Greetings and welcome to another week at the West Point Foundry! My name is Megan Glazewski and I am an incoming student to Tech’s Industrial Archaeology master’s program. This is my fourth field school, but this is the first industrial site at which I have had the opportunity to work. The experience has been a great introduction to American industry for me and has only increased my interest.
With the departure of Tim Goddard, the students, with the help of Elizabeth, have taken full responsibility of the electronic mapping projects. Seth, George, Tom, and Lawrence have been busily mapping in units and visible walls within the molding shop all week. They have also been working on a topographic project; their efforts will result in a three-dimensional map of the molding shop.
Alessandra, Amy, Sarah, and Seth continued to work on Unit 3A. Excavations for that unit stopped when the team hit a large granite floor. This proved to be very exciting because it was a great indicator for where the original floor was in the boring mill. Since they were not able to continue excavating down, the unit was closed and each crew member moved on to new areas after the photography and paperwork was complete.
Unit 3B was also mostly completed by the end of this week. John, Carmelo, and Sam stopped excavating at what was thought to be the original floor of the molding shop. The structural features included two granite and brick walls that intersect at a ninety degree angles. The wall section that runs east to west separates the boring mill from the molding shop, while the other runs north to south and separates the inside and the outside of the molding shop. The 3B crew dug two test pits, one on the inside of the shop and the other on the outside. The result of these pits was the discovery of the architectural floor.
Colleen and I continued to work through the rubble of Unit 3C. We uncovered two large, heavy iron box-like structures. The first is made of sheet iron while the second, located slightly lower in the unit, is made of cast iron. The actual purpose of these two “boxes” has not yet been determined. To add to the excitement of currently unidentifiable objects, a vertical iron pipe is located in between our “boxes.” We will continue to excavate this unit to define these iron artifacts further.
Two new units were opened this week. Both of these units are being excavated to try to locate certain features that are recorded in historical documents. John began working on Unit 3D, which is near a possible area of where a large brick stack may have been. George, Amy, Tom, Carmelo and Sam worked in rounds in Unit 3E. Their unit was inside the remains of an oven with the goal of finding where an earlier cupola furnace may have been.
This week we saw the return of Pat Martin to the site. We are grateful to have him back and appreciate all of his advice during this excavation.
The highlight for our week was the open house that took place on Saturday. More than 100 visitors came to the site that day. Big thank yous go out to Scenic Hudson. Without your help, our open houses would not be possible. Also, we would like to send our sincerest thanks to all of you—new friends and old—who joined us. Your questions and enthusiasm were greatly appreciated. We would like to welcome everyone back to the site on July 14th. This will be a great opportunity to see more of the progress that the crew has made during this season. Again, thank all of you from the WPF crew!
