…built before the Russian fire?

Was grandma's cottage built before the Russian fire in 1719?


In the summer of 1719 Russian troops burnt down towns, houses and forests along the Swedish Baltic coast. Few houses were left. Today, old houses of this region are almost never from the time before 1719. - The "Dalarö skans" fortification - today a museum - was never approached by the Russian troops. So question was, might it be that grandma's old cottage at Jutholmen near Dalarö Skans survived the Russian fire?

The cottage at Jutholmen. The stem was removed from the place of the window in the middle of the photo.



I got the slice above from Jesper Steen. It was cut when the house at Jutholmen was rebuilt and the slice had been laying for some years. I measured seven radii of various length from the slice. The measurements are available here as JH001.rwl The size of the slice is 5 * 11 inches.
An analysis was run in CDendro with a collection of several members, each representing a mean value curve from an area in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia and Finland. The sample was selected as the reference and the analysis done as a Test Towards UNDATED Reference ("With condensed report" checked!) which gave these best matches:

                  T-    Over 
           Corr   Test   lap  Year 
all...     0.30   3.82   150  1725   based on 37 members 
se_005Go   0.39   5.14   150  1725   Gotland, Lunds univ. (EXTRATERR) 
SWED302N   0.39   4.97   143  1725   Nämdö, Stockholm archipelago 
3EP281AV   0.33   4.28   150  1725   Estonia Est002 (EXTRATERR) 
_ 
Bettna_M   0.31   3.98   150  1984   Bettna, Eastern middle-Sweden, west of Stockholm 
SE006-La   0.30   3.84   150   643   Lappland, Lund (EXTRATERR) 
EXFin002   0.30   3.82   150  1787   Fin002 N.Finland (EXTRATERR) 
..... 
Year numbers occurring more than once: 
 1725    4 
 1611    3 
 1984    3 
 1946    2 

With the reference dated to 1725 and a Test towards (dated) reference:

                    T-  Over 
           Corr   Test   lap 
all...     0.30   3.82   150   based on 37 members 
se_005Go   0.39   5.14   150   Gotland, Lunds univ. (EXTRATERR) (1125-1987) 
SWED302N   0.39   4.97   143   Nämdö, Stockholm archipelago (1583-1995) 
3EP281AV   0.33   4.28   150   Estonia Est002 (EXTRATERR) (1516-1998) 
gud14      0.28   1.77    38   Gudbrandsdalen, Norway (1687-1950) 
NKarelia   0.24   3.04   150   North Karelia, Finland (1472-2001) 
Bettna_M   0.24   1.58    42   Bettna, Eastern middle-Sweden, west of Stockholm (1683-1997) 
Gagnef-s   0.23   2.93   150   Gagnef-Djura (1362-1831) 
FINL2_4_   0.23   2.82   150   SouthEast Finland (536-2002) 
East Sve   0.22   1.80    64   East Svealand Aneby+Askersu+Bettna+Sissham+Saltsjöba (1662-2005) 
DALARNA    0.21   2.61   150   Dalarna, Lunds universitet (EXTRATERR) (932-1888) 
BratPIr    0.19   1.51    62   Mälardalen (Bråthen), questionable segments removed (1153-1904) 
SödraDal   0.19   2.36   150   SDalar 1 Södra Dalarna 
_ 

With only the three best matching members:

                    T-  Over 
           Corr   Test   lap 
all...     0.43   5.74   150   based on 3 members 
se_005Go   0.39   5.14   150   Gotland, Lunds univ. (EXTRATERR) (1125-1987) 
SWED302N   0.39   4.97   143   Nämdö, Stockholm archipelago (1583-1995) 
3EP281AV   0.33   4.28   150   Estonia Est002 (EXTRATERR) (1516-1998) 

I.e. the sample matches best (and with quite sufficient probability) to the year 1725 towards references from the nearby island of Nämdö and from Gotland - quite distant. Probably the tree has grown neither on Nämdö nor on Gotland. Currently we do not have more references that might reveal from where the tree came.

There are probably a few outermost year rings which were cut away when the house was built. It is reasonable to state that the tree was cut sometime in the interval 1725-1750. I.e. that log out of grandma's cottage was certainly cut quite a long time after the Russian fire of 1719!