DRILLED WOOD BLOCK FROM FORT PEMBINA

$95.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 1052-635

Shipping: Determined by Method & Location of buyer

To Order:
Call 717-334-0347,
Fax 717-334-5016, or E-mail

This comes from the excavations at Fort Pembina, ND, conducted on private property with the owner’s permission, and is in a remarkable state of preservation from the wet, anaerobic conditions of the soil. We are not entirely sure what this wood block was used for. Members of the garrison dumped all sorts of stuff here – uniforms, equipment, bottles, etc., but the area also contained earlier trading posts and small garrisons. This is a simple wood block about 1 ½ inches wide and 6 inches long, and about ¾ inch thick. This was drilled with 9 holes about 3/8 inch in diameter, five partially through the block and 4 all the way through. There are remnants of cloth in two of the holes. Opinion varies on what it was used for or came from. Some have guessed it was an improvised cartridge block, or block used for individual muzzle-loading rifle balls, that was begun and then discarded.

Situated in the Red River Valley in North Dakota near the Canadian border, Fort Pembina itself was in operation from 1870 until 1895. Trading posts existed earlier in the area as part of the fur trade, and the first U.S. military post there was temporary- manned by a detachment of Minnesota troops in 1863-1864 following the 1862 Sioux uprising. In March 1870 a new fort was established south of the Pembina River and about 200 yards west of the Red River, completed by July and named in honor of Gen. George H. Thomas. The name was changed to Fort Pembina in September and the initial garrison consisted of two companies of the 20th US Infantry. Their main duty was to provide security for settlers worried about Sioux returning south from Canada, but the troops were more occupied with escorting boundary surveys along the Canadian border and preventing Fenian raids heading north into Canada.

The fort included enlistedmen’s barracks, officers’ quarters, guard house, ordnance storehouse, company kitchen, root house, laundress’s quarters, quarters for civilian employees, hospital and hospital servant’s house, a barn for the “hospital cow,” quartermaster and commissary offices and storehouse, stables, wagon shed, etc. The garrison reached peak strength in 1878 af 200, but the average was about 125 enlisted men and 8 officers. An October 1885 return listed 97 men, 2 field pieces, 1 mountain howitzer, 100 rifles, 19 pistols, 23 mules, and 9 wagons. By 1890 the post had just 23 men, and after an 1895 fire destroyed some 19 buildings it was decided to abandon the fort rather than rebuild, the last detachment left in September. The property was turned over to the Interior Department and later sold in 1902.  [sr] [ph:m]

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