Saturday, Sept. 9 — ORWELL — On Saturday, Sept. 10, the Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, hosts a special program, “Conserving History, One Artifact at a Time,” at 1 p.m. In 2021 the site and its friends group, the Mount Independence Coalition, completed a project to conserve 45 significant Revolutionary War metal artifacts found on Mount Independence.
Site administrator Elsa Gilbertson and project consultants, long-time reenactors, and historians Michael Barbieri and Michael Blakeslee will talk about some of these objects and the stories.
What were some of these seemingly simple or odd objects used for? How did they get to Mount Independence in the first place? Or were they made on site during the American Revolution? Some conserved items, including an iron kettle fragment, trowel, axe head, and an intriguing “flesh fork” will be on view, as will some replica objects for comparison.
This is a Vermont Archaeology Month event, included in the regular admission fee of $6 for adults and free for children under 15. Visit the museum and walk any or all the six miles of trails on the over 300-acre site. Call 802-948-2000 for more information.
The artifact conservation work was conducted by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum conservation laboratory and funded by an agreement awarded by the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission (GLFC) to the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program.
The Mount Independence State Historic Site is one of the best-preserved Revolutionary War sites in America. It is located at 497 Mount Independence Road, 6 miles west of the intersections of Routes 22A and 73 near Orwell village. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, through to Oct. 9. For more information visit: historicsites.vermont.gov.
