Art & Artifacts Record
| Object Name | Cannonball |
| Collection | Artifact collection |
| Object ID | M1985.403.1 |
| Year Range from | 1775 |
| Year Range to | 1830 |
| Dimension Details | 8 3/8" H x 8 3/8" W x 8 3/8" D |
| Description | Iron cannonball with partially preserved handwritten label wrapped around middle. |
| Place Names |
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) |
| Subject Headings |
American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 Ammunition Armament Artifacts Cannonballs |
| Curatorial Notes |
The Long Island Historical Society (today BHS) opened in 1863, during a time of enormous social, cultural, and physical change in Brooklyn. A blood Civil War was ravaging the country. A great wave of immigration prompted Brooklyn's population to skyrocket. Urbanization and industrialization were transforming the city's built environment. With the future uncertain and reminders of the past fading away, LIHS's founders were eager to preserve remnants of Brooklyn's local history before it disappeared. This was particularly true of the city's Revolutionary War history. Today, BHS possesses a unique collection of Revolutionary War family heirlooms, found objects, and relics that together provide a window into the history of the war itself, and also how later generations commemorated it. Before her death in 1943, New Yorker Nora Gertrude Welch donated this three-pound cannon ball to LIHS. Having discovered it near White Plains, New York, she likely inferred its connection to the Revolutionary War and George Washington's unsuccessful New York campaign against British General Lord William Howe. That campaign began with the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776. Following defeat at the Battle of White Plains two months later, Washington and his armies abandoned New York to the British. |