Dear Member:

A huge thanks to everyone who attended our all day In-Depth Seminar on “Neanderthals & Early

Humans”. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did putting it on. Now the Board has to figure on how we top

it next year!

This month we are featuring Dr. Thomas Pluckhahn of University of South Florida. He is going to tell us

about his recent excavations at the Safety Harbor Site in Tampa. Come join us on the 19th.

Don’t forget your dues are now due. Previously membership dues were collected on your anniversary date, but this has

proven very hard to administer. So with that in mind, the Board changed the procedure so that all member-

ship dues will be due in January.

Thank you for being a Time Sifters member.

Darwin “Smitty” Smith, President hmsbeagle22@gmail.com

The Safety Harbor site is widely recognized as the probable location of the native town

of Tocobaga, where Spanish Governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established a

short-lived mission-fort in the 1560s. It later became the location for the plantation owned by one of the area’s most legendary settlers, “Count” Odet Philippe. Philippe

is said to have been a childhood friend of Napoleon. He was the first European settler

of Pinellas County, the first to cultivate citrus in Florida, and the first to introduce

cigar rolling to Tampa Bay; generally omitted from such tall tales is the fact that he

was slave owner of likely Afro-Caribbean heritage.

February 19, 6:00 PM - Selby Library, 1331 First St., Sarasota

Remembering Tocobaga: Recent Archaeology at the Safety Harbor Site in Tampa Bay

Dr. Tom Pluckhahn Professor, University of South Florida

F E B R U A R Y - 2 0 2 0 PRESERVATION EDUCATION RESEARCH INSPIRE

Photos: Tom Pluckhahn

Continued on page 3...

By Smitty, Time Sifters Board Member

Historical fiction about the Royal British Navy during the 1700/1800’s is a very popular topic. It is the time when Britain, France, Spain, Holland and the upstart United States were fighting for control of the seas. It was the time of the great sailing ships, of the Battles at Trafalgar, the Nile, the Saintes, and of Napoleon, Horatio Nelson, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. It’s the time of the East Indian Tea Company, the slave trade and its horrors. There are at least ten series of novels (from 11 to 27 books in each series) about this period. Each of these series contain a heroic Captain that you follow from his early induction into the

Navy as a youth – often as a midshipman, continuing with his rise in the ranks to become an Admiral. The stories are of the crew of his ships and what life was like on board a cramped wooden sailing ship for a minimum of a year at a time, with hundreds of your closest friends enjoying poor food, no privacy, and constant danger from the sea. The descriptions of these great battles including the tactics used by the combatants are really exciting. We often forget that they were at the whim of the wind which was their only source of power. There are hundreds of really good novels available. Here are a few you might want to try. For a start try Horatio Hornblower, a fictional Napoleonic Wars-era

Royal British Navy officer who is the main character of a series of 11 novels by C. S. Forester. Hornblower starts as a seasick midshipman and as the Napoleonic Wars progress, he advances through the ranks as a result of his skill and daring. After surviving many adventures in a wide variety of locales, he rises to the pinnacle of his profession, Admiral of the Fleet. One of the best series is the Aubrey–Maturin series. It is a series of 20 completed (and one unfinished) novels by Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, a physician, natural philosopher,

and intelligence agent. In this series the addition of the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin makes it even more interesting. O’Brian puts this pair in all the major battles of the era. In 2003, Russel Crowe stared in the movie “Master & Commander”. It is considered one of the best films depicting this era. The Bolitho novels are a series of nautical war novels written by Douglas Reeman (using the pseudonym Alexander Kent). They focus on the military careers of Richard Bolitho and Adam Bolitho in the Royal Navy, from the time of the American Revolution past the Napoleonic Era. There are 27

fantastic novels in this series. Richard Bolitho is a Royal Navy officer, the second son of a prestigious naval family. He joined the Navy in 1768. He served in the wars against France and the United States. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1774, captain in 1782, and admiral in 1812. Adam Bolitho is Richard’s nephew and becomes Richard's heir. Adam, the only son of Richard's disgraced older brother Hugh, is sent to Richard at the age of 14 by his dying mother, he joins the Royal Navy, rising through the ranks to establish himself as a daring and resourceful frigate captain. If you like non-Fiction, try many of the biographies of Lord Horatio Nelson or Lord Thomas Cochrane

Notes from a Time Sifter Historical Fiction/Non Fiction – British Navy Style

Lord Horatio Nelson

Copyright © 2020 Time Sifters Archaeology Society, Inc., All rights reserved. We send newsletters to people who have attended or expressed interest in our lectures and given us their email address.

Officers:

Darwin "Smitty" Smith, President

Sherry Svekis, Vice President

Marion Almy, Secretary

Laura Harrison, Treasurer

Karen Jensen, Membership

Board of Directors

Evelyn Mangie

Don Nelson

Directors:

Dorothy Cascio

Steven Derfler

Did You Know?

Continued from page 2 ...

Figure 1 Figure 2

Historical Fiction/Non Fiction – British Navy Style

by David Cordingly who also wrote a history of HMS Bellerophon called “Billy Ruffian”. She was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1786, she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", she fought in three fleet actions, the Glorious

First of June, the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar, and was the ship aboard which Napoleon finally surrendered, ending 22 years of nearly continuous war with France. As you can tell there is a lot to choose from, we hope that you find something you like.

Most of these books are not written like textbooks and are easy and enjoyable to read. There are other authors who have written extensively on this period and half the fun is the search for good ones. If you have a recommendation, please drop us a line so that we can share it with other members.

The British Royal Navy first began using the term “powder monkey” in the 17th century. In the golden age of sail, young boys would be recruited or press-ganged to service artillery guns on warships. Their job was to ferry gunpowder from the magazine in the ship’s hold to the gun crews. It was a dangerous job: gun carriages would regularly dismount and maim crewmembers, scalding iron rained from misfired guns and giant splinters would

penetrate flesh. Brief autobiographical accounts from powder monkeys survive. One such account is from a boy named Robert Sands, who

worked on Admiral Nelson’s ship during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He explained that “the smoke sofecated us … our skreens took fire and burnt the Leftanant of mereans (marines) badley. I had jest left their wen the exploshon took place. The men inside the skreens was burnt to deth … Then I had to go to the fore magesene for my powder.” Despite his age and lower-

class status, Sands unlikely memoir is one of the few accounts that exist from the battle. BBC History Magazine

Powder Monkey

Wikipedia

Time Sifters Archaeology Society P. O. Box 5283, Sarasota, FL 34277

Speakers & Events Calendar Unless noted, all will be held at 6:00 PM

Selby Library, 1331 First St., Sarasota 34236

March 18, 2020

Mocama (Timucua) Indians and Spanish Missions:

Life beneath the Bell.

Dr. Keith Ashley

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February 19, 2020

Remembering Tocobaga: Recent Archaeology at the Safety Harbor Site in Tampa Bay Dr. Thomas Pluckhahn

April 13

2019 Cornelia Futor Memorial Student Paper Winners

1st and 2nd Place Student Paper Presenters