James Madison’s Montpelier

Partially preserved 19th-century fence-post

It’s amazing how similar a piece of 19th-century fence post and a dead tree-root can look. To date, this specimen is one of only two preserved post remnants discovered at Montpelier. And we’ve excavated a lot of post-holes. Like the remnant discovered in the front yard fence-line excavations, this one seems to represent a later fence-repair, as the post hole in which this post was found intersected a second, earlier post-hole.