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Overview
Building r was one of three,
one-room log cabins (Buildings r,
s, and t) built in the mid-1790s along the
eastern extension of Monticello’s Mulberry Row. Kelso’s excavation
in 1983 discovered that, with the exception of artifacts deposited on the
southern, downslope portion of the site, most of the 1558 square foot area of
the
Building r site had been
profoundly disturbed by two episodes of 20th-century road work. Consequently,
inferences about the appearance of the structure depend on Jefferson’s
1796 plat and the more intact features of the adjacent
Building s site. Of
particular significance for the history of African-Americans living at
Monticello is the documentary link between
Building r and known
individuals: Critta Hemings, her brother John Hemings, and his wife Priscilla.
The Kelso excavation of the
Building r site also
uncovered four brick piers (F02-04), remains of a post-Jefferson, Levy family
era (1834-1923) structure. Two of the six supports of the 12’ X 20’
structure fall within the contiguous
Building s site (F22-23).
Analysis of the related assemblages has not been undertaken, but a c.1912
photograph from the Jefferson Library archives provides a glimpse of a wooden
building in this location with a narrow brick stack.
Documentary Evidence
In September of 1792, Jefferson wrote to his overseer from Washington:
Five log houses are to be built at the places I have marked out, of
chesnut logs, hewed on two sides and split with the saw, and dove
tailed…They are to be covered and lofted with slabs…Racks and
mangers in three of them for stables (Boyd 1950, vol. 24:412-414).
The following spring,
Jefferson instructed his son-in-law and steward, Thomas Mann Randolph (Boyd 1950, vol.
26:65), to move enslaved house servants out of the stone Workmen's House
(now known as the Weaver's Cottage) into the new log houses. He specified that
Critta Hemings (sister to Sally Hemings) should have the "one nearest the
house," that is, the one later designated as Building
r. Randolph wrote back in August (Boyd 1950, vol.
26:667) to report that construction had not yet begun but would be
accomplished after harvest.
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| Building e, also known as the Weaver's
Cottage, is located in the foreground of this 1912 photograph. The
post-Jefferson pier building built on top of Buildings
r and s is
seen in the background.
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Three cabins for slaves, rather than two,
were finally built as indicated by Jefferson’s description on his Mutual
Assurance Declaration in 1796:
From q. it is 75. feet to r. which as well as s. and t. are servants
houses of wood with wooden chimnies, & earth floors, 12. by 14. feet, each
and 27. feet apart from one another. From t. it is 85 feet to F. the
[three-part wooden] stable.
By 1808, with the completion of
Monticello’s south dependencies, some house servants, i.e., the cook
Peter Hemings and probably his sisters, Sally and Critta, moved with their
families into the three heated quarters of the new wing, next to the new
kitchen, smokehouse, and dairy (Stanton 2000:113).
Archaeological evidence indicates that
Building r continued to be
used until Monticello was sold in 1831. Documents suggest that by the
1820s—and possibly as early as 1809—John Hemings, skilled joiner
and carpenter, probably occupied this small cabin with his wife Priscilla
Hemings, nurse to Jefferson’s grandchildren (Hill 2002a and
b).
Surviving letters identify some of the objects in the Hemings’ cabin: a
piece of case furniture; a bedstead; part of the harness for a draft animal; a
packet of seeds; a prayer book; a looking glass; and mourning paraphernalia at
the time of Priscilla’s death—a black cravat, a crepe hat band, and
a lock of Priscilla’s hair.
Excavation history, procedure, and methods
The first archaeological probe into the area of
Building r was a test trench
(ER 521) opened in 1982 to assess the survival of Jefferson-period sites in the
area of a WPA-era parking lot at the eastern end of Mulberry Row. Kelso
determined the placement of the test trench by measuring from the extant
Workmen’s House (Building e or
Weaver’s Cottage) using distances specified in the 1796 Mutual Assurance
plat. The following year he removed the entire paving by mechanical means,
along with rubble from an underlying 1925 parking lot and a layer of furnace
by-products. Kelso gridded off the exposed area in 10’ X 10’ units
leaving 2’ balks. Excavation initially proceeded in 8’ X 8’
units, using a method of careful troweling; removal of the balks resulted in
quadrats of 8’ X 8’ and 2’ X 2’.
The 1983 archaeological work revealed that much of the original living
surface of
Building r had been removed
by the early 20th-century construction, including the cabin’s floor,
foundation, and possible sub-floor pit. However, some related artifacts seemed
to have escaped the steam shovels, primarily those deposited on the sloping
southern portion of the site. Intruding into the destroyed 18th-century living
surface, the bases of a number of postholes and molds also survived. Several
episodes of fencing were represented by these features, including the 1809
paling surrounding Jefferson’s second vegetable garden (F16-19), a
20th-century fence line associated with the parking lot (F11-15), and a fence
line (F06-10, F20-23, and possibly others) enclosing the yard of a
post-Jefferson, 19th-century building set on brick piers. Recovery of evidence
of
Building r had been
anticipated by excavators. The appearance of the remains of this additional
building on the site was a surprise. Six brick piers, straddling the sites of
Building r (F02-05) and
s (Building
s site: F22-23), mark the remains of a
12’ X 20’ structure. A search of the archives recovered a
photograph of the structure dating to the period of ownership of Monticello by
the Levy family. Its location and narrow brick chimney suggest a domestic
function, but analysis of the artifact assemblage has not yet been
undertaken.
Summary of research and analysis
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| Artist's reconstruction of Building
s based on historical records and
archaeological evidence.
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Interpretation of the appearance of
Building r has been inferred
from the better preserved site of
Building s and from
documents that link construction of the two buildings. Until recently, the
degree of disturbance of the
Building r site has daunted
attempts to use recovered artifacts for any other purpose than determining
probable dates of construction and destruction. Preliminary analysis using
DAACS data suggest that, despite the profound disturbance of much of the site,
the assemblage can be used to make inferences about the behavior of the
residents of
Building r. Data on the
artifacts associated with the 19th-century pier building are included in the
DAACS database but have not been studied yet.
Kelso:
Using Jefferson’s Mutual Assurance plat, Kelso determined that
Buildings r,
s, and t
were similar in appearance. He summarized his conclusions in an isometric
drawing (1997:60,
fig. 21). Combining observations about the exposed features of the
Building s site (F01-03) in
combination with surviving Jefferson documents, he determined that
Building r had been a
12’ X 14’ one-room log cabin with an earthen floor and
wattle-and-daub exterior end chimney. He based the date and manner of
construction of all three structures on the 1792 letter from Jefferson to
Clarkson cited above. However, later documents attest that these buildings were
not constructed until at least two years later. Evidence from the
Building s site shows that
the method may have varied from Jefferson’s wishes, at least in the
selection of species of timber; the archaeologically recovered fragment of
wooden sill from
Building s is Southern
yellow pine, rather than chestnut as originally specified by Jefferson.
Sanford:
Sanford (in
Kelso et al.
1985:181, 196-199;
1995:18-23) tentatively dated the
Building r site to
1793-1809. He based the construction date on Jefferson documents and the
destruction date on the proximity of the 1809 fence line. He argued that the
placement of the postholes (F16-19) precluded the persistence of the dwelling
after the garden was leveled and fenced in 1808-1809. However, the fence stood
in the same relationship to
Building s, which, based on
associated ceramics, he believed to be occupied until Jefferson’s death.
Gruber:
Gruber (in
Kelso et al.
1985;
1990;
1991)
used archaeological evidence from
Buildings r,
s, and t
collectively to address the issue of how much influence slaves exercised in the
shaping of their domestic environments. She concluded that Jefferson controlled
the size, placement, and form of the cabins in which slaves lived. Residents of
Mulberry Row benefited from living in proximity to Jefferson’s mansion in
that they received leftovers and cast-offs of better quality than that provided
for field workers.
DAACS:
Preliminary DAACS analysis of the artifacts recovered from the sloping
southern portion of the
Building r site suggests
that
Building r was occupied
from the documented c.1794 date until the sale of Monticello in 1831. The
assemblage also offers the potential to discern important insights into the
behavior of the enslaved people who lived there.
In contrast to the barracks-style housing provided for enslaved people
on Mulberry Row in the 1770s, e.g., phase I of the
Building o site and the
Negro Quarter at the
Building t site, Jefferson
intended the quarters he constructed in the 1790s, i.e.,
Buildings r,
s, and t,
to house a single family each. This represents an important shift in the
conditions of some enslaved people that occurred as a consequence of political
and agricultural changes after the American Revolution (Neiman 1997,
1998).
The quality and quantity of ceramics present at
Building r also attest to
the ability and interest of some slaves to negotiate improvements in their
conditions and to participate in the emerging consumer culture (Arendt 2003;
Galle and
Neiman 2003;
Neiman et
al. 2003;
Olson
2003).
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| Martha Hill |
| Thomas Jefferson Foundation |
| October 2003 |
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