tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post2165868041143586249..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: How Many Cannon Did Henry Knox Transport?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-34253509345590333142021-10-07T19:21:28.484-05:002021-10-07T19:21:28.484-05:00I assume “Old Sow” meant the big iron gun looked l...I assume “Old Sow” meant the big iron gun looked like big fat pig. Also, as I recall, the first mention of that nickname was along the road in Massachusetts, long after the guns were on scows in northern New York.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-66223636745459908032021-10-07T06:50:22.066-05:002021-10-07T06:50:22.066-05:00I know there are many stories regarding how the &q...I know there are many stories regarding how the "Old Sow" is named, but I'm wondering, if the name of the "Old Sow" and that it was put on a "Scow" boat are somehow related. Anyone?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-86525161303554480802018-12-19T17:57:45.577-05:002018-12-19T17:57:45.577-05:00Many more than two cannon were captured at Fort Ti...Many more than two cannon were captured at Fort Ticonderoga, as this article discusses. <br /><br />One of those guns, a large one, was reportedly nicknamed the “Old Sow” during its trip to the siege lines around Boston.<br /><br />As Secretary of War in the 1780s Knox dubbed two other cannon the "Hancock" and the "Adams." You can read all about them in my book, <i>The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War</i>. Those two didn’t come from Fort Ti, but from redcoat-occupied Boston.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-11410540435545226322018-12-19T10:20:02.995-05:002018-12-19T10:20:02.995-05:00What did General Knox name the two cannons they ca...What did General Knox name the two cannons they captured from Fort Ticonderoga?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-91984858819456783862017-01-27T17:31:37.223-05:002017-01-27T17:31:37.223-05:00I also remember reading how one of the cannons Kno...I also remember reading how one of the cannons Knox’s train lost in a river was brought up. I think that refers to the six-pounder eventually displayed at Fort Ticonderoga, which was a part of the Bicentennial recreation of Knox’s trip. I haven’t found more recent references to that cannon, however. So that made me think that the Fort Ti curators recognized the discrepancy in size and quietly stopped telling that story. <br /><br />That suggests two mysteries. First, is an iron eighteen-pounder still submerged near Half Moon Ferry, rusting away? Second, where did that six-pounder marked with King George’s monogram come from? <br /><br />Revolutionary-era cannon still turn up in surprising places. One was <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/12/200-year-old_british_cannon_fr.html" rel="nofollow">found in the Detroit River in 2001</a>. A <a href="http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/07/07/new-evidence-about-cannon-found-in-adirondacks/" rel="nofollow">swivel gun turned up</a> in upstate New York in the 1970s. And a cannon was <a href="http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2015/09/10/th-century-cannon-found-south-jersey/71993182/" rel="nofollow">unearthed in Burlington, South Carolina, two years ago</a>.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-62916927366887159062017-01-27T17:19:11.227-05:002017-01-27T17:19:11.227-05:00Knox wasn’t alone in using “pettiauger” to refer t...Knox wasn’t alone in using “pettiauger” to refer to the type of boat more often called a periauger or pirogue. Philip Schuyler, George Washington, and Timothy Pickering used the same spelling, and Nathanael Greene wrote about “Petty Augres.” In the late 1800s, reference books about the American language noted the variant spellings/pronunciations. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-45655482088064752822017-01-27T16:15:53.440-05:002017-01-27T16:15:53.440-05:00So, was the cannon lost in the Mohawk river ever r...So, was the cannon lost in the Mohawk river ever recovered? If not, could it still exist buried in sediment?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-86367717889958965302017-01-27T10:22:15.498-05:002017-01-27T10:22:15.498-05:00I seem to recall reading a news item a few years a...I seem to recall reading a news item a few years ago, saying that one of Knox's cannon had been retrieved from a river bed in New York where it had been submerged for two centuries. Unfortunately, my search for anything related to that in Google News has yielded no results.Charles Bahnenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-49660148798202417302017-01-26T18:02:44.665-05:002017-01-26T18:02:44.665-05:00"We also have Knox’s diary for the first part..."We also have Knox’s diary for the first part of his trip, and that tells us that he lost one cannon along the way. On the afternoon of 4 January, he wrote, he was “much alarm'd by hearing that one of the heaviest Cannon had fallen in to the [Mohawk] River at Half Moon Ferry.”<br /><br />Anyone ever retrieve this one?RodFleckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08378656044482949196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-7035890245648255662017-01-26T18:00:11.027-05:002017-01-26T18:00:11.027-05:00It's possible that what I call Knox's &quo...It's possible that what I call Knox's "earlier list," dated 10 Dec 1775, was corrected after he obtained the "4 more dble fortified 12 pounders" he wrote about on 5 Jan 1776. In which case, that list has the earliest date but reflects later data. I hope to examine the manuscripts sometime.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-48127086073472576522017-01-26T14:44:58.583-05:002017-01-26T14:44:58.583-05:00I'm not sure why but Knox consistently calls t...I'm not sure why but Knox consistently calls the "periauger" a "pettiauger" in his diary which I have transcribed from the original for the MHS. Do you know why that would be? Are they the same type of boat? kate59https://www.blogger.com/profile/04524593238577080774noreply@blogger.com