I have another nickname, "Tunnel Rat Poppy"

About fifteen of us were involved with digging out the entrance to the "lost" casement, where Billy Howe, the only man ever executed at Fort Mifflin was imprisoned. The entrance curves along the edge of the Torpedo Magazine. From doing probes, it seems this entrance originally went down to the Parade Ground. A six foot deep vertical shaft has been dug right where the entrance went undergroud. Our job was to dig out the passageway that leads to the casement. This passageway was blocked by fill dirt and was filled to within three feet of the roof. We dug out this dirt from the casement side and worked our way to the vertical shaft. The soil was carried to the surface in five gallon buckets. We started from the casement side to make it easier to get the dirt out. When we finished, the floor of the six foot vertical shaft is now about ten feet deep! Oh yeah, did I mention that it rained most of the day!

They haven't figured out exactly when the entrance to this casement was buried; but it looks to me that it happened when the "new" gun mounts were built right after the Civil War. The Fort was rearmed with about twenty big surplus Rodman Guns after the War. (No relation!)

The casement is pretty amazing. It contains a two room cell and a passage way for ventilation. It's funny. At the end of this passage way there's a pile of modern trash. People have been dropping soda cans and other trash down the ventilation shaft that ends on the top of the fort's wall. If you have a problem with tight places, you DO NOT want to go into this passage way. It was built for air, not people!

The cells contain a good bit of graffitti, to include Billy Howe, who left his name on a door jamb. It's neat to look at something that only been seen by a few people in the last 140 years.

All of the diggers were Civil or Rev War reenactors. Given the lack of funds, God only knows when this part of our history will be open to the public.

Bill

Are there any photos of the work or digging to be seen?  Sounds like a neat find especially the graffiti.

Quote :

lhsnj wrote : Are there any photos of the work or digging to be seen?

Greg,

A guy was trying to take photos of the graffiti. I don't know if they turned out. It wasn't exactly bright down there! I don't know if anybody was taking pictures of us working. People in muddy clothing, dragging dirt from a bottom of a hole aren't exactly photogenic!