 |
Overview
|
|
|
| Overview of excavations at Building
s (foreground) and Building
r (background)
|
|
|
Building s is the best
preserved of the three, single-family log cabins built in the mid-1790s at the
eastern end of Mulberry Row. A large portion of its 12' X 14' stone foundation
(F02), stone chimney base (F02), packed-earth floor (F03), and wood-lined
sub-floor pit (F01) survived the 20th-century roadwork that graded the sites of
Buildings r and
t. Because of the documented similarity among
these three structures, features uncovered in 1983 from the 1240 square foot
excavation area of
Building s have been used to
determine the appearance of the other two. However, each had its own
depositional history reflecting the conditions and activities of the enslaved
families who inhabited them, as is becoming evident from the data provided by
the DAACS recataloguing initiative.
Documentary evidence
On the 1796 Mutual Assurance Declaration, Jefferson described three
buildings edging Mulberry Row between the new log stables and the extant 1770s
stone Workmen’s House, now referred to as the Weaver’s Cottage:
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 stable [a wooden structure
subsequently replaced by the extant stone stables]
These three log cabins
had been built within the previous two years and were part of the rebuilding
campaign Jefferson undertook during his first retirement from public life
(1794-1801) (Hill
2002a and
b).
Jefferson wrote his overseer Minoah Clarkson from Washington in September
of 1792 with instructions that:
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 [i.e., roofed] and lofted with slabs...Racks and mangers in
three of them for stables [Building f]. (Boyd 1950-, vol. 24:412-414)
The
following spring, Jefferson told his son-in-law and steward Thomas Mann
Randolph to move all the enslaved house servants out of the stone
Workmen’s House into “...the nearest of the new log-houses, which
were intended for them; Kritty [Critta Hemings] taking the nearest of the
whole, as oftenest wanted about the house” (Boyd 1950-, vol. 26:665), that is,
the structure in the location of
Building r on the 1796
Mutual Assurance Declaration. Several months later, in August of 1793, Randolph
reported to Jefferson that construction of the cabins had not yet begun but
assured him that the work would be accomplished that winter (Boyd 1950-, vol.
26:667), during the slack period of the agricultural cycle. If not by
the spring of 1794,
Buildings r,
s, and t
were evidently in place by 1796—three dwellings rather than the two
originally planned and, based on the archaeological evidence of a surviving
sill fragment, of Southern yellow pine, rather than chestnut.
|
|
|
| French Delft jar excavated from Building
s |
|
|
It is possible that Sally
Hemings may have lived in
Building s, but the evidence
is inconclusive. Stanton (2000) suggests that Sally probably lived at the
Workmen’s House with her sister Critta after she returned from France in
1789 (p.
112). If Critta did move to
Building r as Jefferson
intended in 1793, then Sally may have occupied the neighboring
Building s, the next
“nearest of the new log-houses.” A French delft medicine jar found
at the
Building s site lends some
credence to this story . By 1808, both sisters and their families may have
relocated to the quarters in the new south dependencies of the Monticello
mansion (Stanton
2000:113). Documentary evidence suggests that their brother John Hemings
subsequently moved into
Building r, but the
succeeding resident of
Building s is unknown.
Excavation history, procedure, and methods
Excavation of the sites of
Buildings r,
s, and t
began in the spring of 1983 with mechanical removal of the modern overburden
(Sanford
1995:196). This included a paved roadway and parking lot laid down in
1934; an underlying level of furnace by-products dating to the early years of
the Thomas Jefferson Foundation; and fill from a 1925 parking lot. Activity
related to the roadwork impacted the
Building s site, but not to
the same extent as the flanking house sites of r and t.
Kelso and his crew discovered that three of the features (F01-03) exposed
at the
Building s site closely
matched the predicted location, dimensions, and characteristics of the log
dwelling Jefferson described in 1796,
Building s. Most of the
dry-laid stone foundation (F02) had been removed; a large portion of the
packed-earth floor (F03) had been graded away; and a 20th-century posthole
(F15) had been punched through the wood-lined sub-floor pit (F01).
Subfloor pit at Building
s with metal objects
in situ. However, enough
survived to make possible inferences about the appearance and use of
Building s (Sanford in
Kelso et al.
1985:26).
In addition to the evidence for
Building s, exposure of the
site revealed the remains of a second, previously unknown structure. Two brick
piers (F22-23) mark the location of a building that straddled the sites of
Building r and
Building s. (See
Building r site, F02-05.) A
search of the Foundation’s photographic archives located a c.1912
photograph providing a glimpse of a white-washed wooden building with a brick
chimney in this location. No analysis of its associated assemblages has yet
been undertaken, but it likely dates to the period when Monticello belonged to
the Levy family (1834-1923).
|
|
|
| Building e, also known as the Weaver's
Cottage, is located in the foreground of this 1912 photography. The
post-Jefferson pier building built on top of Buildings
r and s is
seen in the background.
|
|
|
Initially a grid of twelve 10' X 10' excavation units was laid out,
within which 8' X 8' quadrats were opened, leaving 2' intervening balks.
Subsequent removal of the balks resulted in the excavation of units of varying
sizes, from 2’ X 2’ to 2’ X 10’. Within units,
excavation proceeded in natural levels with recorded beginning and ending
elevations, but any relationship to a fixed datum point has been lost.
Artifacts were recovered by a method of careful troweling without
screening.
Summary of research and analysis
Good preservation of the
Building s site combined
with surviving documentation has made it possible to determine an unusual
degree of detail about the manner of construction and history of use of the
Building s site. Analysis of
the assemblage associated with the 19th-century pier building at the
Building s site has not yet
been accomplished.
Kelso:
Kelso presented his conclusions about the appearance of
Building s in a published
isometric drawing (1997:60, fig. 21). It shows a cabin crafted of
squared-off logs. The sides are sheathed with clapboards and the roof is
covered with horizontally laid slabs. A single door, opening onto Mulberry Row,
opposes a wattle-and-daub chimney on the southern gable end.
The archaeologically recovered portion of the foundation (F02)
corresponds with Jefferson’s 1796 measurements of 12' X 14'. A scatter of
stone (F02) and two small postholes (F19-20) indicate the base of an external
chimney, roughly 6' 6" X 2' 6". The paling fence (F24-27), constructed in 1809
to enclose the vegetable garden, passed so closely along the back side of the
structure that the wattle-and-daub chimney rose up between two of its posts. In
front of the hearth, a 3' 8" X 3' 8" sub-floor pit (F01) had been inserted into
the packed-earth floor.
|
|
|
| Artist's reconstruction of Building
s based on historical records and
archaeological evidence.
|
|
|
Fragments of its pre-formed, Southern
yellow pine wood lining were preserved in the clay soil.
Kelso concluded that
Building s was built in
1792-93, and persisted after the 1809 fence was installed, perhaps as late as
Jefferson’s death in 1826. He argued that a comparative analysis of the
assemblages from slave housing on Mulberry Row revealed a pattern of social and
economic hierarchy within the slave community (1986a and
b; see
also Gruber in
Kelso et al.
1985).
Gruber:
Gruber (in
Kelso et al.
1985;
1990;
1991)
addressed the issue of the source of the assemblage recovered at
Building s and what, if
any, conclusions could be drawn about the preferences and behavior of
Jefferson’s slaves. She argued that Jefferson determined the form,
appearance, and placement of the buildings in which enslaved people lived and
worked but probably with some consideration of the preferences of his slaves.
The objects used and discarded by slaves at
Buildings r,
s, and t,
as at all slave quarters, had been provided by Jefferson and, therefore,
expressed more overtly his paternalism than slave preferences. The superior
quality of ceramics and cuts of meats bespoke the advantages of living and
working close to Jefferson’s mansion.
Sanford:
Sanford (1995) estimated the period of occupation of the
Building s site to be ca.
1790 to 1830. He based the beginning date on mean ceramic dates as well as
documentary evidence. He derived the terminal date from the artifact assemblage
alone (p.
201). He observed that the area underlying the structure had been
prepared by using large greenstone cobbles (F02) to level the surface. The
floor (F03) was built up on the interior of the foundation using clay, gravel,
and cobbles. (Sanford 1995:204; Sanford in
Kelso et al.
1985:27-28). Sanford thought that postholes (F17, F21, F28) off to one
side of the structure could be the remains of a 3' x 5' addition (Sanford 1995:25;
Sanford in
Kelso et al.
1985:30).
DAACS:
DAACS completed recataloguing of the
Building s site assemblage
in 2002. Several papers presented at the 2003 Society for Historical
Archaeology conference used this data (Arendt 2003,
Galle and
Neiman 2003,
Heath
2003,
Olson
2003). These preliminary studies of ceramics, buttons, and tools
demonstrate the utility of recording more fine-grained observations of
artifacts. The greater temporal and stylistic sensitivity of the database
yields insights into the variability among enslaved households in the selection
of available consumer goods and the conditions informing their choices.
 |
|
| Martha Hill |
| Thomas Jefferson Foundation |
| October 2003 |
|
|
|
|
