Story

Bo, I think you're on to something there, period-hunting feral pigs. Gonna dress period, too? You've seen photos of 'Hogzilla', yes? http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/...c;f=11;t=001152 From your description of three and two, it sounds like you've read the old treatese that cautioned hunting in pairs (one man holding his shot while the other took it). FWIW, the predecessor to the 'Jaeger' rifle (mid to late 18th century) was the Sau rifle - barrel length from 18 to 22", .50 to .80 bore rifled and frequently without a patch box. Check out http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hh..._GB&db=S-50.txt The idea was to follow up the shot with the hirschfanger (hunting sword). If the boar landed a few cuts before you killed it, they became scars of honor. And something worth reading http://www.logoi.com/notes/hunting_in_india_boar.html

More spooky stuff for your Solstice - the Mowing Devil (Crop Circles), circa 1678 http://www.cristiancontini.it/images/cropdevil.jpg

Links to the original NATURE MAGAZINE article and models of the device in action already in the NAVIGATION thread, in Captain Twill http://pyracy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8089&hl=

Ordnance.

Something to chew on, navigation wise. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/...ll/444534a.html

Weekend Edition Saturday, November 5, 2005 · http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...storyId=4990705 For hundreds of years, ship captains in the Indian Ocean have been writing of nighttime voyages through eerie stretches of water -- areas where the surface of the ocean glowed so brightly that sailors could read books on deck at midnight. These milky waters were said to cover thousands of square miles. Marine biologists used to ignore these kinds of reports. Now they don't. A group of satellite photos has changed their minds. http://media.npr.org/programs/wesat/featur...ter/waterlg.jpg Satellite images captured a large patch of glowing water off the coast of Somalia. The area is about the size of Connecticut, and researchers think billions of glowing bacteria are the source.

'tis yours, mate. Standby for photos. PS - Black John, your PM mailbox is full. Email me directly?

Japanese .69 flintlock 'Tower' pistol marked 'Liberty', newish condition. Hammer fall seems soft, could probably use a new sear spring. Pics available. $125 + shipping.

Wrecks to riches: Siren song of treasure hunt A Bucks salvage firm went public after a big find, but investors in sea hunts shouldn't be holding their breath. By Thomas Ginsberg Inquirer Staff Writer Taking a company public is risky. Searching for buried treasure is chancier. Staking a claim on government artifacts may be plain lunacy. Put them together, however, and you have the makings of a viable treasure-hunting business. Or so hopes a group of Bucks County entrepreneurs, who took their shipwreck salvage business public last year and now have an international fracas on their hands. Sovereign Exploration Associates International Inc., of Newtown, believes it has pinpointed off the coast of Nova Scotia a trove of 19th-century artifacts and coins from the White House and U.S. Treasury that the British plundered during the War of 1812. The company says the long-missing loot may have gone down on a British 18-gun brig, the HMS Fantome, which sank in 1814 off the coast of Halifax, then a key British port. Historians say the missing artifacts would have immeasurable historic value, but no documents have turned up proving or disproving the Fantome actually carried them. None of that bothers modern treasure hunters. Their age-old pursuit long has been grist for Hollywood films, childhood games and seafaring eccentrics. Now, swashbuckling entrepreneurs are giving the high-risk business a 21st-century makeover in a bid for investors and public respect. The Fantome itself is gone, pulverized in the turbulent Canadian waters that have claimed hundreds of ships. But Robert D. Baca, the entrepreneur from Ivyland Borough who runs Sovereign and held the sole license to explore the site, said its divers had found about 60 pre-1814 U.S. and British coins, cannonballs and musket shot, and copper buttons and copper sheathing embossed with English naval or royal emblems. Baca, a onetime medical-device marketer, cautions in interviews that Sovereign still lacks proof it found the Fantome. Then he tantalizes with tales of lost U.S. treasure, including 200-year-old White House silverware and rare silver dollars minted in Philadelphia. Sovereign's "pile," in salvage speak, has set off a transatlantic storm. A Halifax-based documentarian, John Wesley Chisholm, began criticizing the company last year even as he himself considered filming - not excavating - the site. Chisholm said Canada "should not be farming out our own marine cultural heritage to treasure hunters. We should do it ourselves, or we should do it with oversight." Then earlier this year, the British government staked its own claim and persuaded Nova Scotia museum authorities to withdraw Sovereign's salvage permit. Britain "wants to protect the remains of our servicemen and women who have lost their lives serving their country," the British Embassy said. There may be a hitch: Nobody died when the Fantome hit a shoal and took hours to sink. A British Embassy official in Ottawa, speaking on condition he not be identified by name, said London is concerned about remains of any Britons in the area strewn with other British wrecks. The official emphasized Britain was not claiming any U.S. booty itself: "Stolen fair and square? We're not saying that." Nova Scotia is demanding 10 percent of the value of items recovered, as allowed under provincial law. It has impounded the items Sovereign found so far. The U.S. government wants its stuff back, if it's there, but for the moment is officially on the sidelines. "If items are recovered, the U.S. will work with the U.K. and Nova Scotia on their return," said James K. Foster, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Ottawa. Sovereign, for its part, wants any valuable coins and documentary rights but promises to hand over historic artifacts, Baca said. Company officials plan to meet British authorities in London soon, although resolving the standoff and retrieving and verifying any artifacts likely will take several years, he said. Until then, Baca and his partners, including co-owner Barry Gross of Bensalem, board member John J. Barr of Willow Grove, and accountant Kevin J. Conner of Newtown, are trawling for support and investors. After taking a beating in the Canadian media this year, the company hired a Philadelphia public relations firm, Braithwaite Communications, to fight back. Six years ago, there was only one public treasure-salvage company, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., of Tampa, Fla. Its discovery of the HMS Sussex, a 1694 wreck off Gibraltar whose cargo Odyssey values at around $1 billion, showed there might be an alternative to the private backers who long have bankrolled treasure hunters. Inspired by Odyssey, Admiralty Marine Operations Ltd., of suburban Atlanta, went public in 2000. Sovereign followed in 2005. And this year, Deep Blue Marine Inc., of Salt Lake City, appeared with a pitch for investors by actor James Brolin, who is also an investor. The spate of newly public companies was partly coincidence and partly a response to changing market conditions: New sonar technology has become available, precious metal prices are high, venture capital has tightened up, and adventure-seeking investors are on the rise, said company executives. Most said their revenue model is to sell or leverage their gold and silver coins and artifacts, or to sell rights for documentaries or exhibits. Some supplement treasure hunting with mundane salvage work. "Billions of dollars! You cannot begin to imagine how much money is out there, and that's why there are four [public] companies," said Wilf Blum, founder of Deep Blue, who said he was looking for a fun way to invest his fortune from the stock market. In reality, earnings are few and far between, and stock prices are dismal. Only one, Odyssey, holds its share value at between $2 and $4. The rest trade for pennies, far below their initial prices. Admiralty is technically in default, and its chief executive said treasure hunting is really more like a lottery than a business. "You don't get anything, you don't get anything, you don't get anything. But when you hit, you'll find more than the total invested," said Admiralty chief executive George Collingwood, a onetime manager at Allied Signal Corp. Sovereign, for its part, reported a loss of $1.6 million for the year ended June 30 and an accumulated loss of $19.1 million. Greg Stemm, Odyssey's cofounder, said the upstarts prey on "the age-old lure of the sea and 'get rich quick' promises." In an e-mail response to questions, Stemm claimed Odyssey's backers included average people who "buy stock to be 'part of the adventure,' " as well as major institutional investors, such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. All the companies said their business is enormously risky. One said it attracts deep-pocketed investors who like to boast about their eccentric stock holdings "at cocktail parties." A financial columnist, Chuck Jaffe, has ridiculed the whole racket and once labeled Deep Blue a "Stupid Investment of the Week." Deep Blue founder Blum responded: "Don't put anything in this stock that you cannot afford to lose." At the same time, the new companies insist they are different from "smash and grab" salvors that peddle trinkets on eBay or mishandle artifacts, such as Sub-Sal Inc., a defunct company that provoked outrage in 1984 when it ravaged the 186-year-old wreck of the HMS DeBraak off the Delaware coast. "If we find something, we can't just slip away without reporting it. How would we report the income? We have to answer to shareholders," Collingwood said. But Robert Neyland, a board member of the Advisory Council for Underwater Archaeology, an association of marine archaeologists affiliated with the nonprofit Society for Historical Archaeology, doubted the companies' pledge and dismissed their assertion that nothing would be retrieved if not for them. "I see more and more private entities and nonprofits" doing salvage work, Neyland said. "They're interested in the history and adventure, not the money." For their part, the public companies all said they have close relations with museums and employ archaeologists who document all finds. Said Baca: "We're not just running a business. We're in the middle of changing an industry." Salvage Companies Sovereign Exploration Associates International Inc. Location: Newtown, Pa. Ticker: SVXA Web site: www.sea-int.com Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. Location: Tampa, Fla. Ticker: OMR Web site: www.shipwreck.net Deep Blue Marine Inc. Location: Salt Lake City Ticker: DPBM Web site: www.alldeepblue.com Admiralty Holdings Co. Location: Douglasville, Ga. Ticker: ADMH Web site: www.admiraltycorporation.com Big Finds Are Rare, But Make a Splash Who Owns a Shipwreck? The Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in 1622 with silver, gold and emeralds, was found off the Florida Keys in 1985 by private salvor Mel Fisher. He fought U.S. and Florida claims up to the U.S. Supreme Court. He later donated part to Florida. The British warship DeBraak, which sank off the Delaware coast in 1798, was found in 1984 by private Sub-Sal Inc. Its bungled recovery fueled 1987 passage of the U.S. Abandoned Shipwreck Act. The mail ship Central America, which sank off the South Carolina coast in 1857 with gold now valued up to $400 million, was found in 1988 by private Columbus-America Discovery Group. Ownership disputes continue to this day. The French ship the Belle, which sank in 1686 in Texas' Matagorda Bay, was excavated in 1995-96 by the Texas Historical Commission. After resolving an ownership dispute with France, Texas gained control of more than a million artifacts, including the hull. The British warship Sussex sank off Gibraltar in 1694 with gold and silver now valued at about $1 billion. In 2002, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. announced it had found the wreck. Odyssey has an agreement with Britain, and is negotiating with Spain to excavate the site. A patchwork of state laws, federal law, international treaties and foreign laws governs wreck salvage and preservation. If a ship is deemed abandoned in international waters, a salvage company can claim ownership. But often, a government reclaims ownership. Coastal provinces, U.S. states or even adjacent countries also may demand some artifacts or a percentage of their value. Salvors also may fight each other for rights or profits. The result: Discovery of a valuable wreck almost always means a long and costly legal battle and a smaller reward at the end.

I suspect it's made of red brass - brass with enough copper to give it a reddish tint; used for plumbing pipe and other brass hardware and in cheap jewelry

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psalm 107: 23-30

Kids write about the Sea... 1) This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly age 6) 2) Oysters' balls are called pearls. (James age 6) 3) If you are surrounded by sea you are an Island. If you don't have sea all round you, you are incontinent. (Wayne age 7) 4) Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend no more. (Kylie age 6) 5) A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy age 8) 6) My uncle goes out in his boat with pots, and comes back with crabs. (Millie age 6) 7) When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes, when the wind didn't blow, the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William age 7) 8) I like mermaids. They are beautiful, and I like their shiny tails. And how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen age 6) 9) I'm not going to write about the sea. My baby brother is always screaming and being sick, my Dad keeps shouting at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy age 6) 10) Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers. (Christopher age 7) 11) When you go swimming in the sea, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin age 6) 12) Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Two divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky age 8) 13) On holidays my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her fat ass. (Jule age 7)

Why not snag one of Artesania Latina's 1:30 scale wood & metal models of the San Felipe's 18 pounder cannon? http://cgi.ebay.com/1-30-SCALE-MODEL-OF-TH...1QQcmdZViewItem It's the right period and small enough that you could finish it fast. While building it, you can work up the templates for the full scale version. There's also a generic French deck gun kit. http://www.modelexpo-online.com/cgi-bin/sg...&TRAN85=N&GENP=

Post pictures.

Caribbean grave site illuminates slavery By MAT PROBASCO, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 5, 12:40 PM ET A paper trail documents their lives as human property, from their passage across the Atlantic to their sale as slaves for sugar plantations. Now a newly discovered burial ground promises to shed extensive new light on the lives and deaths of Africans in the Caribbean. Researchers from Denmark and the U.S. Virgin Islands want to unearth up to 50 skeletons next year, hoping to learn about their diet, illnesses and causes of death, and thus broaden knowledge of slave life in the one-time Danish colony. Descendants of slaves could discover ancestors through DNA tests. At public meetings, islanders have also embraced the excavations as a way for Europeans to recognize their historic role in the slave trade — and perhaps to make new amends. Most slaves in the Americas were buried in unmarked graves, and studies of slave graveyards "are rarer than hen's teeth. The science that will come out of it will just be extraordinary," said David Brewer, an archaeologist with the U.S. Virgin Islands government and one of the scientists planning to unearth some tombs in November to assess their condition before the project starts in March. The slaves are buried in shallow graves beneath mounds of stones and conch shells, some marked by small, illegible headstones. They were found this year on a private 300-acre estate on St. Croix, the largest island. Details have been withheld while researchers negotiate access to the property, said Brewer, who refused to identify the owner or the exact location of the graveyard. The scientists will examine teeth and bones and conduct chemical analysis in a mobile laboratory. Brewer stressed that the bones will be disturbed as little as possible and reburied exactly as they were found. One fingernail-sized shaving will be taken from each skeleton for a database of African DNA that could reveal links to other slave populations. "This is the closest we can possibly get to telling the story of their lives as they knew it," said Pia Bennike, an anthropologist leading the team from the University of Copenhagen. More than 100,000 enslaved Africans, mostly from what is now Ghana, arrived in the Danish West Indies from 1617 to 1807, according to Myron Jackson, director of the U.S. Virgin Islands' historical preservation office. Many were sold at slave markets and shipped to the American colonies while thousands remained as the property of Danish colonists. From the time they were big enough to work, slaves cut sugar cane and picked cotton, tobacco and sweet potatoes in the Caribbean heat, Jackson said. When severe drought hit in 1725 and 1733, some plantation owners starved their work force rather than pay for food to be shipped to the islands. David Brion Davis, a Yale University historian, notes that Caribbean slaves died much faster than those on the mainland and had a lower birthrate because of the harsh environment and labor conditions. "Sugar production was a very, very taxing — almost lethal — kind of occupation," he said, noting that many lost limbs in machines. Slaves who plotted revolt, tried to escape or threatened a white man were punished by 150 lashes, brandings on their forehead, or having a leg or ear chopped off. Others were hanged or tortured to death. The Danes outlawed slavery in 1848. The United States bought the three-island territory from Denmark in 1917. An island group is hoping the project will boost its case for reparations from Denmark. No demands for compensation have ever been made. But educating Europeans about their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade will likely lead to more Danish investment and possible payments, said Shelley Moorhead, president of the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance, based in St. Croix. Historian Davis said he is particularly interested in whether the genetic testing shows how often blacks and whites interbred. He said the study holds great potential. "There are probably gaps we don't even know about that will be filled in."

Sterling, Can you post pics of the ones you've made? Cost?

Cannon recovery delayed. http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtl...al/15890750.htm

*Ahem* From the "Wreck of Blackbeard's Ship Found " thread: The team has found cannons, a bell, lead shot of all sizes, gold dust, pewter cups and medical devices, like a urethral syringe used to treat syphilis with mercury. "A saying at the time was 'a night with Venus and a month with mercury.' And mercury doesn't even cure you," lead archeologist Chris Southerly said in an interview. Mercury was also a violent purgative, and used by English doctorsin the treatment of Yellow Fever. Apparently, the French eschewed that approach. Mercury would have been available, casked, as the Spanish used it as part of the silver refining process.

UPDATED: 09:14, October 30, 2006 Replica of 18th century Swedish ship "Gotheborg" leaves Shanghai font size ZoomIn ZoomOut The replica of the 18th century Swedish merchant ship "Gotheborg" bid farewell to Shanghai Saturday after its record two months of berthing in China's largest commercial center. During the period, the ship received about 83,000 visitors since it arrived in the metropolis on Aug. 29, and more tourists came to the dock where it had been staying to visit an exhibition showcasing sea voyage culture and the friendly exchanges in history between China and Sweden, local tourism authorities said. "We hope she can come back in 2010 when Shanghai holds the World Expo," said Goran Bengtsson, chairman of the Swedish East India Company, Svenska Ostindiska Companiet or SOIC, the manufacturer of "Gotheborg," at a ceremony for return voyage in Shanghai. The ship will visit Zhoushan, east China's Zhejiang Province after leaving Shanghai and will have an overall maintenance in a shipyard there. The planned two-week stay in Zhoushan will bring her China tour to an end and she is expected to return to Sweden next August with a journey of about 37,000 sea miles. The legendary Gotheborg made three voyages from Gothenburg to southern Chinese city of Guangzhou between 1743 and 1745, pioneering trade between Sweden and China. On its last return trip to Sweden in 1745, tragedy struck when it smashed into rocks about 900 meters from its destination after a 30-month voyage to China. It sunk with its entire cargo, including tea, china and silk, outside the port of Gothenburg. The wreckage of the ship was recovered in 1984 and excavation was conducted from 1986 to 1992. The discovery led to the idea of rebuilding a replica of the ship by using the same traditional techniques and materials and sailing it to China again. The replica, Gotheborg III, is 58.8 meters long and 11 meters wide. It cost 30 million U.S. dollars and 10 years of work by more than 4,000 shipbuilders. Her voyage to China took about nine and a half months since she kicked off her journey from Gothenburg, Sweden in October last year. Before Shanghai, she had visited Guangzhou and stayed there for a month, attracting at least 2.5 million visitors since her arrival in the city on July 18. China and Sweden registered 5.7 billion U.S. dollars of bilateral trade in 2005, China's Ministry of Commerce said. Source: Xinhua

2F tends to clump after a few shots and be harder to ignite/easier to foul the pan and hole on my weapons. <shrug> YMMV.

*Ahem* [Picking nits] Those are all firelocks with smoothbores. No rifles. [/Picking nits]

Rats, Get yourself a priming horn or brass primer and fill it with 3F or better yet, 4F for priming only. 2F, bad JuJu for priming.

Haunted A tale from the 1700s grabbed John Stimpson and wouldn't let go By Don Aucoin, Boston Globe Staff October 4, 2006 PRINCETON -- In the shadow of Mount Wachusett, a soft rain has begun to fall on a roadside cemetery where John Stimpson is gazing at an 18th-century gravestone that is curiously well-preserved. Article Tools ``Here she is. Martha Keyes," Stimpson says. ``She's the woman who's haunting the mountain still." He is only half-kidding. Maybe less than half. When it comes to the tale of Martha Keyes and her daughter, Lucy -- whom one historian called ``the Lost Child of Wachusett Mountain " -- Stimpson is like a lot of folks in this small town: treading the line between belief and disbelief, torn between rationality and the lure of a compelling ghost story. The difference is that Stimpson made a movie about it. ``The Legend of Lucy Keyes," a supernatural thriller starring Julie Delpy, Justin Theroux, and Brooke Adams, will air Saturday at 8 p.m. on the Lifetime Movie Network . In a sense, the seeds for the film were planted in 1993, when Stimpson and his wife bought a house a stone's throw from the site where the Keyes home used to be. ``People would drive by and ask, `Is this the Lucy Keyes house?' " he recalls. ``And I'd say, `What are you talking about?' " He found out soon enough. On April 4, 1755, while apparently following her two sisters to Wachusett Pond, 4-year-old Lucy Keyes disappeared. She was never seen again. But her mother, Martha, never stopped searching for her. ``The stories are told that she flirted with insanity, that she would go out nightly in the woods, calling for her daughter," says Stimpson.[/color=red] After Martha Keyes died in 1789, the legend began to build. Some came to believe that Martha's restless spirit was still abroad on the mountain, searching for her daughter. Some imagined that they could still hear the tormented mother at night, her voice carried on the wind, calling ``Luuuc y." Some still do. A local woman told Stimpson she had seen an apparition of a woman in Colonial garb on a mountain road. A groomer at the Wachusett Mountain Ski Area spoke of seeing fresh child-size footprints in the snow at 2 a.m. ``It's a tragedy that's sort of taken hold for 250-plus years," says Mary Cadwallader, president of the Princeton Historical Society. ``The lore is that people today still hear Martha calling Lucy in the mountains and other areas. I just talked to the third graders, and all they want to hear about is Lucy." Perhaps it's understandable that the story of a lost child and a mother's unappeasable grief would reverberate through the years. The tale made its way into Stimpson's imagination and wouldn't let go. ``If you have any inclination toward belief in the spiritual world, the paranormal, this is the perfect situation," says Stimpson. ``A mother yearning in the afterlife for closure, and the fact that it's still unsolved." Screening a legend Though it is a work of fiction set in the present, Stimpson's film flashes back repeatedly to the real-life events that inspired it. Delpy and Theroux play Jean and Guy Cooley , who move to a small town with their two young daughters, one of whom is named Lucy. At the behest of a sinister developer played by Adams, Guy throws himself into persuading the townsfolk to support a wind-turbine energy project on Mount Wachusett. The smugly oblivious Guy ignores dire warnings from a local woman not to disturb the site where the spirit of Martha Keyes still searches for her daughter. On the homefront, meanwhile, Jean is haunted by memories of another daughter, who was killed in a car accident. Soon the Cooleys are coping with another kind of haunting, as the film explores themes of guilt, both historical and personal, and about the hold the past has on the present. So far, critics have split on ``The Legend of Lucy Keyes." Variety dismissed it as ``a modest psychological horror tale that could easily be dubbed `Amityville Jr.' " But Entertainment Weekly called it a ``beautifully filmed spookfest" that, while a ``slow build . . . still brings out the goosebumps." Stimpson says he is proud of the film, and while it is not receiving a theatrical release, he notes he has deals for either DVD releases (the DVD has already been released in the US) or TV airings in 25 countries. In any case, this town 20 miles north of Worcester is buzzing about it. In a community of only 3,700, more than 1,000 showed up at an outdoor screening. Many of them were probably hoping to see themselves in the movie. Stimpson, who wrote and directed the film, shot it mostly on location in Princeton and enlisted many locals as extras. In fact, when Stimpson addressed the crowd after August's screening, one disappointed extra whose scene was left on the cutting-room floor piped up with a question: ``How does it feel to be the one that cut his own son from the movie?" It was 15-year-old John Stimpson Jr., the filmmaker's oldest son, giving his old man the needle. Local foundation Stimpson grew up in Wellesley and attended Noble and Greenough and Harvard. After college, he went to Hollywood to try his hand at acting. He landed some work, mostly in TV commercials. He was one of a handful of finalists for the role of Woody in ``Cheers." He didn't get it and, weary of the insecurity of an actor's life, he turned toward filmmaking. He worked as a studio script reader , then returned east to a film production company in Boston, where he wrote scripts and produced corporate films. In 1988, he produced a documentary, ``Backstage at the Hasty Pudding," about the Harvard theatrical club. He codirected ``Beacon Hill" (2003) with former Massachusetts Secretary of State Michael Connolly. The movie was a flop, but it whetted his appetite to make another feature film. He began writing the script for ``The Legend of Lucy Keyes" five years ago, and he shot most of the film over three weeks in 2004. Friends lent him the use of their house to serve as the Cooleys' s home. The Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, owned and operated by Stimpson's wife, Carolyn, and her two brothers, was the setting for some scenes. Cadwallader, of the historical society, showed him a doll believed to belong to Lucy Keyes, and he used a facsimile of that doll in the movie. The climax takes place in the muddy foundation of a home in the ski area that once belonged to John Greenleaf Whittier. ``I wrote the script knowing this location would be where we would wrap it up," says Stimpson, standing at the bottom of the circular stone foundation, which serves as a crypt in the movie. Now that the story of Lucy Keyes has been translated through a filmmaker's sensibility, the movie will inevitably color the tale itself. Cadwallader, while praising the film and Stimpson's knowledge of local history, acknowledges that ``from a historical standpoint, even though it's a movie, we're probably for all time going to be fighting the truth versus the movie version." Stimpson freely admits he changed a few details of the story, and he took the filmmaker's liberty of providing an answer to what happened to Lucy. But back in real life, the mystery continues to gnaw at him, and he can't help thinking about Lucy -- and Martha -- when he goes for a run or a hike on Mount Wachusett. ``I'll go into the woods, and I'll have the hair on the back of my neck up," he admits. ``Especially if it starts to get dark, I can't help but have my skin crawl."

More period discoveries - Thu, Oct. 26, 2006 email this print this Beaufort dig finds Yamasee artifacts The Associated Press HILTON HEAD ISLAND - Archeologists digging through Beaufort County soil where million-dollar homes will soon be built have discovered what one scientists calls the most significant finds in South Carolina in at least two decades. The land, currently in dense forest near the confluence of the Okatie and Colleton rivers, was home to an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 Yamasee Indians between 1700 and 1715. For six years, a group of archaeologists has worked to uncover clues on how the tribe lived, how they built their homes, what they ate, how they hunted and how much they traded with early European settlers. More than 10,000 artifacts have been recovered, including three Yamasee houses - the first such houses found in South Carolina. The land will soon be home to an exclusive 515-acre development called Heyward Point, where many of the homes will cost more than $1 million. But for now, the archeologists are concentrating on the homes that stood 300 years ago. Marked by patterns in the soil made by remnants of rotted or burned wooden posts, the circular homes were as big as 23 feet in diameter. The scientists also have found plenty of fragments of Yamasee pottery and rudimentary tools like spearheads made from animal bones, glass and stone. The Yamasee also traded with Europeans, leaving behind objects like glass bottles, musket balls, pottery, tobacco pipes, rings and glass beads. "This is about as good as it gets," said Alex Sweeney, field director of the project with Brockington and Associates Cultural Resources Consulting. "After this, I'm probably going to be disappointed in the future." Chester DePratter of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology calls it the most significant dig in South Carolina in 20 years. The developer is paying for the $1 million project, but items found on the site will be passed along to the state Department of Archives and Natural History. Some of the artifacts will be displayed in an interpretive center at Heyward Point. Others probably will be placed in museums and libraries.

I've heard of urine being used, but don't know much about it. Same with maggots. I know more about the contemporary uses of medicinal maggots than historical. I gotta research those two more.... In my spare time the other day I researched maggots a bit. That research was showing a trend towards maggots not being used during the 17th/18th centuries. History of Maggot Therapy References to the use of maggot therapy in ancient times The primitive, carrion-breeding habit of blowflies has been known and recorded for centuries. A very early reference can be found in the Hortus Sanitatus, one of the earliest European medical texts, published at Mainz in 1491. Fewer historical references are available on the habits of parasitic species that cause myiasis although some references do exist. In the Bible, Job (Job 7:5) complained `My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering'. * Maggots in military conflicts The opportunistic infestation of wounds, particularly those sustained in battle, has similarly been observed throughout the centuries. Ambroise Paré (1509-1590), Chief Surgeon to Charles IX and Henri III, recorded that in the battle of St. Quentin (1557) maggots frequently infested suppurating wounds4. Napoleon's Surgeon in Chief, Baron Dominic Larrey, quoted by Goldstein4 reported that when maggots developed in battle injuries, they prevented the development of infection and accelerated healing. `These insects, so far from being injurious to their wounds, promoted rather their cicatrization by cutting short the process of nature and causing the separation of cellular eschars which they devoured. These larvae are indeed greedy only after putrefying substances and never touched the parts endowed with life'. There is no evidence, however, that Larrey deliberately introduced maggots into his patients' wounds. During the American Civil War, a Confederate medical officer Joseph Jones, quoted by Chernin5 noted the beneficial effects of wound myiasis as follows; `I have frequently seen neglected wounds filled with maggots, as far as my experience extends, these worms only destroy dead tissues, and do not injure specifically the well parts. I have heard surgeons affirm that a gangrenous wound which has been thoroughly cleansed by maggots heals more rapidly than if it had been left to itself.' According to Baer6 and McLellan7 the Confederate surgeon J. Zacharias, may have been the first western physician to intentionally introduce maggots into wounds for the purpose of cleaning or debriding the wound. Baer quotes Zacharias as stating: `During my service in the hospital in Danville, Virginia, I first used maggots to remove the decayed tissue in hospital gangrene and with eminent satisfaction. In a single day would clean a wound much better than any agents we had at our command.... I am sure I saved many lives by their use, escaped septicaemia, and had rapid recoveries' A fascinating review of the early history of maggots in wound care was published in 1932 by Goldstein8. http://www.larve.com/maggot_manual/docs/history.html