The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia Part 16

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 18.--AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF MARLBOROUGH. The outlines of the excavated wall system and Structure B foundation can be seen where Highway 621 curves to the east.]

VII

_The Site, its Problem, and Preliminary Tests_

The preceding chapters have presented written evidence of Marlborough's history and of the human elements that gave it life and motivation.

a.s.sembled mostly during the years following the excavations, this information was not, for the most part, available in 1956 to guide the archeological survey recounted here. Neither was there immediate evidence on the surface of the planted fields to indicate the importance and splendor of Marlborough as it existed in the 18th century.

In 1954, when Dr. Darter proposed that the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution partic.i.p.ate in making excavations, he presented a general picture of colonial events at Marlborough. He also provided photostats of the two colonial survey plats so frequently mentioned in Part I (fig. 2). From information inscribed on the 1691 plat, it was clear that a town had been laid out in that year, that it had consisted of 52 acres divided into half-acre lots, and that two undesignated acres had been set aside for a courthouse near its western boundary. It was known also that John Mercer had occupied the town in the 18th century, that he had built a mansion there, that a circular ruin of dressed lime-sandstone was the base of his windmill, and that erosion along the Potomac River bank had radically changed the sh.o.r.eline since the town's founding 263 years earlier. But n.o.body in 1954 could point out with any certainty the foundation of Mercer's mansion, nor was anyone aware of the brick and the stone wall system, the two-room kitchen foundation, or the trash pits and other structures that lay beneath the surface, along with many 18th-century household artifacts. It remained for the archeologist to recover such nonperishable data from the ground.

In August 1954 Messrs. Setzler, Darter, and Watkins spent three days at Marlborough examining the site, making tests, and, in general, determining whether there was sufficient evidence to justify extended excavations. The site is located in the southeastern portion of what was known in the 17th century as Potowmack Neck (now Marlborough Point), with the Potomac River on the east and Potomac Creek on the south (map, front endpaper). It is approached from the northeast on Highway 621, which branches from Highway 608 about 2-1/2 miles from the site. Highway 608 runs from Aquia Creek westward to the village of Brooke, situated on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad about four miles east of the present Stafford courthouse on U.S. Route 1. Highway 621 takes a hilly, winding course through the woods until it debouches onto the flat, open peninsula of the point. The river is visible to the east, as the road travels slightly east of due south, pa.s.sing an intersecting secondary road that runs west and south and then west again. The latter road ends at the southwestern extremity of the Neck, where Acc.o.keek Creek, which meanders along the western edge of the Neck, feeds into Potomac Creek. At the point near the Potomac Creek sh.o.r.e where this road takes its second westerly course lies the site of the Indian village of Patawomecke, excavated between 1938 and 1940 by T. D. Stewart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 19.--HIGHWAY 621, looking north from the curve in the road, with site of Structure B at right.]

Beyond this secondary road, Highway 621 continues southward to a small thicket and clump of trees where it curves sharply to the east, its southerly course stopped by fenced-in lots of generous size (with modern houses built on them) that slope down to Potomac Creek. After the highway makes its turn, several driveways extend from it toward the creek. One of these driveways, obviously more ancient than the others, leaves the highway about 200 feet east of the clump of trees, cutting deeply through high sloping banks, where vestiges of a stone wall crop out from its western boundary (fig. 22), and ending abruptly at the water's edge. Highway 621 continues to a dead end near the confluence of creek and river.

Some 200 feet west of the turn in the highway around the clump of trees, is a deep gully (or "gutt" in 17th-century terminology) that extends northward from Potomac Creek almost as far as the intersecting road that pa.s.ses the site of the Indian village. This gully is overgrown with trees and brush, and it forms a natural barrier that divides the lower portion of the point into two parts. A few well-s.p.a.ced modern houses fringe the sh.o.r.es of the point, while the flat land behind the houses is given over almost entirely to cultivation.

Since the two colonial land surveys were not drawn to scale, some confusion arose in 1954 as to their orientation to the surviving topographic features. However, the perimeter measurements given on the 1691 plat make it clear that the town was laid out in the southeastern section of the point, and that the "gutt" so indicated on the plat is the tree-lined gully west of the turn in the highway.

Bordering the clump of trees at this turn could be seen in 1954 a short outcropping of brick masonry. A few yards to the north, on the opposite side of the road, crumbled bits of sandstone, both red and gray, were concentrated in the ditch cut by a highway grader. In the fields at either side of the highway, plow furrows disclosed a considerable quant.i.ty of brick chips, 18th-century ceramics, and gla.s.s sherds.

In the field east of the clump of trees and north of the highway, opposite the steep-banked side road leading down to Potomac Creek, could be seen in a row the tops of two or three large pieces of gray stone.

These stones were of the characteristic lime-sandstone once obtained from the Aquia quarries some four miles north, as well as from a long-abandoned quarry above the head of Potomac Creek. It was decided to start work at this point by investigating these stones, in preference to exploring the more obvious evidence of a house foundation at the clump of trees. This was done in the hope of finding clues to lot boundaries and the possible orientation of the survey plats. Excavation around these vertically placed stones disclosed that they rested on a foundation layer of thick slabs laid horizontally at the undisturbed soil level. Enough of this wall remained _in situ_ to permit sighting along it toward Potomac Creek. The sight line, jumping the highway, picked up the partly overgrown stone wall that extends along the western edge of the old roadway to the creek, indicating that a continuous wall had existed prior to the present layout of the fields and before the construction of the modern highway.

The excavation along the stone wall was extended northward. At a distance of 18.5 feet from the highway the stone wall ended at a junction of two brick wall foundations, one running north in line with the stone wall and the other west at a 90 angle. These walls, each a brick and a half thick, were bonded in oystersh.e.l.l lime mortar. Test trenches were dug to the north and west to determine whether they were enclosure walls or house foundations. Since it was soon evident that they were the former, the next question was whether they were lot boundaries matching those on the plat. If so, it was reasoned, then a street must have run along the east side of the north-south coursing wall. Accordingly, tests were made, but no supporting evidence for this inference was found.

Nevertheless, the indications of an elaborate wall system, a probable house foundation, and a wealth of artifacts in the soil were enough to support a full-scale archeological project, the results of which would have considerable historical and architectural significance. Determining the meaning of the walls and whether they were related to the town layout or to Mercer's plantation, learning the relations.h.i.+p of the plantation to the town, discovering the sites of the 1691 courthouse and Mercer's mansion, and finding other house foundations and significant artifacts--all these were to be the objectives of the project. The problem, broadly considered, was to investigate in depth a specific locality where a 17th-century town and an 18th-century plantation had successively risen and fallen and to evaluate the evidence in the light of colonial Virginia's evolving culture and economy. Accordingly, plans were made, a grant was obtained from the American Philosophical Society, as recounted in the introduction, and intensive work on the site was begun in 1956.

VIII

_Archeological Techniques_

The archeologist must adopt and, if necessary, invent the method of excavation best calculated to produce the results he desires, given the conditions of a particular site. The Marlborough site required other techniques than those conventionally employed, for instance, in excavating prehistoric American Indian sites. Moreover, because the Marlborough excavations const.i.tuted a limited exploratory survey, the grid system used customarily in colonial-site archeology was not appropriate here, and a different system had to be subst.i.tuted. It was decided in 1956 to begin, as in 1954, at obvious points of visible evidence and to follow to their limits the footings of walls and buildings as they were encountered, rather than to remove all of the disturbed soil within a limited area. By itself this was a simple process, but to record accurately what was found by this method and relate the features to each other required the use mainly of an alidade and a stadia rod. Only to a limited extent were some exploratory trenches dug and careful observations made of the color and density of soil, so as to detect features such as wooden house foundations, postholes, and trash pits. Once located, such evidence had to be approached meticulously with a shaving or slicing technique, again taking careful note of soil changes in profile.

All this required the establishment of an accurate baseline and a number of control points by means of alidade and stadia-rod measurements. Then eight points for triangulation purposes in the form of iron pipes were established at intervals along the south side of the highway, east of its turn at the clump of trees, on the basis of which the accompanying maps were plotted. The full extent of the excavations is not shown in detail on these maps, particularly in connection with the walls and structures. The walls, for example, were exposed in trenches 5 feet wide. Similar trenches were dug around the house foundations as evidence of them was revealed.

IX

_Wall System_

DESCRIPTIONS OF EXCAVATIONS

On April 2, 1956, the junction point of the three walls found in the 1954 test was reexcavated. The bottom layer of horizontally placed stones 1.8-1.9 feet wide was found _in situ_, while most of the vertical stones from the second course had been broken or knocked off by repeated plowing. Construction of the highway had completely removed a section of the wall. The corner of the two brick walls was revealed to have been superimposed on the northernmost foundation block of the stone wall, thus indicating that the stone wall preceded the building of the brick ones. The upper stone block that had been removed to make room for this brick corner still lay a few feet to the east where it had been cast aside in the 18th century. This part of the stone wall, together with its continuation beyond the highway to the creek, was designated Wall A (figs. 21 and 24).

Exposure of the brick wall running westward from Wall A (designated Wall A-I) disclosed broken gaps in the brickwork, the gaps ranging from 1.8 to 3 feet in length, and the intervening stretches of intact wall, from 7.33 to 8 feet. Eight-foot s.p.a.cings are normal for the settings of modern wooden fence posts, as such a fence south of the highway ill.u.s.trated. It is a.s.sumed, therefore, that, following the destruction of the exposed part of the brick wall, a wooden fence was built along the same line, requiring the removal of bricks to permit the setting of fence posts (fig. 26).

Wall A-I intersected the modern highway at an acute angle, disappeared thereunder and reappeared beyond. South of the clump of trees it ab.u.t.ted another wall of different construction which ran continuously in the same direction for 28 feet. Because of their manner of construction, the two walls at their point of juncture were not integrated and, hence, probably were constructed at different times. The 28-foot section later proved to be the south wall of the mansion, designated as B. (This wall will be considered when that structure is described, as will another section that continued for less than 4 feet to the point where a 12-foot modern driveway crossed over it.)

To the west of the driveway another wall (B-I), still in line with Wall A-I, extended toward the "gutt." Of this only one brick course remained, a brick and a half thick. About midway in its length were slight indications that the wall footings had been expanded for a short distance, as though for a gate; however, the crumbled condition of the brick and mortar fragments made this inference uncertain.

Near the edge of the "gutt," 146 feet from the southwest corner of the Structure B main foundation, Wall B-I terminated in an oblique-angled corner, the other side of which was designated Wall B-II. This wall ran 384 feet in a southwesterly direction under trees and beneath a boathouse along the "gutt," ending at the back of Potomac Creek. It was constructed of rough blocks of the fossil-imbedded marl that underlies Marlborough and crops out along the Potomac sh.o.r.e. Walls A, A-I, B-I, and B-II, together with the creek bank, form an enclosure measuring a little over two acres.

Returning to the point of beginning excavation, the brick wall which is extended north from stone wall A (designated as Wall A-II) was followed for a distance of 175 feet. Like Wall A-I, it was a brick and a half thick (a row of headers lying beside a row of stretchers), and was represented for a distance of 36 feet by two courses. Beyond this point for another 30 feet, a s.h.i.+ft in the contour of the land, allowing deeper plowing in relation to the original height of the wall, had caused the second course of bricks to be knocked off. From there on, only occasional cl.u.s.ters of bricks remained, the evidence of the wall consisting otherwise of a thin layer of mortar and brick.

Wall A-II terminated in a corner. The other side of the corner was of the same construction and ran westerly at right angles for a total distance of 264.5 feet, pa.s.sing beneath the highway (north of the turn) and stopping against the southeast corner of a structure designated E.

Extending south from Structure E was an 84-foot wall (Wall E) a brick and a half thick, laid this time in Flemish bond (header-stretcher-header) in several courses.

Another east-west wall, of which only remnants were found, joined Wall E and its southern terminus. Six feet west of Wall E this fragmentary wall widened from three to four bricks in thickness in what appeared to be the foundation of a wide gate, with a heavy iron hinge-pintle _in situ_; beyond this it disappeared in a jumble of brickbats.

Upon completion of the wall excavations, a return was made to Wall A, where a visible feature had been observed, although not investigated.

This feature was a three-sided, westward projection from Wall A, similarly built of Aquia-type stone, forming with Wall A a long, narrow enclosure. The southern east-west course of this structure meets Wall A approximately 62 feet north of the creek-side terminus of Wall A and extends 59 feet to the west. The north-south course runs 100 feet to its junction with the northern east-west segment. The latter segment is only 55 feet long, so the enclosure is not quite symmetrical. No excavations were made here. However, in line with the north cross wall of the enclosure, trenches were dug at four intervals in a futile effort to locate evidence of a boundary wall in the present orchard lying to the east of the road to the creek.

SIGNIFICANT ARTIFACTS a.s.sOCIATED WITH WALLS

_Date_ _Artifact_ _of Manufacture_ _Provenience_

Wine-bottle base. Diameter, 1735-1750 Adjacent to junction 5-1/8 inches. of Walls A, A-I, (USNM 59.1717 fig. 29; ill. 35) A-II, 13 inches above wall base and undisturbed soil.

Wine-bottle base. Diameter, 1750-1770 Surface 4-5/8 inches.

(USNM 60.117)

Polychrome Chinese-porcelain 1730-1770 In disturbed soil teacup base. between junction of Blue-and-white porcelain sherds. Walls A, A-I, A-II, (USNM 60.118; 60.121) and modern Highway 621.

Buckley coa.r.s.e earthenware. (USNM Surface 60.80; 60.108; 60.136; 60.140)

Staffords.h.i.+re white salt-glazed ca. 1760 Surface ware.

(USNM 60.106)

Bra.s.s knee buckle. (USNM 60.139; ca. 1760 Surface fig. 83e; ill. 49)

Hand-forged nails. Surface

Sc.r.a.ping tool. (USNM 60.133; fig. Surface 89b; ill. 76)

Fragment of bung extractor. (USNM Surface 60.134; fig. 89d)

Sherds of heavy lead-gla.s.s decanter ca. 1720 Trenches beside Wall and knop of large winegla.s.s or B-2.

pedestal-bowlstem. (USNM 60.149)