Dear fellow Hanoverians:
As you may have noticed, the cannons in the center of Town next to the
Congregational Church and across from the Town Hall and Library have
been restored. A thoughtful Hanover teacher and long-time resident
asked me not too long ago about the restoration – wondering who did it
and what the process was; noting also that they looked awesome! So, I
did a little digging and Rick Rockwell, Collections Committee co-chair
of the Hanover Historical Society, kindly sent along the following
detail for me to share with all of you:
“This was a lengthy project for us. A few years back, our committee
came up with the idea of restoring the cannons. While they are not
owned by us, we thought it would simply a great thing to do for the
town and the cannons themselves. Per our understanding, the cannons
were surplus inventory from the United States Navy and have been on
our small Town green as long as anyone can remember.
The cannons are 12 pound Dahlgren Boat Howitzers and were manufactured
in 1863. Our first step was getting a Community Preservation Grant
from the Town of Hanover, which Town Meeting approved. We then put the
process out to bid in order to obtain someone to take on the
restoration. We were lucky enough to get a bid from the Steen Cannon
and Ordnance Works Company located in Ashland, Kentucky. This company
came with great support from the Scituate Historical Society (who had
a cannon restored by the company) and from a private cannon collector
in Essex, Massachusetts who had also worked with Steen Cannon.
After selecting Steen Cannon for this project, in June of 2012, Steen
drove from Kentucky and took the cannons back to their home state.
Back in their workshop is where all of the restoration took place. The
company removed all the layers of rust and corrosion from the carriage
portion of the cannons and painted them black. The bronze cannon bores
themselves had all of the corrosion removed and they are now shiny and
new looking. While they will oxidize with time, this bronze cleaning
was necessary during this process.
Lastly, once the carriage portions and the cannons themselves were
restored, Steen Cannon cast a pattern and made four historically
accurate wheels (as the original wooden wheels had long since
deteriorated in our harsh New England weather). The new wheels were
made out of aluminum; they are made to look like the wooden wheels
that were originally part of the carriage portion of the cannons. The
wheels were painted in a grey color using a powder coating technique.
This paint basically baked onto the carriages and should last for
countless years, if not indefinitely. Once the restoration and wheel
replicas were complete, the cannons were brought back to Hanover in
November of 2012.
Thanks go out the numerous people in Hanover who gave us advice and
drive to take on the project, to the Town of Hanover DPW, the
Community Preservation Committee, the Town Selectmen and the
Historical Commission for supporting us and allowing us to take on
this project. All in all, this project involved countless support from
groups and people within our town. The end result is two beautifully
restored cannons, which are a beacon of history for our small town
common.”
Special thanks to Rick Rockwell for sending that interesting
information along, and for his dedication to the project in the first
place! For more information, please contact Rick at
rmrhanover@hotmail.com
, or Historical Society Executive Director Rachel Lovett at
rachel.louise.lovett@gmail.com
.
For “Around Town on the Web”,
Cathy H-B
—
“Around Town on the Web” (“ATOTW”) is a community service that has been
provided to self-selected residents of the Town of Hanover since the spring
of 2004.
For submission guidelines and answers to frequently asked questions about
“ATOTW”, please go to http://www.atotw.com.
To search for archived “ATOTW” news, view the archive.
If you would like to be added to this distribution list, click here. Please
follow the link in the response e-mail to validate your account. You will
not receive “ATOTW” e-mails until you complete this step.
If you would like to be removed from this distribution list, click here.
—
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com —