Connecticut's Revolution, Season 1.5 Ep. 4: A Brick from a Field Oven

This is not your average brick. It's an 18th century brick that is believed to be one of the remnants from the field ovens built in Lebanon, CT during the American Revolution. These field ovens fed a multinational legion of cavalry and infantry led by the Duc de Lauzun when they wintered in Lebanon during 1780-1781.

Learn about the brick, the Duc de Lauzun, and Lauzun's Legion on this week's episode of Small but Mighty: Connecticut's Revolution.

Credit: 

"Royal Coupling" 

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Connecticut State Library. Preserving the Past to Inform the Future!

The Connecticut State Library. Preserving the Past to Inform the Future!

Transcript

Kym Powe 0:16

Welcome to Small but Mighty Connecticut's Revolution, a series from the Under the Charter Oak podcast, where we'll learn about people and events that peppered CT's history through the artifacts they left behind. My name is Kym Powe. I am the Children and Young Adult Consultant.

Ashley Sklar 0:30

I'm Ashley Sklar. I'm the Adult Services and Community Engagement Consultant.

Matt Geeza 0:34

I'm Matt Geeza. I'm the Director of the Middletown Library Service Center and the Connecticut Library for Accessible Books.

Kym Powe 0:41

And we have a uh Under the Charter Oak newbie, a colleague of ours who works up at the Hartford building. Do you want to introduce yourself?

Christine Pittsley 0:50

Sure. I'm Christine Pittsley. I am the Military and Special Projects Curator at the Museum of Connecticut History.

Kym Powe 0:55

I didn't know that. Um

Ashley Sklar 0:58

We love long titles at the State Library.

Kym Powe 1:00

Sure. Like the things I learn sitting at this table, man. So, Christine, before we jump into your item and the exhibit, can you give us just like a CliffsN otes version of how you got here? So, like a little bit of your like library past, if there was something before libraries, like give us a little snippet of the journey.

Christine Pittsley 1:20

Uh let's see, US Navy veteran into engineering, back to school, doing anthropology, started at the Library doing uh digitization, ran that for a long time, and then World War I came along. And I took that over and did the commemoration for the State, and then ended up at the Museum a few years ago, where I am now doing all of the military stuff and all the other like special project stuff, like you know, catalog migrations and weird stuff like that.

Kym Powe 1:50

That's not weird. You said you were an engineer , EB?

Christine Pittsley 1:54

No.

Kym Powe 1:54

No?

Christine Pittsley 1:54

No, I worked in a manufacturing engineering lab.

Kym Powe 1:57

Fascinating.

Christine Pittsley 1:58

At a couple different companies.

Kym Powe 2:00

Um, awesome. Thank you so much for your little bit of background. Um, so you are joining us on um Small but Mighty Connecticut's Revolution to talk a bit about um the exhibit that's gonna be set up in honor of um the I was gonna try to say it. Oh man, quincen- bicen-

Ashley Sklar 2:18

Semi-q. You should just say Semi-q.

Kym Powe 2:19

Semi-q. Okay. That one. Um and uh you, like the other folks who have uh come and been a part of this like mini bonus series, um, have all come with an item that is going to be a part of the exhibit, and we hear a bit about it. So what's our item today?

Christine Pittsley 2:38

A brick.

Kym Powe 2:39

A brick.

Christine Pittsley 2:40

A brick.

Kym Powe 2:41

I've seen those.

Christine Pittsley 2:42

Yep. They're great. It's just a brick. But it's a really special brick. Um

Ashley Sklar 2:47

Special brick.

Christine Pittsley 2:48

It's got the ability to tell so many stories. But if you look at it, it's not your typical brick. Like you think of a brick and it's that dark red color. This one's sort of a whitish pink color, and it there's a chip in it. So you can see underneath, and it's a little bit darker. It's still not your dark red brick.

Kym Powe 3:08

Yeah.

Christine Pittsley 3:08

Um the really fun thing is you can see all the animal hair. If you look at it close, you can see animal hair embedded in the brick. And that's all from the tempering. They would use animal hair in the mortar and in the clay to temper it to make it a stronger brick. So you can't really see it in the well, you can see it a little bit in the picture. There's little strands in the center, and those are all animal hairs. So as far as we know, it was a locally made brick, but it has international connections, which makes it a really cool brick.

Kym Powe 3:38

It's an international brick?

Christine Pittsley 3:40

International brick.

Kym Powe 3:41

The brick have more stamps in its passport than I do? Because that'd be frustrating.

Christine Pittsley 3:46

No, unfortunately, it it didn't get to go anywhere.

Kym Powe 3:49

Got it.

Christine Pittsley 3:50

But um, you know, it was it was used by a truly international group of people here in Connecticut.

Kym Powe 3:58

All right. So I mean, obviously, we're gonna have to hear that story, uh, because I mean, you're right. So I'm I'm I'm looking at the the brick or the picture of the brick, and it looks like it's covered like in chalk dust, I guess. What would probably be a way in like as dust is, it hits some portions of something like harder than the other, right? Like, so it it it looks, as you've said, just just it's like I'm a I'm just a brick, right? Like I'm kind of thinking about like Schoolhouse Rock, I'm Just a Bill. Like you just sit in there, I'm Just a Bill. Like that's kind of what this brick would be singing. Am I wrong? I I connect everything to songs.

Ashley Sklar 4:33

I love that.

Kym Powe 4:34

I'm sorry, Connecticut. [crosstalk]

Matt Geeza 4:35

Whatever works for you, though. [crosstalk] That's we all have like those like you know, mental tricks that we use to like help us make sense of things. [crosstalk]

Kym Powe 4:43

Yeah, that's all right.

Matt Geeza 4:44

A nd music is powerful.

Kym Powe 4:46

Yes, it is.

Matt Geeza 4:47

So.

Ashley Sklar 4:48

I just didn't really I knew we were talking about a brick. I know even before we started, you were telling us the color of the brick, but it did it didn't register in my head that like, oh, this brick was once upon a time a very different color and actually looked like a normal what you would conjure up as a brick, a red brick.

Christine Pittsley 5:04

We think.

Ashley Sklar 5:04

Right. You think, right.

Christine Pittsley 5:05

We think. Um we think the high heat maybe changed its color. I I really don't we don't know unless we do some chemical analysis, which you know, it's just a brick so...

Kym Powe 5:16

It's not just a brick, apparently. [crosstalk]

Ashley Sklar 5:18

I think there's some stories. [crosstalk] I think there's some stories.

Kym Powe 5:20

I want to hear all of them. Why is this brick so special? You could have chosen a million things and this this is what-

Ashley Sklar 5:26

Or a million bricks.

Kym Powe 5:27

Or a million. Yeah, why this brick? Yeah, tell us what's up.

Christine Pittsley 5:30

So, one of the things I like to do when I'm talking to people about this brick is ask my audience, what do you think a brick can what type of a story do you think a brick can tell? In the context of the revolution, what kind of a story do you think it could tell?

Kym Powe 5:46

T here weren't any songs about bricks in Hamilton.

Ashley Sklar 5:49

Darn it.

Christine Pittsley 5:50

Are there stories or are there songs about bricks anywhere?

Kym Powe 5:54

Schoolhouse Rock, maybe.

Matt Geeza 5:56

Uh Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd.

Ashley Sklar 5:58

Oh, Pink Floyd, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christine Pittsley 6:01

But it it strains someone to think about what story does this brick tell? Oh, you know, it might be part of a building, but then it's just okay, it's a building.

Christine Pittsley 6:11

Um, but this brick was part of an oven that French troops and and actually I should say a group of international troops built in Lebanon, Connecticut in the winter of 1780 to bake bread. [crosstalk] Hence why we think the color has changed, because it was part of this bread oven that was constantly exposed to high heat. So this brick is not just some brick. This brick was used in food production by the Duc de Lauzun's uh Voluntaires Étranger, which is the foreign volunteers.

Christine Pittsley 6:50

So, you know, most people think that Lafayette, that the Marquis de Lafayette was the most important French person in the war, and he was not. He was fun, he was popular, but he did not win the war for America. It was uh-

Kym Powe 7:09

Connecticut.

Christine Pittsley 7:13

Uh it was it was the comte de Rochambeau, who was the general in charge of the French army. He came over in 1780 with 5,500 French troops. And along with him came the Duc de Lauzun with his Legion, as we call them. And that was somewhere about 500 to 600 men. They were cavalry units, but they were also Hussars, which were Hungarian cavalry men. But it wasn't just Hussars, it was uh there were men from 15 different nations that spoke eight different languages that were part of his uh Legion.

Christine Pittsley 7:51

So they came over while Rochambeau's troops got to spend a nice cushy winter in Newport with the, you know, big houses and fresh food. Lauzun and his men were sent to Lebanon, which they compared to Siberia. Yeah, they were not very popular within the town of Lebanon because you know, livestock went missing, crops were taken. And so one of the things they did while they were there is they built barracks and they built these French ovens. And these were permanent ovens to bake bread because bread was the food of life.

Kym Powe 8:26

I weirdly have a lot of questions. And I'm also trying to remember where Lebanon is. Um, so like on a map, it's fine. I'm gonna look it up later. But so why Lebanon? It feels super random, but I suspect there was a reason, question mark?

Christine Pittsley 8:42

Oh, there was a big reason.

Kym Powe 8:43

Okay.

Christine Pittsley 8:44

Lebanon was the home of Governor Trumbull, Governor Jonathan Trumbull, and his war office. It was also the home of William Williams, who was one of the signers of the Declaration. It was, it was really the home of a lot of very important people during that time period for our state and nation.

Christine Pittsley 9:06

And so Trumbull made Lebanon his war office. And there is still a building there that the Sons of the American Revolution run called the War Office. And that's where everything happened. Every major player in the Revolution, from Washington downward, all spent time at the War Office. Lebanon was the heart of Connecticut's war effort. Provisioning happened from there, troop dispersals happened from there, you name it. It went on through Lebanon.

Christine Pittsley 9:36

And if you look at most of the letters Connecticut is writing back and forth, they're all dated from Lebanon.

Kym Powe 9:43

Wow.

Ashley Sklar 9:45

Right?

Kym Powe 9:46

I'm a little mad. Not at Lebanon. I mean, I'm just jealous because I don't live there. And I was feeling a lot of pride about Connecticut and this, and now Lebanon gets to feel more than me, which is fine.

Kym Powe 9:57

Um, so that's that's really interesting. I I had no idea. And throughout this entire series, I think, I mean, who knows? Matt seems to know a ton. And Ashley was did stuff with art, and art is history. And so, you know, I I did musical theater for fifth graders who booed me off of a stage.

Kym Powe 10:16

Um, so um, this, this, this is all like fairly new information. I think when we are, or at least what I remember of being taught um about this in school was very like high level, right? We didn't really get into the nuances of bricks, or quite frankly, I'm not sure if we if we spent a lot of time talking about Lebanon in particular, because right, we're we're we're studying high-level like names, dates, wars, some people and things like that.

Kym Powe 10:44

And this series has provided us the opportunity to really dig into some of the nuances of these items, of people who are tied to Connecticut, and we're learning that Connecticut played like a huge role in this particular war and in, you know, the colonies being able to like secede and ultimately, you know, here we are, 2026, America.

Kym Powe 11:04

Um, so this is really, really fascinating to me. I also have just like a random question that you might not have the answer to. When you for some, I live on the shoreline. So the farther up in the state we get, the less cities I can tell you where they are. I don't know, they're above me, literally.

Kym Powe 11:19

But I know from initiative in Connecticut that in Hebron, and I had to look this up because I was like, oh, is this where Gay City State Park is? And it's not in Lebanon, it's in Hebron, which is apparently close to Lebanon. And I know that there there are some remnants of the town or the city of Gay City in that state park. So there's a lot of trails, and I have yet to find the trail that takes you to there's like a there's a um fireplace still up. So like the house is gone, but the fireplace is still there and you can still see, right? Like some of the property, like stone property lines and things that were made. Are there ovens still in Lebanon?

Christine Pittsley 12:02

No.

Kym Powe 12:03

Oh no. So all we have is the brick.

Christine Pittsley 12:05

All we have is the brick, but the Office of the State Archaeologists with a few other groups have been doing surveys of Lebanon over the last year uh to try and determine exactly where the ovens were and where the barracks were. [crosstalk] So it's a huge area.

Kym Powe 12:21

Yeah.

Christine Pittsley 12:21

You need to go to Lebanon. There's lots of great stuff there. The Jonathan Trumbull House is run by the Daughters of the American Revolution. There's Lebanon Historical Society, and then there's the fabulous Lebanon Green. If you like walking, it's a huge green, it's historic, and it's probably at least a mile around the green itself.

Kym Powe 12:39

Wow, awesome.

Christine Pittsley 12:39

Um and it's just a really beautiful town. And you can you can be there and you can sort of imagine what it was like in 1780 to have, you know, these hundreds of foreign soldiers marching around and George Washington coming in and out. That's the kind of town it it still is in a way.

Kym Powe 12:58

That's awesome. Yeah, well, because that's that's how it feels walking the trails at Gay City State Park, right? Like it's it's a mostly like like forest and trail. But then you'll see something and you're like, oh, was that? And then there's a lot of bridges there. And so it's like, were these bridges built by DEEP, or like are these, were they sort of like repurposed from from what was going on? So you really can kind of, you know, take a step back and dive into your imagination a little bit and think about what it might have been like, you know, in many years past.

Kym Powe 13:30

And so even though the the um ovens aren't still there, um I think it would still be like a really fascinating road trip, guys? Road trip? [crosstalk] Under the Charter Oak road trip?

Kym Powe 13:41

Um, okay, but so the you were saying, right, that um the ovens were used to bake bread, and you know, some of the folks in Lebanon were upset because, like, where'd my chicken go? So what was happening like at home while all of that was going down?

Christine Pittsley 14:00

So Connecticut had been the Provision State from the get-go. We were providing for not only our Connecticut militias, but for the Continental Army. Um, we were really Jeremiah Wadsworth, who was the commissary, had a lot of forethought. And he started stockpiling blankets, understanding that winter's coming and the army's gonna need blankets. So he actually had women here in the state making blankets so that he had the stock. So we were doing that throughout the war.

Christine Pittsley 14:33

Comes 1780 and the arrival of the French, you know, the economy's kind of gone off the rails a little bit because people are jacking their prices up for flour, especially. And here come the French with gold. Instead of Continental currency or Connecticut currency, here they come with gold and silver. So suddenly people are really jacking up the price because they want the gold.

Christine Pittsley 14:57

Supplies start dwindling. So in May of 1780, Connecticut troops were down in New Jersey and they actually mutinied because they had no food. Yet here we are providing food and flour and beef and horses for the French army. So I think that probably played a little bit into the resentment of those troops in Lebanon.

Kym Powe 15:19

Yeah.

Christine Pittsley 15:20

Um, and then in July of 1781, Rochambeau and his army started their march through Connecticut. And again, you know, Connecticut people were providing for the army as they marched through, even as they were seeing their own shortages.

Kym Powe 15:37

Wow. And I'm I'm wondering, do we, do we think that that was, do we think that that was like a form of like patriotism, right? Just sort of like supporting people who were trying to support us, or or is it just like, or I wonder if that was something that you just like did, right? Like it was sort of like best practice.

Kym Powe 15:57

I f there are troops or regiments or sort of, you know, whatever that group would be called marching through your city, like it is your responsibility as a human being to feed them and and to sort of care for them, or like these are folks helping us, you know, you know, um gain our freedom. So if you care about our freedom, then you're gonna do this. Like I'm just like, I'm wondering because that must have been really hard.

Kym Powe 16:23

You know, we've heard about, you know, so we we've heard like there are women making blankets, right? Like they're they're working. And as a crocheter, like, you know, you can get really hungry. It seems, you know, just sitting there. But, you know, and also we've heard like they're children, also, right? So I'm just kind of wondering why.

Christine Pittsley 16:42

I think it was mixed. I think it depended [crosstalk] on where you were. I think the novelty of these troops marching through your town was, you know, people lined the streets to see them. And in the places that they camped, people held balls and and the girls got all dressed up and [crosstalk] went to dance with the French officers.

Christine Pittsley 17:00

So there was some of that. There was some of the patriotism, but there was also profiteering. Um, you know, they're gonna help support my family, [crosstalk] and that becomes more important than anything else.

Kym Powe 17:12

Right, right.

Christine Pittsley 17:12

Um especially since by that time we're five years into the war, six years into the war, and people are tired. And a lot of the the families that were left behind were struggling to make ends meet because you know, their their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, their breadwinners were off at war. So it was it was a lot of a lot of it.

Christine Pittsley 17:35

Um, I think people then understood more what the French represented to America than we do today. You know, we could not have accomplished what we did without those 5,500 French troops or Lauzun's Legion, the the guys that built the ovens marched on Rochambeau's flank. So they kind of stayed between the main army and the water because you know, the sea was a dangerous place back then.

Kym Powe 18:04

I ndeed. How'd we get that brick?

Christine Pittsley 18:07

No idea.

Kym Powe 18:09

We don't know. Well, where did where did you find it? Like, where did it come from?

Christine Pittsley 18:12

So my colleague Beth and I had been cleaning out some drawers and found that-

Kym Powe 18:19

You know, that'll always do it.

Ashley Sklar 18:21

You never know what you're gonna find in a drawer.

Christine Pittsley 18:23

Yeah, it was just this package and it was brown paper wrapped in some string, and there was some chicken scrawl on the the front of it. And we took it out and we're like, it's a brick. And we're trying to-

Ashley Sklar 18:36

Ta-da!

Christine Pittsley 18:37

It actually took a little while to decode, let's call it, the writing. And when we finally did, [crosstalk] we were like, it's a French, it's a brick from the French ovens at Lebanon. And it it seems to have the date on the package, I think, was like 1910. [crosstalk] So somebody picked it up in Lebanon and brought it to the library.

Ashley Sklar 19:01

And we put it in a drawer.

Kym Powe 19:02

And we put it in a drawer. [crosstalk]

Ashley Sklar 19:05

For [crosstalk] a hundred or so years.

Christine Pittsley 19:07

Yep.

Kym Powe 19:07

Oops.

Matt Geeza 19:08

We've all done it. We've all put something in the drawer and discover it years later. [crosstalk] Well, I mean-

Ashley Sklar 19:14

Years, years, yes.

Matt Geeza 19:15

Y ears, yeah.

Ashley Sklar 19:16

That's true. It's true.

Christine Pittsley 19:17

Yeah.

Kym Powe 19:17

Wow. And so um did um and I'm I'm I'm always so interested in this from the perspective of the Museum as we were beginning to sort of have more conversations with you guys and and do this series, the like the the process, right? So I mean, you were able to decode, decode such a beautiful way to think about it, um, the writing on the the brown paper. And then right, did you guys like do a little bit more research? Like, did did someone already know about the the ovens or right? Did we talk to Lebanon?

Christine Pittsley 19:51

Well, we knew about the ovens. Um, you know, there are there are markers on the green in Lebanon to to mark that this oven was there. Uh supposedly there are people that have other bricks. I have not found any yet. Um, so you know, we can't say 100% that this is from the ovens.

Kym Powe 20:10

Well , of course.

Christine Pittsley 20:11

We can only say what we saw on that paper. But it does, it fits the time period. It fits so many other things. Um and yeah, I mean, that's the fun part of what we get to do is we find these treasures hidden away and we get to research them and we get to figure out what stories they tell. And and a simple object like a brick-

Kym Powe 20:31

Yeah.

Christine Pittsley 20:32

Can take us so many places. It can talk about flour because you know, you have to have flour for bread, and bread is life, especially to the French. And it can, yeah, the people that built it, if it weren't the soldiers, were it, you know, were the was it the people in Lebanon, were um, you know, who was baking the bread? Um, because all of these troops had camp followers. So it was probably women that were baking the bread.

Christine Pittsley 21:01

It just it's a thread that lets us kind of weave a really fantastic narrative. And it's it's something through our exhibit that this brick will kind of you'll see the threads that this brick that are coming from this brick. Yeah.

Kym Powe 21:18

Well, I think we're already beginning to see it a little bit, right? So we we were learning a little bit in the last, I guess maybe kind of over the entire time we've been hearing little bits about like Connecticut provided this, Connecticut provided socks, you know, and I think now with this brick we're seeing, right, Connecticut like kept a whole like infantry fed so that they could, you know, go forth and and provide like the services and the needs um for you know overall for the war.

Kym Powe 21:50

And during a time where I think yeah, I think you're mentioning we talked about during the crossing of the Delaware, just how long everything took. And I think even now, right, that we're still talking about it, we're like, oh yeah, man, this thing, they're still out there fighting this. Like, this is still happening. Yes, I bet the people who right were just people at home were just like, man, it's still not over. Like, we're still doing oh, here comes someone else in a uniform.

Kym Powe 22:19

Like, um, I can imagine that the entire process, while completely worth it, right? And I think while most people probably kept at the forefront of their minds the ultimate purpose behind this, when you think about the fact that, like, on a random Wednesday, right, some some woman is like, what am I feeding my kids tonight? Um, this is a long and excruciating process.

Christine Pittsley 22:47

Yeah. And and we don't think a lot about the fact that the war was here too.

Ashley Sklar 22:52

Yeah. [crosstalk]

Christine Pittsley 22:53

We had Tryon's Raids in 1779. We had the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777, the burning of Norwa- uh New London in 1781. So they're not only thinking about that, they're thinking about, am I safe? Um and I can't imagine that the folks in Lebanon didn't question a little bit, am I safe? These aren't American troops, these aren't French troops, these are troops from other places. And that regiment was actually also the most likely to desert. A third of that regiment deserted over the course of the war.

Christine Pittsley 23:26

Um we have a great little note from the Duc de Lauzun asking Governor Trumbull to arrest any of his deserters. So, you know, how how were they feeling about these people who didn't speak their language coming into their communities? And from what we know now, they were welcomed [crosstalk] because they were German farmers or Swiss farmers.

Christine Pittsley 23:50

But it had to be, I always think of it in terms of sort of putting myself in those shoes. [crosstalk] And how did this world look [crosstalk] to them? How did they experience all of these new things?

Kym Powe 24:05

Doing during a time of literal war, right? Like in your backyard. It's you know, it's almost like if we, you know, if I was like going outside to my car and then just saw like, you know, 3,000 troops like marching down. Like, who are you? Where are you going? Is there something I should know? Are you just thirsty? Like, I gotta call my dad. Like, I like I in that order is probably exactly.

Kym Powe 24:27

And so yeah, yeah. I I I think I think sometimes when we're learning about these things, we lose the humanity and just sort of like the the like, I don't know, like blasé-ness, right? The fact that there's just someone named, you know, Tiffany just trying to exist and live through all of this, I think is sometimes lost, right, in some of that high level-

Christine Pittsley 24:54

Yeah.

Kym Powe 24:54

In some of that high level um study. But now we can look at items like your brick. And I know her name wasn't Tiffany, but it was all I had. I almost said Jennifer, but like that's we we we talk about Jennifer all the time. Um, but um, you know, maybe what she was doing, right, was like following this regiment and and and using these ovens. And it's a way to connect us to the humanity of what was happening.

Christine Pittsley 25:17

And that's that's the other thing I love about this brick, is it speaks to the everyday soldier. [crosstalk] Um so often, like you were talking before, we're learning about George Washington or Benedict Arnold or all these like high level [crosstalk] people. But they weren't the ones on the ground fighting the war. They weren't the ones interacting with the people in the towns that they pass through.

Christine Pittsley 25:38

So it's a great way for us to step back and look at what was daily life like? You know, how many of us think about what soldiers are eating [crosstalk] during war? Or that they're baking bread, or that, you know, the army has to supply them flour. And who are the farmers supplying that flour? [crosstalk] Who are the farmers supplying the cows or the pigs to feed these soldiers?

Kym Powe 26:01

And is there enough flour and pork and eggs for them after they have done the supplying for for these troops?

Christine Pittsley 26:09

Yep.

Kym Powe 26:10

So is that why you chose the brick?

Christine Pittsley 26:13

It is. And I I'm a total francophile. So anything that I can, anytime I can interact with with French, anything, I'm good.

Christine Pittsley 26:21

And yeah, it's um one of my favorite people that I'm trying to work in is a man named the Louis d' Ethis de Corny. He was a French commissary who came over with Rochambeau, and he's, you know, virtually unknown here.

Christine Pittsley 26:37

When I was in France a few years ago, we were in the town of Corny, and the mayor of Corny got very excited in telling us about this man, this commissary. And I mean, they still remember this guy 250 years later over there, and his connections to America. And they were so excited to tell us about his connections to Connecticut.

Christine Pittsley 27:00

So I came home and within the State Archives, there's all sorts of letters from Louis d'Ethis de Corny. So he was the commissary who actually started this all off. Um, so any French thread I can pull on, I'm gonna pull.

Kym Powe 27:19

Oh, and we thank you. I mean, we've known this brick was coming, but that was all we knew. We didn't really know anything else about it. And it's, I mean, it's one of the most simplistically interesting items. Um, I think that we've heard about so far.

Kym Powe 27:38

And personally, I'm excited to see this up in the exhibit, but then like how you all structure it to add to right the other stories that we've heard and that we're going to see, in addition to just sort of like the knowledge that we have about the revolution and Connecticut's place in it. So I'm excited to see what you've got coming.

Ashley Sklar 28:01

Same.

Christine Pittsley 28:02

Yeah. I'm excited to put it all together.

Kym Powe 28:05

Yeah.

Ashley Sklar 28:05

You've got time.

Christine Pittsley 28:06

Yeah.

Kym Powe 28:07

Right. I know. Like what day is it? Um, so I guess all I can say is thank you for coming down.

Christine Pittsley 28:13

Well, thank you for having me.

Kym Powe 28:15

Thank you. Thank you. Thank the brick. Um, and we're excited to see what comes next um on Small but Mighty Connecticut's Revolution, a series from the Under the Charter Oak podcast, a podcast of the Connecticut State Library.