CONNECTING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE TO BETTER GOVERNMENT WITH HOME MADE TOOLS, DETECTIVE WORK AND FUN

BALLOON PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE “OVER MY DEAD BODY” CITIZEN SCIENCE RESEARCH EXPEDITION FOUND A PATTERN OFUNUSUAL CRACKS IN A CONCRETE SLAB OF ANABANDONED INDUSTRIAL SITE, RUMORED TO BETHE MAIN 1776 SOLDIERS BURIAL GROUND

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1782 SPROULE MAPoverlaid with rumored Marylander Hill burial ground site.

2013 Concept by Edward Mazzer, Venice, ItalyAerial by Google with Citizens Grassroots Mapping insets

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“The old creek's banks have been sheathed with concrete and its waters are under thejurisdiction of the Federal Government. It is an urban cesspool which local residentssometimes call, in the blackest of humor, “Lavender Lake”.

Men fought and died here as part ofour American Revolution.

To date, we have honored them withour sewage.We can as a nation do better than that and I sincerely hope that this subcommittee willgive serious consideration to including at least a few hundred acres of land around the former creek bed in the Gateway National Recreational Area”

John H. Lindenbush, executive director, Long Island Historical Society, 1972

at the Hearings before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives 92nd Congress, First Session on H.R. 1370 andH.R. 1121 and Related Bills (1972, p. 160) as quoted in Nevins Street Stage Archaeological Survey(Red Hook Water Pollution Control Project, Brooklyn, NY) by Ralph S. Solecki, Phd, May 10 1977

a pattern of weeds growingon concrete..

allowed us to find aburied stream

leading to 1776 burialground study sites

Johnston Map of the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn America’s First Battle

FINDING THE FORGOTTEN BURIAL GROUNDS AND THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICA’S REVOLUTION IN BROOKLYN

A - Stone House of Gowanus, owned by the Vechtes in 1699 and 1776

B - The Lower Mill, built by Abram Brouwer in 1701. Owned by Nehemia Denton during the Revolutionary War, and then called Denton’s Mill.

C - The Upper or Gowanus Mill - Oldest Mill in Brooklyn called Freeke’s Mill during the Revolutionary War.

D - Branch of Gowanus Creek extending into Vechte Farm. At the present day an arm of the Gowanus Canal

E - Upper, or Freeke’s Mill PondF - Lower Mill Pond. Called Denton’s Mill Pond during the War.G - Private canal of Nicholas Vechte, connecting Brower’s Pond

with his own creek.H - Porte Road, running from Gowanus Heights acrosss

mill pondsI - Flatbush Road, running from Flatbush, over Wooded Heights,

to BrooklynJ - Gowanus Creek, now the Gowanus CanalK - Brook on the Vechte Farm, rising from spring beside the

Stone House and emptying into arm of Gowanus Creek.L - Gowanus Creek widening to Gowanus BayM - Island were many soldiers were buried

“Upon this island, situatedabout at Second Street near thepresent Canal, a great many ofthe Revolutionary unknown heroes were buried.This occurred both immediatelyafter the battle - when the residents of Gowanus were compelled to bury the dead thatlay upon their lands - and duringthe succeeding years when theplows of the farmers upturned thebones that lay as near the surfaceof the ground as their furrows.This burying place has neverbeen disturbed... Here, therefore,lie most of the bones of the braveyoung Marylanders..”

Georgia Fraser, 1909, The Stone House at Gowanus, Scene of the Battle of Long Island

Historian Georgia Fraser arguesthat American soldiers trapped at Dentons or Freeke’s Mill (now theFirst Street Basin Superfund landfill) were buried on the smallisland adjacent to the Mill.

2012 - Grassroots Mappers map sewer overflows

2012 - Unsnaggingballoon camerastring from barbedwire

“There is a current tradition among the familieswhose farms covered the site where the Marylanders were engaged, that their dead wereburied by the residents on a mound that rosefrom a salt meadow in the vicinity of Third Avenueand Seventh Street.

After frequent examination of the ground I am ofthe opinion that few of the bodies were interred atthat place originally, as it was too distant. It isprobable, however, that after the war, whenthe farms were again cultivated, that theskeletons were collected and buried on the island mound, to secure them from the violationof the plough. The Van Brunt and Bennett families retain the tradition with sufficient detailsto authorize the belief that the burials of most ofthe brave and generous youth of Maryland whofell still lie under the soil of Third Avenue.”

1868, TW Fields Monograph on historic and antiquarian scenes in Brooklyn, as quoted in “Old Brooklyn: The Services of the Maryland Battalion”Brooklyn Eagle, 1 December 1870

THE BALLOON AERIAL PROMPTED A MICRO TOPOGRAPHY LIDAR MODEL STUDY FINDING AN EVEN MORE INTRIGUING PATTERN OF HUMAN SHAPED BUMPS.Light Imaging Data and Ranging (LIDAR) study of the “flat” concrete slab covering the 170 8th Street. The site was identified as a possible surviving remnant of the Marylander Burial Ground and LIDAR looks for terrainanomalies. The 2010 laser beam generated topographic data is accurate to within a quarter of an inch. It is capableof detecting minor fluctuations in the ground, giving invaluable clues to potential buried archaeological sites such aslost grave yards. Bumps could also be sloppy concrete work.

2010 DEM (Digital Elevation Model) image by Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne and Eymund Diegel

GRASSROOTS CITIZEN SCIENCE RESEARCH

The Battle of Brooklyn Gowanus Canal Revolutionary Trail & Greenway

HELPING DESIGN A NEW MEMORIAL PARK

Without Gowanus, therewould be no America

2011, 31 July - Grassroots Mappers balloon aerial taken from a canoe of the First Street Basin Superfund Site Landfill

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18 June 2014 - White House Maker Faire WWW.PUBLICLAB.ORG Contact: eymund@gmail.com

2012, 7 July - Balloon aerial of Grassroots Mapper Liz Barry, demonstrating a body’s dimensionsrelative to a curious pattern of crack intervals in concrete slab that matched burial trench records.

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