December 19th Meeting, plus Program by Angela Alongi Nardo

Angela, a professional speech language pathologist, will talk about petroglyphs from her recent tour of sites in Arizona. 

 

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The Program is free and open to the public.

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The monthly meetings of the Incorporated Orange County Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association usually meet on the third Friday at 7:30 pm are held in the community room of the Goshen Methodist Church, 115 Main St, Goshen, NY 10924. Use the Court Lane entrance - one flight up.

No meetings in July or August.

Cadwallader Colden Mansion Ruins update

The Colden Mansion Ruins are located in the Town of Montgomery, New York, USA, along NY 17K, at the intersection of Stone Castle Road and Route 17K. The stone walls and foundations, still visible in the woods just off the road, are all that still stands from the house built in 1767 by Cadwallader Colden Jr., son of Cadwallader Colden ( February 7, 1688 – September 20, 1776 ) was a physician, farmer, surveyor, botanist, and a lieutenant governor for the Province of New York. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colden_Mansion_Ruins>

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To All Interested in the Colden Mansion Ruins Heritage Park project -

 

GREAT NEWS!  On Thursday, November 13th, the Town of Montgomery Town Board approved the expenditure of up to $125,000 for the first phase of the stabilization of the Colden Mansion ruins.  This is a tremendous step towards preserving this historic site and the development of a heritage park.  It is now time to get to work to define the scope of work for our consultants from Stephen Tilly Architect, so that they may develop the necessary bidding documents.

 

A work session has been scheduled for Monday, December 1st, at 7:00 PM in the Town Board room (2nd Floor) of Town of Montgomery Town Hall at 110 Bracken Road.  Representatives from Stephen Tilly Architect will be there to work with us as we determine how we want to approach the following issues:  (1) bracing the entire structure; (2) bracing rough openings (doors, windows, chimneys); and (3) capping the upper walls.  The goal is for the team from Stephen Tilly Architect to leave this work session with directives for developing the bid documents for the solutions we choose.  As you can understand, YOUR INPUT IS VITAL FOR THIS INITIAL PHASE OF THE EMERGENCY STABILIZATION.

 

Marion Brown has been in contact with an arborist and will bring us up to date on the issue of tree removal at the site.  Also, I will present some information from Stacey Matson-Zuvic regarding filling in the cisterns.

 

Other exciting news is that we now have the mortar analysis for the main mansion ruins.  This will enable us to approach masonry work based on solid historical evidence.  Copies of the report will be available for you to look at at the work session.

 

Please feel free to forward this message to any interested parties.  This is an exciting opportunity to develop a new park for our region at a site with tremendous significance and potential. 

 

I look forward to seeing you on Monday evening.

 

Best regards,

 

Suzanne Isaksen

Town of Montgomery Historian

www.townofmontgomery.com

No November meeting on the third Friday.

The Chapter's 50th Anniversary Archaeological Symposium/Annual Diner held November 8th replaces the regular meeting.

50th Anniversary Archaeological Symposium

The Chapter's 50th Anniversary Archaeological Symposium opened to a large and enthusiastic crowd Saturday at 10 am in Orange Hall at the  SUNY/Orange Middletown Campus

Here, members Ray and June, at the entrance table, examine Jean's artifacts collected by her mother decades ago in the New Jersey interior and the along the Atlantic shore in Cape May.

Prof. Barry Kass led off the lecture series before a nearly full house with his review of Dutchess Quarry Caves, which is among the earliest known inhabited sites in the northeast and one of extraordinarily few North American sites that contain evidence of human presence from the glacial period through the colonial times.

Ginny completes a certificate commemorating the shell and bead necklace assembled by Hailey from objects she uncovered from the mock dig table.

  

Dave examines South American pottery brought in by attendee.

 

Kevin, Jon and Joe discussing a topic.

Ray and Gary making their points about this reproduction lithic knife.

Flintnappers, Are Tsirk (a fracture analysis specialist in addition to a master napper), Brian, Gary and Joe held center stage demonstrating various techniques and awed the audience with their mastery in crafting points, flakes, scrapers and all manner of objects.

Brian discusses fire starting techniques.

Dave closed the lecture session with a dynamic talk about the types of organic materials that where probably used, but rarely survive the ages in our Northeast environments. He has noted that most hunter-gatherer cultures around the world have developed similar technologies for survival, such as this bow and two piece arrow - long shaft with detachable foreshaft/projectile point.

He theorizes that it is likely that people in this area used similar technologies.  Here he demonstrates how people use a head-basket to collect food, tossing in the basket as they pick it.

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The hall was transformed and the 2009 edition of our Annual Dinner followed.

Following dessert,  Ray Decker presented retiring President, Kevin Storms, with this specially commissioned "Bi-stemmed Point" to commemorate his dedicated service to the Chapter and for all the untyped fragments that Kevin has identified over the years!  Thanks to Gary Sipila for crafting this extraordinary piece!

Annual Dinner Chairman, Chuck, closed the dinner with a rousing expression of thanks to all who made this day such a memorable success!