Field Day 11

Field Day 11 was quite an exciting day, full of great finds and great people! Saturdays are usually the busiest for us, and this Saturday was no exception. In additional to the regular cast of characters, we were joined by Mike, a history student whose great-great grandfather worked at Spencer Optical Works (and played in its band); Jim, a local documentary filmmaker who is friends with Harry and previously produced a documentary about the 19th-century brick industry. It's always great fun to introduce new people to the site, especially people who have such an innate and passionate love for history.

The dump site proved to be as productive as ever. Among our finds for the day was the usual assemblage of glass, ceramics, metal, bone, and shell. We expanded Feature 10 northward, heading in the direction of the first unit we dug in this area of the site, and unsurprisingly made some similar finds. One find in particular, however, was different - not only from the rest of the artifacts in the dump but from all other artifacts I've seen before! I'm sure that experienced archaeologists everywhere will shake their heads at my ignorance, but up until now I had only known about clay tobacco pipes that were made out of white ball clay or kaolin, imported from England. So imagine my surprise when Bruce pulled out this bright orange pipe bowl.

I immediately brought it to Carol, who identified the material as red earthenware - the same local clay used to make the 18th-century ceramic vessel we've been finding in pieces around the foundation stones. You can compare this pipe with the kaolin pipe we found yesterday. Same artifact type, made in the same way (in a mold), and of similar dimensions - I haven't compared them side by side but they look very similar to me overall. The major difference is the materials used. Additionally, the earthenware clay pipe, unlike the kaolin one, was burnished - that is, rubbed with a stone or some other smooth, hard surface to make it smooth and shiny - giving it a distinctive texture. Later in the day we found part of the stem, which can be fit together with the bowl.

Other finds from the dump ... (along with a mechanism that we believe to be part of a clock, which was found on the surface):

Above, a piece of porcelain with a maker's mark; some shell, glass, and a nail; and in the bottom center, a brass escutcheon. Escutcheon was the word of the day (and a great word it is). This particular escutcheon is one of several we have found at the dump, both this year and last (you can see two more in the picture below). Where do they come from? The team members have made a number of different suggestions including doorknobs, lamps, and light switches, but the suggestion I find most convincing is that the escutcheons went around the iron poles in the fences that surround one of the family plots. Some of the family plots still have such decorative escutcheons in place; they are similar in size and material, but not identical, to the ones we found in the ground.

Above, more porcelain with stamped maker's mark; pieces of the Great Universal Bitters bottle found last year and the teapot found yesterday; some brass pieces of an oil lamp; and some hunks of molded cement.

This doorknob, found in the dump, is made out of a red ceramic overlaid with brown glaze. Even through the dirt, you can see that it is quite beautiful. Though I don't have a picture of it, the other side - which is broken, revealing the unglazed clay - is also striking, with red and white layers twisted together.

Meanwhile, work continued at the front of the cemetery, where the ongoing excavation of the foundation wall has so far yielded more questions than answers. I think that today's work may have uncovered some promising evidence. Ever since we began excavating the wall, we have struggled to determine how much (if any) of the stones were in their "original" locations - that is, the locations they assumed when they were part of a standing structure. What parts of the wall were intact and what parts might have toppled over?

This stretch of the wall, located in Feature 4C, consists of stones packed together densely with slate tiles, sand, and mortar. The latter three are important because it seems likely that they could be building materials used in the construction of the wall. Thus, this part of the wall may be relatively intact, that is, the stones here are in the places where the builders put them. There are very few artifacts in this area of the unit aside from the aforementioned tiles and a few stray nails. You also may notice that many of the rocks in this photo are sticking straight up. My guess is that there was another layer of rocks slotted into place above these, which was perhaps removed when the church came down. Laurie made the excellent suggestion that perhaps part of the foundation wall of St. George's Church (which was deconstructed in 1819) was used to build the stone wall around the cemetery (built in 1820). She made this suggestion after finding a large ashlar among the stones in the wall while surface surveying. Ordinarily stone walls would have been built with unshaped stones scavenged from the surrounding area (this part of the country is very rocky), so there is no reason for there to be an ashlar in the wall unless it was taken from something else.

Aside from the ashlar, here are some other surface finds made today: 

Restoration work continued alongside our excavation. In the process of digging for the base of a broken gravestone in one of the older sections of the cemetery, Hans, Dick, and Laurie made an interesting discovery.

This was it: a fieldstone, very similar to the ones erected as grave markers at the front of the cemetery (you can see three in the background of this photo). These fieldstones have no markings and may mark graves that are even older than the earliest inscribed gravestone, which dates to 1773. It's likely that this stone was also used as a grave marker, but toppled and became buried over time. The crew excavated it and installed it near the place where it was found. Now that I look at the photo, I see a backwards J carved in the upper right hand corner of the stone. What do you think? To borrow a fancy term from school, is the carving anthropogenic or not?

At the end of the day there was a massive amount of bagging to be done. Though Gretchen had done most of it herself up to that point, a bunch of us gathered together to help finish it up so that we could take off on our next adventure for the day, a trip to the ruin of the Spencer Optical Works. Stay tuned for that story in my next post.