Road notes for August 22, 2016

Last week, after I left the Women's Rights NHP at Seneca Falls, I drove east looking for the Erie Canal. I crisscrossed it several times and ended up at Syracuse where I stopped at the Erie Canal Museum. Housed in the Weight Lock House where barges were weighed as they plied the waterway, the museum offers an engaging account of this important economic and transportation avenue to the west.

Erie Canal between Rochester and Syracuse (Photo by Hunner)

I then went to Fort Stanwix National Monument in the middle of Rome, New York where a decisive battle of the Revolutionary War took place in 1777. Feeling inspired by this visit, I launched a series of stops over the rest of the week at other American Revolution sites—Saratoga Battlefield NHP, Fort Ticonderoga, Boston NHP, and the Minute Man NHP.

Cannon demonstration at Fort Stanwix (Photo by Hunner)

One if by sea, two if by land (Photo by Hunner)

The North Bridge at Concord where the Patriots exchanged gunfire with British Regulars and started the American Revolution (Photo by Hunner)

I also snuck in a couple of 19^th century sites, the first at Lowell NHP where the beginning of America’s industrial age began.

The Weave Room at Lowell NHP (Photo by Hunner)

Then I went north to Salem Maritime NHS which spurred the growth of the new Republic between the Revolution and the War of 1812 as its tall ships sailed around the world seeking commerce and trade. Interestingly enough, the ships brought back a lot of luxury items, especially spices and silk from Asia. Wasn’t that what Columbus sought?

The Customs House at Salem Maritime NHP where duties were collected on imported goods which financed most of the early Republic's government.(Photo by Hunner)

I ended the week with a visit to Adams NHP south of Boston where the Adams presidents resided and influenced the birth and early history of the United States. Finally, I went to another living history park at Plimouth Planation. More about these visits as I have time to write them up.

The Adams Home in Quincy, Massachusetts (Photo by Hunner)

This week on August 25, the National Park Service turns 100. Please celebrate it by going to a park, remembering some of your past park trips, and letting your family, friends, and elected representatives know what our parks mean to you. I will post a blog about the NPS on Thursday to help celebrate the anniversary. In the meantime, party with your parks!

Gov. Bradford and Julianne Morton at the Plimouth Plantation in 1626 (Photo by Hunner)

Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Farmington, Pennsylvania and Boston National Historical Park, Boston, Massachusetts

Like many of us, George Washington fumbled his early attempt at leadership. In fact, he botched it so bad that he launched a world war. We call it the French and Indian War, the Europeans call it the Seven Years War. To understand the American Revolution, we first need to visit Fort Necessity where Washington surrendered to the French in 1754. This war, while ultimately won by the British, led directly to the American Revolution. So Washington’s mistakes set in motion two wars that transformed the world and helped create these United States. The next several weeks’ postings in Driven by History will cover the lead up to and then the American Revolution. We start with Fort Necessity, the only NPS site that preserves and interprets the French and Indian War.

George Washington as an older man (From exhibit at Ft. Necessity's visitor center)

In 1754, Lt. Col. Washington went west with a military force to contest the French’s presence in the Ohio River Valley. When I arrived at Fort Necessity’s visitors center, Ranger James took me to the mock-up of the battle encased behind Plexiglas. He explained that Britain and France had competing claims on North America which centered on the Ohio River Valley. Virginia claimed it as an extension westward of its colony’s boundaries. France had been in the region for years as its fur traders plied the waterways of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. These rivers also provided a vital link between New France up north and Louisiana in the west. In a time of rough roads and slow wagons, rivers served as the quickest way to travel long distances.

Map of the contested lands between England and France south of the Great Lakes
(From exhibit at visitors center)

James also offered some insight into George Washington. He was twenty-three years old at Fort Necessity, with little formal nor military education, but instead worked as a surveyor. He did have ambition, leadership ability, and a capacity to learn from his mistakes. Fort Necessity was where Washington began his military career.

To assert itself, the French established several forts in the region, including driving the Virginians out of their small stronghold at the forks of the Ohio River where Pittsburg now stand. The French expanded and renamed it Fort Duquesne. In April, Lt. Col. Washington went to the region to request that the French leave. They did not. The English then set up camp in a marshy area called the Great Meadows which Washington thought was “a charming field for an encounter.”

Replica of Ft. Necessity in the Great Meadow (Photo by Hunner)

Scouts brought news that French group of soldiers were nearby. At dawn on May 28 at Jumonville Glen, Washington with forty soldiers and some Seneca allies attacked the French. Commanded by Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville, the French fought back but were quickly defeated, with ten dead and twenty-one captured. De Sieur was killed, perhaps scalped by the Seneca chief Tanaghrisson, aka the Half King. Washington lost one man and had two wounded. Paul Haney, a volunteer that led my tour down to the replica of Fort Necessity, speculated that the Half King wanted the British and French to fight each other so he goaded the English into this attack. This brutal attack on a French party led to the American Revolution.

Suspecting that the French would quickly respond, the English prepared for a counter attack by building a circular palisaded fort in five days at the Great Meadows. Several days after the encounter, the commander of the British forces, Colonel Fry, was thrown from his horse and died. Washington became the commander in the field. Washington had about 300 men under his command, which was reinforced later with 100 British regulars from South Carolina led by Captain James Mackay. But perhaps a quarter of his men were unfit for duty.

The view of Ft. Necessity from where the French stood (Photo by Hunner)

On the morning of July 3, 600 French and 100 Indian allies attacked Fort Necessity. They were led by Captain Louis Coulan de Villiers, the slain Joseph’s brother. The French first killed all the cows and horses in the fields outside of the small fort to prevent the English from leaving. Stiff action lasted the whole day with casualties on both sides, and as rain came down harder and harder, the English, pressured by the French and Indians, grew more desperate in their fort. Around thirty of their soldiers had died.

Hut within Ft. Necessity where Washington signed the surrender document (Photo by Hunner)

Then, Captain de Villiers offered peace terms and after a long evening of negotiations, Washington surrendered. The British retained their baggage and weapons and retreated to Virginia. The French burned Fort Necessity. Lost in the translation of the surrender document from the French, Washington accepted personal responsibility for assassinating Joseph de Villiers. Within a couple of months, the French had the signed document back in Europe, illustrating that the English were proud of being assassins.

The day long battle at Fort Necessity sparked the war between England and France for the control of the North American continent. It also initiated a wider war between these two colonial powers in Asia and on the high seas. The Seven Years War ended in 1763 with the French expelled from Canada and India.

Consequences, both intended and unintended, came from this victory. An intended consequence was that the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains opened up to settlement by the English colonists. For Britain’s Indian allies, this was poor recompense. Treaties arose that moved them off of their ancestral lands and created reservations for them, which were invariably broken as settlers pushed ever westward.

War wampum belt (From exhibit at visitors center)

An unintended consequence was that some of the key colonial military leaders of the Revolution earned their stripes in this conflict. A more significant unintended consequence was the changed relationship between England and her colonies. Looking for ways to pay off both the war debt and the expenses of running their expanded empire, King George III and Parliament turned to the prosperous American colonies. The English argued: Didn’t the war begin in the colonies? Didn’t the colonies need the continued protection of the British military? Surely, the colonists grasped that they should pay their fair share. So they placed more taxes on their American colonies.  

While all the colonies were subject to taxes, the people in Massachusetts proved particularly troublesome to the King’s wishes. So let’s shift from Fort Necessity to Boston. I stopped by Faneuil Hall on a hot August day and stood in line with several hundred people. I asked the man in front of me if this was the right line for the visitor’s center and he shook his head: “No I’m taking the oath.” On Thursdays, naturalization ceremonies occurred at the Great Hall of Faneuil Hall.  I congratulated him and slipped into the ground floor and the NPS welcome center.

I got on a tour of part of the Freedom Trail led by Ranger Bill Casey. He said that Faneuil Hall has protected the rights of Englishman since 1742. These rights—to vote, to assemble, and to debate—were threatened by the new efforts of the Crown. Bill asked us to complete James Otis’s declaration in Faneuil Hall, “Taxation without representation is … tyranny.” The colonists had no representatives in Parliament since the Lords did not want to share their power with the provincials.

A particularly odious tax on the colonies was the Stamp Act of 1765. It required revenue stamps on newspapers and most printed material, even playing cards. Thus, the Stamp Act angered the influential people who shaped public opinion—the newspaper editors, lawyers, and tavern owners. As a result, open acts of rebellion flared, including the sacking of the Bostonian homes of the Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and his brother-in-law Andrew Oliver, a stamp act commissioner. In response in 1768, the British sent troops to Boston to quell the growing rebellion, which the Bostonians had to house.

The stamp required for all printed materials from the act of 1765.

On March 5, 1770, a lone British sentry marched between his barracks and the customs’ house across the street. He cried out as a group of youths pelted him with snowballs and rocks. Soldiers poured out of the nearby barracks and tussled with the gathering crowd. A British solder fired, then more shots rang out, killing five and wounding another eight. Ironically, one of the first persons killed in the fight for freedom was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who worked on the ships in the harbor. Future president John Adams defended the British soldiers charged with murder since he felt that without a fair trial, rule by mob threatened justice. Of the ten British soldiers, two were convicted of manslaughter, the rest were absolved. Nonetheless, the Boston Massacre escalated the conflict.

Ranger Bill ended our walking tour in front of the Old South Meeting House, the biggest building in North America in the 18^th century. It could hold 4,000 to 5,000 people. At this Congregationalist Church, on December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams launched the Boston Tea Party. A group of men disguised as Mohawk Indians stormed three ships in the Boston harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the frigid waters to protest the taxes.  Parliament punished Boston with the Coercive Acts, aka the Intolerable Acts, which closed the port until the equivalent of over $1,000,000 in today’s dollars was paid for the tea. Only the governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, could approve public assemblies. The British military now ruled Massachusetts. Discontent grew in Boston and other cities in the colonies.

In next week’s blog, we will return to Boston and the shot heard ‘round the world and then follow the war at other NPS and historic sites. Also on August 25, the National Park Service turns 100. Please celebrate it by going to a park, remembering past park trips, and letting your family, friends, and elected representatives know what our parks mean to you. Party with your parks!

Fort Necessity was designated a National Battlefield Site on March 4, 1931 and a National Battlefield in 1961. Boston National Historical Park was created on October 1, 1974.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Chillicothe, Ohio

The mound at Seip earthworks (Photo by Hunner)

After visiting the Wright Brothers and their inventions in the 20^th century, I dropped down to southern Ohio to the 2,000-year-old Hopewell Culture site. Here earthen mounds dot the landscape, enduring evidence that a civilization existed that was a capitol of the eastern part of our eastern continent.

Here's a recap from earlier blogs about the peoples in North America before contact with Europeans. Once people arrived in the Western Hemisphere, they spread over the landscape like water through a burst dam.  They roamed the countryside, hunting and gathering their way from the frozen tundra near the Bering Sea to the equally frigid tip of South America, from the steamy jungles in the tropics to dense woodlands in the hinterlands, from mountains to beaches to swamps to deserts. Whatever way humans immigrated to the Americas, once here they moved over the countryside, and like migrants today, they looked for the perfect place to live and thrive.

Obsidian spear point (From exhibit at Mound City visitor's center)

These humans built complex buildings and communities solely with stone tools. They hunted large mammals like mammoths and bison with spears and bows and arrows, and butchered their kills with sharp stone knives. They carved and painted art on rock walls and made religious and ornamental objects out of shells, turquoise, bones, and even the landscape itself. These humans also studied the heavens and developed a complex understanding of the movement of the sun, the moon, and the planets. They flourished for hundreds of generations and lived in all corners of what would be become the United States.

Painting of shaman performing a ceremony (From exhibit at Mound City Visitors' Center)

As early as 3,500 years ago, people in southern Ohio began burying their dead with goods that showcased the skills and artistry of their craftspeople. Ranger Joe Ratterman pointed to archeological evidence that Mound City (where the visitors’ center is) was perhaps a crematorium as well as a burial site. Sometimes, the dead were cremated and then the building was burned and a mound built over it. At other sites, a cremation fire pit was used multiple times with the ashes buried elsewhere in the compound. At some point, they covered the first fire pit with a mound, and then put a new fire pit above the exact spot of the first fire pit. Since archeologists have different theories about the Hopewell, he asked me to add qualifiers to my account. Perhaps I will.

Above, a collection of artifacts from the mounds. Below, an Great Blue Heron effigy pipe
(From Mound City Visitors' Center)

The burial mounds hold numerous artifacts. Archeologists have discovered copper earspools, headdresses, breastplates, lithic chips from making stone tools, and effigy pipes. A bag in one grave held 200 broken effigy pipes carved out of stone depicting animals such as a beaver, a great blue heron, a frog, a peregrine falcon, a turtle, a squirrel, an otter, a rabbit, a raven, and an owl. Hammered copper also looked like various animals, humans, and other objects. All of these illustrate the exquisite workmanship and wealth of the Hopewell people. In one burial, thousands of pearls surrounded six skeletons. In other mounds, archeologists found a delicate profile of a hand and a bird claw, both made out of fragile mica. Archeologists have discovered 180,000 artifacts in the mounds.

Bird claw made out of mica found in a mound (From exhibit on walking tour at Mound City)

These funeral objects also hint at a deeper motivation – a spirituality that pervades the 500 nations in the Americas. From origin beliefs to migration stories, Native Americans imbued their world with a rich spirituality. From such stories, Alvin Josephy in 500 Nations, his history of Native Americans, concluded: “The Creator, the Master of Life, the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka—whatever terms the various Native American groups used – breathed life into humans and bound their spirits to those of all else in their universe.” [1] For many Native Americans, both animate and inanimate things possessed a spirit that enlivened all that surrounded them.

Hammered copper mountain goat horns (From exhibit at Mound City Visitors' Center)

The objects found in the burial mounds give us a glimpse of the Hopewell way of life. Sea shells from the Gulf of Mexico, mica from the mountains in North Carolina, fossil shark teeth from the Chesapeake Bay, copper and silver from the Great Lakes region, and obsidian from the Yellowstone area point to a vast trading network that covered almost two thirds of the country – from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. Ranger Kate at the visitors’ center talked about how these goods came to the Mound Builders. She said that perhaps the Hopewellians mounted trading expeditions themselves, went to the above places, and returned with the goods. The evidence is that there is little distribution of such items between say the Rocky Mountains and Hopewell. That is, traders would have bartered and left a trail of these goods along the way, and there is no evidence of that. However these items got to Hopewell from around the continent, the artists there turned them into exquisite pieces of beauty.

Map of materials that the Hopewellians used (From Mound City walking tour exhibit panel)

The Mound Builders grew squash, sunflowers, marsh elder, and knotweed while continuing to hunt and forage far and wide for food and material. Ranger Joe disagreed with me about when corn made an entrance. I thought it was early enough that it helped create the Hopewell culture since it came to New Mexico 3,000 years ago and then would have spread across the continent. He said there is no evidence of corn until towards the end of this culture.

Archaeologists speculate that maybe  this culture developed strict hierarchical lines with an elite body of priests and managers directing the efforts of many people to dig the earth, carry basketfuls of the dirt to the mounds, and build the massive earthen architecture that rose high over the land. Whether this was free or slave labor is unknown. From the simple early burial sites of 3,000 years ago, the mounds evolved into elaborate platforms for ceremonies and even served as residences of the elite. Large ceremonial complexes grew around the mounds so much that archaeologists estimate that the city at Cahokia (1,000 years after Hopewell but still mound builders) had 10,000 to 20,000 people there – more than London at the time.

Monk's Mound at Cahokia east of St. Louis (Photo by Hunner)

Some experts also speculate that the mounds housed astronomical observatories that tracked the seasons. Perhaps the mounds served as landscape calendars like at Chaco Canyon and were aligned to mark summer and winter solstices and equinoxes. In an agricultural society without written calendars, having a way to tell when to plant and when to harvest, proves vital to the success of the community. Perhaps the city planners situated Mound City where it was because two peaks on the eastern horizon line up with the north and south limits of the 18.6-year cycle of where the moon rises.

Another fascinating congruence is that at least three of the five sites preserved in the Hopewell Culture NHP follow a common pattern. Each have walls that mark a square, a large circle, and a small circle. Each square is the same size, twenty-seven acres. And each square fits onto the large circle. This pattern repeats itself, even at sites that are sixty miles distant from each other.

The geometry of the Seip complex where the square fits into the large circle
(From exhibit at Mound City visitors' center)

Mounds in a variety of sizes and shapes pervaded this region. Just in the Ohio River Valley alone, ten thousand mounds dotted the landscape. In addition to the traditional circles, squares, and elliptical shapes of the mounds, some illustrated intriguing shapes. These “effigy mounds” depicted birds, serpents, panthers, bears, and even humans. Built between 1,300 and 700 years ago, these fascinating shapes occurred mainly in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. This was a vibrant and interconnected culture.

The Mound Builders started to decline even before contact with European explorers in the middle 1500s. Whatever the cause, they might be the ancestral peoples for many of the tribes that have lived in the region, even to this day. DNA matching from the human remains in the mounds with today’s tribes is pending. It is possible that the tribes of the Apalachee, Caddo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Houma, Kansa, Missouri, Mobilian, Natchez, Osage Nation, Quapaw, Seminole, Yamasee, Yuchi, and others are descendants of the Mississippian mound builders.

Side of the square at Mound City (Photo by Hunner)

The people who lived in the central part of the United States 2,000 years ago had a sophisticated understanding of the world. Agriculturally based, they positioned their mounds to mark the passing of the seasons, they had a vast network of trade and commerce, and they probably had a stratified social structure that included priests and rulers supported by craftsmen, farmers, and possibly slaves.

The Mound City Group National Monument was established by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 to preserve prehistoric mounds of "great historic and scientific interest." Hopewell Culture National Historical Park was established in 1992 by combining the Mound City Group National Monument with Hopeton Earthworks, High Bank Works, Hopewell Mound Group, and Seip Earthworks.

Driven by History now turns down the road to the American Revolution. This week on August 25, the National Park Service turns 100. Please celebrate it by going to a park, thinking about past park trips, and letting your family, friends, and elected representatives know what our parks mean to you. Party with your parks!

My Centennial gig rig next to a mound at the parking lot of the Mound City visitor's center

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[1] Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).