Yaughan Plantation 38BK76

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: 38BK75 and 38BK76 both located on Yaughan Plantation; and 38BK245, located on Curriboo Plantation. 38BK76 is located between Lake Moultrie and the Santee River near the town of St. Stephens, South Carolina in Berkeley County. The site consisted of multiple slave dwellings belonging to the Yaughan plantation, an indigo and rice plantation owned by Huguenots (Wheaton et al. 1983:15-16; Wheaton and Garrow 1985:242) and was occupied from the 1740s to the 1790s (Wheaton and Garrow 1983:243). Thirteen structures, the majority of which were post-in-trench, were identified at the site along with an overseer’s house (the complex of Structure D and M) (Wheaton and Garrow 1983:244). 29,876 total artifacts were cataloged into DAACS from the site. Excavators noted the most abundant artifact type recovered was colonoware, composing forty percent of the artifact assemblage (Wheaton and Garrow 1983:248).

Documentary evidence

38BK76 is the earlier of two Yaughan plantation sites excavated as part of archaeological mitigation. The earliest reference to Yaughan Plantation dates from 1737. The 650 acre tract conveyed by Richard Allen to Edward Thomas, “known by the name of Yaughan”, was part of a larger, 1200 acre tract. Thomas left this property to his son Samuel, who in turn sold it and the adjacent 596 acre property to Isaac Cordes in 1742. The two tracts became known as Yaughan Plantation and by 1745, the inventory of Isaac Cordes’ estate lists cattle, sheep, hogs, horses and some household goods at “Youshan” (Inventory of Isaac Cordes, 9 August 1745, cited in Wheaton and Garrow 1983:76).

The chain of plantation ownership continues from Isaac to his son John, who died in 1756. John Cordes left his real estate equally divided between his two sons, John and Thomas, who were children at the time of his death. A cousin, Samuel Cordes, became their guardian in 1756, and Yaughan appears to have functioned primarily as an indigo plantation under the daily supervision of a series of overseers (Account Book, Estate John Cordes, 1764-1798, cited in Wheaton and Garrow 1983:76). John Cordes attained his majority in 1768, and although local tradition states that he inherited all of his father’s property by law of primogeniture (cited in Wheaton and Garrow 1983:76), John Cordes clearly continued to administer Yaughan Plantation on behalf of his brother Thomas (Account Book, Estate of John Cordes,1764-1798, cited in Wheaton and Garrow 1983:76).

In 1773, Thomas Cordes formally accepted his share of his father’s estate from his uncle, and his brother John confirmed his title by deeding him half of their father’s estate in what appears to have been a straw-man transaction. Thomas Cordes had already begun to participate in local parish affairs, and, thus, he had probably begun to reside at least part of the year at Yaughan. Although he took an active role in the Revolutionary War, his name appears periodically in parish records through the 1770s. He married in 1784, and records of various neighbors in the post-war years indicate that he bought indigo and rice seed, evidently to receive the plantation’s prewar functions despite changes in the indigo market, which put the American grown commodity at a severe disadvantage. He and his family continued to live at the plantation until his death in 1809.

His widow left the property divided equally among her children when she died in 1826, and ten years later, her three daughters sold their interest in Yaughan to Solomon Clarke. Records indicate it is not likely that Clarke spent a great amount of time at Yaughan. In 1850, he sold the property to J.W. Thurston, who began to subdivide the property in 1857. The separate parcels changed hands several times over the next century and tended generally to decrease in size (Wheaton and Garrow 1983:88).

Excavation history, procedure, and methods

38BK76 was excavated through a combination of surface survey, hand-excavated blocks, and machine-stripping (Wheaton andGarrow 1983:244). The site was first tested by raking back thirty-five areas that were then surface collected (Wheaton et. al.1985:59). Fifteen 3’ x 3’ test units were excavated following the rake backs (Wheaton et. al. 1985:64). The area was then cleared by bulldozer and disked. A stratified random sample was surface collected by superimposing a 100 ft square grid over the site and random sampling ten 10 by 10 ft units within each 100 ft quadrat. Any artifact found outside one of the assigned 10 by 10 ft units was collected and lumped together with the general 100 ft quadrat designation (Wheaton et al. 1985:89). Following surface collecting, two 30 by 30 ft  blocks were divided into ten foot units each, with 6-inch baulks (Wheaton et al.1985:92) and excavated to subsoil. Many features were excavated but some were not due to time constraints (see 38BK76 site map: numbered features were excavated; unlabeled features were not excavated). The entire site was mechanically stripped to approximately one to two inches of subsoil then shovel shaved to fully expose features (Wheaton et al. 1985:93), which were all drawn on site map but not all excavated due to time constraints.

Hand-excavated units

All hand-excavated units located in the two blocks at Yaughan 76 were dug using natural stratigraphy. All soil, excluding half of the root mat, was dry screened through 1/4 inch mesh.  Soil samples were taken at each level from representative units across the block.

Summary of research and analysis

Thirteen structures were uncovered: three from block excavations and ten from mechanical stripping and shovel shaving. Eight were primarily trench structures, one was half trench and half posthole, and four were exclusively posthole construction (Wheaton et al. 1985:158). All the post-in-trench earthfast structures would have had mud walls with the posts providing added strength (Wheaton et al. 1985:193). Structures 76A and 76B were excavated by block excavation (Wheaton et al. 1985:92). Structure 76D consisted of a post-in-trench house (D1) with a later, larger post-in-ground addition (D2) (Wheaton et al. 1985:138). Structure 76E was the only one to have central and end trenches (Wheaton et al. 1985:140).

 

Structure 76A was the most repaired building with all corner posts being replaced or repaired at least once (Wheaton et al. 1985:145).Structure 76B was two structures, one superimposed on the other: Structure B1 was a post-in-trench building and B2 was a post-in-ground structure.  Wall trench construction was the most frequent building type at Yaughan 76. Associated trench features are longand narrow, ranging in width from 0.8 to 1.5 feet. Profiles were nearly vertically sided with flat bottoms. Trench depths ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 feet below ground surface, and lengths varied from 9.5 to over 40 feet. Commonly, two parallel trenches outlined a structure but in some cases, cross trenches were placed midway along the length and at the ends (Wheaton et al. 1985:98). The hypothesized building method of these structures consists of a trench being dug, followed by posts being placed down the centerline at once, and the trench refilled. Archaeological evidence at Yaughan 76 supports an earlier trench methodology followed by a later post construction building method.