Autumn In the South Yard
A couple weeks back we wrapped up our South Yard excavations and have just a few tidbits to report. The main focus for the 2008 season had been one particular house where enslaved families lived, but during October, we took a sneak-peek at some of the other areas in the south yard.Specifically, we’ve excavated at one of the two smokehouses depicted on the 1837 insurance map, and at the northernmost of the houses.These excavations were limited in scope, and meant to provide a taste of things to come. Here’s what we found:
Smokehouse East: Not to be mistaken for that great new Asian Barbeque restaurant your friends keep telling you about, Smokehouse East is part of the south yard outbuilding complex depicted on the 1837 insurance plat. Pig bones suggest that the smokehouse should be in the general vicinity of our excavations. To be clear, we weren’t using pig bones for divination, we just found lots of them in our units. Click on the photo to read about the structural evidence we uncovered. And for the record, we use dowsing rods here at Montpelier, in lieu of reading bones. Seriously.
North House of the South Yard: This is one of three houses depicted on the 1837 insurance map where enslaved families lived. Excavations here were very limited (three units) so we had no luck actually finding the structure. However, we did find clear indication of the continuance of a brick path that, one might presume, could eventually lead us to the front door of the house. This path has previously been noted in units closer to the mansion, and extends all the way to the southern door leading into the cellar of Nelly’s wing.
To sum up the remaining excavation areas, we were able to pick up both the paling-fence and rail-fence from the summer south yard excavations, leap-frogging a 50-ft gap to avoid the Cedar of Lebanon. Matt won a bet when a piece of preserved wood in this post-hole turned out to be a remnant of intact fence-post, and not a root. The loser of the bet shall remain anonymous.
We have had the good fortune to work with some great volunteer groups this Fall. We wouldn’t have had nearly the success, or as much fun, without the help of these folks. So a special thanks to our annual work-study attendees (some of whom have been coming to dig at Montpelier for well-over a decade), as well as two Earthwatch groups (most of whom were here with us for the first—though hopefully not the last—time.)
Finally, it is our distinct pleasure to introduce the two latest two crew members to join our department, Hope Smith and Stefan Woehlke. They were chosen from a pool of over 60 applicants to the position, and came to us well-experienced and impeccably-referenced. We have all made a pact not to use Hope’s name in any sort of pun, though one volunteer, upon being moved to a new unit, did accidentally declare that she did not want to “abandon Hope.” Hilarious. Having worked with Hope and Stefan over the past few weeks, it would certainly be unfair to say that they have both been abject disappointments. For the sake of clarity, the previous sentence might also read “It would be fair to say that they have both been the opposite of disappointments.” That still doesn’t sound quite right. Anyway, welcome to the Archaeology Department, Hope and Stefan!
Tags: Northeast Duplex, Slaves and Slavery, Smokehouse East, South Yard
A quick clarification about dowsing. There have been a few informal dowsing sessions trying to locate 20th c. waterlines, with debatable results. As a rule, we use more standardized techniques to locate sites and features.