MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) – An Eagle Point, Ore., man has been accused of stealing nearly 400 books from local libraries and apparently had no plans to sell them.
Christopher Storrer, who listed “home” as his graduate school on a social-media website, has been banned from all Rogue Valley libraries while he awaits trial.
The Medford Mail Tribune reports Storrer’s reading tastes tended toward political philosophy. Among the titles were works by Stephen Hawking, Michael Focault and Umberto Eco.
Jackson County Deputy District Attorney Allan Smith called Storrer’s home library “a fairly eclectic collection.”
Storrer removed the library bar codes from the books, curbing their worth on the auction market.
The 24-year-old was indicted on theft, robbery and criminal-mischief charges.
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Tuthankamen’s famous burial mask, on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Dec. 7, 2003 photo by Bjorn Christian Torrissen, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
CAIRO (AP) – Nineteen artifacts taken from the tomb of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun will be returned to Egypt next week after more than half a century at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Egypt’s antiquities authority said Saturday.
The trove includes a miniature bronze dog and a sphinx-shaped bracelet ornament, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.
The move, scheduled for Tuesday, is the result of an agreement between the two institutions last year to return the objects to Egypt.
At the time, then-antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said the objects would become part of the permanent King Tut collection at the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which is under construction near the Giza pyramids and is scheduled to open in 2012.
Hawass, once the most public face of Egyptian archaeology, was fired earlier this month after intense criticism of his close ties to ex-President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in February in a popular uprising.
The antiquities authority said the pieces were sent to New York in 1948 when the Metropolitan Museum closed its expedition house in Egypt.
The decision to repatriate the objects came after an extensive examination of the validity of their origin.
“Because of precise legislation relating to that excavation, these objects were never meant to have left Egypt, and therefore should rightfully belong to the government of Egypt,” Director Thomas Campbell said in a statement on the Metropolitan Museum website.
Museum representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, when it was common practice for archaeologists to keep some or all of their own findings.
Some of the pieces in this collection were handed down through a niece of Carter and his estate in Luxor, which he left entirely to the Metropolitan Museum.
King Tut is one of history’s most famous pharaohs because archaeologists found his tomb full of glittering wealth of the rich 18th Dynasty (1569-1315 B.C.) This year, DNA tests and CT scans on Tut’s 3,300-year-old mummy confirmed that the pharaoh died of a broken leg complicated by malaria at the age of 19.
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sotheby’s New York headquarters at 1334 York Avenue. Jan. 24, 2009 photo by Jim Henderson.
NEW YORK (AP and ACNI) — Art handlers and Sotheby’s auction house in New York are in a dispute over a new contract. Members of Teamsters Local 814 picketed outside the company’s York Avenue headquarters in Manhattan throughout the weekend and on Monday, carrying signs that said “Stop the War on Workers” and “Locked Out – Sotheby’s – Teamsters Local 814 No Dispute With Any Other Employer.”
According to the Wall Street Jourrnal, Sotheby’s notified its 43 art handlers on Friday that they couldn’t return to work, and hired temporary non-union workers to replace them.
The art handlers were sent letters informing them that they would be locked out beginning on Monday, Aug. 1, 2011. Their contract with Sotheby’s expired in July.
In a statement, Sotheby’s Executive Vice President and Worldwide Director of Press and Corporate Affairs Diana Phillips said: “This is not an outcome Sotheby’s wanted. We have been negotiating in good faith since May and had offered a contract with attractive terms which unfortunately [the art handlers] did not accept.”
The lockout is said to have come as a surprise both to workers and officials of their union, who had been of the belief that negotiations would be ongoing. In an article appearing in the Aug. 2, 2011 online issue of Crain’s New York Business, Teamsters Local 814 President Jason Ide was quoted as saying: “We’ve exchanged our proposals, but we’re not even into the heart of bargaining. Clearly somebody over there made a decision they’d rather bargain with us outside, walking the picket line.”
The union says the company wants to offer buyouts and replace some of the unionized art handlers with nonunion labor.
The two sides are set to meet next week.
In 2010, Sotheby’s sales increased by 74 percent. Its major upcoming auctions include a contemporary art sale on Sept. 22.
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Information from: The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com
Auction Central News International contributed to this Associated Press report.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Sotheby’s New York headquarters at 1334 York Avenue. Jan. 24, 2009 photo by Jim Henderson.
Columnar form vase with Gold Aurene interior, signed ‘Lundberg Studios 1994 021120,’ Estimate: $700-$900. Image courtesy of Michaan’s Auctions. ALAMEDA, Calif. – Michaan’s Auctions’ 20th Century Decorative Arts Auction will be held on Friday, Aug. 12. Important Art Nouveau, modernist and contemporary items will be offered, including a selection of significant works by Tiffany Studios. Particularly worth noting is a Tiffany Tulip Lamp, beautifully fashioned with richly colored blooms of red, purple and fuchsia tones. It carries a $100,000-$125,000 estimate.
LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Also being offered is a rare Bernhard Pankok etagere, circa 1900 ($10,000-$15,000). Created during a period when Pankok was first beginning to find substantial recognition for his furnishings, this wonderful and scarce piece is a fine example of his craftsmanship and style.
From yet another prominent artist is an exquisite lidded ceramic box estimated at $8,000-$10,000. The modern Kitaoji Rosanjin box holds a distinguished provenance, once being held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo as well as the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.
An exceptional group of glass from the Lundberg Glass Collection is also up for sale. The Lundberg Studios pieces are exclusively from the private collection of Steven Lundberg and should generate strong collector interest.
The aforementioned items will be auctioned on Aug. 12 at Michaan’s Auctions main gallery at 2751 Todd St., Alameda, CA 94501 with bidding to commence at 10 a.m. Pacific. Previews will be held Aug. 5-7, the morning of the sale and by appointment.
For details visit Michaan’s website at www.michaans.com or phone 510-740-0220.
Columnar form vase with Gold Aurene interior, signed ‘Lundberg Studios 1994 021120,’ Estimate: $700-$900. Image courtesy of Michaan’s Auctions.Tiffany Studios tulip lamp mounted on a decorated mushroom base, base signed Tiffany Studios New York #363. Estimate: $100,000-$125,000. Image courtesy of Michaan’s Auctions.Pankok etagere, circa 1900. Estimate: $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Michaan’s Auctions.Kitaoji Rosanjin ceramic box. Estimate: $8,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Michaan’s Auctions.
The Baths of Trajan and the grounds over the Domus Aurea, Rome, Italy. Image by Ryan Freisling, coutesy of Wikimedia Commons. ROME (AFP) –- Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-oldmosaic in Rome depicting the Greek god Apollo surrounded by his muses in a cellar once used as a park tool shed near the Colosseum, officials said on Friday.
“This is a very important discovery. The mosaic is in perfect condition and it can be dated exactly to between A.D. 64 and 109,” Umberto Broccoli, head of the culture department of the Rome city council, told reporters on a visit.
Excavations are being done in an underground gallery of the ancient Trajan Baths, a vast structure near the ruins of Nero’s palace, the Domus Aurea.
The parts of the mosaic uncovered so far are made with various shades of bronze-colored tesserae and show columns, Apollo and one of the muses.
A series of unique frescoes have already been found in the cellar space, including a cityscape and a group of men pressing grapes to make wine.
Archaeologists believe there are more mosaics to be uncovered and have said they need an extra 680,000 euros ($978,000) to finish the excavation.
The Chelsea Hotel (Hotel Chelsea) in New York City, 2009 photo by Historystuff2, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.NEW YORK (AFP) – The famed Chelsea Hotel — muse, home and party space to generations of New York musicians and writers — faced an uncertain future Monday as the doors apparently closed on guests.
An employee at the legendary hotel confirmed a New York Times article reporting that rooms would no longer be available for short-term stays while renovations take place.
“We are not taking reservations,” the employee said, declining to give his name. The hotel’s website was still processing reservations, however. The employee did not know how long the suspension would last and there was no immediate reply from a spokesman for the hotel.
The Chelsea has been in turmoil since going on the market, with the probable buyer expected to be developer Joseph Chetrit, according to the Times. The deal, worth $80 million, had not gone through by the end of the weekend, the report said.
Large-scale renovations are expected to take a year, during which the 100 permanent residents who live in apartments will be allowed to stay. Chetrit is reported to plan to keep the Chelsea as a hotel, although this is not confirmed.
The 12-floor building with the neon sign “Hotel Chelsea” is a landmark in Manhattan thanks to its long list of famous residents. Playwright Arthur Miller and singers Janis Joplin and Patti Smith were among those living there. Poet Dylan Thomas died there, as did Nancy, the girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious.
Andy Warhol made a film called Chelsea Girls, while Leonard Cohen immortalized the place in a song about his brief encounter there with Joplin, singing, “I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel.”
In his classic song Sara, Bob Dylan sang about how he was, “Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel, writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you.”
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The Chelsea Hotel (Hotel Chelsea) in New York City, 2009 photo by Historystuff2, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Actress Cindy Pickett is also an accomplished gardener and photographer. Actress Cindy Pickett is a 35-year veteran of film and television, having played Jackie Marler-Spaulding on the popular soap opera The Guiding Light (1976-1980), Vanessa Sarnac on the ABC weekly series Call to Glory (1984-1985), and Dr. Carol Novino on the hit hospital drama St. Elsewhere (1986-1988). But she’s probably best known as the actress who played Matthew Broderick’s sweet but unsuspecting mother in the classic coming-of-age comedy movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), written and directed by John Hughes.
Pickett is a collector of stereo cards, which owners of stereoscope devices around the turn of the century needed to view images in 3-D. For those who don’t know, stereoscopes were the high-tech entertainment devices of their time (from around 1850-1940). By inserting a card that had two pictures of the same scene or object – one for each eye – into the stereoscope, viewers could see photographs in 3-D. Stereoscopes were wooden contraptions with metal trim, and they were costly in their time. But they were so popular they could be found in most parlors of the Victorian era. The stereoscope that became wildly popular in this country was co-invented by the famous U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
“I grew up on a farm in rural Oklahoma, and was always surrounded by wonderful old antiques,” Pickett said from her home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. “I remember my grandmother had an old wood-burning stove, and I just loved the feeling that came from being around objects from another time. She also had a stereoscope, which for us was our television. This was in the early ’50s—there was no TV yet, at least not where we were—so when other kids came over or we had company we’d all look at the cards in the stereoscope. It was a way to look at places in the world or scenes, in 3-D, that we otherwise would never get to see.”
Later on, in her 20s, while living in New York, Cindy bought a stereoscope for herself and began collecting the cards, most of which were made in the late 1800s and early 1900s. “I guess I’ve got around 30 cards,” she said. “They are getting harder and harder to find. Only one of mine is in color. It’s from 1904 and shows a bowlful of pansies, but believe it or not it’s not as vivid as the ones in black and white. I’d say my favorite one of all is from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, or the St. Louis World’s Fair, from 1904. It’s just beautiful.”
Other cards feature the famous Flatiron building in New York City, a fish market in Finland, a roulette room in Monte Carlo, a giant Sequoia tree in Yosemite National Park, the city hall building in Capetown, South Africa, a scene from Kroll’s Garden (the renowned beer garden in Berlin, Germany, 1902), a full moon, a Civil war scene of a Union soldier writing a letter on top of a drum, one of bullock skins used as ferry boats in Punjab, India (in which gutted and bloated animals are ridden as water rides, 1902), and various other depictions of travel, nature, landmarks, buildings and whatever other images makers thought would sell. Some were even naughty, for their time.
Some are priceless slivers of time from another age. In one card, for example, a little boy and girl are pictured in a room in a kind of let’s-play-doctor theatrical pose, with the boy saying, “She has symptoms of smallpox” (1898). In another, a woman is shown talking on a wall-mounted crank telephone, above the tag line, “The quicker way to spread the news—the telephone!” One of the cards tells a story in a four-image sequence. Titled “Halloween Party – Ducking For Apples,” the series first shows four women in long white gowns at a Halloween party. A man is then shown asking if he can join them, and they agree, but end up playing a joke on him.
Cindy keeps her stereoscope on a bookshelf in her home, and gladly shares it with guests when they ask about it. The cards are what she would consider a true collection of vintage objects, but the fact is she’s loved antiques for years and has decorated her house in an eclectic blend of old and new.
“When I used to live in New York City,” she said, “I had a boyfriend who had a house in Vermont and we’d go there on weekends to shop for antiques there and back. I still have many pieces from those days. I even worked in an antique shop at one time. I’d spend all my time arranging and rearranging the pieces when no one was there. I just loved it.”
Cindy Lou Pickett was born April 18, 1947 in Norman, Okla. Her grandparents were Dust Bowl sharecroppers in the Depression era, at a time when a Christmas gift was often nothing more than an apple or an orange in a stocking. But her father, Cecil, went on to become a high school teacher and moved the family, when Cindy was 9, to Bellaire, Texas, just outside Houston. By then, Cindy was already a stage veteran, her father having put her in a production of the play Our Town, at age 6, as a flower girl (“After that, I was hooked,” she said). Her father went on to teach dramatic arts at the University of Houston, where Cindy went and studied under him. Cecil Pickett became renowned as something of a star-maker: not only did he have his daughter as a pupil, but also both Quaid brothers (Randy and Dennis), Brent Spiner, Trey Wilson, Robert Wuhl and others. Each summer, Cecil Pickett directed young talent such as this in the annual Houston Shakespeare Festival.
Cindy remained in Texas throughout most of her 20s, studying under her father and performing in various local productions. But after getting her Equity card, she decided to give New York City a try. Within a month of her arrival, she had landed the soap opera gig on The Guiding Light, plus a role on Broadway, in the musical revue Sunset, in which she played Mary Travers of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. In 1980, she landed her first movie role, in Roger Vadim’s erotic thriller Night Games. The following year she scored a part in another movie, the mystery/crime drama Margin for Murder, in which she played Mike Hammer’s (Kevin Dobson) devoted secretary. By that time, she was an established, working actress.
Pickett has guest-starred in a slew of television shows, including Simon & Simon, Magnum P.I., L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, The Pretender, NYPD Blue, CSI: Miami, Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan and Burn Notice. Other notable credits include her critically acclaimed performance as the real-life Kay Stayner, the mother of a boy who was kidnapped for several years, in the dramatic TV movie I Know My First Name is Steven (1989); her role as the tough and heroic Dr. Jane Norris in the sci-fi horror film DeepStar Six (1989); and a well-received turn in Crooked Hearts (1991), with Vincent D’Onofrio and Juliette Lewis. She continues to act, having just concluded a part in an independent film titled Mother Country. Other projects are in the works. Pickett is an acting teacher, a master gardener and an accomplished photographer. She is also writing a screenplay, actually begun by her father (now deceased), and based on small-town life in Dust Bowl Oklahoma. Pickett has three children, a college-age son and daughter by her former husband, the actor Lyman Ward (who played her husband in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), and a grown son from a prior relationship who lives in New York City.
Pickett is available for celebrity guest appearances for a fee. For more information, log on to www.livinglegendsltd.com.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Cindy portrayed Dr. Carol Novino on the hit hospital drama ‘St. Elsewhere’ from 1986-88.Cindy guest-starred in a slew of television shows, including ‘Magnum P.I.’ with Tom Selleck.Cindy’s breakout role was as Vanessa Sarnac on the ABC weekly series ‘Call to Glory’ (1984-85).Cindy in a scene from ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ the classic coming-of-age comedy from 1986.Cindy’s personally owned stereoscope, with a card promoting a new invention—the telephone.Each stereo card has two almost identical images—one for each eye—that combine to create a 3-D effect.Cindy’s favorite card of all is this one for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition , which opened in St. Louis in 1904.An 1898 stereo card with two children playing doctor. It reads: “She has symptoms of smallpox.”Stereo card showing Kroll’s Garden, the renowned beer garden in Berlin (1902).
Known as ‘Nina,’ this doll used for smuggling quinine to Confederate troops during the Civil War will be featured on PBS Television’s History Detectives. It belongs to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. Image courtesy of the museum.
RICHMOND, Va. – Her name is “Nina” and she lives at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia. She is a redhead and wears red shoes; her white dress has silk thread embroidery on the skirt. Nina is a doll that was donated to the museum by the surviving son and daughter of Confederate Maj. Gen. James Patton Anderson. They reported that during the Civil War, quinine for the sick soldiers was hidden inside the doll’s head and smuggled through the Union blockade.
Nina is one of two such dolls owned by the museum. Both were X-rayed at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in October, 2010. The results showed that each of the dolls was capable of holding a respectable amount of quinine powder.
A story about the dolls written by Associated Press reporter Steve Szkotak caught the eye of researchers from the popular PBS series History Detectives and they took the story further by having the dolls examined at a forensics laboratory. The results of the tests will be revealed for the first time during an episode of History Detectives, airing on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time/7 p.m. Central Time. Check your local listings for the channel and time in your area.
The Museum of the Confederacy is a private, nonprofit educational institution located at 1201 E. Clay St. in downtown Richmond’s historic Court End neighborhood. Free parking is available in the MCV/VCU Hospitals Visitor/Patient parking deck adjacent to the Museum.
To contact the museum, call 804-649-1861. Visit their website at http://www.moc.org.
(Left to Right) Startling Comics, All Star Comics and The Big All-American Comic Book – examples from a fresh-to-market collection consigned by the family of the man who bought the comic books straight off the newsstand in the 1940s. In all, 300 lots of comics will be auctioned. Morphy Auctions image.
DENVER, Pa. – Mickey Mouse, a formidable legion of comic book Superheroes, and a classic 1950s Lavender Robot will all be on board when Morphy Auctions presents an Aug. 12-13 auction of antique and vintage toys, banks, marbles and comics. More than 1,100 lots will be offered in the mid-summer sale, with Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com.
The fun begins with a selection of 80 cast-iron mechanical and still banks. The mechanical group is led by a coveted Kyser & Rex Mammy with Spoon (red-dress version) estimated at $4,000-$7,000, and a J. & E. Stevens football-theme Calamity bank, $4,000-$6,000. The “stills,” on the other hand, will be following a whimsical leader – a French cast-iron Standing Mickey embossed with the words “J. Manil Vieier Au Court.” Estimate: $1,000-$2,000.
The bus stops at Morphy’s on Aug. 12 for the sale of one of the most comprehensive toy bus collections known. The Wayne Mathias collection includes more than 100 toy depictions of Greyhound, Continental Trailways and other buses. A scarce plastic mold of a Greyhound Scenicruiser – one of several that were sent to Greyhound’s top 50 sales offices in the late 1950s – is expected to make $1,000-$3,000.
American and European trains – both prewar and postwar – will be next across the auction block, with highlights including a standard gauge 400 series loco and tender ($1,500-$2,500) exemplifying the largest steam engine ever made by Lionel. A one of a kind, museum-quality motor coach train made in 1932 by Russel Nord of Quincy, Mass., was modeled after one of the first known passenger trains, the DeWitt Clinton. Estimate: $1,000-$3,000.
Displaying unmistakable Continental style, an array of 25 European tin toys includes such favorites as a Lehmann Zig-Zag ($800-$1,200) and a menagerie of fabric-over-tin Schuco wind-up toys. Two German-made Carette cars – one with a roof rack for luggage; the other an open tourer – come with figures of drivers and passengers. Their estimates range from $1,200 at the low end to $2,500 at the top.
Japanese old-store-stock tin friction toys and wind-up vehicles will motor past the podium, with premium lots to include an 18-inch 1961 Yonezawa Cadillac Fleetwood and an 11-inch red Cadillac convertible by Alps. Both are accompanied by beautiful pictorial boxes and carry individual estimates of $800-$1,200.
More than a dozen robots await their day at auction, with the premier entry being a boxed 15-inch Masudaya Non-Stop (a k a “Lavender”) Robot. This striking member of the Japanese large-bodied, postwar robots known collectively as the “Gang of Five” could realize $4,000-$8,000.
Saturday morning starts off with 150+ lots of marbles, including sulphides, swirls and lutzes. A very rare sulphide with the suspended figure of a flying bat could reach $2,000-$3,000.
An exceptional and complete Lionel Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Circus Train has its original tin wind-up train, colorfully decorated circus tent, gas station and other accessory pieces, including the all-important composition figure of circus barker Mickey. Described in the catalog as “one of the nicer sets we have ever offered for sale,” the factory-boxed set comes to auction with a $4,000-$8,000 estimate.
The Saturday session concludes with more than 300 lots of 1940s comic books, all from the family of the original owner who purchased the comics brand new. All are fresh and ungraded, but there are several good candidates for grading, including 1948 Phantom Lady #17 ($600-$800), 1947 All Star Comics #33 ($700-$1,000), and 1941 Startling Comics #49, whose cover art features an Alex Schomburg image of a robot wading through water with a frightened woman in his arms ($800-$1,200).
For further information call 717-335-3435 or email serena@morphyauctions.com. View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
(Left to Right) Startling Comics, All Star Comics and The Big All-American Comic Book – examples from a fresh-to-market collection consigned by the family of the man who bought the comic books straight off the newsstand in the 1940s. In all, 300 lots of comics will be auctioned. Morphy Auctions image.
Fort William Henry was rebuilt in the mid-1950s. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (AP) – Even after years of excavations at the 18th-century military outpost that inspired James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, archaeologist David Starbuck says there’s still plenty of history waiting to be unearthed.
Starbuck is overseeing an archaeological field project at Fort William Henry in the southern Adirondack tourist village of Lake George. It’s his fifth summertime dig at the reconstructed French and Indian War fort and 21st overall under the auspices of Adirondack Community College.
Starbuck-led teams conducted excavations at Fort William Henry from 1997 to 2000, turning up, among other things, the charred wooden foundations of the fort the British built here in 1755 and the French captured and burned after a weeklong siege in August 1757. Scores of the fort’s soldiers and civilians were killed by Indian allies of the French in what became known as the massacre at Fort William Henry. The siege and its aftermath were retold in Cooper’s novel and several film versions of his book, including the 1991 adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
All of which makes the fort, in Starbuck’s estimation, the most famous of the nation’s French and Indian War sites, most of which are concentrated in the Northeast.
Visitors to the fort are encouraged to watch the archaeology work unfold and question the diggers about what they’re doing. Hopefully, such interactions will give people a better understanding of the fort’s role in a little-known yet vital part of American history, Starbuck said.
“Schools don’t teach it, so sites like this have to tell the story,” he said. “We need to convey to people why people did what they did, that it’s not just a good guy versus a bad guy thing.”
Archaeology buff Lauren Sheridan took a break from her job as a nanny for a Long Island family to volunteer as one of Starbuck’s crew chiefs. Growing up near Lake George, she had visited the fort but didn’t delve into its back story until recently. Standing in a shallow trench dug into the fort’s parade ground, Sheridan points to the animal bones and charred wood and bricks they’ve uncovered, remnants of the original fort and its fiery destruction.
“That whole story comes alive again,” Sheridan, 32, said from under the white tarps strung up to protect the crew from the blazing summer sun. “It can be tedious, but it’s all worth it.”
Across the parade ground, two other volunteers are uncovering artifacts from the Native Americans who hunted and fished along the lakeshore for centuries before Europeans arrived.
“The fort was built on thousands of years of Native American settlements, and that’s the story we’d like to tell here more clearly in the exhibits,” said Starbuck, who teaches archaeology at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
Nearby, just outside the fort’s eastern wall, another crew dug 5 feet down to uncover items dumped in what was believed to have been the garrison’s trash heap. Here amid the overgrowth covering a sloping hill, Chelsey Cook, one of Starbuck’s students, keeps turning up artifacts such as colonial-era buttons, musket balls and pottery shards.
“I never had been big into American history until I took classes” with Starbuck, said Cook, a 20-year-old anthropology major from Meredith, N.H.
The reconstructed fort opened in 1955 on the low bluff on the lake’s southern end where the original log and earthen fortification was built 200 years earlier. Archaeologists uncovered numerous artifacts prior to the 1950s reconstruction, but many objects, along with records detailing the digs, were lost in an arson fire at the fort in 1967.
Starbuck believes the modern builders were off by a few feet, causing sections of the rebuilt fort to be slightly misaligned with the original fort’s footprint. Part of his year’s goal is to find remnants of the original fort’s corners, which would help the archaeologists determine the next sections of ground to excavate, he said.
“There are foundations we can still find and learn from,” Starbuck said.
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Online:
Fort William Henry: http://www.fwhmuseum.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-29-11 1753GMT
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Fort William Henry was rebuilt in the mid-1950s. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
