Eighteenth-Century Artifacts Uncovered in Michigan

News June 29, 2020

(Mackinac State Historic Parks)
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Michigan Michilimackinac Intaglio
(Mackinac State Historic Parks)

MACKINAW CITY, MICHIGAN—UpNorthLive reports that excavators working at Mackinac State Historic Parks have uncovered a heart-shaped ring, a sleeve button made of glass or crystal, a gunflint, a plain pewter button, a plain brass button, and part of a bone knife handle at the site of a house at Colonial Michilimackinac, a fort first established by French traders and missionaries on Mackinac Island. The house was home to Charles Henri Desjardins de Rupallay de Gonneville, and later, after the fort was occupied by the British in 1764, was occupied by an English trader who has not yet been identified. Curator of archaeology Lynn Evans said the sleeve button, which is engraved with a classical-style bust, dates to the British period. To read about shipwrecks in the Great Lakes’ Thunder Bay, go to “Shipwreck Alley.”

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