Hodcarry wrote in message <

>     And a question, how many of you all have heard the story of
>Bannermans'(sp?) Island? Bannerman was a New York based arms dealer who
used
>large quanities of outdated, mostly American Civil War,  shells as fill at
his
>island and there they remain.

Never heard of that one...

....altho the story goes around the Civil War reenactor circles that the last
casualties of the "late unpleasantness" happened in the mid-1970'd.  Seems
some soldiers on field exercizes would up occupying old seacoast
fortifications on the Carolina Coast....and in the chill of a winter
evening, decided to build a fire, using several partially burried "rocks" as
their fireplace.  Unfortunately, those "rocks" turned out to be badly
dented, rusted, and corroded SHELLS from the long removed naval artillery!
When the fire got hot enough, the results were catastrophic.

Mark L. Shanks
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"Clio Eternum, Vita Brevis"