James Madison's chess set unearthed

[KeithAmmann]

ORANGE, Va. – Archaeologists at James Madison’s country estate say they’ve unearthed fragments of a chess set they think Madison likely used in matches against another former president, Thomas Jefferson.

Archaeologists recently discovered fragments of two pawns during an excavation at the Orange County estate of the fourth president and architect of the Bill of Rights. They initially mistook the quarter-inch diameter tops for sewing bobbins, but subsequently determined they were fragments of chess pieces. . . .

Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Coolidge, once remarked that the third and fourth presidents often engaged in epic chess matches. She wrote that her grandfather was a very good chess player in his youth.

“There were not many who could get the better of him,” Coolidge wrote in her recollections, compiled in 1853.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110203/ap_ … hess_pawns

[ChessSpawn]

@anjiaoshi

ORANGE, Va. – Archaeologists at James Madison’s country estate say they’ve unearthed fragments of a chess set they think Madison likely used in matches against another former president, Thomas Jefferson.

Archaeologists recently discovered fragments of two pawns during an excavation at the Orange County estate of the fourth president and architect of the Bill of Rights. They initially mistook the quarter-inch diameter tops for sewing bobbins, but subsequently determined they were fragments of chess pieces. . . .

Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Coolidge, once remarked that the third and fourth presidents often engaged in epic chess matches. She wrote that her grandfather was a very good chess player in his youth.

“There were not many who could get the better of him,” Coolidge wrote in her recollections, compiled in 1853.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110203/ap_ … hess_pawns

artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ … g-fathers/