Remains of Revolutionary War-era grain mill found

The remains of a grain mill which belonged to Revolutionary War figure George Rogers Clark may have been found in Clarksville, Indiana (a city named after him).

November’s discovery left the team of researchers excited, said Cheryl Munson, an Indiana University archaeologist overseeing the high-tech imaging and excavations in a 280-acre historic district along Clarksville’s riverfront.

She said the team picked up reflections from ground-penetrating radar that indicated a manmade foundation composed of stone or brick lies beneath the site.

“We are definitely excited about that,” said Jane Sarles, president of the Clarksville Historical Society.

The find was made along Mill Creek not far from the Ohio River in an area “that looks most promising” as the likely location of the mill that was a cornerstone of Clark’s original settlement just across the river from Louisville, Ky.

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Revolutionary War relics found in Delaware River

Relics from the Revolutionary War have been dredged up from the bottom of the Delaware River.

Less than 24 hours after the crew finished shipping-channel maintenance near Fort Mifflin in South Philadelphia, Van Florcke glanced up at the dredge’s nine-foot-wide drag head and spotted something lodged in its grate.

“I was talking to my wife on a cell phone and told her, ‘I think that’s a cannonball,’ ” said Van Florcke, of Long Island, N.Y.

He climbed up to retrieve a 24-pound ball and found two other treasures six feet away on the other side of the drag head.

One was the rare tapered iron tip of a cheval-de-frise, the business end of a log once embedded in the river, along with many others, to gore the hulls of British warships that menaced Philadelphia in the mid-1770s. It had been silently resting a few hundred yards from the fort.

Next to it was a huge iron staple that had held together the chevaux-de-frise

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Sunken Revolutionary-era gravestones undergoing restoration

Revolutionary-era gravestones in Elizabeth, New Jersey that had sunk severel feet have been raised, revealing inscriptions that have long been hidden.

Brought to light were the intricate carvings and carefully chiseled words on the tombstone of Ebenezer Price, who had a workshop in Elizabeth and was one of the most skilled and prolific gravestone carvers in colonial America. He died in 1788.

Long-forgotten information about Matthias Ogden was recently lifted into the sunlight after decades of darkness. Ogden, who died in 1791, was one of those who tagged along with his friend, Aaron Burr, on Benedict Arnold’s march to Quebec and became a soldier. The conflict was the first major military initiative by the newly formed Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Restoring the centuries-old headstones is a tedious task Gartland and others have been involved in as part of a $7 million rehabilitation of the church and cemetery. Work on the oldest English-speaking church in New Jersey and cemetery began last year with the refurbishment of windows and a roof repair in the parish house.

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Revolutionary-era soldier’s skull found

The skull of an American soldier who died on a British prison ship will be reburied after undergoing forensic study.

A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains, a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War.

But lot 23 in the inventory — “a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship … and suddenly cast upon the shore of the town of Milford on the 1st of January, 1777″ — has sparked contemporary patriots to ride to the rescue.

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The search for the HMS Diana

Researchers in Massachusetts are looking for the HMS Diana, a British schooner that ran aground and was torched by the Continental Army.

“It’s a relatively unknown or unrecognized battle so we want to give it more definition,” said Victor Mastone, director and chief archaeologist at the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources.

Mastone said there have been occasional reports of the Diana remnants being discovered over the years, but each time the wreck turned out to be another, unrelated ship.

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