James Madison’s Montpelier

Red clay surface at kitchen as revealed at the end of June

By the end of June, we had exposed all of the red clay surface you can see in this image taken on June 28, 2009. As it turns out, rather than being a Madison-era surface, we now think this was a clay cap put atop the kitchen area after the structure was razed in the late 1840s or early 1880s. Also, while the dashed line shows the position of the kitchen as indicated by the 1837 insurance plat, evidence in the form of stone pier bases potentially suggest it was originally much closer to the mansion.