'The Revolutionary War beneath our feet'
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Sparks of enthusiasm flew as Dr. Nicholas Bellantoni, retired state archaeologist, took standing room only crowd back 250 years ago.
His program, “Revolutionary War Archaeology in Connecticut,” traced the British and American battles on the shoreline and in western Connecticut by way of artifacts that were left, discovered in modern day.
“The fact is this was a strategic place and what we see in that is left in archaeological sites,” he said.
This program was put on by the Putnam Public Library, in conjunction with a grant from PBS’s Ken Burns “The American Revolution,” plus the Aspinock Historical Society and America 250.
The British raided western Connecticut and the shoreline in search of livestock, provisions and horses and oxen. And if they happened to hear about an arsenal near Ridgefield, they went for that too. Should the British not have done well, they’d burn a town down in anger.
The Ridgefield Barricade gave up its history when Bellantoni said his office got a call from the Ridgefield police. A resident preparing a basement for a family room — in fact they were close to pouring concrete — came upon a skeleton. Archaeologists came and surveyed and found three skeletons, close to one another, buried. Dead soldiers were typically buried together in shallow graves. They did find buttons but they did not have any markings on them with regiment numbers. They did not find, though, musket balls with the skeletons or any trauma.
The study continues on that and they hope that DNA work may shed some light by April 27, 2027, which will be the 100 year reburial.
Israel “Ole Put” Putnam was in charge of a camp near Redding. Known as the “Valley Forge of the North,” it was characterized as “harsher than Valley Forge,” Bellantoni said. Remnants of huts are there. “These were really small, cramped quarters. You had anywhere from eight or nine soldiers inside sleeping.” The huts are gone but some firebacks survived.
A Middle Camp was found nearby. The firebacks were important because they contained plant and animal remains. Horse remains were found which indicated that to have been eating horses, there had to have been no food in the camp. “It’s one thing to read about this in a book, but when you actually recover the remains of horses it really speaks to you. That’s the physical evidence that things were rough there”
Artifacts included buttons, musket balls, even scissors.
Different sites along the coastline and western Connecticut are still giving up their Revolutionary secrets.
caption:
Dr. Nicholas Bellantoni making a point during his program on the Revolutionary War battles in Connecticut. Linda Lemmon photo.