New York
Old House, Cutchogue, NY (41.008403, -72.485679)
(a) Felling Date: Winter 1698/9
(a) Braces (2/3) 1695(19), 1694(21); Stud 1698(23C); Girts (1/2) 1698(30C); Tiebeam (0/1); Rail (0/1); Joist (0/1); Ex situ offcuts (0/4).
Oicture credit.
Irma
Terry-Mulford House, Orient Point (41.152194, -72.276832)
(a) Felling Dates: Summer 1715 and Winter 1715/16
(a)Tiebeams (2/3) 1715(21C), 1622(+91 rings not dated); Girts (2/3) 1714(15½), 1705(17); Braces (0/2); Sill beam (0/1); Sheathing boards (0/2).
Photo Credit - By DanTD (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Home-Sweet-Home, East Hampton, NY (40.956664 , -72.191119)
(a) Felling Date: Winter 1719/20
(a)Braces 1719(15C, 11C, 9C); Posts (0/4). Site Master 1650-1719 HSH,
Gardiner-Brown House, NY (40.956664, -72.191106)
(a) Felling Dates: Spring 1746, Summer 1746, and Winter 1746/7
Braces 1746(15C), 1745(23½C, 11½C); Studs 1746(15C2, 14C2, 13C), 1745(32½C, 22½C2, 11½C2, 10½C, 8½C, 21¼C). .
Site Master 1607-1746 LVI. 40.956970, -72.190966
All included in Site Master 1505-1746 LNGISL06 (t = 5.4 NY; 5.3 WEB; 5.2 FORES; 5.1 OGC; 5.0 CHM)
Seven houses on the eastern end of Long Island, New York were sampled between the 22nd and 24th of November 2003, and four have now been successfully dated. The oldest of these is the Old House, Cutchogue, which produced two precise felling dates of winter 1698/9, suggesting a construction period commencing in 1699 or within a year or two afterwards. At Orient Point, the Terry-Mulford House produced a precise felling date of summer 1715 and another from the winter of 1715/16, suggesting a construction date of 1716 or shortly thereafter. At Home-Sweet-Home, East Hampton, three wall-braces produced precise felling dates of winter 1719/20, suggesting construction began in 1720 or 1721 at the latest. Finally, also at East Hampton, the Gardiner-Brown House produced sixteen precise felling dates ranging from the spring of 1746 to the winter of 1746/7, indicating that construction most likely began in 1747.
Samples from three other houses, the Halsey House in Southampton, Mulford Farm in East Hampton, and Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island, failed to date at this time, but may do so in the future as more chronologies are produced from the region. The total of 19 samples from 18 timbers from the four dated buildings were combined to form the 242-year site master LNGISL06, which dated, spanning the years 1505-1746. Matches with chronologies from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were used to date the master chronology, and some of these chronologies were only developed in the last year or two, explaining why it has taken three years to produce these positive results.
The research project was organised by Dr Gaynell Stone of the Suffolk County Archaeological Association. Miles, Worthington, Cook and Krusic 2006. The Tree-Ring Dating of Historic Buildings from Eastern Long Island, New York. ODL unpubl rep 2006/47 Dr D W H Miles FSA and M J Worthington, together with Dr Edward Cook and Paul Krusic, Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York
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