THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9506300238
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY SUSAN W. SMITH, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Shots were fired, cannons boomed and men died as local colonists and British troops charged each other through the woods and marshes of Norfolk County in December 1775 during what has become known as the Battle of Great Bridge.
In 1958, 183 years later, a cannonball once again surfaced in Great Bridge. Warren G. Gibson, a local builder, was grading a road in the new Red Oak Colony subdivision when a 12-pound cannonball was unearthed.
According to Gibson, it was found about two feet below the surface of the ground and was the size of a basketball because of the corrosion and incrusted dirt.
``Everyone backed off when the ball was found,'' said Gibson. ``We didn't know if it would explode or not.''
Gibson summoned experts from the Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Department at Little Creek, who carefully exhumed the find and took it back to the base for further examination. X-rays showed it was a non-explosive iron device and the analysis dated the cannonball to the Revolutionary War era.
Busy with his growing business, Warren G. Gibson General Contracting and Land Development Co., and with developing the new 50-home site, Gibson put the cannonball in storage.
Last fall, he unpacked it and asked for help from the Navy to document the historical item.
According to the findings of the investigators, ``The cannonball is a solid steel ball with a fixture to attach a chain; commonly, a chain was attached between two of the balls. Both balls would be placed into a cannon and fired at the mast of a ship at sea or, in the case of this particular ball, fired into a troop formation on land.''
Both the Americans and British armies used the same type of measuring system for cannons and shot. A 12-pound cannonball was fired from a cannon called a ``twelve pounder.'' It can't be determined whether the cannonball was fired by British or American troops.
The 220-year-old, gray mottled cannonball now rests on a marble stand at the Chesapeake Central Library on Cedar Road. Gibson has donated this piece of Revolutionary history to be displayed near the diorama that portrays the Battle of Great Bridge.
``We were very excited and appreciative of the addition of this piece of our area's history to the library,'' said Margaret Stillman, director of Chesapeake Public Libraries. ``The battle display receives a great deal of attention from field trip groups and from our library patrons. Now we have an actual piece of history that not only can be viewed but visitors can actually touch the past.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Warren G. Gibson donated this cannonball for display at the Central
Library on Cedar Road.
by CNB