can come watch history being uncovered at Colonial Michilimackinac every day from June 12 – August 22, from 9 am until 5 pm, weather permitting. You can also follow along all season on the MSHP blog and social media channels.
A Tool for the Colonial Kitchen: The Tourtière Posted June 5, 2020 If you love a good kitchen gadget, you are not alone. Cooks throughout history have always looked for the most efficient, reliable, and useful tools to help them manage food preparation. We think the tourtière fits this description perfectly. The 18th century tourtière is a cooking dish, and also the name of a double-crust meat pie. Tourtière dishes are made of heavy copper or brass and used in open-hearth cooking. Legs or a trivet allowed the dish to have hot coals shoveled underneath it to supply a slow and steady heat from the bottom. The flat-shaped lid has a shallow lip to catch hot coals to push heat down from above. As a result, the tourtière functions as a miniature oven. As you might imagine, most historic recipes specific to this dish are for meat pies. Those pies usually had top and bottom crusts and were filled with meat, seafood, or sometimes vegetables. Pie or tourte recipes varied from region to region based on the local specialties, and some place still have their own unique style of pie. At Michilimackinac, we know from archaeological and documentary evidence that mutton, pork, passenger pigeon, beef and especially fish were all available for use in pies cooked in a tourtière. Historical cooks loved a well-equipped and efficient workspace. Modern cooks still look for the tools that make it easiest to efficiently prepare delicious food. Whether it is a hearth, or a 21st century microwave oven, preparing food wouldn’t be possible without those reliable and favorite kitchen gadgets. We hope you’ll join us at Colonial Michilimackinac in the future to see our tourtière in action for our food programs. Visit our website for more information, and don’t forget to check out Mackinac Associates, which helps make food programs and so much more possible at all of our site.
Mackinac Island Airport Archaeology Posted May 29, 2020 Refuse revealed by the stripping of the runway.In September 2011 all of the pavement at the Mackinac Island Airport was removed prior to the regrading and relocation of the runway to correct sinkholes and a hump in the runway. The airport was originally established in 1934. Maps from 1902 and 1913 show that the area was used as a dump. The stripping and regrading exposed and removed several areas of refuse.When examining a dump archaeologically, it is not productive to try to salvage, or even record, every object. Instead the goal is to sample enough artifacts that can be dated to determine the timeframe in which the dump was used. In this case these artifacts were primarily ceramics and glass. In general, the glass suggested a date of the first two decades of the twentieth century, matching the maps. The ceramics skewed slightly earlier, probably because they have a longer use life before being discarded.Example from Grand Hotel when operated by Planter’s (1900-1918).Over four hundred ceramic sherds were collected, including fragments of earthenware, stoneware, porcelain and lots of hotel ironstone vessels. Marked examples from Grand Hotel when operated by John Oliver Plank (1887-1889) and Planter’s (1900-1918) were recovered. Other forms collected include marmalade and mustard containers, a candlestick, matchstick holders, porcelain doorknobs, architectural tile, and electric insulators.Three hundred fifty-six bottles and other identifiable pieces of glass were recovered. These included wine, liquor, beer, mineral water, grape juice and other beverage bottles. Six Michigan breweries were represented: Detroit Brewing Company, Goebel Brewing Company, Koppitz-Melchers Brewing Company and Stroh Brewing Company, all of Detroit, as well as the Grand Rapids Brewing Company and Soo Brewing Company. Other consumer goods included condiments, salad dressing, capers, olives, prescription and over-the-counter medicines, skin cream, perfume, ink, and a variety of cleaning products. These products came from across the Atlantic Ocean and as close as Bogan’s pharmacy on Mackinac Island.Part of an oil lamp.Bottle from Bogan’s Pharmacy.Electricity came to Mackinac Island in 1911. This dump spanned the transition. Both lightbulbs and oil lamp parts were recovered. Fire extinguisher.Metal artifacts are much harder to recognize from just a fragment. In addition to lamp parts, cooking utensils, buckles, horseshoes, and enamelware vessels were recovered. Some of the more obvious and interesting metal artifacts included a fire extinguisher and part of a push lawn mower.Push mower.
The Wall Gun Posted May 22, 2020 If you’ve visited Colonial Michilimackinac, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen the interpreters demonstrating a cannon or musket during our daily programs. There is another 18th century weapon that gets fired occasionally, and it’s an interesting cross between a cannon and a musket. Let’s take a look at our wall gun. Wall Gun vs. MusketA wall gun is essentially just a supersized musket. As the name implies, wall guns were intended to be fired resting on a wall or the railing of a ship, and many original weapons were fitted with a yoke or swivel similar to an oarlock to facilitate easy mounting. Such a rest was necessary given the weight and size of the weapon. Wall pieces were typically .91 caliber, had four and a half foot-long barrel (although some were as long as six feet), measured over six feet long in total, and weighed between 35 and 40 pounds. Constructed in only limited quantities, primarily in the 1740s and again in the 1770s, wall pieces were intended to function as artillery pieces in situations were even the smallest and lightest of cannons were impractical. Although unwieldy, a wall gun could be positioned and fired by just one soldier. Firing a 2¼-ounce ball, they could apparently hit targets 500 to 600 yards away, and were ideal for use during sieges, when they could be moved around to fire on enemy engineers and sappers. During the American Revolution, Captain William Congreve of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, a noted artillery innovator, suggested employing wall guns as a secondary weapon alongside field guns. Under Congreve’s plan, wall guns mounted on two-wheeled carts accompanied artillery detachments and were deployed alongside the cannons. A vertical wooden mantlet, or shield, attached to the cart protected the two soldiers serving the guns. Despite their size, wall guns remained a muzzle-loading flintlock weapon, and as such were loaded and fired in much the same way as a normal sized musket.Although the British military only produced wall guns in limited numbers, two of them found their way to Michilimackinac in the 1770s. Classified as ordnance along with the garrison’s cannons and mortar, the walls guns were apparently intended to serve in detached positions outside the main palisade wall. In 1768, Captain-lieutenant Frederick Spiesmacher of the 60th Regiment requested permission to build a blockhouse on a sandy hill outside the fort. He wanted a blockhouse large enough for six men and two wall guns. Spiesmacher probably never built the blockhouse, as a decade later Lieutenant Governor Patrick Sinclair ordered a blockhouse built overlook and command hollow ground behind a sand hill which the troops could not reduce,” which would also flank the trader’s houses in the suburbs outside the palisade. When the blockhouse was finished in early 1780, Sinclair noted that it contained positions for three artillery pieces, but the wall guns could also have been used there. The guns were moved to Mackinac Island with the rest of the fort by 1781, but disappear from the Fort Mackinac ordnance returns soon after. Whether they were sent away or merely no longer recorded with the larger artillery pieces is unclear.Today, our reproduction wall gun is occasionally fired for demonstrations, sometimes taking the place of the cannon or mortar for an artillery firing. An original wall gun is also on display in the underground powder magazine and Firearms on the Frontier exhibit. Be sure to see the original piece next time you visit Colonial Michilimackinac, and you might be lucky enough to see the reproduction fired on the parade ground!
What’s Growing the Garden? Cabbage! Posted May 15, 2020 Cabbages are attractive vegetables. They come in a variety of shapes, textures, sizes and colors. Many gardeners in the 18th century, including Michilimackinac resident John Askin, considered cabbages to be an essential vegetable in the garden. They keep well, are versatile in the kitchen and generally low maintenance. They can be placed out in the garden earlier than crops like beans, cucumbers and melons and are quite cold hardy. This winter, we even had one cabbage winter over in our King’s Garden. It was quite a surprise, especially since it was covered in snow for a few months with no protection at all.The downside to these vegetables is that they are incredibly tasty to slugs. The gray beasts like to get inside the cabbage heads and munch away. Just when it seems like all the slugs have been picked from the leaves, there are five more that pop out. In the 18th century, gardeners had many solutions to deal with slugs, but most come down to manual removal. At Michilimackinac, we have found that encouraging toads in the garden has also proven useful.Right now, our cabbage seedlings for 2020 are started and doing well. The transplants will be planted out in early to mid-May and when they are big enough, they will find their way to our daily food programs at Colonial Michilimackinac. If you have never grown cabbage, take a cue from history and give this beautiful and useful vegetable a chance. Be sure to visit our website for more updates, and check out Mackinac Associates, a friends group which makes many of our programs and exhibits (including the gardens) possible at all of our historic sites.
What’s Growing in the Garden? Carrots! Posted May 1, 2020 Carrots in the ground. We have begun our spring cleanup of the gardens at Michilimackinac! It Is the best time. Every year we find a few unexpected things, and this week we came across a number of forgotten carrots. We are usually quite meticulous about digging our root vegetables and storing them for use later, but it seems that these escaped our shovel. Surprise! What will these be used for? Well, 18th century sources abound with recipes and uses for carrots. Some books recommended them as a cure for everything from cancer to asthma. Cooks turned the root vegetable into puddings, added them to soups, and used them in salads. One of our favorite historic ways to use carrots is from a recipe by E. Smith that was published in the Compleat Housewife in 1736: To make Carrot or Parsnip Puffs Scrape and boil your carrots or parsnips tender; then scrape or mash them very fine, add to a pint of pulp the crumb of a penny-loaf grated, or some stale biscuit, if you have it, some eggs, but four whites, a nutmeg grated, some orange-flower water, sugar to your taste, a little sack, and mix it up with thick cream. They must be fry’d in rendered suet, the liquor very hot when you put them in; put in a good spoonful in a place. They end up being sweet and deliciously greasy. While it is not uncommon for root vegetables to winter over in the gardens at Michilimackinac, it still always seems like something that shouldn’t be possible. Check back later to see what other things are happening this spring at Michilimackinac. If you would like to help support our gardens and other activities at all of our historic sites, consider joining Mackinac Associates, and visit our website for tickets and more information.
Battlefield Archaeology at Wawashkamo Golf Club Posted April 24, 2020 Sideplate fragments and ramrod pipes from Wawashkamo battlefield survey. Credit: CHMA One of the most unusual archaeological projects to take place on Mackinac Island was a metal detector survey of the portion of the 1814 battlefield located on Wawashkamo Golf Club. The project was carried out in May 2002 by the Heidelberg (Ohio) College Center for Historic and Military Archaeology under the direction of Dr. Michael Pratt and funded by the Wawashkamo Restoration and Preservation Fund. 1814 Battle of Mackinac Island. The August 4, 1814 battle was always known to have taken place on the Dousman farm on either side of what is now known as British Landing Road. This survey was designed to determine what might be left in the ground on the western side of the battlefield after 85 years of farming by the Dousman and Early families, followed by 102 years as a golf course. Three different types of metal detection instruments were used in order to locate ferrous, brass, copper, silver, lead, nickel and gold artifacts. The fairways were systematically “swept” to locate possible concentrations of artifacts. Four areas of interest were located, which were then intensively surveyed. Two hundred sixty-five artifacts related to the battle were located. These included United States Infantry and Artillery buttons, spent and dropped rifle, musket and buck shot, a piece of iron canister shot, trade gun parts, an 1807 U.S penny, and three nearly complete clasp knives. Additional artifacts recovered related to the Dousman and Early farms and all eras of Wawashkamo Golf Club. U.S. Army buttons recovered during Wawashkamo battlefield survey. Credit: CHMA The clusters were located on fairways 1, 5, and 9 and the east end of fairway 8. Spatial analysis of the battlefield artifacts indicated that the survey area included the path of Lieutenant Colonel George Croghan’s regular troops advancing and retreating along British Landing Road, and the possible location of Major Andrew Holmes’s unsuccessful flanking attack and death. The 2002 survey demonstrated that significant archaeological resources have survived at Wawashkamo. The results did not re-write the story of the battle, rather they fleshed out the written record and provided a tangible link to the only battle ever fought on Mackinac Island.
It Will All Come Out in the Wash Posted April 17, 2020 According to some sources, the average American family washes 300 loads of laundry ever year. People are inherently dirty, and sweat, dirt, food, and many other things come into contact with our clothing every day. We clean our clothes to stay healthy and keep them looking good. Modern laundry machines and detergents can efficiently and effectively remove all that smelly nastiness from our clothes. But how did people clean their clothes before detergents and washing machines? (more…)
