Overview
In 1957, Oriel Pi-Sunyer ran
two parallel test trenches along Mulberry Row, locating several structures that
Jefferson identified on his Mutual Assurance Declaration in 1796, including
Building l, “a
storehouse for nail rod & other iron.” In 1981, William Kelso cleared
an area of 828 square feet, exposing a 16' X 10' 6" brick (F01) and cobble
floor (F03) containing the base of a small forge (F02) and a posthole for an
anvil support (no feature number assigned). The features and objects he
recovered hint at diverse activities spanning the 1790s to Jefferson’s
death in 1826, including tinsmithing, nailrod storage, nail manufacture, and
domestic use. Recent reanalysis of the assemblage by DAACS reveals that the
Building l site overlays an
unexcavated deposit of pre-1790s material, possibly the remains of an earlier
structure.
Documentary Evidence
In 1796, Jefferson described one of the structures along Mulberry Row in
his Mutual Assurance Declaration:
l. a house 16. by 10 ½ feet, of wood, used as a storehouse for nailrod
& other iron. from l. it is 8. feet to m [the Smokehouse/Dairy].
This
is the only surviving document specifically mentioning Building
l. It is identified as a storehouse for the
blacksmith shop on Mulberry Row and its two-year-old nailery operation.
However, archaeological excavation provides evidence that tinsmithing,
nail-making, and domestic activity also took place in this structure, leading
to a reassessment of the documentary record.
Artifacts and remains of a forge (F02) and anvil base recovered from the
Building l site suggest
that the log structure may have begun life as a tinsmithing shop. The only
documentation of the whitesmithing operation is an account given in 1847 by
Isaac Jefferson (born into slavery at Monticello in 1775). He recalled that
Thomas Jefferson apprenticed him to a Quaker in Philadelphia and that he
subsequently worked as a tinsmith at Monticello for two years before the
operation failed (Bear
1967: 15-16). This apprenticeship likely occurred before January of
1794, when Thomas Jefferson left Philadelphia and retired from government
service for the first time.
Recent archaeological analysis indicates that
Building l continued to be
used throughout Jefferson’s lifetime for concurrent or alternate domestic
use and light industry. A cluster of nail-making debris dating to late in the
occupation of the building suggests that when Jefferson resumed nail-making in
a small way after the War of 1812 (Mar. 4, 1815, TJ to Benjamin Jones (Betts 1953:451)),
Building l, still standing
with its single forge (F02) and anvil, may have supplied a ready-made
location.
Excavation History
By November of 1794, Isaac Jefferson was listed in the Farm Book (Betts 1953: pl. 30)
as a smith. On the bread list for 1796, Isaac was again identified as
‘smith Isaac’ (ibid. pl. 50), but on the ration list for 1796 (ibid. pl. 51), he
was among the “nail boys” working in the blacksmith’s shop.
This demotion probably marks the demise of the tinsmithing enterprise and Isaac
Jefferson’s reassignment to the nail shop.
In 1957, Pi-Sunyer (1957) ran parallel exploratory trenches from the Levy
Tomb to the ruins of the Joinery. He provisionally designated an exposed area
of brick paving (F01) as Structure III, but determined its location
corresponded to
Building l on
Jefferson’s Mutual Assurance plat. Pi-Sunyer was primarily concerned with
uncovering architectural remains and finding type specimens. He did not
excavate in stratigraphic layers and he returned all but a handful of recovered
artifacts to the trenches when he backfilled the site.
In 1979, Kelso (1982) uncovered part of
Building l while excavating
the northern perimeter of the 1809 fence (F04-08) of Jefferson’s
vegetable garden. In 1981, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Archaeology
Department extended its excavation in order to expose the entire site of the
Storehouse for Iron (F01-03), as he designated the
Building l site. He also
exposed a line of modern postholes (F09-12) edging Mulberry Row to the north.
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| Closeup of Mulberry Row drawn by Jefferson in his
Mutual Assurance Declaration
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Kelso’s crew excavated in
stratigraphic levels and retained recovered artifacts, but introduced some
additional interpretive problems by excavating in units of varying sizes and
not screening for artifacts. Although excavators recorded opening and closing
elevations for most quadrats, these measurements are not related to a known,
fixed datum point.
In 1999, prior to the DAACS project, the Monticello Archaeology
Department staff used previously generated artifacts, plans, and registers to
reanalyze the excavations of Pi-Sunyer and Kelso. This work resulted in a
reassessment of the site, reported by
Scholnick
et al. 2001.
Pi-Sunyer:
In 1957, Oriel Pi-Sunyer intended his test trenching to verify the 1796
plat, that is, find the remains of Jefferson’s observations of Mulberry
Row. This approach collapsed a potentially rich occupational history into a
single event–the role of
Building l in 1796 as a
“storehouse for nailrod and other iron.” He concluded that his
finds matched the building Jefferson had described. Because the portion of the
floor covered in greenstone cobbles (F03) was lower than the brick paving
(F01), Pi-Sunyer suggested that the surface had all been originally paved with
brick. Approximately half of it had been subsequently robbed for reuse after
the building’s demise, revealing the cobble substrate.
Kelso:
William Kelso (1982,
1986a,
1986b,
1997)
recognized that archaeology revealed more activity than recorded in the Mutual
Assurance plat, i.e., nail-making (represented by slag and nailrod) and
domestic activity (represented by faunal remains and the variety and quantity
of ceramics). He inferred that the Storehouse must have been built after 1790
and, in addition to storage, served as a small nailery until around 1796, when
it briefly served as a storehouse for nail rod. Kelso suggested that shortly
after Jefferson drew up the Mutual Assurance Declaration,
Building l evolved into a
two-room slave quarter with a brick-lined, sub-floor pit (F02) near a chimney
in the western end. The log structure must have remained in place until 1809
when the new garden fence (F04-08) was installed, because the fence postholes
seemed to veer around it. However, he concluded from the absence of
Building l on a key 1809
plat that the cabin must have been dismantled soon after the fence was
erected.
Sanford:
Douglas Sanford argued in his dissertation (1995) that the artifact assemblage of
Building l supported a 1780
to 1809 date of occupation. He thought the structure was first used for nailrod
storage with some nail-making activity and then dedicated to domestic use. It
was probably constructed of logs erected on a prepared paving (F01 and F03).
Sanford placed the postholes associated with the ca.1809 garden fence (F04-08)
within the floor of the structure, thus fixing a date by which the structure
must have been removed. He concluded that the brick-lined box (F02) was not a
sub-floor pit, but supported an iron-working forge. The structure served as a
storehouse and nailery up until at least 1796. He concurred with Kelso that the
storehouse subsequently became a dwelling for slaves. Sanford does not account
for the use of the space between 1780 and 1794 when Jefferson records the
commencement of the nailery operation at Monticello.
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| Isaac Jefferson (1775-c.1850), c.1847 (courtesy of
the University of Virginia Library)
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Scholnick et al.:
Conclusions based on recent reanalysis by the Monticello Archaeology
Department differ from previous interpretations in some key ways regarding the
duration of occupation of the structure, its appearance, and its use. Based on
a reconsideration of stratigraphic contexts, Scholnick et al. (2001)
concluded that
Building l was built in the
early 1790s and that it continued to be used after 1809, most likely up until
Jefferson’s death.
Construction of the Storehouse for Iron began with the preparation of a
greenstone and clay base (F03) capped with a brick paving (F01). A one-room log
cabin was erected on this platform. Based on analogy with excavations at the
Anderson Forge in Williamsburg, the mortared brick box (F02) inserted into the
floor supported a brick forge. Comparison of the profiles of postholes for
anvil bases at Mulberry Row’s Nailery with the posthole (no feature
number assigned) in the center
Building l’s
surviving brick paving suggests that the base of an anvil stood in this
location. Both anvil and forge were likely original appointments, if the cabin
was built to accommodate Isaac Jefferson’s short-lived tinsmithing shop,
as suggested by artifacts and documents (Hill 2002a and
b).
The artifact assemblage attests to the subsequent use of
Building l for both
nail-making and as a dwelling—probably for slaves. Using available
quantitative methods, it is not possible to differentiate between discrete
episodes of domestic and industrial activity. This may be the result of either
the use of
Building l simultaneously
as a dwelling and a nail-making facility throughout its occupation or the
creation of depositional contexts over such an extensive period of time that
they contain samples from both domestic and industrial phases. What is clear is
that the intensity of nail-making activity at
Building l altered relative
to domestic activity; there was an initial increase in nail-making, followed by
an increase in domestic activity, followed by a second increase in nail-making.
The latter may represent Jefferson’s documented resumption of nail-making
after the War of 1812.
DAACS:
DAACS data on
Building l has only been
available for a short time, but preliminary analysis has already challenged
previous assumptions about the character of the assemblage and the behavior of
the people who lived and worked at
Building l. More refined
stylistic descriptions of ceramics (Arendt 2003,
Galle and
Neiman 2002b and
2003,
Neiman et
al. 2003) and buttons (Heath 2003) demonstrate that the quality of consumer
goods discarded at the site was similar to that of other domestic sites on
Mulberry Row. The differences among the sites reflect temporal variation in the
availability of types of goods and the expression of consumer preferences.
Guided by the 1796 Mutual Assurance plat, Kelso and Pi-Sunyer’s
excavations stopped with the exposure of evidence of
Building l. DAACS reveals
that
Building l overlays an
older site. In one unit, Kelso’s excavation punched through the living
surface of the Storehouse for Iron. Artifacts recovered from this level predate
the construction of
Building l. Further
excavation is required to determine if the material was discarded
in situ or redeposited from another location.
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| Martha Hill |
| Thomas Jefferson Foundation |
| October 2003 |
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