life -- his whole life to live among the last civil war veterans living in the area. he died in 1933 at the age of 100 or so. we aren't sure exactly how old joe davis was one he passed away. the interesting part of the story is after jefferson davis abandoned his family and was reassigned, he asked for the hand of sarah taylor, zachary taylor's daughter. zachary taylor resisted the marriage for reasons we can only imagine, but subsequently when jefferson davis the military, he did in fact to marry sarah taylor, and they lived in mississippi. it's a retailer died briefly after they became -- sarah taylor died briefly after they became married. joe davis is well-known in these

parts and is part of the fascinating history of two very important figures in our history, zachary taylor and jefferson davis. >> american history tv is featuring green bay, wisconsin. the city is home to the green bay packers, the nfl's third oldest franchise. founded in 1919, the team is the only nonprofit, community-owned major professional sports team in the u.s. our time warner cable partners when weith c-span staff travel to green bay, wisconsin. >> we are at heritage hills historical state park in green bay, wisconsin. here is a collection of historical buildings important to northeast wisconsin. opened in 1977.

, 25ave about 43 structures of which are historic. our oldest structure is 1803, the cottage. the buildings surrounding us right now are the fort howard buildings from because storks -- fort howard. the one over here is the detached kitchen constructed in 1834. the one behind me is a replica of the fort howard schoolhouse. the fort howard hospitals my right, that is in 1836 structure. over here is the fort howard guardhouse, our newest restoration project at heritage hill. 1833. fort howard was originally located at the mouth of the fox river at the bay. the first occupants of that area was actually french.

forts called for labbe -- la bey. established right after the war of 1812 to protect commerce and the fur trade industry. inconsin became a territory 1836. prior to that, it was part of michigan. by 1848, we became a state. , it wasears following determined by the united its government -- united states government that the fort really had no further purpose in the green bay area. it was decommissioned in 1853. from 1853-1865, it was still owned by the united states government. the865, they sold it to chicago northwest railroad, the property and the building.

at that time, the railroad had plans of laying track. 1866, the buildings had been moved out into some of the surrounding neighborhoods. some were disassembled and moved out of state. the first ones were brought here in 1975. the fort howard hospital was in two separate pieces. ,t sat on property in green bay and it was used as a museum. it was floated down on a barge in 1975, brought to heritage recently, our fort howard art-house -- guardhouse was brought here in 2009. it was a residence. it was cared for. it was wrapped in more modern materials. it was very hard to identify that it was in the store the link.

-- an historic building. we are approaching the fort howard guardhouse complex. off to the left is the aging 33 the 1833fort howard -- original fort howard guardhouse. in the far portion of the office would've been where the commander would've worked, and in the closer portion would've been the fort byberry. roomuardhouse, the first you would enter would be the portionoom, and that inre you can see the bars is prison. last year, we built the foundation and put it up on foundation and reconstructed the twin commander's office. down below, this is called a sally port. there are six jill soros -- jail cells per side. it will have two great gates on

the side and two great gates on the back. called thet is connector deck arch. this would've been looking out over the fox river. they would have had a good view of the bay and downriver. this was actually the entrance into the store for howard. -- by the 1820's , the commander was writing washington, d.c. stating, the buildings are falling into disrepair and writing that they should be reconstructed. we are now entering the fort howard guardhouse. this is in 1853 original fort howard building. we just finished the woodwork

and will be plastering over. see some areas where later editions have been placed. in area. spliced we try to keep as much of the historic material as we possibly can. one interesting note is this piece of wood, which is -- we believe this is a real fort howard piece of flooring to this building, 1833, and this is wear from fort-- howard soldiers. that was actually encapsulated inside a wall or in a wall that was directed later in the building's history. the construction of that will actually preserve that piece of flooring.

the flooring that you see next to it is a replica flooring that were placed flooring that we took off that was in bad condition and not of fort howard period. usually we can determine the historic building fabric by --ermining if the nail holes say that you nailed a piece of wood into timber -- when you remove that piece of wood and there are no other holes in the timber, indications like that will tell us it's an original piece. you really have to be observant when you are removing later alterations to get to the original material. you really don't want to miss everything. you've got to question everything you see. little details can tell you a lot. ,f there is a speck of paint that might tell you that there might've been a piece of trim

with that color. that thatdetails like you have to pay attention to is you do restoration. as i peel away the layers, i am going back in history, and knowing that i'm going to at some point uncovered the original fabric of the building, that is what makes it very interesting and appealing. with every piece of material you remove, there are exciting , excitinger it observations. it's so interesting. that may not have been seen since the day it was constructed. if you think about the people who constructed that piece, they were the last ones to see that. that is what makes it interesting, that immersive feel, the connection you feel to the past.