I'm pretty sure we saw that Rodman cannon on our mid-America trip in March of 2007. We covered less ground on that trip, but it did include high points such as Mt. Vernon, IL, Hoosier National forest, Louisville, KY, Lexington, KY, Lawrenceburgh, IN, just off the Cincinnatti, OH western beltway, Mansfield, OH with all its rifled 42 pounders, Freemont, OH with famous, "Old Betsy" which did so well for us in the French and Indian War, very large Fort Meigs with huge log stockade walls and impressive tower bastions, and finally on to Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois near Davenport, Iowa and then home.
We did some research on Old Betsy in Freemont, Ohio at the town hall and the Library right there where the gun is displayed. If you really want to know what guns and field howitzers are good at, read up on the history of this gun. An internet search will reveal all the grisly details of the British attack on the tiny frontier fort where this six pounder was located. Unfortunately, a previous photo hosting service lost all those trip photos and we were not smart enough to back up our computer with an off line hard drive back then and when it crashed we lost all of the pics from that trip and about 500 previous pics taken during our early digital camera experience. Now we have a very reliable photo hosting service, ‘FotoTime’, for $24.95 per year, a back-up drive AND I throw all camera storage cards in a fire-safe as an absolute fail-safe, and buy new ones for the next trip.
As for alternatively colored guns we have seen famous guns painted an incorrect gray and also silver. Speaking of gray painted artillery, an 1844, 8" Columbiad, the only chambered Columbiad, is located in a tiny park in Grassville, California. As for silver painted guns, there is one that comes to mind. It is a 100 Pdr. Parrott Rifle located in New York State. This large seacoast artillery piece is actually in a homeowner's backyard in Dresden, NY. There is quite a large pile of projectiles in front of the big rifle. They are all painted silver and each is an 8" solid shot or 8" mortar shell with the recessed 'ears' for lifting. For a 6.4" Rifle?? Figure that out!
Tracy and Mike
We retook this photo in 2008 of one of the four Mansfield, Ohio seacoast guns, a rifled 42 pdr. Cast in 1856 at WPF by RPP when we also covered southern NY and Penn.
This is a Capt. Ed photo at the 2007 Mansfield, Ohio Artillery Show of Matt Switlick, Tracy, Mike and intoodeep discussing the Freemont, Ohio cannon, ‘Old Betsy’ and her history and restoration.
A Rifled and Banded 42 pdr. Seacoast gun cast in 1859 at WPF by RPP. We found it at Woodlawn Cemetery in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Talk about interesting small town guns; this is it for us.