ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAVANNAH, GA.
SOURCE: BILL HENDRICK COX NEWS SERVICE
NOTE: Below
CASIMIR PULASKI, whom the Virginia town was named after, was mortally wounded while leading Colonial forces.
Brown, fragile bones believed to be those of Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski were separated, identified and laid out on a picnic table to dry over the weekend, and forensic scientists said there is growing evidence that the remains are indeed those of the cavalry general.
Both the town and county of Pulaski in the New River Valley of Virginia are among the more than 20 localities in the United States named for Casimir Pulaski, who was a count in his native Poland. The possible discovery of his remains comes just as those two Virginia localities are getting ready to celebrate the town's 19th annual Count Pulaski Day on Saturday with music, vendors, a 100th-birthday celebration of the county's old courthouse, and speeches recalling the man whose name inspired all this.
"That is kind of a coincidence," said Barry Matherly, the town's economic development director whose office has been involved with organizing the Count Pulaski Day activities.
"That sounds strange to me because all the history and everything points to him having been buried at sea," said Winsdon Pound, a retired Pulaski County educator who has performed in uniform as Count Pulaski for 10 or more years at the annual festival, giving a first-person history of the count's life and death. He will portray Count Pulaski again Saturday.
"Oh, my word. How interesting," said Flo Stevenson, who operates the Count Pulaski Bed & Breakfast in the town. She also thought he had been buried at sea.
Pulaski, also a hero in Poland for leading two rebellions there, was mortally wounded in the Siege of Savannah on Oct. 9, 1779, felled from his horse while leading Colonial forces against fortified British positions. Pulaski was hit in the groin by a piece of lead grapeshot about the size of a pingpong ball.
Stevenson became a student of Count Pulaski's history before opening her bed and breakfast in an 80-year-old house in 1993. She painted a portrait of him taken from another likeness, which now hangs over the fireplace at her establishment, and sewed a reproduction of his banner, which flies outside.
She gets many telephone inquiries about the name, one of which came from a man in Sumter, S.C., who said he wondered if she had named her bed-and-breakfast for him. "He is a doctor, an M.D., and his first name is 'Count' and his last name is 'Pulaski,''' she said.
Pat Gooch named her custom framing, arts and crafts shop in downtown Pulaski "Casimir Company" for the count's first name.
She had researched the man to come up with a name tied to him. As a child of the 1960s, she said, she was unsure she wanted to name her store for a military hero "but he fought tyranny everywhere he went," she said, and she could identify with that.
Karen Burns, a noted forensic anthropologist at the University of Georgia and the chief scientist trying to identify the remains, said the bones will be X-rayed for traces of lead. If lead is found, it will be scientifically compared with the grapeshot now on display.
``It's unbelievably fragile,'' said Burns. ``But it is mostly here - I'd say at least 80 percent.''
The remains were exhumed Sept. 27 from a monument built in 1854 in Pulaski's honor in historic Monterey Square. The 55-foot marble and granite obelisk had to be taken down because it was crumbling, and the black iron box containing the bones was rushed Sept. 27 to the Georgia Historical Society.
The bones were placed ``very carefully'' into the box in 1854, said Dr. Preston Russell, a local physician who is one of the nation's leading experts on Pulaski. The skull was cracked but intact, and at least two molars were found.
Burns said computer analysis of the remains will be conducted, but it appears clear that they are those of a white male in his 30s. Pulaski was 30 or 32, depending on various historical accounts.
Dr. Don Gardner, director of the city Park and Tree Department, said the goal is to identify the remains positively through DNA analysis, and Burns said the bones were in good enough shape to extract some of the chemical. The problem will be finding descendants of Pulaski with whom to try to match the DNA.
But Burns said circumstantial evidence might be sufficient. So far, she said, everything points to descriptions of Pulaski.
According to historical accounts, Pulaski was taken to Greenwich plantation after he was shot in the unsuccessful attempt to wrench Savannah from the British. Some accounts say he died aboard a ship docked nearby and was buried at sea.
Others say he was buried at Greenwich. It is those bones that were dug up in 1853, then reinterred inside the monument. They were dug up then on the sworn statements of owners of the plantation, prominent residents then, that the remains were those of Pulaski.
Burns said it probably will take months for her to complete her report.
The remains might not have been found had it not been for the deterioration of Pulaski Monument well over a year ago. Huge chunks had toppled, endangering tourists, and an architectural-archaeological company recommended the structure be taken down.
Gardner said the city needs $180,000 to reconstruct the monument. The remains will be placed in an airtight stainless-steel container that will preserve them for centuries, Wermuth said. Inside the structure, the city probably will place time capsules.
The exhumation process, which culminated more than a year of research, was dramatic.
Surrounded by time-darkened bricks inside the bowels of a memorial where no one had stood for 142 years, Burns used a paintbrush to sweep away rust from the black box containing the bones.
All of a sudden, she stopped brushing and squinted at a silvery name plate. ``It says, `Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski.' It's spelled here, `Cassimir.' It's very, very fine, small etching,'' Burns said. ``This was done in a very, very delicate process.''
The box - with its carefully crafted nameplate and at least 80 percent of a human skeleton inside - provided the strongest evidence yet that Pulaski indeed was buried here.
``The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming,'' said Todd Groce, director of the Georgia Historical Society. ``It's the count in that box.''
Staff writer Paul Dellinger contributed to this story.
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