Pics of Axe from Fort Ticonderoga

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Over this past weekend we visited Fort Ticonderoga. According to a display at the fort this axe head was contemporary with the fort. Here is the head and write ups.
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That is a particularly well-made And beautiful tool.

Now,Fort Ticonderoga is a really important historical site,i must,and would presume that their archaeological research is up to par...
Can't help wishing that someone who took part in restoring and attributing that axe would register on here,and tell us in more detail of how they came by that attribution...Sounds intriguing...

VERY cool axe,thanks so much for taking the trouble and posting these photos.
 
This was the most interesting fort that I have visited to date. I was hoping for some axe information and came across it right at the very end of the displays in the order that I was looking. I found it hard to believe that this axe was from the 1700s so I thought I would post it here for comment. I didn't want to coach the skepticism but I really wondered what everyone would say. I will say that the interpreters there that I spoke to were very knowledgeable and very much about being period correct even down to eating hoe cakes for their lunches. The fellow splitting wood for his hoe cake fire was using a period correct/Shawnee tomahawk design.
 
Man, Connecticut is backwards in a lot of ways, but I do love the axe history we have. Refreshing to read about Jonathan Trumbull supplying 1000 axes. Too bad Collinsville lost its namesake along the way. Really cool- some of the better write up’s I’ve seen. Engaging with enough information, but not so much that I glaze over. Thanks for sharing!
 
That axe is just as classy as it gets...Forged by someone who REALLY knew what they were doing...
Thank you for showing these photos,Quinton,what a sweet tool....
You're welcome, Jake. The higher pH limestone soils in the area preserve iron artifacts very well. I found a handful of square nails of various sizes once digging a footing for a house. The nails were about a foot deep in the soil and looked like they had just been purchased from the hardware store. Just a few miles south in my area the low pH soil will eat a T post off at ground level in about 40 years.
 
Matt Keagle, the Curator for Fort Ticonderoga responded to my email yesterday and (after multiple time of trying to accessing the thread and not giving up on us) offered this extremely thoughtful response.


Glenn,

Well, I was finally able to access the thread you mentioned. I am pretty confident that the axe shown is an 18th century example, although whether American or British made I am not certain. Americans certainly develop that style and continue to use it well into the 19th century, but similar examples show up much earlier in the 18th century. We even have somewhat similar examples recovered from the site with broad arrow markings indicating British military usage: https://fortticonderoga.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/447E98BD-128C-4FFC-8AEF-547633284921

The last British troops on site were here only as late as in 1781, so unlikely to have been deposited here after that point (the fort was largely abandoned even after 1777). The stamp also appears to read "I. Bissel" I suspect a member of Bissell family in Birmingham, England, although I'd love to find more sources to confirm that.

Of related interest might be the range of other axes in the collection, over 200 of them. Most (but not all) were recovered here on site over the past century. A wide range of styles and patterns from France, Britain, and America, including other axes similar to that on display:

https://fortticonderoga.pastperfect...archcat_14=&searchcat_15=&searchButton=Search

Until now these have been largely hidden by virtue of being held in storage, and not even cataloged until about 2016 but one of the reasons we wanted to make these accessible online is to get them into the view of researchers to be able to refine records and further identify artifacts.

I Remain, &c.

Matthew Keagle, Ph.D.
--
Curator
Fort Ticonderoga
 
G Glenn Bailey… I totally assumed you were being sarcastic when you said you contacted the Fort. I’m impressed.

Anyone have British made examples to show? It’d be interesting to know if the eyes were so different.
 
With all archeological remains a careful record of how and where they were found is critical in dating them. Often there is something datable in the surrounding soil or an identifiable strata.

I looked at quite a few of the axes in their collection. Some are clearly of early design and make. But all I reviewed were listed as "Undocumented On-Site Archaeological Collection", meaning they have no data about how it was found. Being as the site was open as a tourist destination throughout most of the 19th century it's easy to see that the site could contain many artifacts from this later period.

The axe with the British stamp clearly shows a different eye formation than the first axe posted. Unless they were excavated together the date of one axe has no bearing on the date of the other.

Many of the axes claim the date range of 1755 to 1781, the years the fort was used by the military. But there is no evidence that these axes were left at the site during that period. I still think it's unlikely that the first axe head was contemporary with the military occupation of the fort. I would need to see well-dated axes of similar construction to be convinced. Everyone including archeologists wants their stuff to be old.
 
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