Digging for Dunkirk history
By JOHN MACKOWIAK, OBSERVER Staff WriterArticle Photos
Mother Nature has uncovered a piece of Dunkirk history.
A couple years ago, a violent storm destroyed a cement breakwall near Point Gratiot. Harsh winds and waves washed the cement out into the lake.
Now, every time a storm hits Dunkirk, Lake Erie whips the coast with its powerful waves, causing more and more of the land to erode away.
"As it did that, dirt was washed away, and it exposed part of this rock that was round. We couldn't figure out what it was," said David Briska, vice president of the Dunkirk Lighthouse Board. "At first, just because there was only a little bit of it sticking out, we thought it might have been a well or cistern, or something like that."
However, it was only a matter of time until the Lighthouse Board became fully aware of what had been unearthed.
"When they started planning for the new breakwall, the people that came in said, 'It looks like that's probably the base of the original lighthouse tower," Briska said.
After some archaeological research, it was realized the rock formation was too large to be a well or a cistern. It became more likely that the round-shaped pattern was the tower base.
"We knew the original tower had been in this location here somewhere," Briska said, gesturing toward the site of the uncovered rock, "but we didn't know that the base was still here."
Today, the tower is a rectangular shape. Originally, it was round. The tower went from round to rectangular in 1875, when a Victorian house was built on the grounds for the lighthouse keeper.
"They decided, then, that the round tower did not look nice with the brick Victorian house," Briska said, "so they put brick around the outside of the tower to make it look more Victorian - to make it more aesthetically pleasing."
Heritage Preservation and Interpretation, Inc. - based in Steamburg - is conducting an archaeological dig in an attempt to preserve the original lighthouse tower's foundation. New information may be learned from the archaeologists discoveries.
"Archaeology is always putting the pieces together and seeing if you can come up with a solution. Sometimes, you can't - all you can do is guess," said Robert Dean, company president of Heritage Preservation.
The lighthouse tower was taken down in 1857, and it was moved to its present location.
"From what I understand," Briska said, "the ships coming up the lake could not see the original lighthouse as well. They moved it over there, closer to the Point, so that the ships that were coming up would be better able to actually see the light."
Dean discussed the dig that he and his team are conducting.
"The majority of what we've found so far is the stone and brickwork that formed the foundation," Dean said. "In other places, if a site hadn't been used for these hundred-plus years, there would probably be more artifacts that would be in association. But here, this site has been disturbed - cleared out after the original lighthouse was moved and filled first with cinder. There may have been a roadway covering this."
Other local fills have been deposited at the site, and then top soil was laid down to grow grass, Dean further explained. Still, some artifacts have been discovered.
"The few things that we do find at the lighthouse level are pretty crushed-up, tiny fragments of whiteware, some glass. I think the largest thing we've seen so far is possibly the spout from an oil can, and there are some rusted nails and pieces of iron," Dean said, adding later, " but just the way this is disturbed - both inside and outside - we're not sure these artifacts belong with the 1826-1856 level."
The structure of the foundation itself is an interesting find, according to Dean. At the foundation level, Dean and his crew have discovered a mix of substances - brick, shale and concrete.
The Heritage Preservation team is attempting to remove the foundation from the ground, so that the structure can be studied. It may help people better understand the lighthouse's history.
"We're going to take as much out of there as we can. Some of it's not recoverable. It's just in too bad of shape," Dean said. "There seems to be concrete in there - which we hadn't expected. And there's some brickwork. The brick we can probably get out without too much trouble, but the sections of concrete - depending on how thick they are - could be troublesome."
Assuming the concrete dates back to the original construction, Dean believes 1826 is earlier than most people expect concrete to be used.
"It's just a strange mortar mix with a lot of gravel," Dean said. "It may represent changes over time - materials that were added after it was first built in 1826 to when it was abandoned in the 1850s. It's too early for us to tell really."
The archaeological work is significant because of the age and type of the site, according to Dean.
"There are not that many lighthouses, and there are certainly not that many lighthouses of the 1826 vintage," he said. "It's just terribly interesting. There's a chance to learn about the construction techniques and what happened to this one that may not have been written about - if we can determine it."
Briska called the discovery of the original tower "a huge piece" of the city's past.
"The Erie Canal was built in 1825, so the lighthouses that were on the lake after 1825 helped support all the navigation going up and down the lake. So, if you have the base of a tower that was there in 1826, that's a huge piece of our history to let us know the Dunkirk harbor was here. It was a place where boats would come in to support the shipping and factories here. This tower was here to let them know the harbor was right here in this spot."
