For former Vancouver soldiers Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. O.O. Howard, whose names are on nearby buildings, the two cannons would have represented formidable weapons.
For the city, they represented a double-barrelled welcome to Vancouver’s historic core since 1991, until one of the replica cannons was removed for restoration.
Now both of the non-firing artillery pieces are on duty at the west end of Officers Row.
John Keller took on the renovation for the Fort Vancouver National Trust as his Eagle Scout project. Keller is a member of Troop 648, based at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Orchards.
The 17-year-old was helped by restoration specialist Fred Munhoven. Keller and Munhoven recently returned the refurbished cannon from their workshop in a Pearson Field hangar to the plaza next to the historic O.O. Howard House.
“It looks great,” said Keller, a senior at Portland’s Jesuit High School.
The 400-pound, 6-foot-long barrel and all the other pieces of metalwork were refinished, but the project went way beyond surface touch-ups. Because some wooden components had rotted, Keller and Munhoven had to recreate some pieces of the wheel assemblies and the gun carriage.
Putting those pieces together could be challenging. Holes drilled in newly crafted wooden components had to match those in the decayed originals so the metalwork could be bolted back in place.
For one large piece of wooden framework, Munhoven said, “We had to get a 16-inch-long drill bit so we could drill down through the top.”
The drill bit had to come out in precisely the right spot to match the bolt hole in the piece of metal at the bottom, Munhoven said.
Keller also was assisted by his parents and brothers, as well as fellow Scouts and many of their family members.
The two Civil War-era reproductions are dedicated to four Medal of Honor recipients buried in Vancouver’s Post Cemetery: William McCammon, James Hill, Moses Williams and Herman Pfisterer.
Fashioned after Napoleon 12-pounders, they were built by students at Mountain View High School as a class project.
Keller credited those students from more than 25 years ago with assembling a pair of nicely detailed artifacts.
Keller said he’s seen a photograph of a similar replica cannon at an American military college: “It doesn’t have all this metalwork.”
And there still might be a piece of metal left over in the shop.
“There is one part still in the hangar. We’re not 100 percent sure it was from the cannon,” said Keller. “We couldn’t find any matching part on the other cannon.”
