April 2, 2017 Blog post: (to catch up to previous posts, please scroll to the bottom of the page)

Avez-vous un objet comme celui-ci dans votre collection? (Do you have an object like this in your collection?)

We asked experts at the Musée de l’Armée (Army Museum) in Paris to tell us if they had seen anything like the Norwood Cove object. We did not expect the answer we received. According to Christophe Pommier, Associate Curator of the Artillery Department at the Musée de l’Armée, the Norwood Cove object cannot be a weapon, but instead is an object shaped like a dagger but formed “from the body of a shell (type 75 mm) including the copper belt.” The copper lozenges that line the base of the object were not overlaid on a sheet of metal, but are “still encrusted in the steel of the body of the shell.”

Have we finally learned the identity of the Norwood Cove object? We will try to corroborate the Musée de l’Armée’s finding with the opinion of experts around the world. Then, we will have to figure out how such an object was found at Norwood Cove.

March 26, 2017 Blog post:

Are we nearing a solution?

Thanks to the many people who responded to our questions about the object found at Southwest Harbor in 1921. We asked if this could be evidence that the 1613 Saint Sauveur mission was located at Fernald Point. (For more background on this question, the object, and the evidence gathered so far, please scroll down to the post of March 21, 2017.)

We believe the Norwood Cove object is not a relic of the Saint Sauveur mission, but probably a decorative finial for a fence dating from the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. The ultimate proof of this hypothesis would be to find an identical object with known provenance or a photograph or catalog illustration showing the object as part of a fence design.[1]

We are tending toward these conclusions:

The object is not a weapon. Though it has a blade and resembles the head of a pole arm like a halberd or a spontoon, its un-socketed base could not be attached firmly to a pole. Nor could it be a dagger, because it has no handle. In addition, its corrosion pattern suggests it is made of cast iron rather than wrought iron. Cast iron, easily shattered, would not be used for such a weapon.[2]

Jimmy Krause, a historian, journeyman ironworker, and amateur blacksmith points out that there is an “offset between the base and the neck. It was forged to have a definite side facing forward, as a fence or gatepost would. This would also make the object unbalanced if it were to be a weapon, especially a dagger.” He adds, “The base is also grooved and then flares immediately below the ridges. This would secure the finial into position on an iron post and allow for installation on location and not in a shop.”[3]

The state of preservation is inconsistent with a history of being buried from 1613, the date of the Saint Sauveur settlement, to 1921, the date of the object’s discovery. It does not show the degree of corrosion expected for an iron implement buried for centuries in the salty and acidic soil of coastal Maine.[4]

The object is probably not a missionary’s religious device. Such objects would be made in a more refined and ornate style, with better materials.[5]

The object is not a letter opener. It would serve very poorly for the task of opening letters. It lacks a handle and its blade is broad, with a rather thick gauge for the purpose, and its tip is not very sharp.[6]

Next Steps:

We are looking for images of finials that closely resemble the Norwood Cove object. We are also interested in exploring the topic of archaeological findings that turn out to be misrepresentations of historical objects.

Notes:

[1] See The Champion Iron Company, “Miniature Catalog No. 12,” (Dayton: Troup Mfg. Co, ND). Accessed March 26, 2017, https://ia800701.us.archive.org/15/items/miniaturecatalog00cham/miniaturecatalog00cham.pdf

[2] Email from Ron Kley (ronkley@juno.com) to the author, March 24, 2017. He writes, “The corrosion pattern, after long burial, strongly suggests that the object is of cast iron rather than wrought iron. That, in my mind, clearly defines it as a decorative rather than utilitarian object, quite possibly a Victorian fence or gatepost finial, or part of a fancy roof crestrail. Wrought iron after long burial (especially in Maine’s acidic soil), or after long immersion in sea water, shows a very distinctive linear “grain” pattern, almost like a piece of heavily weathered barn siding. (There are probably some salvaged anchors on display in your community that illustrate this effect. Cast iron, in contrast, rusts much more uniformly.”

[3] Jimmy Krause (jek523@nyu.edu) email to Tim Garrity, March 22, 2017; Thanks also to Benjamin Bouchard, whose March 22, 2017 Facebook comment on the Mount Desert Island Historical Society page also rules out the possibility that the object is a weapon.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Email from Anne Marie Lane Jonah, Historian, Archaeology and History Branch, Parks Canada / Government of Canada, Halifax NS, annemarie.lanejonah@pc.gc.ca to the author, March 24, 2017. She suggests that it is not a religious object, because, “they tend to be better material, and more refined, especially for missionaries to carry.” In an email from Heidi Moses to Anne Marie Lane Jonah, March 2, 2017, Moses writes, “This appears maybe to be part of a fence – the thick base seems to indicate that there would be a hole for it to fit into. It is not a knife nor any kind of halberd, spontoon or plug bayonet that I have ever come across.”

[6] Benjamin Bouchard, Facebook comment, March 22, 2017

March 21, 2017 Blog Post

What is it?

We’re enlisting the help of friends around the world to help us identify this mysterious object found in 1921 and kept at the Southwest Harbor Public Library in Southwest Harbor, Maine. Is it a military weapon or a device used in religious processions, an artifact that might prove the location of the 1613 Saint Sauveur mission, or is it merely a decorative ornament from a 19th-century fence?

If you think you know the answer or want to suggest people or resources who can help us, please send an email to tim.garrity@mdihistory.org. Scroll down for more details about the object.

In the summer of 1613, a violent collision of European empires took place in the vicinity of Mount Desert Island in Maine. Within a few weeks of its founding, the French Jesuit mission of Saint Sauveur was destroyed by a force of Englishmen commanded by Samuel Argall, who sailed aboard the ship Treasurer from the Jamestown settlement. Several Frenchmen were killed, others driven away in a small boat, and rest taken captive to Virginia. Among those killed was Gilbert du Thet, the first Jesuit missionary to die in North America.

An object found in 1921 has been represented to be an artifact of the Saint Sauveur mission. Officials of the Southwest Harbor Public Library, especially its former director, Merideth Hutchins, have tried to identify the true origins and purpose of the artifact, since it was given to the library in 1946. Notes that accompanied the donation say, “This dagger, owned by Christopher Lawler, was unearthed by him at a depth of 18 inches, a greater depth than a plough would ever reach, when he was digging a hole in which to plant a tree on his grandfather’s farm at Norwood’s Cove in 1921.”

Above: alternate views of the object (click to enlarge). A central problem for close observers is the lack of a clear means of attaching it to a pole or handle. One might expect the thickest part, if it is a base, should be hollow if it is to be attached to a pole. See the Obbard-Gussler correspondence.

Library officials have consulted with numerous experts and volunteers who have variously hypothesized that the object is an ornamental device used in French Catholic religious ceremonies, or a type of spear called a halberd, or a pike-like weapon called a spontoon, or merely the finial to a Victorian-era fence post.

Residents of Mount Desert Island have long believed that the location of Saint Sauveur was near Southwest Harbor, at a place called Fernald Point. Yet, no one has yet proved that as the mission’s location. The object was reported found by Norwood Cove by Christopher Lawler in 1921 and given to the Southwest Harbor Public Library in 1946. The map shown here is a detail from Waldron Bates, et al, Map of Mount Desert Island, 1917, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The first concerted effort to investigate the object occurred in 1983 and 84, before the invention of the World Wide Web. The next major push happened twenty years later, when the internet was a resource but social media had yet to emerge as a means of crowdsourcing such a question as the one presented here. We hope that the world’s hive mind can help us find similar objects whose provenance has been verified.

Could the object in the Southwest Harbor Public Library be proof of Saint Sauveur’s location?

Further background information about the object

The following are documents and records available from the Southwest Harbor Public Library.

Library identification card, circa 1946

The Saint Sauveur Mission, excerpts from George E. Street, Mount Desert: A History (1905)

Sunderland correspondence referencing British Army weapons

Higgins Armory correspondence – concludes the object is likely “Americana”

Winterthur-Obbard – Wallace Gusler letters – Study is inconclusive

Can you help identify this mysterious object?

If you can, please contact tim.garrity@mdihistory.org.