St. Patrick's Day at Fort Amanda - A Very Smelly Place

 St. Patricks Day at Fort Amanda

(This place really stinks)

If you had been at Fort Amanda 212 years ago on St Patricks day, walking through the southwest gate the first thing you probably would have noticed is the smell.  Today the area around the monument looks like a well groomed lawn but in 1813 it's doubtful there was much if any grass inside the fort walls.  The foot, animal and wagon traffic would likely have reduced the grounds to a muddy mess particuilarly on rainy days and despite efforts to keep the grounds clean, the mud, and stench emminating from the animal pens and butchering areas to south east of the fort as well as from the latrines would have made your visit very unpleasant.  

March 17, 1813 

   

A large part of the soldier’s diet in 1813 was made up of either pork in the winter months and beef, the remainder of the year. The army had contracts with locals who provided them. The animals were herded to the various fort sites where they penned then slaughtered as needed. It was cheaper transporting the animals "on the hoof" rather than butchering them at home and paying contractors to ship the meat to the various posts. After slaughtering, the meat was either salted or smoked in the new smokehouse then put into barrels or stored in sheds awaiting shipment.

The Smokehouse at Fort Amanda

There were no refrigerators in 1813, so the only way to preserve meat was to smoke or cure it. For that, needed a smokehouse. They started building one at Ft. Amanda on March10th. The smokehouse was a small building in which meat was hung from hooks or placed on racks above a smoldering fire. The smoke from the fire circulated around the meat helping “cure” or preserve it. Notice the open spaces between the logs. Those weren't purposely left open to help allow for a breeze to enter and help circulate the smoke.

Typical Frontier Smokehouse

Nothing went to waste.

Every part of the butchered animals that could be used was used. Aside from the edible parts, horns were boiled and cleaned out for used as powder horns. Hoofs were boiled down and mixed with ashes to make soap.

Oh man......this place really stinks!

The animal parts that couldn’t be used had to be disposed of and the easiest way of doing that at Amanda was to simply bury it or throw it into the river. He journal entry this date reads:

 Wensday the 17 of March 1813
Last night heavy rain with thunder & Continued raining in showers, After breakfast all hands paraded & proceed to throw into the river a large quantity of dead hogs & skins and entrails which had been left on the bank above the fort, which began to be very offensive, by reason of putrifaction. 

 
This entry tells us a couple things; first that the butchering area was located south of the fort and secondly, that the Kentucky troops apparently didn't have a very good aim.



Seems the west bank of the river southeast of the fort was littered with animal carcasses, skins, entrails and even entire dead hogs. The smell of the rotting flesh was drifting into the fort and across the river to the boat building area and had become so offensive, a group of soldiers was detailed to clean up the area and dispose of the filth. Like the Kentuckians, the Ohio troops probably took the easiest way out and threw the remains into the Auglaize to let nature take its course.

St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patricks day had been celebrated in the United States since the late 1700's and yet Schillinger makes no note of any kind of celebration at Ft. Amanda. On the other hand, owing to the fact that Schillinger, a staunch Presbyterian and obvious tea totaller, its possible he simply chose not to mention it.

Several of the men in the company at Fort Amanda on this date were of Irish descent so had there been a celebration, it's likely Captain Hosbrook would have dispensed an extra ration of whiskey to the men, especially those men who had spent the day cleaning up the slaughter area and disposing of the rotting meat. It would seem that (ready for this?) a “little snort” no pun intended, would certainly have been in order.