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The site of the Great Swamp Fight, historic Rhode
Island Battleground at South Kingston that has lain hidden away for more
than two and half centuries in an impenetrable bog, will be made
accessible to visitors at last as a result of a work program which
enrollees at Burlingame State Reservation are bringing to
completion.
The area is a small island rising from the middle of
a marsh where, on December 19, 1675, colonists and Narragansett Indians
met in the bloodiest engagement which had ever occurred in New England.
Fought while a blizzard was brewing, the fierce battle broke for ever
the Indians' power and marked a major state in King Philip's War.
Although a state reservation, the battle site has been accessible only
by private road, but CCC workers are constructing a new 20 foot graveled
route for 2,300 feet into the swamp and a foot trail for the remaining
900 feet to the "island". The site thus will be reached directly from
the South County Trail. It is expected the operations will be completed
by early September.
* * *
Preliminary development operations are well under way
at Harrison Island Park, 14 miles upstream from Chattanooga on the
Tennessee River, following the recent establishment of Camp TVA P-15.
The park, in reality a peninsula on the eastern margin of the
Chickamauga Reservoir, embraces TVA property which will be leased to the
State of Tennessee over an indefinite period for administration by the
Division of Parks of the Department of Conservation. There has been no
previous recreational development on the land. Other TVA parks developed
by National Park Service camps are Norris, Big Ridge, Wheeler Dam,
Muscle Shoals and Pickwick Dam.
* * *
Except for the engraving of plates, all tasks
required in publishing a camp year book are being carried out by
enrollees of Mass. SP-18, Mt. Tom State Reservation, Holyoke. The actual
printing was made possible when the unit acquired a new press and
installed what has been described as the best print shop in the First
Corps Area. The annual contains numerous photographs of camp and work
scenes. The same group has been publishing for some time a neat monthly
magazine called The Ear Bender. It is entirely hand set.
* * *
Educational activities continue to offer a striking
variety of interests in camps throughout the Region. A course in bee
keeping is under way at N. C. NP-4 (Smokemont), Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, and reproductions of period furniture are being made by
World War veteran enrollees at Va. MP-2, Petersburg National Military
Park, where a vocational shop has been equipped with new machinery.
Informal classes in astronomy gather on clear nights at N. Y. SP-52,
Mohansic Park, Yorktown Heights, while enrollees at Ala. SP-6, Gulf
State Park, Foley,, are studying photography.
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Enrollees of Ga. SP-13, Pine Mountain State Park,
Chipley, will begin in the fall the planting of thousands of magnolia
trees along the scenic highway which follows the crest of the ridge from
which the park and nearby recreational demonstration area derive their
names. Nearly 3,000 trees already have been donated for the "Big Leaf
Magnolia Trail" as a result of the efforts of the sponsor, Nelson M.
Shipp, Columbus publisher. The park adjoins the famous Warm Springs
vacation home of President Roosevelt.
* * *
A new bathhouse has just been completed by enrollees
at S.C. SP-3, Poinsett State Park, Wedgefield. It was constructed of
pine, roofed with hand hewn cypress boards and provided with chimneys of
coquina which serve the dining hall and kitchen section of the
building.
* * *
OCRACOKE LIGHTHOUSE
Within sight of the spot where this ancient
navigation aid stands, the pirate Blackbeard was slain more than 200
years ago. Ocracoke Island is embraced by the proposed Cape Hatteras
National Seashore.
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