Field Quarter Cabin 1

• Overview
• Documentary evidence
• Excavation history, procedure, and methods

Overview

Cabin 1 location at Hermitage Plantation.

Cabin 1 is one of four 20-by-40 foot double pen brick buildings situated on the Field Quarter site, which is located approximately a third of a mile north of the Jackson family mansion (McKee 1990:7). The site consists of the remains of four brick duplex cabins that once housed a large number of enslaved African-Americans owned by the Jacksons, as well as subsurface remains of at least two log structures that pre-date the brick dwellings. The area is bounded on four sides by trees and fencelines, and its southern half is split more or less in two by the stream flowing from a centrally-located spring. Until the late 1980s, the land had been used as pasture for cattle.

Little documentary evidence exists about the more than 100 slaves owned by Andrew Jackson, therefore archaeology is the main way of gaining an understanding of the lifeways of slaves at The Hermitage. One goal of the archaeological work at The Hermitage has been to identify foundations or structures on the plantation grounds used to house enslaved laborers. A complementary goal in locating the building remains was to recover collections of associated artifacts which would provide information on life and activity in the cabins and dates of occupation.

Two seasons of excavations were conducted at Cabin 1, in 1976 and 1995.  In 1976, two 2-by-2 meter units were excavated and confirmed the presence of a 20-by-40 foot limestone block foundation that was called Cabin 1. Hermitage archaeologists and Earthwatch volunteers carried out additional excavations at Cabin 1 during the 1995 summer field season under the direction of Dr. Larry McKee, the Director of Archaeology at The Hermitage. These excavations explored both the interior and exterior of the cabin. A total of two 2-by-2 meter units and two 10-by-10 foot units were excavated at the Cabin 1 site.

Documentary evidence

Only minimal documentary evidence exists about the more than 160 slaves owned by Andrew Jackson. The field quarter was home to as many as sixty of these slaves. Through lists of names and ages made by the Jacksons at different times and indirect references in letters and account books, one can create a bare outline of the numbers of slaves, some of their names, the makeup of a few of the more favored slave families, and even match particular individuals to specific occupations. But the details of daily life are largely missing. Where did these people live and in what conditions? What did they eat and where did they get their food? How were their houses furnished and what did they do with what free time they had? And in general, how did they make do with, and how did they add to, the minimal conditions of life provided by their owners?

Land records indicate that Andrew Jackson and his family moved to The Hermitage property in 1804, initially occupying log structures that already existed on the property. The Davidson County tax list of 1805 lists nine taxable slaves for Jackson and in an 1814 letter Jackson indicated that he owned at least 40 enslaved individuals (Brigance 1976:16-17). These records indicate that the housing needs for Jackson’s slaves increased soon after their arrival at The Hermitage. Yet the documentation on slave life at The Hermitage is so minimal that there is no clear record on the number, type, location, or date of the construction of slave residences. No accurate or even sketchy maps of the estate’s layout and building locations survive from the nineteenth century. A few key references in letters, receipt books, and traveler’s accounts do provide some preliminary impressions about slave housing at The Hermitage. These records indicate that Jackson’s slaves lived in both brick and log cabins, and these were apparently scattered about the property rather than located in a single well-defined quarter.

The Field Quarter site was one location used to house African-American slaves at The Hermitage, beginning shortly after Jackson settled on the property. Although Jackson did not technically own the land encompassing the Field Quarter until 1821, he had defacto control of this property as early as 1806 (Brigance 1976:62-66). Archaeological evidence indicates that this was the site for two generations of slave housing: the first corresponding with Jackson’s’ original Hermitage homesite; the second sometime after Jackson moved into their brick mansion in 1821. The earliest historic structures at the Field Quarter were wood, probably log, cabins. The KES site, excavated in 1990, provides the first concrete evidence of this earliest occupation.

Overview of the Field Quarter area, looking southwest. Cabin 4 is in the grove of trees, while Cabin 3 is in the foreground.

Sometime after 1821, when the Hermitage mansion was completed, four brick duplex cabins were constructed at the Field Quarter. Two factors probably contributed to the decision to build these cabins. First, the wood structures may have been built initially as temporary structures, particularly given the fact that Jackson did not own this land outright until 1821. Thus, after two decades they may have been in a state of extreme disrepair. The second factor was the growing number of slaves at The Hermitage. The 1820 U.S. census listed 44 slaves at The Hermitage, a number that rose to nearly 100 by 1830. This growing population had housing needs that were not being met with existing structures, requiring more to be built.

Of the four brick cabins, only one–Cabin 3–appears to have been abandoned permanently prior to emancipation. Artifacts from this structure recovered in 1990 indicate it was abandoned in the late 1850s (Thomas 1995:54-60). Andrew Jackson, Jr., who had inherited The Hermitage after Andrew Jackson’s death in 1845, sold The Hermitage in 1856 and moved to Mississippi in 1858. In an 1856 newspaper ad announcing that the 500 acres of the plantation encompassing this portion of the property was for sale, Andrew Jackson Jr. listed the tract’s attributes: “Several fine springs, good cotton gin, overseer’s house, saw mill, four double brick negro cabins, blacksmith and carpenter’s shop, &c.” Presumably, the four cabins were abandoned when the land was sold.

However, Jackson Jr. failed in Mississippi, and eventually returned to The Hermitage in 1860 with an unknown number of slaves. The remaining three brick cabins at the Field Quarter (1, 2, and 4) appear to have been reoccupied after Jackson’s return in 1860, although we have no information about who these occupants were. Initially, some probably were slaves of Jackson’s, and it is likely that some of these individuals also occupied the cabins after emancipation. Documentary records and interviews with former longtime Hermitage employees, as well as the presence of twentieth-century artifacts, indicate that Cabin 1 was occupied into the 1920s, and some of its brick walls may have been standing as late as 1929 (Brigance 1976:20).

One interesting feature uncovered in Cabin 1 that is directly linked to the documentary record is a layer of brick paving found outside the foundation walls. This is probably the same brick paving that can be seen in a stereo-view image believed to have been taken at the Hermitage in the 1870s. The inscription on the back of the print reads, “Relics of the Hermitage, Tenn. Andrew Jackson’s servant and her great grandchildren.” This image shows an old woman with two children, posing in front of an old, weathered brick structure. The woman and one child are sitting on a bench next to the doorway in front of the cabin, and at their feet is a brick paving similar to that uncovered in excavations at Cabin 1. No similar pavement has been located at any of the other brick cabin sites on the property.

Excavation history, procedure, and methods

1976 Excavation Season

Two seasons of archaeological investigation have been conducted at Cabin 1. Sam Smith of the Tennessee Division of Archaeology directed the first season of excavations in the summer of 1976. These excavations took place on a low terrace or knoll located approximately 350 feet north of a major spring. Although no buildings remained standing in the area, surface indications of their former presence, in the form of scattered bricks and limestone chunks, depressions, and a grove of Ailanthus altissima (the non-native Chinese tree of heaven), were apparent.

A total of two 2-by-2 meter excavation units were excavated in the area of the Cabin 1 site during the 1976 field season. The two units were excavated following the natural layering of deposits at the site. The results of the excavations confirmed the presence of a limestone block foundation. Soil from excavation levels and features was screened through quarter inch mesh. Additionally, Feature 3, a layer of brickwork, was uncovered along the exterior of the south foundation wall. Excavators interpreted the brickwork as a brick paving or floor along what would have been the front of the cabin. Excavations beneath the brick layer found evidence of an old drip-line beneath the brick floor, indicating that the bricks were a later modification.

1995 Excavation Season

In 1995, the main focus of work at Cabin 1 was to locate a corner of the structure and to collect a sample of material from both the interior and exterior of the cabin. Excavators assumed there was a formal plan of construction at the Field Quarter, and predicted the location of the southeast foundation corner by pulling measuring tapes from the southwest corner of Cabin 3 (50 feet to the east) and the northeast corner of Cabin 2 (70 feet to the south). This assumption proved correct, as the corner appeared only inches from where the tapes crossed.

Stratigraphic divisions followed the natural layering of the deposits, with the scheme based on expectations for layers of sod, plowzone/other disturbance, abandonment/destruction, and primary occupation. Soil and structural features, such as postholes, foundations, pits, and cellars, were defined and dug as separate entities and given separate context numbers from the usual provenience divisions of levels within grid squares. All deposits below the first sod layer were screened through quarter-inch mesh hardware cloth, and samples from deposits of particular interest (such as root cellars) were waterscreened through eighth-inch window screen. In addition, soil samples were kept from these deposits for flotation analysis in an effort to recover any surviving micro-examples of floral remains, such as charred seeds.

Ultimately, an area covering 175 square feet was opened at Cabin 1, straddling the southeast corner of the structure. The excavators were particularly interested in seeing if a temporal sequence of occupation, which likely spanned the period from the 1820s to late in the 1920s, could be determined. Due to this lengthy occupation, excavators used arbitrary levels of .3 feet within the main artifact-bearing soil layer (2C) for better chronological control.

One unique feature of Cabin 1 is the brickwork that remains intact atop the east foundation. This is the only cabin in the Field Quarter where remnants of a brick wall have been found in situ. There were four courses of brick on the east wall, with a header course adjacent to the foundation and three courses of running bond. This find provides valuable information about the architecture of the Field Quarter cabins.

Brickwork also was present outside the south foundation, where excavators came down on a brick paving or floor. This was the same paving uncovered by Smith in 1976 outside the foundation further west, along what would have been the front of the cabin. It is likely that the paving spanned the entire front of the cabin, beginning 4.5 feet from the southeast corner and approximately 5 feet from the southwest, although there seems to have been more disturbance of the paving toward its western edge. The small portion of the brick paving encountered during the summer of 1995 was left intact.