What is that?

If you know, let us know. Send your responses to [email protected] or phone (631) 749-1000, extension 18.

Roger McKeon was the first and most accurate respondent to last week’s mystery photo (see right), writing that “it’s a 17th century English cannon found buried near the Sylvester Manor House in the 1950s.” Gary Weems wrote that it the cannon was a replica from the “pre-Civil War era.”

We asked Donnamarie Barnes, curator and archivist at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm to explain: “We believe the cannons (there were originally two of them) came from Fort Ticondaroga after the Revolution. For some reason, at an unknown date, they were buried. One was believed to have been buried closer to the creek and is either still there somewhere or was found at some point by a fisherman. The other was buried on the lawn of the Manor and was found in the 1960s by the Fiskes [owners then of the Manor] who had it mounted on the wooden frame and placed on the lawn.

“Another story says that Nathaniel Sylvester used them for protection from pirates, the Dutch or the English, and had them buried when he didn’t want to appear to be too aggressive. They were left forgotten until the gardeners dug them up.”