Monument restoration crews make 200-year-old discovery

Who exactly J.W. Hogg was to Baltimore's Washington Monument may be a question left for the ages. Master craftsman who helped build it? Or vandal who defaced it?

Hogg's name, written in block letters with a pencil next to the date 1829, was among dozens of 19th-century signatures and drawings discovered this week by a restoration crew using hand tools to delicately remove loose plaster from the monument's subterranean vaults.

"They could be craftsmen They could be carpenters. They could just be truant boys; this was a work site," said Lance Humphries, who is helping to lead restoration efforts for the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy. "Whether it was Mr. Hogg the carpenter or 12-year-old James 'Bad Boy' Hogg, we just don't know."

Finding markings in old construction isn't unusual, but each holds its own mystery and intrigue, and allows the authors to leave their mark on history.

Similar discoveries have been made across the country: the signatures of the craftsmen who built the dome on the State House in Annapolis, a face drawn in the blood of a British soldier in 1777 on the wall of a mansion in Germantown, Pa., and heights of children recorded inside the door jamb of a planation home at Drayton Hall in Charleston, S.C.

"There's a mystery inside every building; there are always surprises and secrets," said Tyler Tate, president of the Owings Mills-based Lewis Contractors, which was hired to restore the monument.

"This idea of leaving your signature in the mortar, or leaving your mark behind, is timeless. So much has changed over the years, but at the same time, traits like this haven't. When we uncover things like this, in many ways, we connect ourselves to all those common traits of the builders that came before us."

The monument is undergoing $5 million in restorations to correct decades of water damage that weakened the plaster between the bricks, marble, stones. The mildew and moss must be scrubbed from the structure, the cast-iron fence recast and repainted and new electrical and lighting systems installed.

The site is expected to reopen in time for its bicentennial on July 4, 2015. In all, the conservancy is trying to raise at least $12 million to improve the monument and the four surrounding public squares.

George Wilk II, project superintendent, said the exterior stones and marbles have all been cataloged, itemized and addressed so that each one can be put back into the same place in the same orientation. The perimeter fence has been cataloged and removed for restoration.

Here is the original post:
Monument restoration crews make 200-year-old discovery