Mount Vernon Regional GIS Symposium for Historical Resources

Photogrammetric Mapping at the Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society Cemetery

Brian Crane, Outerbridge Horsey Associates

Photogrammetry was used to generate a high resolution 3D model and orthomosaic map of headstones at the Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society Cemetery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. A burial ground was established on the site in 1808 and was in active use through 1950. In 1975, many of the stones were moved from their original locations to stockpile areas to allow for site restoration. Current restoration efforts are being coordinated by Outerbridge Horsey Associates, architects under the auspices of the Mount Zion Female Union Band Historic Memorials Park, Inc. with funds generously contributed by a private donor. This work seeks to recover the original headstone location information by combining historical research with the results of a four-part existing conditions survey (topographic/boundary survey, tree identification, photogrammetric mapping, and ground penetrating radar [GPR]). Because some of the stones in the stockpile areas may still be in their original positions, a detailed map documenting the exact position of all the stones was needed before any stones are moved to make room for the GPR instrument. This map needed to accurately record all the stones in sufficient detail to allow for individual inscriptions to be legible. Photogrammetry created a high resolution georeferenced orthomosaic image that can be combined in a GIS with the GPR results, while the 3D model generated allows for viewing the inscriptions of upright stones.

Reinforcing Ecological Fabric & Botanical Heritage of Gum Springs

Rebekah Lawrence, Master of Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Virginia Tech, Alexandria, VA

Reinforcing Ecological Fabric & Botanical Heritage of Gum Springs presents studio research and design work of a historic black community’s landscape in Fairfax County Virginia. The project was inspired through a separate, ongoing research effort by George Washington’s Mount Vernon to map the land transfer from the 1860’s to the present of George Washington’s Five Farms landholdings. The method for this larger project included researching the deed chains of the Five Farms region and mapping the metes and bounds of the deed plats as shape files in ArcGIS. The creative interpretation of this dataset led to an exploded, axonometric drawing and timeline of three emerging communities in and around that area. West Ford, a manumitted slave
in the Washington family, founded one of these communities Gum Springs. He sold a portion of land he had inherited from Bushrod Washington, heir of the Mount Vernon estate and bought the land of Gum Springs later deeding it to his four children. The design portion of this project explores the ethnobotanical heritage of African-Americans through a drawing that categorizes a list of herbs traditionally used for healing. Another drawing recommends a planting strategy for a healing garden on the campus of Bethlehem Baptist, a significant cultural institution in Gum Springs. The planting for this healing garden harkens back to the resilience of enslaved African Americans, who used botanical knowledge for health and wellness.

Integrating History and Ecology at Wormsloe with Geospatial Tools

Sarah Ross UGA-CREW, Dr. Marguerite Madden, Dr. Tommy Jordan UGA Center for Geospatial Research

The Center for Research + Education at Wormsloe, a unit of the University of Georgia, supports environmental history research and documents human-induced modifications and resulting legacies in the landscape. This 1,000+ acre site, settled in 1733, is located adjacent to the Intra-Coastal Waterway near the Savannah River. Research initiatives include Native American use of the site for roughly 6,000-years, historic patterns of agriculture, biodiversity, invasive species, epidemiology of migratory wildlife, and a wide range of water issues. We are in the process of collecting, analyzing and archiving site data as we apply for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Critical to this process is an understanding of the imminent effects on the site from sea level rise, as well as impacts from an increasing volume and intensity of storm events. As Georgia has the largest tidal range (8 to 9 feet twice each day) on the U. S. east coast south of Maine, saltwater intrusion and periodic tidal surges are of great concern. It is imperative that we document historic and model future effects of changing water patterns on the Wormsloe landscape and the Georgia Coast.

Using Story Maps to Preserve, Steward and Interpret Cultural Resources in the National Park Service

James Stein, David Lowe, and Deidre McCarthy National Park Service, Cultural Resource GIS Facility

Within the National Park Service (NPS) locational information is critical in understanding cultural resources, how we steward them, and how we interpret them. The approach to using GIS in cultural resource management in the NPS is highly decentralized however, taking place in individual parks, at regional offices and at national programs, like the Cultural Resource GIS Facility (CRGIS). At the national level, our efforts are divided between individual projects undertaken with our partners and serving as a leader in the creation of GIS policies as well as the development of a single NPS-wide cultural resource enterprise GIS data set, designed to bring all of the disparate cultural programs together.

Through one of our projects combining both of these roles, CRGIS is working in coordination with the NPS Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey (HABS/HAER/HALS) program to locate all of the resources they have documented, contributing to our NPS enterprise GIS data set. However, with all of the natural disasters that have struck this year, primarily hurricanes Irma and Maria, we have taken the opportunity to use that enterprise data to create a story map illustrating the critical role HABS/HAER/HALS plays in the preservation of our cultural resources. By using the story map as an interpretive tool, we can explain to the general public how important it is to fully document our cultural resources in the event of something as devastating as a hurricane, graphically displaying how these significant resources face threats from many factors and how they can be dramatically impacted. Through the story map, we illustrate the paths of the hurricanes, the distribution of the resources documented in FL, PR and VI, as well as provide before/after examples of specific resources, linking to the official HABS/HAER/HALS drawings, photos and histories stored at the Library of Congress.

In other projects, such as our partnership with the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, outside the NPS, we use story maps to interpret resources more in depth, following the creation, deployment, contributions and ultimate success of the 370th infantry during WWI. One of the few all African-American units serving overseas during WWI, their involvement in many of the most critical actions in France led to ultimate victory for the Allies in the conflict. Their story, where they came from, where they trained, how they were deployed and their partnership with the French Army is a compelling account, which is augmented through the use of GIS and story maps as an interpretive vehicle, again explaining to the general public their crucial role in WWI, bringing this notable and sometimes overlooked history to the forefront.

These two examples of using GIS and interpretive tools such as story maps tell two different and equally important narratives. One illustrates the reason why HABS/HAER/HALS and our cultural resource documentation methodologies exist: to ultimately preserve these resources as a permanent record for future generations, despite what disasters may befall them as well as highlighting potential threats to them. The other demonstrates how maps, narrative history, photographs, historic maps and other original documents can emphasize an unfamiliar history, while underscoring the important contributions of a single unit in a conflict as large as WWI. These tools will ultimately and fundamentally change how the NPS interprets cultural resources, presenting it in more compelling ways, integrating our NPS programs, as well as our partners, in addition to using GIS more comprehensively in conventional operations.