East Garden

Overview

The East Garden is part of Stratford Hall Plantation, the historic estate of the Lee family located along the Potomac River in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The Lees occupied the estate from the late 1730s until it was sold in 1822. After passing through several hands, Stratford Hall Plantation was bought by the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation in 1929. When the Foundation incorporated in Virginia in the 1970s, the name was changed to the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association.

The East Garden is an area measuring approximately 360-x-190 feet located immediately to the east of, and adjacent to, the Stratford Hall mansion.  The exact historical uses of the East Garden area during the Lee period and throughout the 19th century are largely undocumented in the written record. In a 1790 letter, Thomas Lee Shippen, a grandson of Stratford Hall’s builder, wrote of the “gardens, vineyards, orangeries and lawns which surround the house.” Excavations in the 1930s and 2013 confirm the presence of 18th-century planting beds and garden features. Restorations of the East Garden in the 1930s, and again in 2018, are well documented (Beaman 2002; Pogue 2013; Rieley 2020)

The East Garden assemblages in DAACS were generated by archaeological testing conducted by DATA Investigations LLC in 2015 and 2016, as part of Stratford Hall Plantation’s broader goal to better understand the complex landscape chronology of the East Garden prior to garden redesign in 2018. Although other archaeological research has been conducted in the East Garden (Shurcliff 1929, Williams 1932, Neiman 1976, Pogue 2013; details on these excavations below), only assemblages excavated by DATA Investigations are currently available through DAACS.

Documentary Evidence

Thomas Lee purchased the site that is now Stratford Hall in 1717. Construction of the mansion began in 1737 or 1738. The 1801 Mutual Assurance Policy and 1805 Insurance Plat provide an overview of the substantial structures associated with the Stratford Hall Plantation, but do not offer much in the way of detailed information about buildings or activities in the East Garden. To date, no detailed landscape plan or description for the East Garden dating from the 18th or 19th centuries have been found, although the recent discovery of an eighteenth-century “Mystery Plan” among the Thomas Jefferson papers donated by the Coolidge family to the Massachusetts Historical Society, was used as a partial guide for the 2018 garden restoration (Rieley 2020).

As noted above,  18th- and 19th-century documentation on the design and use of the East Garden has not been discovered. Thomas Lee Shippen’s 1790 letter indicates that the areas around the mansions were surrounded by “gardens, vineyards, orangeries and lawns”. Four 18th-century brick structures remain adjacent to the East Garden: the Main House to the west, the Gardeners to the Northwest, and the Kitchen and Smokehouse to the southwest. Restorations of the East Garden in the 1930s, and again in 2018, are well documented (Beaman 2002; Pogue 2013; Rieley 2020). Details of twentieth century excavations are below.

Excavation History, Procedure, and Methods

1930s: Arthur Shurcliff and Morley Williams

In the late 1920s, The Garden Club of Virginia in collaboration with Stratford Hall, began “restoration” of the East Garden.  In 1929 Arthur A. Shurcliff, landscape architect and amateur archaeologist, conducted archaeological excavation to aid in the development of a landscape plan for the garden. His team excavated extensive narrow rectangular trenches throughout the East Garden.

Three years later, in June and July 1932, Morley Williams, also a landscape architect, his field supervisor Charles Coatsworth Pinkney, and local African American excavators, placed additional trenches in the East Garden (Beaman 2002; Morley 1934). Williams identified two terrace slopes and evidence for two side paths, but no central garden path.  He also uncovered five substantial features in the upper terrace, which were either not excavated or fully recorded as details about what was found inside of the features are missing.

The five linear features included bricks without mortar, which he interpreted as part of the garden drainage system, and a rectangular feature that he identified as an asparagus bed. Although their existence was not taken into account in Williams’ completed garden design in October 1932, Dennis Pogue believes that regardless of their function, they were likely related to the 18th-century garden (Pogue 2013: 2-4). Although the artifacts and contexts from the 1930s East Garden excavations are not available through DAACS, the excavation trenches have been georectified and placed on the DAACS ArcGIS map for Stratford Hall, which can be downloaded from the Maps and Images section of this site.

1976: Fraser Neiman and Virginia Research Center for Archaeology

 In the Spring of 1976, the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology (VRCA) was contracted to conduct a survey of the entire Stratford Plantation to create a catalog of archaeological resources at Stratford Hall. Survey fieldwork was carried out in three phases. Phase I consisted of surface inspection of plowed fields at 15-to-20 foot intervals.  Areas under vegetation, pasture, and woodland were subsurface tested with shovel test pits (STPs) roughly placed on 20-foot centers (Neiman 1979:36).

Phase II of the survey was designed to provide a more refined idea of the size, complexity, and date of the site tested in Phase I. An attempt was made to leave sealed archaeological contexts as intact as possible. Since the research project was to be focused on the colonial period, the seventeenth and eighteen century sites were prioritized (Neiman 1979:2). The context information from the Phase I and Phase II excavations have not been entered into DAACS.

Phase III focused on the area in the immediate vicinity of the mansion.  Neiman and his team systematically tested areas around the Main House, including the West Yard, north of the West Yard, the area east of the kitchen courtyard, and north of the East Garden in an area known as the  “Old Orchard”.  However, not all areas around the mansion were tested, including the East Garden proper, the north and south mansion lawns and the area south of the stables (Neiman 1979:38). Neiman made the decision to not test the East Garden for two reasons. First, the East Garden had undergone extensive and archaeologically damaging grading in the 1930s. Second, Neiman and his team wished to focus on areas with the most human activity, i.e. service areas and other occupation zones.  As the East Garden has primarily been used a garden space, not as work yards or service areas, Neiman focused his attentions in other areas around the mansion. Field records and artifact data from Neiman’s work in the West Yard are in DAACS.

1987-2012: Douglas Sanford and University of Mary Washington

Between 1987 and 2012, Douglas Sanford and students from the University of Mary Washington excavated five units in the upper terrace of the East Garden. These units were located near the mansion and helped identify cultural features and stratigraphy. Assemblages from UMW excavations in the East Garden are not included in DAACS.

1998: John Milner Associates

Archaeological investigations at Stratford Hall Plantation were conducted by John Milner Associates, Inc., in 1998 to identify and assess archaeological resources that might be affected by the installation of perimeter drains around the Great House and adjacent outhouses (Balicki and Seifert 1999). The investigations were part of a larger conservation program developed to stabilize the Plantation’s buildings. Thirty-one locations were tested along the perimeters of the seven buildings forming the core of the plantation: the Great House, the Northwest Outbuilding, Northeast Outbuilding, Southwest Outbuilding, Southeast Outbuilding (Kitchen), Smokehouse, and Stable.

Assemblages from the Milner excavations associated with the East Garden, the Southeast Outbuilding (Kitchen), Smokehouse, and Stable, are not included in DAACS as this was not within the scope of the project.

2013: Dennis Pogue

In 2013, Stratford Hall contracted with Dennis Pogue to answer two research questions critical to their garden restoration plans: had Williams stripped the entire upper terrace of the East Garden and did any 18th-century planting features remain under the overburden?  Pogue and his team excavated 22 units in the upper terrace and 6 shovel test pits in the lower terrace. In the upper terrace they discovered a number of fill layers overlying subsoil, with artifacts recovered spanning from the 18th to the 20th centuries. This confirmed that the area had been stripped in 1932, presumably with soils subsequently brought in to raise the grade to conform with the 1930’s restoration plan (Pogue 2013).

Pogue and his team also uncovered portions of five likely 18th-century planting features that match precisely in location and in shape with those depicted on William’s 1932 excavation plan. Limited testing of three of the features revealed that they are flat-bottomed and vertical-sided trenches, two of which were lined with a substantial stratum of brick rubble. Pogue compared the characteristics of these features with the findings from other excavated 18th-century gardens, which led him to conclude that the Stratford Hall features were the remnants of garden beds (Pogue 2013).  Pogue’s site report can be downloaded from the Maps and Images section of this website.

2015-2016: DATA Investigations, LLC.

DATA Investigations, LLC., led by Thane Harpole and David Brown, conducted archaeological testing in the East Garden and West Yard in 2015 and 2016.  The field records and artifact assemblage data from the DATA Investigations’ excavations comprise the archaeological data currently in DAACS. DATA Investigations’ 2015 site report can be downloaded from the Maps and Images section of this website.

The primary goal of DATA Investigations work in the East Garden was to find evidence of historic pathways and other landscape features. DATA Investigations excavated six 5 x 5 foot units and two 5 x 2.5 units in the upper terrace of the East Garden.  Excavators worked in natural stratigraphic layers. The majority of the sediment was dry screened through 1/4 mesh, although a few topsoil contexts were not screened (DI249A, DI250A, and DI273A).  These contexts have artifact IDs with an “NOS” suffix (e.g. 1054-DI273A-NOS). Over 47,000 artifacts were recovered from these eight units.

Excavations within the uppermost terrace of the East Garden included Test Units (TUs) 200 to 204 and 225 to 227. The test units generally included three layers and extended an average depth of 1.1 feet. The uppermost layer included a mix of artifacts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The lowermost layer typically represented a transition to subsoil, had very few artifacts, and was relatively thin (about 0.2 to 0.3 feet thick). The middle layers included a layer of highly concentrated pea gravel (T.U.s 200-203, and 225-227) or artifacts dating predominantly to the late 18th/early-to-mid-19th centuries.

DATA Investigations uncovered recent postholes (Feature 1, T.U. 200), recent utilities (PVC water line, T.U. 203), and trench excavations from the 1930s (T.U.s 200 & 227). Importantly they identified a dense layer of pea gravel in both the central units (T.U. 200, 202, 226, 227) and in the northern units (T.U. 201, 203, 225) that may represent pathways from the late 18th/early 19th century, as well as a circular brick and sandstone deposit that may have served as a pad for a garden planter or statuary (T.U. 226). The gravel deposits were noted in the 1930s as a “gravel layer” in the central portion, and “gravel on brick” in the northern portion, which clearly shows that they predate the earliest archaeology.

Based on the current archaeology, as well as probing across the upper terrace of the East Garden, there may have been three wide gravel paths evenly spaced across the terrace, with one about 20-feet wide traversing the middle, an approximately 20-foot wide deposit adjacent to the northern building, and a roughly 16-foot wide gravel area extending away from the kitchen at the southern end. The dates of these deposits are not clear, although 19th-century artifacts, particularly fragments of a large stoneware pitcher likely made by Peter Herrmann of Baltimore between c. 1855 and 1900 (Kille 2005; Herrmann 2016), were found directly on top of the layer.

The brick and stone pad also appears to have been placed at the edge of this gravel deposit, suggesting that the pad and gravel are contemporary. No additional matching pads have been located but this conclusion is only based on limited probing of the area. The pathways, if they were indeed 20-feet wide, do not appear to have been edged with brick or other material. There is an abrupt edge to the gravel, and this same gravel is not present in other excavated areas of the upper terrace.

Lastly, artifact concentrations increased significantly in the northernmost units (T.U.s 201, 203 and 225), perhaps suggesting a higher degree of archaeological integrity and the possibility of intact cultural features in the northern part of the site.

2018-2020: DAACS Analysis

The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery was hired by Stratford Hall to identify, analyze, and catalog all of the artifacts from DATA Investigations’ excavations in the West Yard and East Garden, and to make the data freely accessible via the internet. Senior Archaeological Analyst Katelyn Coughlan and Archaeological Analysts Sarah Corkett and Sarah Platt conducted the artifact analysis under the supervision of Senior Archaeological Analysts Leslie Cooper and Project Manager for DAACS, Elizabeth Bollwerk. They also analyzed the paper field records and created the detailed Harris Matrix. Bollwerk produced the CA Chronology and Cooper produced the extensive digitized maps by piecing together site maps from multiple projects and the site’s  Harris Matrix. The site was launched on the DAACS website in December 2021. Detailed artifact and context data can be found in the Query the Database section of this website.

A note on data in DAACS:

In the DAACS database, the East Garden is designated as Project “1054”. Artifact ID numbers for artifacts associated with the site therefore begin with the 1054 prefix. Excavated contexts followed natural stratigraphy. Most contexts were screened through ¼ inch mesh.  A few topsoil contexts were not screened (DI249A, DI250A, and DI273A).  These contexts have artifact IDs with an “NOS” prefix (e.g. 1054-DI273A-NOS).

Architectural artifacts were discarded in the field (brick, larger chunks of mortar, charcoal, coal, and oyster shell).  DAACS staff developed protocols for these artifacts and entered counts and weights for each context based on documentation from artifact tags and field/lab records.

Numerous fragments of conglomerate were found throughout the East Garden. This “ferricrete” or ferruginous sandstone most often consists of iron and quartz. These naturally-occurring stones (also known as bog iron) are likely from localized outcroppings of ferricrete on the Stratford plantation and elsewhere on the Northern Neck of Virginia. This conglomerate was used in the historic period for foundations, walls, chimneys, and headstone markers.  Cultural uses can be established using the size of the fragment and the context of the assemblage.

Because all of the ferricrete/bog iron recovered from Stratford was pebble or cobble-sized, did not show signs of wear, reuse, or other modification, and none of the contexts it was found in indicated it was used culturally, it was not entered into the database. Finally, faunal material recovered from the East Garden was entered according to the “non-specialist” protocols (see the DAACS Faunal Manual for more information).

Summary of Research and Analysis

Several excellent articles discuss the history of landscape and archaeological research in the East Garden and West Yards. Top among them are Douglas Sanford’s 1999 article on landscape change at Stratford Hall and Thomas Beaman’s 2002 article on landscape restoration at Stratford Hall. Dennis Pogue’s Report on Archaeological Excavations in the East Garden, Stratford Hall Plantation (2013) provides an solid review as well.

This archaeological research summary focuses on the materials recovered by DATA Investigations between 2015 and 2016, as these are the only East Garden assemblages currently in DAACS. Pogue’s and DATA Investigations’ site reports can be read and downloaded in the Maps and Images section.

The majority of the 47,586 artifacts recovered by DATA Investigations in the East Garden were architectural in nature. Brick and brick/daub fragments comprised 77.2%, (n=36,780) of the East Yard Assemblage. Oyster shell, used in gardens path, was the second most abundant artifact type at 10% of the assemblages (n=4705). Mortar (n=2654), Nails (n=681) and window glass (n=566) were the third, fourth, and fifth most numerous artifact types recovered during the 2015-2016 excavations.

Sanford’s, Pogue’s and DATA Investigations’ research campaigns in the upper terrace of the East Garden suggests that portions retain significant integrity, with the potential for containing important landscape features from the Lee period.  DATA Investigations’ excavations revealed several cultural layers, include a dense layer of pea gravel in multiple locations, while Pogue’s work uncovered original 18th-century garden features. Future excavations should take into consideration the need to increase the number of contiguous units or the size of an open area excavation so that these substantial landscape features can be properly documented and understood.

DAACS Chronology

DAACS staff produce a seriation-based intra-site chronology for each site included in the Archive, using common analytical methods designed to increase comparability among phases at different sites. Details of this process, and an in-depth description of the results, can be found on the East Garden’s Chronology Page.

DAACS’s chronology using ceramics recovered from DATA Investigations excavations identified three temporal phases at the East Garden. The MCDs for the three phases are given in the table below.  MCDs and BLUE MCDs, which give less influence to ceramic types with long manufacturing spans for each phase, indicate that East Garden was a locus of activity throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.

Mean Ceramic Dates and TPQs

Phase	MCD	BlueMCD	TPQ	TPQ90	TPQ95	Total Count
P01	1807	1796	1840	1820	1820	103
P02	1853	1818	1840	1840	1840	162
P03	1861	1864	1830	1830	1830	8