Keys to 100-Year Old Mystery
Dr. Dan Miles of the Oxford Dendrochronology Lab cored thirty-four oak timbers in the Suffolk Resolves House in 2012, collecting these samples from the house's four phases of 18th-century contruction. The samples were then finely sanded and then put under a microscope to measure each tree ring to within 10 microns (0.01mm). The variation among the rings were matched to a database of samples from old growth trees and Boston-area houses, created by Dr. Miles under funding from Massachusetts Historical Commission and Historic New England. For the first time in over 100 years, we learned the construction dates of this storied house. The report is in our archives.