Diagram of Ridgefield Village in 1777
Posted on 12/21/2019 11:35:08 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Human skeletal remains -- possibly belonging to Revolutionary War soldiers who fought in the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777 -- were discovered under the foundation of an early 18th-century house last week.
The Connecticut Office of State Archaeology was notified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner about the find on Dec. 2.
Subsequent excavations by the state archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, with assistance from the Friends of the Office of State Archaeology, Inc. and University of Connecticut graduate students, have yielded two more skeletons.
"One has been completely excavated already and is in the medical examiner's office and we're working on these other two," said Bellantoni, who began working on the site on Dec. 3.
Bellantoni noted that all three skeletons were "robust adult men lying in an east-west orientation in ground that appears to be haphazardly dug."
...Historians recorded 16 British soldiers and eight Americans were buried in a small field to the right of the American position on the battlefield (which would be south of the Stebbins house). In his extensively researched book, Farmers Against the Crown, Keith Marshall Jones III reported being able to document 13 deaths and 27 wounded from the Patriot ranks. Earlier historians offered varying numbers, he noted. Jones named seven Americans, including one from Ridgefield, Bradley Dean, whose remains are not recorded in any cemetery records. These, he said, were presumably those buried at the battle scene.
They include, in addition to Dean: Private Noah Bartlett of Hartford; Lieutenant Hezekiah Davenport of Stamford; Samuel Seeley of Easton (then part of Fairfield); Volunteer David Selleck of Stamford (via Salem); Private David Stevens of Stamford; and Lieutenant William Thompson of Trumbull (Fairfield).
(Excerpt) Read more at wiltonbulletin.com ...
Battle of Ridgefield, April 27, 1777.
How many of them voted for The PIAPS in the last election?
All of them.
Six times.
Thanks
I would have kept my mouth shut because these people will probably not be able to continue any excavation, remodel ect.
The State more than likely will declare the place a historic something and screw them over big time.
It’d be nice if the DNA tested the remains.
TRAYSURE!
How’d they manage to be under a house foundation that was built in the early 18th century?
Future Wallmart site discovered.
Another tragic accident with contraception in a time machine. Or, the reporter effed it up.
victims of Hitlery’s Arkancide squad?
The 18th century is the period from January 1, 1701 to December 31, 1800. So a house built in the early 18th century would have been built in the early 1700’s.
Whoops, this one got left out.
Sounds like the site where that homes drummer that got in the face of those Catholic student.
Oh Ridgefield?
Sorry. Thought you said Fridge Field.
They've been chillin' there for 242 years.
That explains the periodic knocking noises and incorporeal moans.
And the article speculates that they are revolutionary war soldiers who died in 1777. So 70ish years after the house was built. Why would someone dig up their basement to bury ward dead? Answer: they wouldn’t. So the 1777 theory doesn’t hold much water.
I understand what is meant by 18th century. The home was built early and the battle was fought late.
From reading another article; it might be that the burial site was outside of the original home, which was very small. There were later additions and renovations where foundations & rooms were built over the unknown/unmarked grave-site.
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