I Went To Morristown National Historical Park And All I Got Was Lost In Jockey Hollow

And my national park passport stamp, of course!

I seem to have randomly obtained the questionable distinction of having visited the sites of two out of three of the Continental Army's most significant winter encampments. 

...yay, I guess? 

Although maybe I should stop bragging until I've also been to New Windsor. I'll really celebrate then, lol!

Anyway, in some ways Morristown is a "Washington slept here" sort of scenario. Which makes sense, since see the Ford Mansion?

Washington slept here!

Well, kind of. During the first winter here, he actually stayed at Arnold's Tavern (which no longer exists), and honestly that was probably for the best, since poor Mr. Ford was busy that winter dying of pneumonia in his mansion. He left behind his wife, five children, and his parents, but only for a little bit, because his father actually died there as well just a few days later. 

I don't know what his father died of (other than being 73 years old in 1777), but Washington's army did also bring a smallpox epidemic with them to Morristown soooo...

Touring the mansion, it was kind of wild to see how little we know of the actual Ford family and their house and their stuff, especially compared to how detailed all the family info was at Hampton National Historic Site. But that being said, I also appreciate that the site doesn't take any risks in interpreting the mansion as it might have looked in the winter of 1778-1779, when Washington brought his army back to Morristown and ensconced himself, his aides (including Alexander Hamilton!), and sometimes his wife in with Theodosia Ford and her four remaining children (The army wasn't there in the winter of 1777-1778, because they were in Valley Forge!).

So, for instance, although this bedroom, one of the two rooms in the house that was preserved for the use of the Ford family, is as busy as you might imagine for a family of five living in two rooms, you can see that there isn't any art on the walls:

The hallways are similarly completely bare, which was, again, particularly notable compared to Hampton National Historic Site's maximalism. When I asked the ranger about wall art and other decorations, he explained that it's not present because there are no records of what would have possibly been there. However, I found in an old guidebook to Morristown the statement that "[t]he furnishings of the Ford Mansion today may appear restrained (if not severe) by comparison with other historic houses, but they do reflect the type of furnishings that were in the house during Washington’s occupancy and provide a glimpse at the lifestyle and circumstances of a prosperous provincial family in the midst of the American Revolution," so maybe they really just didn't have a ton of stuff on their walls and other pretty knick-knacks?

I could never. I LOVE a knick-knack!

Anyway, guess what?

Washington slept here!

And Alexander Hamilton probably slept here!

These camp beds are super rare genuine Revolutionary War camp beds.

Speaking of Alexander Hamilton, the Morristown claim to fame that I'm personally more interested in is the fact that this winter of 1778-1779 is when he met General Philip Schuyler's wonderful daughter who was way too good for him but she married him anyway.

But when he wasn't busy courting, here's where Hamilton (and, fine, the other aides and Washington himself) got the job done:

And here's where some of the servants slept:

Washington's servants (were some of them enslaved? Lmk if you know!) and Ford's servants (at one point they had at least three enslaved people, but I'm not sure of the timeline) did NOT get along, and apparently fought so much over the kitchen in particular--

To be fair, it's a wonderful kitchen! So spacious!

--that Washington had another entire kitchen built separate to the house that his servants then used. 

After the tour, I wandered through the museum in the visitor center, feeling an eensy pang that my phone was blowing up with texts as the rest of the family organized our weekly Zoom without me (sob!), buuuuut I'd just seen one daughter the day before and the other daughter three days before and would see her again in four more days, so I let myself be sufficed by sending a few interesting photos of my current adventures (an old house! A Revolutionary War camp bed!) to the group chat and then carried myself away back to the pursuit of knowledge and culture.

My favorite part of the museum was an exhibit illustrating the daily life of a wealthy family in the decades before the American Revolution. They had such lovely things!!!

Check out, for instance, this display of some lovely things that men could keep in their pockets:

There was also a pen knife in the case, but I apparently was so zoomed in on these guys that I inadvertently cropped it out.

I tend to keep only a pocket knife and a mini hand sanitizer in my own pockets, but I now feel very invested in the idea of also owning a tiny compass/sun dial, like the object on the right, and a tiny microscope, like the object in the middle, with its carrying case on the left.

When I showed this to the big kid (in order to win the argument I was having with her in which I'd told her that I'd seen a pocket sun dial in a museum and she claimed that was ridiculous how could one use a pocket sun dial and I insisted that you definitely could if you knew your latitude and she said there is no way that would work and I said well pre-Revolutionary War dudes disagree with you and here's a picture to prove it!), I also told her that it was now my personal mission to also carry a pocket sun dial and a tiny microscope.

"Ha!", the rude child said. "Then you'd have to carry a purse! Hahahaha!"

"Nonsense!" said I. "That is why God invented cargo pants!" I can fit an entire paperback in my favorite pair of cargo pants, as long as it's more, say, Killer Angels-sized and not Dune-sized.

OR I could borrow this dude's style and carry a pocketbook, but maybe also in my cargo pants pockets because I have to have my hands free. Genuinely, I HAVE to:

All the handmade items in the exhibit were incredibly charming--imagine having so much leisure time that you could get really, really, REALLY good at embroidery!--but my favorite was this quilt:

I definitely read the label, because I remember reading about the embroidered flowers in particular, but then I guess I got so excited looking at the quilt that I forgot to photograph it, and now I'm irritated that I don't remember why it's this shape? The shape clearly came afterwards because it cuts into the star piecing, and that binding is only there at the corners, but why on earth would they have done that? I guess it would drape nicely over one end of a table or bed, but again, WHY?

So annoying not to know!

However, I am SO interested in these star blocks!

Studying this quilt, I first took it as a lesson that our quilting ancestors did not fuss nearly as much with precise piecing as we do today. And it would make sense, right? Most quilts were made for necessity first, and then beauty, so why not relax and have fun with it?

But then I remembered that Martha Washington's quilts from this same time period are SUPER precise. So now I don't know. Did some quilter's first quilt end up in this display? And that's why it's cut weird, because she wanted to put it to use even though it was her poorest work?

I'll add it to my list of mysteries to solve, I guess!

Shout out to Gilbert Stuart, the world's most ubiquitous painter of George Washington! Talk about having a Special Interest, lol--dude would have KILLED with an etsy shop!

In grad school, I took a class on early American children's literature, and I loved it enough to wonder if maybe I shouldn't be uselessly studying early American literature rather than uselessly studying Medieval literature, but if I'm going to earn a degree I'll never use, I'd rather earn it via dragons, werewolves, and bawdy friars than Puritans, Puritans, and Puritans.

LOVE myself a primer, though!

Found some Revolutionary War cosplayers in the wild!

This book was labeled "George Washington's log book," and seems to be a record of the labor done at his various farm sites. I can see Dogue Run listed, and Muddy Hole:

Under the Muddy Hole entry, the log reports that Gabriel was sick for 2 days. This slave list tells us that Gabriel lived at Muddy Hole along with 41 other enslaved people, but his wife, Judy, who was blind, had to live at Dogue Run.

Like, I'll look at where he slept and stuff, but basically, George Washington sucked.

In other news, you know I love an old clay pipe!

This bowl was decorated with shamrocks and a harp. One of my Irish kin!

The basement of the museum has kid-friendly exhibits!

It's giving Children's Museum of Indianapolis. I'm charmed!

And the BEST part of this basement children's museum is that there's an exhibit in which you can be part of the Continental Army and Baron von Steuben can inspect you!!!

He said that I was his best soldier!

I'll save you the full tale of woe of how after this, I tried to go see Jockey Hollow but it was raining and getting dark and I somehow managed to get lost and did not find any of the things that I wanted to find and was pissed, so instead I let my GPS take me to my hotel, instead, where I took a hot shower, put on comfy jammies, and ate a noodle cup and peanut butter crackers while reading and watching hockey for the rest of the evening.

I'll just say that now I've got a reason to go back to Morristown.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

I Still Hate George Rogers Clark, But Vincennes Has Two Native American Mounds, Only One Of Which I'd Seen Before

Also, Mr. Craft Knife knew I was lonely for my kids and there's nothing that will cheer me up like a national park passport stamp.

And it doesn't hurt that I'm desperate to watch Project Hail Mary on IMAX but we're listening to the book on CD first, and a day trip is a great way to bust through a good three CDs!

So, off to Vincennes!

I've only been to Vincennes, and the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, once before, on a family day trip way back when the kids were ten and twelve and we were studying the American Revolution. I was in a phase of trying to turn composition books into single-subject journals in which the kids could take notes and record their thoughts and paste documents and write essays. We could then keep the notebooks, and every time we returned to that same subject, the kids could use them for review and then add all their new information. I still think this is an AMAZING idea, but the kids never stopped being horrified by it, so eventually I gave up.

And that's why they now don't remember all their states and capitals or all the original 13 colonies!

Anyway, I was still very much insisting on American Revolution notebooks during this homeschool field trip, and I'm so happy I did (and a little bummed at myself for not holding the line forever) when I can pull out gems like this, written by the older kid as a travel journal entry after this trip:

This was also the day that I discovered that my 10-year-old could correctly utilize scare quotes!

It's been just almost ten years since that trip, and nothing has changed. The older kid still thinks that all money would best be served by being given to her, the younger kid still strongly emits in every encounter the sentiment implied by scare quotes, and the George Rogers Clark Memorial still sits on top of the site that used to be Fort Sackville:

OT, but why am I genuinely channeling my Pappa in this photo, with my hands shoved into my pockets and my phone on prominent display in the cargo pocket equivalent of a cellphone holster? All I need is a couple of handfuls of coins and keys to jingle.

Random gossip: back in the 1930s, when plans for this building were being made and bids were being taken for the work, the limestone lobby and the granite lobby got into a big fight. The limestone lobby was all, "Yo, The building should obviously be made from Indiana limestone, because INDIANA. Granite isn't even FROM here!"

And then the granite lobby was all, "Yeah, that's awesome if you want your whole building to look like a weathered old gravestone in 30 years. You know what DOESN'T literally dissolve in the rain? GRANITE."

Ultimately, it was decided to do the outside parts in granite and the inside parts in limestone, but then someone found out that the granite they were planning to use was being sourced from Canada (gasp!), and both the limestone lobby AND the granite lobby freaked out. 

Don't worry, y'all. They eventually found enough US granite to complete the project and peace was restored.

I know the people of the early 1900s were allllllll about their huge granite memorials (see: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park), but I far prefer the historical recreation school of thought (see Fort Necessity National Battlefield). Instead of a huge monument right where Fort Sackville used to be, wouldn't you prefer a life-sized recreation of Fort Sackville? 

At least they can't take away the river across which Clark and his "army" (lol, that kid!) sneaked... although they CAN channelize it, it seems!

There's not much of a riparian buffer zone on the east bank, but regular flooding is more historically accurate, I guess:

We walked across the bridge to get a landscape view of the site. There also used to be a French village in the area, but I'm not sure where:

You can kind of imagine a fort right where that big granite monument is!

This is my partner, who literally DROVE US HERE, being disturbingly surprised that we're at the edge of the state:

I was all, "Well, we drove southwest until we got to the Wabash River. What did you think was going to be on the other side?"

He replied, "Um... more Indiana?"

Come on, Dude! The Wabash River is the state river of Indiana! It marks the the southwest border of the state almost all the way up to Terre Haute, and then somehow manages to wrap around Indiana and end up on the other side of the state in Ohio! There have been songs written about it and how it's literally right here! One of those songs is literally the Indiana state song!

Ten years ago, I would have smugly informed him that he was welcome to join our homeschool anytime. On this day, however, I had to just let a smug look suffice.

This church isn't original to the site, but the cemetery is, and it's the site of the original church:

I feel a lot of sympathy for the French citizens of the original town, who probably spent all day, every day, swearing allegiance back and forth to whoever had happened to wrest temporary control over the fort next door.

I don't feel any sympathy for any widower who names his dead wife as his "consort" on her tombstone:

It's apparently just the term they used on a headstone when the wife predeceased the husband, but you and I both know good and well that's so the dude could marry again five minutes later and not have to worry about a whole string of "wife" headstones tagging along behind him. You only get to be his "wife" when he dies first, because that's the only way you wouldn't get supplanted!

This headstone, however, is lovely:

You do have to ignore the apostrophe error, though. I'm too lazy to look up when punctuation was completely standardized, but I'm pretty confident this would have always been wrong. It's a plural, not a possessive!

To the memorial!

I don't know if y'all know about my lord and savior Baumgartner Restoration, but his videos are AMAZING and will cause you to become weirdly invested in art restoration, to such an extent that when you walk into a building and see old-looking art, you'll ask the nearest park ranger about what restoration looks like for that art.

And then he'll tell you, because park rangers are also amazing!

I learned that these are not actually murals, but canvases painted in a warehouse and then installed here using marouflage. The park ranger even pointed out a couple of place where you could see some wrinkling where the canvas hadn't adhered smoothly. He also mentioned this canvas that had been revised, because from the viewing angle it originally looked like that one prone soldier on the right was aiming at George Rogers Clark, lol!

The park ranger and I yapped so much that this poor dude eventually had to sit down and dissociate, lol:

He got his revenge, though, because later he left me standing by the bathrooms, wondering where on earth he was, while he'd actually wandered off to have a whole entire conversation about these Art Deco bronze embellishments with that same park ranger!

How do you end up with the Zodiac on an American Revolution memorial?

Art Deco!

My absolute favorite component is the corn:

I also like George Rogers Clark, his nose polished because that's where everyone touches him:

Fun fact: the memorial is literally falling apart, with the original bronze doors collapsing and the skylight starting to fall in and leaks from all over during every rain. There's no way to get the money to repair it, though, because Trump cut funding to the national parks. Who needs to preserve our national legacy when we can instead have a dictator's private army of jackbooted thugs committing human rights violations on our streets? 

At this point, I need to tell you that other than the Jackbooted Thug in Chief, Mr. Craft Knife and I are the dumbest fucks on the planet. To reiterate, this is the George Rogers Clark memorial:

There's a set of steps to get into the inside, and then a covered area all the way around that colonnade, and then another paved area below that enclosed by that middle wall. The bottom wall just has landscaping inside of it. 

To our credit(?), each of these areas is expansive, and it's unclear--if you're a dumb fuck, at least!--where any additional points of egress might be.

So when Mr. Craft Knife and I, busily yapping our heads off to each other, left the building, walked down a set of steps, and turned right, we found ourselves walking around the entire building via that colonnade. We kept expecting there would be another set of steps down, but nope! We walked around, spying the visitor center we wanted to go to in the distance, continued around, admired the river, and eventually circled back to the first set of stairs we saw, which we now noticed continued down another flight.

"Lol, us!" we said, walked down that flight of stairs, and turned right to go to the visitor center.

It wasn't until we saw--and then passed--it in the distance that we realized we were on that paved area below the memorial that was also elevated and walled off. But surely there would be another set of stairs HERE! Nope! There goes the river for the second time! Hello again, statue of Francis Vigo, namesake of Vigo County!

Eventually we reached, yes, that exact same set of stairs again, and noticed that oh, right, it continues down ANOTHER FUCKING FLIGHT.

Finally, we managed to conquer the world's easiest escape room, and could go get my passport stamp!

That's 34 down, and 399 to go!

Burrito and margarita break:

Now, onto the mounds!

There's a lot of conflicting information about Sugarloaf Mound and Pyramid Mound, and it's not immediately clear what information is authoritative. This webpage, for instance, names Pyramid Mound but has photos and driving direction for Sugarloaf Mound, making it unclear which mound the descriptions refer to. The Wikipedia page for Pyramid Mound also shows photos of Sugarloaf Mound. The Megalithic Portal site has accurate info on its page about Sugarloaf Mound, but its page about Pyramid Mound... also shows an image of Sugarloaf Mound, sigh.

Here's what's written about Sugarloaf Mound in the 1911 History of Old Vincennes:

Fortunately, a study of Sugar Loaf Mound was done in 1998. It found that Sugar Loaf Mound is natural--it's essentially a sand dune formed from all the silt/loess blowing around after the glaciers receded. The "red altar clays" are a misidentification, but there was significant human activity on the mound, as this study found human bones and chert in the core samples. The author theorizes that the mound was used as a "cemetery" by the Late Woodland peoples. The Woodlands people just loved burying each other on top of nice knolls! This article said they'd sometimes build artificial burial mounds, too, but those were pretty small--what they really liked is a nice, tall mound that was already there for them. So now I'm wondering if they'd also take advantage of the super old Mound Builder-era mounds and also pop some of their corpses in. Or maybe they thought that these mounds WERE from the Mound Builder era, since they look so similar!

You certainly can't beat the view from the top:

...and of course I've got my hands in my pockets again:

I made my partner walk alll the way down by himself so he could take a photo of me looking tiny at the top. It's not every day that you get to stand on top of a mound!

Just between us, it's a little less exciting when it's not an earthwork that was built by the ancient peoples, but if they thought it was special, then so do I.

Although the author of "The Geomorphology of Sugar Loaf Mound" didn't also sample Pyramid Mound, he theorizes that it's also natural, since it has the same shape and is in a similar geographic situation that could have resulted in the same type of dune formation. A previous excavation of that mound uncovered more human burials and a piece of the fancy Yankeetown pottery. This sign said that the human remains were repatriated but the pottery lives at Grouseland, the historic home of that asshole William Henry Harrison.

Notice the signage is explicitly calling the mound natural, but as far as I know that hasn't been directly ascertained through core samples or other excavations. But I do think that 1998 Stafford study made a convincing argument!

I've been avoiding paying admission to that bag of dicks' house because I hate him, but I guess now I'll have to!

The whole area of Pyramid Mound is really overgrown, and you probably wouldn't be able to hike it much further into Spring without getting mobbed by ticks:

There's a line of little blue utility flags, though, that mark a trail towards the top, and as you walk it, you can--again, at least this early in the Spring--make out the profile of the mound:

The top of the mound is very overgrown with old trees, but there are also a lot of divots dug deep into the mound, making me wonder if sometimes people sneak up here and do some pothunting:

Sugarloaf Mound is straight ahead in the below photo, and it's actually pretty close. Without the trees in the way, you might even be able to see it from here:

And here's... Jesus Christ, I've got my hand in my pocket AGAIN. I guess my Pappa was really with me that day! 

That's kind of funny, because Pappa would have HAAATED a day trip to mosey around American Revolution crap and big piles of dirt. HIS Special Interest was the Wild West!

P.S. Want more obsessively-compiled lists of resources and activities for geology buffs, history nerds, and lovers of handicrafts? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!