I came upon the above artifact some years ago while exploring the Luke Dean cellar hole, which lies on the northwest side of Powisset Pond on land now owned by Hale Reservation. I believe Bob Campbell excavated the site in the 1970’s though I have never seen any documentation of that work.

In Biographical Sketches of Dover Soldiers Frank Smith states that he was born to Joseph and Hannah (Baker) Dean on May 29, 1750 on “the homestead” which was then (in 1909) the grounds of the Powisset Club. He married Rebecca Russell in 1771 and had 11 children before dying on March 18, 1825.

He is buried in Highland Cemetery here in Dover. I have attached an excerpt from Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War which documents his service in Ebenezer Battelle’s Company of the 4^th Dedham Parish for nine day’s service “probably” on the alarm of April 19, 1775 (Smith provides the muster roll for Battelle’s Co. on pages 94 and 95 of his History of Dover and Dean’s name is listed therein) and also as a Corporal in Daniel Whiting’s Company with an enlistment date of May 4, 1775 and a 3 month 5 day term of service.

This would put Dean with Whiting and his Company at the Battle of Breed’s (Bunker) Hill on June 17, 1775. His subsequent service included eight months duty at Fort Clinton in King’s Ferry, NY in 1778.

It is impossible, of course, to “prove” the original ownership of this tomahawk, however it can be stated with certainty that it was found beside the cellar of the Dean house, that it is stylistically consistent with tomahawks made in New England between 1740 and 1790, and that there were no known occupants of that property prior to or after the Dean family. It is thus likely and even probable, that this tomahawk was present at both the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Breed’s Hill.

As might be expected, the tomahawk was heavily rusted. In order to preserve it I treated it with electrolysis, immersing it in an electrolyte solution and converting surface rust back to iron using a small low voltage electric current.  Once the process was completed the tomahawk was boiled in distilled water to remove any impurities left from the solution, dried in an oven at low heat, and finally immersed in paraffin to prevent future oxidization.

Given to the Dover Historical Society in September, 2006

By Elisha Lee