Dean traveled to DeSoto NWR in early February 2004 to treat the object since it was deemed too fragile to be shipped to Oregon for conservation. In addition to reviewing previous conservation work performed on the artifact, Dean fabricated an internal mount to better support and display the attached powder sack. Sabots are the wooden ?cup? holders which were strapped to cannonballs or canister shot; a powder sack containing black powder was attached to the sabot to provide the charge to expel the munition from a canon. The Bertrand's sabot with powder sack is one of only a few Civil War-era munitions known to exist.

The Steamboat Bertrand Collection consists of the cargo that was excavated out of the hold of the sternwheeler Bertrand, which sank in the Missouri River in April 1865. The collection, numbering 200,000 objects is housed and displayed at the Visitor Center of DeSoto NWR. The Bertrand carried considerable armaments, including lead shot bars, shot molds, powder flasks, percussion caps, Maynard cartridges and mountain howitzer munitions. No fire arms or canon were found, however. Presumably, the firearms left in the hands of the passengers and crew, while the canon was salvage shortly after the sinking. The howitzer munitions included three cases of canister shot and ten cases of spherical case shot, or cannonballs. Each howitzer case held one dozen rounds.

J. Claire Dean trained in Britain, receiving Honours B.A. in Archaeology from the University of Leicester, and a postgraduate degree in Archaeological Conservation from the University of Durham. She has worked as a conservator since 1981 and has been involved in conservation projects in Great Britain, Cyprus, Turkey, Venezuela, China, South Africa, Swaziland and throughout the USA. Her work focuses on the care of archaeological, ethnographic and historical materials. In 1986 she came to the USA to join the staff of the Antiquities Conservation Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum where she was Assistant Conservator. In 1994 she established her own private conservation practice based in Portland, Oregon.

CONTACT: Jennifer Stafford, DeSoto NWR