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Notes From the Foundry
By Elizabeth Norris
As a graduate student with Michigan Technological University's Industrial Archaeology program, I am delighted to be returning to Cold Spring and Scenic Hudson's West Point Foundry Preserve. This will be my third season at the site, and this year I will be conducting archaeological research for my Masters thesis. I am very excited to be working here again, and am grateful to both the local community for their perennial interest and involvement as well as the Scenic Hudson Land Trust for their continued support of our study of this fascinating and historically important part of the Hudson River Valley.
This season's work will focus on some of the oldest parts of the foundry site - the boring mill and molding house. Built during the first phase of foundry construction in 1817, these structures were focused on the manufacture of cannon, a major product of the foundry for much of its existence. They represent very important parts of the foundry's story and we would really like to learn more about them. The molding house contained several large furnaces that melted iron pigs (bars of iron of a specified size). Once the metal was in a molten state, it was poured into a huge iron container, called a crucible, which was moved by crane and poured into molds to cast cannon. The molds were placed in large casting pits in the floor of the molding house. Once cool, the castings were moved by crane to the boring mill. Here the cannon's barrel was bored (drilled) out to the desired size with a boring machine (which resembles a very large lathe). This was to make sure the cannon had a straight, smooth bore for the best possible accuracy.
After over 190 years of use and subsequent neglect, making sense out of the remains of these buildings will be a challenge for the crew this season. In order to plan our excavations and evaluate the condition of the buildings, we will be using electronic survey equipment and software to map the ruins, which we can then compare with historic maps and blueprints. This method lets us pinpoint the potential location of important features such as doors, furnaces or cranes before excavating, saving time and avoiding unnecessary disturbance of the site. Capturing the site digitally is a fantastic opportunity for us; it allows us to record and study the site in ways that used to be impossible! Tim Goddard, one of the Industrial Archaeology PhD students from Michigan Tech, is spearheading the mapping effort for the first few weeks of the season.
The first week at the site has been spent getting the crew up to speed on the archaeological techniques we will be using this season. Even though we will be using sophisticated electronic equipment to map the site, we will also make hand-drawn maps as well. This is partially for the sake of redundancy - you can never know when your batteries will die or something breaks! It also gives us a second way of recording the site, giving us a more complete picture. As a result the crew have been brushing up on both electronic and hand-mapping skills. They are also reviewing other archaeological techniques such as photographing our finds and recognizing different types of soils when digging.
For its fifth consecutive summer, Scenic Hudson and Michigan Technological University will be hosting open houses at the site called "Days at the Foundry." This year the open houses will take place on Saturday June 2nd and Saturday July 14th. Open house hours for both dates are 10 am till 4pm. Tours of the site will be conducted hourly, and representatives from both Scenic Hudson and Michigan Technological University will be on hand to talk about the foundry site. The field crew will be at work on both dates, so please come down and check out our latest discoveries!
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