FOLK GRAVE MARKER SURVEY: Modern Things to Come!

Whenever Stephanie and I go anywhere in NJ, if we have a chance, we stop off at any cemeteries along the way. We're looking to see which ones have folk grave markers, so we'll know which ones to return to later when we're ready to survey in that area.

Last weekend, we were in the Oranges and stopped by St. John's. As expected from a Catholic cemetery, we found several interesting markers. The main difference between those at St. John and those we've surveyed at St. James in Woodbridge has been the lack of Hungarian graves in the former. There were more Irish at St. John's. While the folk marker tradition seems to have been strong among the Hungarian community, that we still find them in a cemetery where they are less represented proves that the tradition is part of the overall Catholic burials.

What was particularly neat was that we found at least two very modern, 21st century examples! These were fine markers incorporating concrete and tile. One would appear to have been Hispanic. While we've seen some later 20th century examples, these are the most recent and show that to some degree anyway, the tradition is still alive today! It will be interesting when we start working in that part of the state!

Gordon

UNDERGROUND: Pottery Shards from the Battery Wall!

It's amazing what people will throw away! While Stephanie was working on the Battery Wall (see previous posting!) she picked through the material that the archeologists were throwing away and found some really nice specimins of pottery shards. Gordon sent the above image to archeologist Dr. Rich Veit to see what we had. Here's what he had to say...

"The item in the upper left hand corner is redware and probably dates from the 18th century, though slip trailed redware was in use up until about 1850. I think this is an early piece. All the others, except the bottom right, appear to be buff bodied English earthenware C. 1670-1790. The fragment in the bottom right appears to be Pearlware (c. 1775-1840). Essentially it is a nice 18th-century collection."

Gordon

UNDERGROUND: Stephanie and The Battery Wall!

Hello Everyone

I just thought that I would send you this lovely picture of me pretending to dissassemble the battery wall that they found while they were digging the new subway tunnels at the foot of Manhattan. Based on the bricks that they found, the archaeoligists think that this wall dates back to the Dutch occupation of New Amsterdam in the late 1600s. Our job [Stephanie works for Jablonski Berkowitz Conservation in New York City] was to map the pieces of the wall, label them and then stand in the muck and mud while contractors cut the pieces out and then we would load them into crates. The goal is to rebuild the sections of fort wall that they found in a park above ground. The MTA blasted one of the walls and put a back hoe though the center of this wall, but there is one wall left to take out that is about 6' high. They are threatening to dynamite this wall but, but I don't think that will happen and I should be spending next week back in the"pit". The last wall even had wood logs embeded into it which will quickly deteriorate once they bring it above ground, but the archeaologists are going to do testing on it to date it definitivly.

The walls havegotten a lot of press in the NY Times here and it has mostly been about our office, which has some of the subway people mad, but that is what you get when you threaten to blow stuff up. By the way, I am not really as fat as I look in this photo. The tempurature that day was about 32 degrees and I had about five layers on. Which still did not keep me that warm. When I got home at night after taking off my scarf, outer jacket, outer sweater, lighter sweater and turtle neck, I still found dirt inside my bra. I don't know how it got there. One of the girls in the office even found dirt in her panties. Now that is something to question. I havebought a new Carhart jacket to help keep me warmer for the next go around.

Stephanie