Well preserved historic relics found in toxic canal

[oregano]

https://www.businessinsider.com/gowanus-canal-cleanup-uncovers-historic-relics-2018-8

Workers cleaning up a Brooklyn canal full of toxic waste have found turn of the 20th century relics in the sludge, including an old WW2 boat and such things as well preserved wagon wheels and yarn that is still colorful. It's possible that other parts of the canal may hold items going back to the American Revolution. Mud can act as a preservative in some cases, preserving such things as wood and cloth that otherwise would rot.

 

[Bolletje]

Not to be a stickler, but a WW2 boat isn’t really turn of the 20th century stuff, is it?

 

[Joel's Hear]

Stickler

 

[I love roses]

They found an old boat in the mud under the mississippi river and from 1800’s and some cherry preserves were still good. Don’t think they actually ate them though. Remember Butter cup the Mammoth found in ice from the ice age? She was preserved with a buttercup flower in her mouth, hence the name.

 

[oregano]

Not to be a stickler, but a WW2 boat isn’t really turn of the 20th century stuff, is it?

Well, the rest of it was. Wagon wheels and rare old yarn in great shape due to being in muck for a century. So I got it mostly right.

 

[Mia]

Have found many interesting things in a river in the area I live in. Find it fascinating to uncover fossils and further down items like flint arrowheads and spear points.

There is a victorian era garbage dump nearby that had become exposed by rainwater runoff from a pipe nearby and every so often I climb up the riverside cliff to see what's newly exposed, old bottles, ceramics, pottery jugs have survived intact. It's a history of people in the area.

Can understand @oregano how it would be interesting to find things that fall in canal's or were thrown in, canals and rivers were used early on to dump things in. Or ships that were scuttled or sank during wars.

 

[I love roses]

Well, the rest of it was. Wagon wheels and rare old yarn in great shape due to being in muck for a century. So I got it mostly right.

It is a new century. We are in 2000’s that was 1900’s. we are used to thinking between 1800 to 1900 but we are the old ones now.

 

[I love roses]

I find civil war stuff in my yard. Calvary spur. two homemade civil war era porcelain buttons for men’s pants.

 

[oregano]

I always loved the idea of digging old stuff up from the earth. Unfortunately I lived in a suburb, so none of that when I was a kid. I do enjoy looking at stuff unearthed by building excavations in central cities.

In Reno, Nevada, the train tracks run through the middle of town since it was originally platted as a home for rail workers, and people got sick of waiting for the trains, so they put the tracks in a culvert. They also had to build a new Amtrak station. They have a display area in the station with stuff they found during the construction, old glass bottles and china from England. During one dig in Sacramento they found Anchor Hocking glass that was made in France!

In the old days there were no landfills or garbage pickup as we know it, every house had a pit in the backyard where useless items were tossed. When my grandparents moved to what was then countryside in 1953, they got permission to put in a personal garbage incinerator! It consisted of concrete slabs held together with iron straps, with a metal door and a concrete and iron chimney. Then a year later they were told not to use it. It was still there when grandpa died in 2009. The new owner of the land eventually ripped it out. It must have been the only one left in the area.

 

[I love roses]

I always loved the idea of digging old stuff up from the earth. Unfortunately I lived in a suburb, so none of that when I was a kid. I do enjoy looking at stuff unearthed by building excavations in central cities.

In Reno, Nevada, the train tracks run through the middle of town since it was originally platted as a home for rail workers, and people got sick of waiting for the trains, so they put the tracks in a culvert. They also had to build a new Amtrak station. They have a display area in the station with stuff they found during the construction, old glass bottles and china from England. During one dig in Sacramento they found Anchor Hocking glass that was made in France!

In the old days there were no landfills or garbage pickup as we know it, every house had a pit in the backyard where useless items were tossed. When my grandparents moved to what was then countryside in 1953, they got permission to put in a personal garbage incinerator! It consisted of concrete slabs held together with iron straps, with a metal door and a concrete and iron chimney. Then a year later they were told not to use it. It was still there when grandpa died in 2009. The new owner of the land eventually ripped it out. It must have been the only one left in the area.

That is how they found out what happened at the first American settlement where indians and malaria killed everyone. .they could tell how things were happening by refuse that was thrown into old well or refuse pit.

 

[Bolletje]

I studied archaeology for a while, before I got into med school. I was part of an excavation in my home town unearthing a 14th century building. It was so cool to find all these items and traces of people that lived here back then.

 

[I love roses]

They have public archeology digs for public here. They are fake planted stuff, but they teach the principals

 

[oregano]

Roses, about a decade ago some guy bought land in Virginia City, Nevada, where a famous opera house had once stood. He called up the University of Nevada and asked if they'd like to dig on his land. So some archeology students got to do a real dig. The kids found a layer of ash from the big fire that destroyed the opera house in 1875 and melted glass that they thought might have been from the windows, and stuff like shards of Victorian pottery. It was big news in Reno.

 

[I love roses]

Those things are fun. I saw a presentation of how indian Mounds are created. They can tell by ash from fires and their were huts built on top with timber poles set in the ground and they can tell by dating the difference in the soil where the wood was in the ground and where there was just plain soil what was going on.

 

[I love roses]

What American History does not tell you is the Indian Mounds we’re still being used when settlers came until genocide and westward expansion.

 

[SusanLR]

I live within a few miles of one of the prettiest parks around with an Indian mound in the center by Tampa Bay.
We have a museum of artifacts found in the surrounding area and I go to the park a lot.
Somehow I feel a connection with the Count it is named after and put a little flower on his grave marker that stands in front of where he built his mansion back in the days of the pirates that brought him there.

I've found pieces of old wine bottles that must go back to that time as they are hand blown.
A child's rosary made of gold and glass beads. Very old.
Little pottery shards and an old cannon ball in a creek nearby.

I love hunting for fossils and artifacts.
Here is a link to the Indian mound park :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Park

 

[oregano]

Susan, one of the items on my bucket list is to visit the grave of Wovoka, the Paiute Indian who started the Ghost Dance religion, in Schurz, Nevada. I have always felt like I could relate to him for some reason. When the religion he started culminated in the Wounded Knee massacre, he blamed himself, even though his people didn't blame him, and he withdrew and lived quietly on the reservation until he died. His followers paid for a stone grave marker-the Paiutes usually used wood for grave markers.

 

[tducey]

Neat. I've always been fascinated by historic stuff. Amazing to think about how much things have changed over the past # of yrs.

 

[SusanLR]

Susan, one of the items on my bucket list is to visit the grave of Wovoka, the Paiute Indian who started the Ghost Dance religion, in Schurz, Nevada. I have always felt like I could relate to him for some reason. When the religion he started culminated in the Wounded Knee massacre, he blamed himself, even though his people didn't blame him, and he withdrew and lived quietly on the reservation until he died. His followers paid for a stone grave marker-the Paiutes usually used wood for grave markers.

That would be really neat to do.
The Ghost Dance is fascinating to me too.
And your feeling of connection to him is probably something like I feel to Count Philippe.
I like learning about all native american and south american indian cultures.
We have a pow-wow gathering every year here where many tribes and nations meet and the public is welcome to observe native attire, dances, teachings on the ways of the cultures and hand made goods
are for sale.

Here is a photo from

this year's gathering with Aztec tradition story telling dance.