GARS and Friends of Fort Daniel (FFD), a special committee created for Fort Daniel preservation efforts, have had a lot going on since the last Profile. Since Fort Daniel’s listing as one of ten historic properties listed the Georgia Trust’s 2009 Places in Peril, GARS and FFD have submitted an application for a Georgia Trust preservation grant. The matching grant proposal is for the purpose of developing a master plan for a proposed Archaeological Park at the site of Fort Daniel in Gwinnett County. The master plan, to be designed by a leading Atlanta-based planning and landscape architecture firm, will initially be used in public outreach efforts that have as their goal raising public awareness of the importance of the site for local and state history, and promoting grassroots support for purchase of the site by the county. The firm has generously offered to return onehalf of their fee as the match for the grant.
The FFD, presently being chaired by a direct descendent of Major General Allen Daniel, John Hopkins, and GARS have already begun work on an ambitious Archaeology Month program that will include a half-scale replica of a portion of the stockade wall and corner blockhouse. The plan for this will be based on similar restorations at other late eighteenth and early nineteenth century forts, General Daniel’s written orders of how he wanted the 1813 fort built, and what has been learned so far from the archaeological record at Fort Daniel. Other things planned include an artifact and posterboard display, period reenactors, a blacksmith who will be making 1790s “Fort Hog Mountain Wrought Nails,” buckets of dirt salted with artifact replicas for children to screen, and the opportunity to do some archaeology as we look for another side of the stockade wall enclosure. The Fort Daniel Frontier Fair and Public Archaeology Day will be held on May 2.
The monthly general meeting of the Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society is held the first Wednesday of the month in Conference Room B at the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Center, 75 Langley Place, Lawrenceville at 7:30 PM. Details about GARS meetings, projects, field trips and Fort Daniel can always be seen at our web site.
Posted online on Friday, March 13th, 2009