Dog Burrowed Craters in 232 years old Earthworks 11-2007. All Grass Eroded.
Fort Washington 95 Waverly Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Letter: Fort Washington Park deserves more respect
Mon Mar 17, 2008, 02:10 PM EDT
Cambridge - Fort Washington Park’s historic cast iron fence was heavily vandalized in the late 1930s to 1970s, mostly by a now defunct trucking company. Through the efforts of veteran Bernard Rudolph, Friends of Fort Washington and Cambridge Historic Commission (CHC) Charles Sullivan, Fort Washington received more than $400,000 in Bicentennial and National Park Funds from 1976 to 1993. The fence was beautifully restored.
Dog use was light from 1994 to November 2005. At a cost of $4,000, the CHC approved the temporary installation of 40-inch-high chain-link fence, abutting all five previously open entrances of the restored historic fence, keeping pooches caged in. In the past two years, dog use has increased by at least five times. Dogs constantly burrow large holes into the original and fragile earthworks, and all protective vegetation is eroded.
On Aug. 2, 2007, the CHC approved Case 2066, $40,000 automatic sprinkler system for Fort Washington. I read the following letter: “Our position remains that the best preservation is to keep the earthworks under a healthy, protective vegetative cover and stay off them … if the dogs are allowed to continue unrestrained, the inevitable erosion and destruction will follow.” Shaun Eyring, National Park Service (NPS), is one of the authors of “Sustainable Military Earthworks Management,” which recommends, “Restrict the need for irrigation to small areas or rare occasions such as extreme droughts or during plant establishment.”
National Historic Site, Fort Washington deserves to be a National Historic Monument. The state of Massachusetts, on May 17, 1965, approved the following legislative act: “Chapter 460: An act authoring the city of Cambridge to convey the site of Fort Washington in said city to the United States of America for preservation and maintenance as a national historic monument.”
On March 17, 1776, Evacuation/St. Patrick’s Day, we celebrate the British evacuation of Boston, never to return. Following scientifically proven NPS maintenance policy is the best way to preserve the last physical remains of the Siege of Boston. In November 1775, George Washington ordered built “Three Gun Half Moon Battery.” That these earthworks survive, like the success of the Revolution, is a near miracle. It is now our time to preserve these relics, which are a monument to the labor of the New England Patriots who constructed them, and deserve the respect and protection, afforded Earthworks at National Historic Monuments.
BRIAN CAMPELL
Pearl Street
Friends of Fort Washington--Preservation for the 21st Century
Cambridge Chronicle Tue Mar 20, 2007
http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/opinion/x97779003
On St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day, we celebrated Washington and his volunteer soldiers, who toiled so hard to build the dozens of siege fortifications around Boston that, with Knox’s Ticonderoga cannons on Dorchester Heights, forced the British evacuation of Boston on March 17, 1776.
In November 1775, by order of George Washington, volunteer soldiers constructed the Three Gun Battery Earthworks at Fort Washington Park at 101 Waverly St. Of the many siege fortifications built, only the Three Gun Battery Earthworks at Fort Washington Park survive in an original condition.
After the Revolution, the affluent Dana family preserved the Three Gun Battery Earthworks until 1858 and donated the land the Three Gun Battery Earthworks occupy to the city. In 1859, Cambridge built the beautiful historic fence around the Three Gun Battery Earthworks to protect them.
In the “History of Cambridge, Massachusetts 1630-1877,” Lucius R. Paige, wrote, “Let no unpatriotic hand destroy this revolutionary relic, now known as Fort Washington.” The “revolutionary relic” Paige was referring to was not the fence, but the Three Gun Battery Earthworks. Over the years, the historic fence was battered and vandalized, but protected the revolutionary relic, Earthworks, and is now restored.
On Jan. 12, 2006, the Cambridge Chronicle published “Dog owners trump history” by Sarah Andrews, Chronicle staff, which reported the Cambridge Historical Commission approved a temporary installation of a 40-inch-high chain-link fence, which abuts the existing historic fence.
The commission’s members approved this fence solution in a 6-1 vote, saying, “It was important to meet the needs of dogs and their owners.” The primary historic preservation concern was the 148-year-old fence, which no longer serves as protection to the Earthworks. Instead, it keeps pooches caged in, making Fort Washington a legal off-leash park. Dogs burrow large holes in the Three Gun Battery Earthworks with impunity, as there is no
protection for these fragile revolutionary relics our forefathers so bravely constructed while suffering sickness and death in the camps and barracks of Cambridge.
As a U.S. Navy veteran, I feel this not the proper place to allow dogs to run free. The 231-year-old revolutionary relic, Three Gun Battery Earthworks, is a monument to the labor of volunteer soldiers who constructed them, and deserve the respect and protection afforded the Earthworks at National Battlefields.
Friends of Fort Washington for the 21st Century
978-256-2470
95 Waverly Street
Cambridge Massachusetts 02139