The primary purpose of this thread is to have a special place for our members to post their cannon discoveries found in a park, cemetery, public building or wherever they may have been found. We are thinking primarily of full size guns, upon which you might want to base a smaller version. (Added on Monday)
Finding cannons is a lot like finding gold. Put very simply, they are where you find them. Sure we do quite a bit of research before we go out cannon hunting, but sometimes, even armed with the state name, the town name and the park name you still have a devil of a time finding them. When we find ourselves spinning around in an unfamiliar town, we quickly look for people who know their town and it’s features thoroughly. To lessen our frustration we asked a policeman in South Duxbury, Mass., a pizza delivery girl in Westerly, Rhode Island and a bicycle shop owner in Exeter, New Hampshire. In all cases their directions were good and they saved us hours of grid pattern search time.
Fort Washington, on the Potomac River about two hours float south of Washington, DC has always been on our itinerary, but always was bypassed due to time constraints. This October we finally made it. It is a second system fort with a few third system gun batteries and a few Endicott Period batteries and fortifications too. It’s an absolutely fascinating place with a very friendly and knowledgeable staff as well. Someday we will post other pictures from the main fort, but for now we will explain a completely surprising discovery we found at one of the Endicott Batteries on the grounds, but separate from the fort, itself.
It was almost dusk when we started to leave the Fort Washington grounds. As Mike drove slowly along the main road toward the main gate, I spotted an old barracks building on the right. Once past this, we saw a large monolithic grey concrete structure, typical of Endicott Period batteries. As we slowly motored by, I spotted a faint horizontal line intersected from above by an arc. This is an indication of a possible field artillery piece, whether it’s behind a chain link fence or in the woods. We parked the car near a sign that told visitors about 12” Coast Artillery Mortars, Model 1890 and walked toward that fence. When we arrived in front of the gate, the lyrics to an old Roger Miller tune came to mind:
3rd Stanza from “King of the road” by Roger Miller
I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain't locked
When no one's around.
In this case there was no lock at all, just a loop of chain drooped over the gate post, so we swung the gate open and continued with our mission, finding cannon. We looked to the left…..junk. We looked to the right……BINGO !! See pics below.
Have fun cannon hunting, but don’t break any laws getting those photos. We don’t. If a gate is locked, we stay out. If a sign says DO NOT ENTER, we don’t. We don’t trespass on property that is posted.
Regards, T&M
From the fort's terraplein, a south westerly view of the Potomac River.
The fence and what we spotted from the car.
Mike walks toward the fence past the shell handling and target plotting rooms of this mortar battery.
A sharp-eyed old fart grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
A faint Waterveliet at the top is about it as far as markings go as many layers of paint obscure them.
Mike is very quick to insist that I explain that this is NOT a test-fire session and that IS NOT a target.
Tube from Waterveliet Arsenal. Carriage from Rock Island Arsenal.
A "bone yard" of field carriage parts behind the "target".
