[My sons, Joey and Billy! Both are fly-fisherman as it happens!]
Lines cast:
* Communicated with an acquaintance who is a manager in the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) regarding my obtaining access to engineering archaeological records from ‘digs’ performed in connection with highway construction. Per my Maryland Historical Society research, this is a likely source for early Indian settlements’ artifacts information.
* Warm thanks to my class-mate Luke for his excellent idea to research Ft. Garrison records and history!
[Picture of Ft. Garrison Courtesy of Baltimore County Public Library]
* I’ve developed a list of sites to explore over Thanksgiving week-end, appropriately, to tie up loose ends. They include two major ancient Indian shell ‘dumps’ or "middens" at Booby and Rocky Points near the mouth of Back River and south of Gunpowder Falls; and the remains of the Piscataway settlement on the Potomac River – Capt. John Smith’s "Moyaone" town, near present-day Accokeek, MD.
[The beautiful Gunpowder -- Courtesy of DNR, State of Maryland]
* I think I’ve located a neighborhood store that has the camera-PC interface equipment I need so I no longer have to depend on finding a downtown DC camera store within the vicinity of my this-week-non-existent lunch times – the device will enable my posting site photos to the blog more easily and economically.
* My “virtual paper” outline and major themes are coming together satisfactorily, I think-hope. Nevertheless, I’m very concerned that we have to submit our final blog on December 1st, when the class does not end until December 16th. I feel very pressed for time to make that early deadline. I rather think I will have to cut back the scope of my “paper” to fit this particular class’s needs, but I fully intend to carry on with my research and continue to add to my blog-published work over the next year or so.
* I’ve been fortunate to have found (and devoured -- still thinking of Turkey Day) a monumental book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus,” Charles C. Mann. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005,that presents a number of solutions pertinent to my research including the plausible reason for the “Great Maryland Barrens” in the Baltimore environs in the 1600’s, and convincing discussions of Native American/American Indians pre-Columbian populations’ size.
* A second book find – from a quite extensive antique ‘mall’ in Hampden, discovered while waiting for Holy Frijoles to open last Sunday – is an early Maryland history, Tidewater Maryland, by Paul Wilstach, 1931, The Bobbs-Merrill Company (Indianapolis) that contains many interesting observations relating to early Indian contacts and relations with the Lords Calvert particularly our first Governor, Leonard Calvert. I’ll be using this little treasure as a source, too.
[Maryland's First Governor - Leonard Calvert! Courtesy of Archives of Maryland; Portrait by Florence MacKubin (1914), oil on canvas, 30 x 25" - Said to be after a 17th Century portrait in a private collection.]
* Finally, I’ve ordered a third book from ‘Amazin’ Amazon’, Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian Culture in the Potomac Valley, by Stephen R. Potter (1993).
