Curriboo Plantation 38BK245

Overview

In 1979, Soil Systems Inc. embarked on a groundbreaking project resulting in the earliest and most extensively excavated slave-related sites in the southeast. Project Investigators Pat Garrow and Tom Wheaton headed mitigation fieldwork in advance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cooper River Rediversion Canal Project. The archaeological component, known as The Cooper River Historic Sites Investigation, included surface collection, metal detector survey, mechanical stripping, and excavation, and focused most intensively on three sites containing slave quarters: Yaughan 75 and Yaughan 76 both located on Yaughan Plantation; and Curriboo 245, located on Curriboo Plantation.

Curriboo 245 is located between Lake Moultrie and the Santee River near the town of St. Stephens, South Carolina in Berkeley County. It is located three-quarters of a mile from Yaughan 75 and Yaughan 76 and the same distance from the river. The site consisted of multiple slave dwellings and plantation outbuildings belonging to the Curriboo plantation, an indigo and rice plantation owned by Huguenots and was occupied from the 1740s to shortly after 1800 (Wheaton and Garrow 243).

Curriboo 245 was heavily impacted by mechanical stripping prior to mitigation. Eleven structures were identified at the site. An excavation block was opened to expose a brick-piered structure (Structure 245C1, a possible overseer’s house) which was discovered to overlie an earlier trench structure (Structure 245C2) with an associated cellar. A separate cellar (245A) was excavated but was severely damaged and no remnants of an associated structure were present.  In addition, a severely damaged brick clamp (245K) was recorded (Wheaton et. al. 98 and 191).  Several features that are interpreted as irrigation channels or ditches were also excavated in the southern area of the site. The most significant artifact type recovered was colonoware, which composed over fifty percent of the artifact assemblage (Wheaton and Garrow 248).

Documentary evidence

The histories of Curriboo and Yaughan Plantations are related. When Samuel Thomas sold Yaughan to Isaac Cordes in 1742, the description of the 650-acre tract referred to lands southeast of Yaughan “belonging to Isaac and Thomas Cordes” (Deed Book R-5 : 187 ). This is probably Curriboo, which Isaac Cordes and his brother Thomas, known as “Colonel Thomas Cordes”, had acquired from Ellery or his estate.

A 1745 inventory of Isaac Cordes’ personal property lists slaves, livestock and “Sundries at Correboo [sic] between Coll Thomas Cordes and the Estate” (Inventory of Isaac Cordes, 9 August 1745, pp. 328-330). Although earlier references to the ownership of this plantation were oblique, the Cordes brothers had acquired Curriboo by 1745. Thomas Cordes died in 1748 and willed Curriboo, then consisting of 1390 acres, to his second son Samuel. Between 1745 and 1748, Thomas Cordes severed the relationship between Curriboo and his brother’s estate, and his branch of the family became the sole occupants and owners of the plantation.

Samuel Cordes bequeathed Curriboo to his eldest son Thomas (d. 1799) in 1796. Thomas Cordes, also known as Thomas Cordes, Jr., to distinguish him from his cousin Thomas Cordes (d. 1806) who then resided at Yaughan, willed three plantations including Curriboo to his only son James Jamieson Cordes, only one year old at the time of his father’s death in 1799. He appears to have been brought up in Charleston primarily, and in 1845, he and his brothers in-law, who were his attorneys, sold the 2,255- acre Curriboo Plantation to Charles Macbeth. Four years later, Macbeth sold the entire tract to Robert Press Smith, who then began to divide the plantation.

Excavation history, procedure, and methods

There was no pre-mitigation testing at 38BK245. The importance of the site was not recognized until it had been heavily damaged by the excavation of a large borrow pit by Corps contractors (Wheaton et. al. 71). Topsoil was stripped before mitigation could be conducted by archaeologists (Wheaton et. al. 92). Controlled surface collections were made during the mitigation phase as there was no testing phase (Wheaton et. al. 89). A 50 by 50 ft grid was set up across the site and artifacts were intensively collected within each 50 ft square (Wheaton et. al. 92).

Following surface collection, the entire gridded area was mechanically cleared and shovel shaved to expose any features. Artifacts recovered during stripping were added to the general artifact collection for the site (Wheaton et. al. 93).

A 30 by 30 ft block  was placed to investigate a surface brick feature and associated structure (Structure 245C1). The block was hand excavated in ten foot units with 6-inch baulks (Wheaton et. al. 92). It was discovered that this structure directly overlaid an earlier one (Structure 245C2). Nine or ten brick piers associated with C1 rested on and were aligned with the trenches of C2. Structure C2 had an associated cellar that was sectioned and the northeast and northwest quadrants were excavated.

In addition to the block excavation at 245C,  a brick clamp (245K) and a cellar (245A) were also hand excavated. The cellar was quartered first, then entirely excavated in natural layers to it’s sand floor. No remnants of an associated structure were found. Structure 245K, a brick clamp, had been severely impacted by construction and an attempt was made during mitigation to salvage what little remained of it. This was undertaken by trenching through its center in order to determine the deepest part of the intact feature, then dividing it into quadrants and hand excavating them.

Structures B, D, E, F, G, and H:

These are all located in the southern area of the site, in the mechanically-stripped area. Structures are all similarly oriented in a northeast/southwest direction, two of which are double-bay structures. Most of the structures and associated features were drawn and not excavated after the area was stripped

One structure, Structure B, had several features that were excavated: every isolated posthole for the structure, replacement postholes along the southeast wall, two test cross-sections of the house trenches, and two-to-three inches of the remaining trenches were excavated in order to to examine them for postmolds as complete excavation of these was not feasible.

Of note at this site were several trenches that are hypothesized to be irrigation channels or ditches. Their alignment was generally northeast-southwest. In general, five foot sections of each were excavated in order to obtain profiles and bottom depths.

Summary of research and analysis

38BK245 consisted of eleven structures: eight within the mechanically stripped area; one in the borrow pit; and two on the north edge (Wheaton et. al. 191).

Structure 245A, was only represented by one feature, a cellar. Structure 245C was block excavated and discovered to be two structures: 245C1 and 245C2. 245C1 was built on brick piers and was the only structure with an indoor fireplace and brick chimney (Wheaton et. al. 102). It was built directly on top of 245C2, a trench structure with a cellar (Wheaton et. al. 190). Structure 245C1 likely served an administrative function, while the earlier 245C2 was interpreted by the Principal Investigators as serving a function related to the processing and housing of naval stores (Wheaton et. al. 191).

In addition to naval stores activity having taken place at Curriboo, the Principal Investigators hypothesized that brick was also produced at the site, evidenced by a brick clamp (Structure 245K), which was represented by a charcoal stain and scattered, broken brick due to extensive damage by the excavation of a borrow pit at its location (Wheaton et. al. 182 and 185).

Structure G was a posthole structure located northwest of Structure B. The wide spacing of posts and the fact that the northeast and southwest ends had no intermediate postholes led to the conclusion it may have served a function such as a covered work area.

Structure H, likely a barn, was the largest encountered throughout the project and was located south of Structures B and G.  It had two entrances located along the side of the structure and a dirt floor.