Abstract
This capstone project explores treatment issues in cultural landscape conservation at the Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site, a National Historic Landmark in Whitestown (Mohawk Valley), New York. This capstone was based on a Cultural Landscape Report Part I (site history, existing conditions, analysis and evaluation) developed by the author (see “Independent Research and Internships”).
The Oriskany Battlefield was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 due to its significance as the location of a decisive Revolutionary War battle and as a late 19th and early 20th century memorial to the battle. The Oriskany Battlefield has two periods of historic significance: the Battle of Oriskany (August 6, 1777) which took place within a landscape of old-growth forest and transportation corridors: and the period of sustained commemoration (1877 to c. 1955), which took place within a landscape of agriculture, re-emergent forest, and transportation corridors.
Intended as part of an eventual treatment plan (CLR Part II), this capstone report is intended to guide the site in enhancing the historic character and interpretive value of the battlefield through intervention into three landscape characteristics: spatial organization, views and vistas, and circulation. The treatment plan recommends reestablishing part of the historic spatial organization of the forest context (battle period) and open space and views of the agricultural context (commemorative period), and links these landscapes through improved pedestrian access along new paths and historic transportation corridors. Management of the landscape has been limited by lack of documentation and layering of two distinct periods of significance. The proposed treatment reveals this landscape palimpsest while preserving landscape characteristics from both periods of significance in a physically distinct yet related manner.