Here is an interesting article from July 2008 about a dig in New Orleans. I found the article on WWLTV.com, and here is the full text for you.
NEW ORLEANS — The first archaeological dig at one of the nation’s oldest cathedrals has turned up a mix of new finds in the heart of the French Quarter. Discoveries behind St. Louis Cathedral include a small silver crucifix from the 1770s or 1780s and traces of previously unknown buildings dating back to around the city’s founding in 1718.
Shannon Lee Dawdy, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, shows off some of the relics found during an archeological dig behind St. Louis Cathedral. Achaeologists digging behind St. Louis Cathedral are unearthing nearly three centuries of history: the porcelain head of a tiny doll, an ersatz colonial-era pipe from the 1800s, bits of pottery that Indians may have traded to the men who built New Orleans.
The crucifix might have belonged to Pere Antoine, a Capuchin monk who was rector of the cathedral which dominates Jackson Square, lead archaeologist Shannon Lee Dawdy told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Pere Antoine came to New Orleans under the Spanish Inquisition as the Rev. Antonio de Sedella and lived in a hut behind the cathedral, where he was rector from the late 1700s until his death in 1829.
The crucifix “was found in a corner of the garden, near where Pere Antoine’s hut was said to have been and dates to the period near the beginning of his time in New Orleans (1770s-1780s),” Dawdy wrote in an e-mail. The artifact will be sent to experts for evaluation.
Dawdy, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, and eight students spent a month excavating St. Anthony’s Garden, a fenced area behind the cathedral. They concluded their work earlier this week.
The cathedral was completed in 1851 to replace one that burned down, along with most of the city, in 1788.
Until now there has never been an archaeological excavation anywhere on its property, said cathedral spokeswoman Nancy Averett. After Hurricane Katrina toppled the garden’s live oaks and sycamores in August 2005, the cathedral secured a Getty Foundation grant to restore the garden and dig into its history.
Finds have included clay pipes, children’s marbles, remains of china dolls and bits of what may be some of the first Indian trade goods in Louisiana.
The crucifix is about 1 3/4 inches high; the face of Christ might fit on half of a grain of rice. The right arm of the cross and the right side and chest of the figure of Christ are badly corroded. The figure’s right arm and much of the minuscule face are gone.
Dawdy said the most significant find is probably the foundation of a hut where archaeologists uncovered a mixture of French artifacts from the early 1700s and fragments of Native American pottery, some painted red and others tempered with crushed shells.
A thin L of dark soil in a layer several feet below the surface showed where wood walls had rotted — probably from a temporary hut where settlers may have lived while clearing trees for the first settlement, Dawdy said. In the corner of the L was a square post-hole — a sign of French axes.
The walls don’t line up with the street grid set in 1724, so the hut probably was built before that and may be from the settlement’s very start, Dawdy said in an interview.
In another pit, Dawdy and her crew found sloping bricks from a colonial sidewalk and — below that — cypress timbers from another building not on any city map.
Unlike the hut, those timbers align with the 1724 street grid, Dawdy said Tuesday. She said the building probably dates from the 1720s or ’30s.
“There are at least six timbers in place — three upright and three running lengthwise,” she said. “We just caught a piece of it.”
She hopes to return for further excavation.
“This site is by far the richest and most interesting one I have worked on yet in New Orleans and the excellent preservation of the frontier phase of the city’s founding makes it the `Jamestown’ of the Lower Mississippi Valley,” she wrote in her e-mail.
I stumbled on a great article a little while ago and I wanted to share it with you here. It talks about how a 220-year-old mystery has been solved. On May 19, 1780 darkness fell upon New England and for the longest time it was a mystery as to what happened. They had theories of a forest fire, but no proof. In 2007 it looks like they found proof of a huge fire in Canada. Here is a link to the article in Wired (which links to even more information elsewhere on the web), and here is the text for you to read:
1780: In the midst of the Revolutionary War, darkness descends on New England at midday. Many people think Judgment Day is at hand. It will be remembered as New England’s Dark Day.
Diaries of the preceding days mention smoky air and a red sun at morning and evening. Around noon this day, an early darkness fell: Birds sang their evening songs, farm animals returned to their roosts and barns, and humans were bewildered.
Some went to church, many sought the solace of the tavern, and more than a few nearer the edges of the darkened area commented on the strange beauty of the preternatural half-light. One person noted that clean silver had the color of brass.
It was darkest in northeastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine, but it got dusky through most of New England and as far away as New York. At Morristown, New Jersey, Gen. George Washington noted it in his diary.
In the darkest area, people had to take their midday meals by candlelight. A Massachusetts resident noted, “In some places, the darkness was so great that persons could not see to read common print in the open air.” In New Hampshire, wrote one person, “A sheet of white paper held within a few inches of the eyes was equally invisible with the blackest velvet.”
At Hartford, Col. Abraham Davenport opposed adjourning the Connecticut legislature, thus: “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.”
When it was time for night to fall, the full moon failed to bring light. Even areas that had seen a pale sun in the day could see no moon at all. No moon, no stars: It was the darkest night anyone had seen. Some people could not sleep and waited through the long hours to see if the sun would ever rise again. They witnessed its return the morning of May 20. Many observed the anniversary a year later as a day of fasting and prayer.
Professor Samuel Williams of Harvard gathered reports from throughout the affected areas to seek an explanation. A town farther north had reported “a black scum like ashes” on rainwater collected in tubs. A Boston observer noted the air smelled like a “malt-house or coal-kiln.” Williams noted that rain in Cambridge fell “thick and dark and sooty” and tasted and smelled like the “black ash of burnt leaves.”
As if from a forest fire to the north? Without railroad or telegraph, people would not know: No news could come sooner than delivered on horseback, assuming the wildfire was even near any European settlements in the vast wilderness.
But we know today that the darkness had moved southwest at about 25 mph. And we know that forest fires in Canada in 1881, 1950 and 2002 each cast a pall of smoke over the northeastern United States.
A definitive answer came in 2007. In the International Journal of Wildland Fire, Erin R. McMurry of the University of Missouri forestry department and co-authors combined written accounts with fire-scar evidence from Algonquin Provincial Park in eastern Ontario to document a massive wildfire in the spring of 1780 as the “likely source of the infamous Dark Day of 1780.
The article I posted on a few days ago was actually written back in July. This past Wednesday there was a new article written about the goings on with the Fort. I thought I would share this new article here with you. It comes to us from the New York Times.
Historic Fort Sustains a Breach
By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: September 3, 2008
TICONDEROGA, N.Y. — Perched on a wind-swept bluff above Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga has a timeless presence. Its thick stone walls appear impenetrable, more than two centuries after being contested, variously, by French, British and American troops.
This summer, the national historic landmark — called Fort Ti for short — began its 100th season as an attraction open to the public with two causes for celebration: the unveiling of a splashy new education center, and an increase in visitors, reversing a long decline.
But instead of celebrating, its caretakers issued an S.O.S., warning that the fort, one of the state’s most important historic sites, was struggling for survival, largely because of a breach between the fort’s greatest benefactor — an heir of the Mars candy fortune — and its executive director.
The problem is money: The fort had a shortfall of $2.5 million for the education center. The president of the board that governs the fort, which is owned by a nonprofit organization, said in an internal memo this summer that the site would be “essentially broke” by the end of the year. The memo proposed a half-dozen solutions, including the sale of artwork from the group’s collection.
“The fort is facing a financial crisis, which puts its very existence in question,” the president, Peter S. Paine Jr., said in the memo, which first surfaced in local newspapers last month.
The economic troubles are compounded by the recent falling-out between the fort’s longtime executive director, Nicholas Westbrook, and benefactors the fort had come to rely upon: Forrest E. Mars Jr. and his wife, Deborah Clarke Mars, a Ticonderoga native. It was the couple’s idea to build the education center.
In a February e-mail message that ended up being reported by the news media, Mr. Mars told Mr. Westbrook that the “ride is over” and, in case there was any doubt about what he meant, that the couple would “not be writing any further checks.” He chastised Mr. Westbrook for making “nasty comments about Mars money” and accused him of “not communicating and running away from decisions.”
At the July opening of the new center, officially called the Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center, Mrs. Mars, who had abruptly resigned as the fort’s board president in late January, was conspicuously absent. In recent weeks, board members have squabbled over who is to blame for the rupture as they try to solve the fort’s pressing financial problems.
“Running off our chief benefactors and putting us in this situation in the 12th hour before the opening of the new education center is unforgivable,” said one board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the awkwardness of continuing to work with Mr. Westbrook.
For his part, Mr. Westbrook, who serves at the pleasure of the board of trustees, said in an interview on Aug. 20 that he had no immediate plans to leave, explaining that it had been his dream since the age of 6, when he first visited Fort Ticonderoga, to one day lead it. He has been executive director for 20 years.
In a recent news release, however, Mr. Paine announced that Mr. Westbrook “has reiterated to the board his desire to retire in the course of next year as part of the planned, orderly succession.”
Mr. Westbrook declined to comment on his relationship with the Marses, saying only that they have “been enormously generous and supportive, and I consider them very, very good friends.” But of Mrs. Mars’s tenure as the fort’s board president, he said, “To be a hands-on president of this organization from a house in Wyoming or from the south of France is very difficult.”
It is not clear what prompted the breach between Mr. Westbrook and the Marses, but Mr. Mars’s e-mail message suggested that perhaps the relationship had grown too cozy. “I think you should remember,” he wrote to Mr. Westbrook, “that: a) Deb and I helped pay to send your son to Northwood,” a boarding school in Lake Placid, N.Y. He continued: “b) we offered and had your other son here in Wyoming for an apprenticeship working with iron and steel; c) your vacations to Antarctica and other ones were paid for by us.”
Efforts to reach Mr. Mars, who is often described in news reports as a reclusive billionaire, were unsuccessful. A caretaker at the family’s ranch in Wyoming said that he and Mrs. Mars were away. Mr. Mars did not respond to messages left at Mars Inc., where he retired as chief executive in 1999.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Paine, the new board president, said that he “supported both Mr. Westbrook and the Marses.”
From the perspective of some board members, the friendship had seemed a godsend — that is, until it soured. While some 500 people made donations to the $23 million construction project, which included the new education center and upgrading utilities throughout the fort, the Marses contributed well over half the cost.
“The fact that they left,” said Mr. Paine of the Marses, “was unhappy and unfortunate and regrettable. There was no formal pledge by them to cover the $2.5 million, but they had been extremely generous and the hope was that they would fund at least some of that as part of their ongoing support. Their departure was not helpful.”
The airing of internal disagreements has unsettled the fort’s supporters, among them descendants of William Ferris Pell, who bought the fort’s ruins in 1820 and built a country estate, called the Pavilion, a cannon shot away on the shores of Lake Champlain. In 1909, another generation of the family restored the fort and opened it to the public.
“The fort has always been a low-key private institution, and the Marses are obsessively private people, and the fact that this has happened has caused a lot of distress,” said Deborah Pell Dunning, who visited her grandparents at the Pavilion as a child and who is writing a book about Fort Ticonderoga and the Pell family.
Since a meeting of the board of trustees in July, the fort has narrowed the $2.5 million gap to $1 million by dipping into its endowment. “We used our rainy-day money, but we need that money back because that’s what we use to run the business,” Mr. Paine said.
The shortfall may not seem like much, Mr. Paine said, but for an institution with an endowment of less than $5 million, “that is an enormous number.” In addition, the fort has an outstanding construction loan of $1.7 million.
Among the strategies for getting the fort back on sound financial footing, as outlined in Mr. Paine’s memo, is the sale of artwork. The fort owns several paintings, including one by Thomas Cole, and numerous valuable artifacts. The most extreme solution on the list was closing the fort, although Mr. Paine said it was “designed primarily to get people’s attention.”
As a state-chartered museum, however, the fort is subject to regulations of the New York State Board of Regents. A new regulation relates specifically to the sale of artwork and forbids museums and historic sites to use proceeds from such sales to cover operating expenses or to pay down debt. Rather, they can be used only to acquire new works or conserve existing artwork.
Mr. Paine makes the case that the historic structures that make up the fort are the “collection.” And work on the education center amounted to “conservation” of that collection since it entailed upgrading utilities and combing the grounds for additional artifacts. Archaeologists found, among other things, an eight-inch rosary dating to the 1750s inside the fort’s original ovens.
The education center, while new construction, restores the “original skyline” to that of the 1750s, as Mr. Westbrook likes to say, in that it is based on the floor plan of a warehouse for gunpowder that stood on the site.
But Cliff Siegfried, director of the New York State Museum and the State Department of Education’s assistant commissioner for museums, said that Mr. Paine’s line of reasoning was problematic. “There have been a number of buildings and sites that have tried to make that argument, and we’ve resisted that argument each time,” he said.
Still, he insisted that the Regents were committed to the fort’s survival. “Its importance to the economy of that region and the history of New York is obvious,” he said. “We’re going to work with them to make sure that it doesn’t fail. This is a hiccup in its history.”
Here is an interesting article that was published in July at PostStar.com, regarding some internal turmoil occurring at Fort Ticonderoga is having. Here is the text of the article:
TICONDEROGA – In recent days, re-enactors dressed as French and English soldiers have been pretending to gun each other down while attacking and defending what we know as Fort Ticonderoga, part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Carillon.
Meanwhile, the fort’s trustees have been continuing, in earnest, a battle of their own, struggling over the museum’s leadership and its future after the angry departure of its largest financial benefactor and president of its board.
The Battle of Carillon took place in 1758 among log barricades French troops built outside the fort as a much larger contingent of British soldiers bore down on them.
The French troops slaughtered the British in the barricades, killing 2,000 while losing only 440 of their own.
The Battle of Carillon was the bloodiest on American soil until the Civil War more than a century later, but the British got revenge the next year, marching on the fort again and forcing the French out.
As they evacuated Fort Carillon, the French troops blew up its powder magazine, a munitions warehouse they called the magasin du Roi.
That building was reconstructed recently as the Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center, part of a $22 million project paid for in large part by the woman whose name it bears.
Mars grew up in Ticonderoga, and some of her family still live there. She married Forrest Mars Jr., one of three Mars siblings who inherited the Mars candy company fortune.
Forrest Mars, worth $14 billion, is the 46th richest person in the world, according to Fortune magazine.
Since Deborah’s happy match, with many millions at her disposal, she has turned a philanthropic gaze on her hometown and, in particular, her hometown’s historic landmark, Fort Ticonderoga.
Starting with a $2 million gift nine years ago, Deborah and Forrest Mars launched a capital campaign to rebuild the magasin du Roi with a historically accurate exterior and modern interior, including a theater, galleries and exhibit and meeting space.
The Mars project would not only enhance the historic value of the fort’s campus; it would transform the museum from a seasonal attraction, where many of the buildings lacked insulation and plumbing, into a year-round center of teaching and study.
“Our huge frustration, lo these many years, as educators, is that the fort is closed when kids are studying the American Revolution,” said Nicholas Westbrook, the museum’s executive director. “We had no water, had no heat in the existing buildings. Now it will be possible for school groups to come in February, for elderhostel programs to come in November.
“When Forrest and Deb made the lead gift in this project, back in 1999,” Westbrook said, “it was not so much about the building, but leading Fort Ticonderoga into the new century. You, we and they are going to see that dream come forth and blossom.”
Modern-day battle
If Deborah Mars had gotten her way, however, that dream would be blossoming without the presence of Nicholas Westbrook.
As the Marses’ energetic interest in the fort continued and strengthened, with Deborah Mars serving two terms as president of the board, the once-close connection between them and Westbrook soured.
Deborah Mars took part in an effort by some board members to shuffle Westbrook into retirement, a push that sparked a vigorous push-back from other board members.
Westbrook survived, but, in the aftermath of the struggle, Deborah Mars quit the board and, more ominously for the fort, she and her husband cut off the cash flow.
“Dear Nick,” begins a Feb. 17 e-mail from Forrest Mars to Westbrook, “The ride is over. Deb and I are out for good.”
Forrest Mars’ goodbye e-mail, which was leaked to The Post-Star, was sent to Westbrook and copied to leaders of the museum’s board of trustees — Anthony D. Pell, Edward Pell, Terry Beaty, Calvin Staudt and Alexandra Pell Kuhel.
All five trustees have, over the last month, either refused to comment on the internal turmoil at the fort or not returned repeated telephone messages left for them at work and at home.
Some people close to the fort — board members, volunteers, community leaders and former employees — have expressed chagrin at its problems, but they are reluctant to make things worse by criticizing.
Others have talked more openly, but refused to be quoted.
All have expressed reverence for the fort’s unique place in American history and hope that it will flourish in the future.
But the fort is saddled with long-term infrastructure problems, such as the bulging and crumbling of the reconstructed stone walls and the decaying of The Pavilion, a historic lakeside house on the museum’s grounds.
With the fort also experiencing a decline in attendance, its future currently looks as precarious as that of the French forces in 1758.
Two sides to story
Forrest Mars’ e-mail sets out a litany of complaints about Westbrook’s performance as the museum’s executive director.
Mars said Westbrook failed to communicate regularly with him and Deborah, even though she was the board president, and they were the fort’s largest benefactors and had done personal favors for Westbrook, such as help “pay to send your son to Northwood,” a prep school in Lake Placid.
“We will not be attending any more meetings, the ball, or the opening of the center,” the e-mail states. “It follows of course that we will not be writing any further checks, so you will not be able to make the nasty comments about Mars Money which have come back as you could predict.”
Westbrook refused to address any of the specific complaints in Mars’ e-mail, but he did contradict some of the statements generally.
“My wife and I consider Deb and Forrest very good friends,” he said. “That hasn’t changed one bit.”
It was difficult for Deborah Mars to keep up with the demands of being board president from her home in Wyoming, Westbrook said.
“She brought a great deal to the table as our fearless leader,” he said. “Typically, our presidents during my tenure have physically been able to be here maybe three times a month. When you’re coming from Wyoming, that’s a pretty difficult level to keep up with. … It was pretty darned hard for her.”
As for the future of the Marses’ patronage, Westbrook said, “Who knows what anybody’s benefactions will be?”
But he was expecting them to be at the opening of the Deborah Clarke Mars center on Sunday, Westbrook said.
“I cannot imagine them not being there, after pouring their hearts and souls into it,” he said.
A May 19 e-mail from Forrest Mars, responding to several questions sent to him by The Post-Star, says the couple will be unavailable during the opening of the center named for Deborah Mars.
“We are at sea during the dates for the opening of the center — Bermuda to Halifax,” he wrote.
Mars also addressed the couple’s future connection to the museum: “I do not know if Deborah would entertain returning to the board, but I do not believe they would have her, and I do not know if she would accept. I was not a board member, only a volunteer, so I do not expect to be asked again to fill that role.”
Missing the money
After Deborah Mars’ departure from the board, Peter Paine, a longtime trustee of the museum, took over as president.
Paine is a lawyer and the president of Champlain National Bank in Willsboro. He has been active in Adirondack environmental and civic causes for decades.
Paine acknowledged that the abrupt departure of the Marses from the ambitious project they led has left the fort in difficult financial circumstances.
“Yes, the fort is facing some financial constraints,” he said, “in part as a result of the departure of Marses, particularly the timing of it. We’re looking at a series of things we could do to get the institute back to health.”
A recent memo from Paine to the fort’s trustees puts the situation more starkly.
The fort, the memo says, was left with $2.5 million in unpaid bills on the Mars Education Center.
“In oversimplified terms, the fort is running through its available endowment funds to pay the MEC bills and, in the absence of a MAJOR infusion of funds, the fort will be essentially broke by the end of 2008,” the memo says.
The memo also lays out the agenda for the board of trustees meeting on Monday and mentions seven strategies for financial survival, as follows:
- short-term financing to create negotiating room;
- new capital campaign for $3-5 million;
- bail-out grant from state;
- takeover by state or federal government;
- IDA financing for about $3-5 million;
- sell assets (land: Fernette Farm; major objects: Cole painting; Polk, et al., paintings); and/or
- close in 2009.
But Paine had earlier discounted that last option.
“I’m really optimistic we’ll come through all of this,” he said. “I think the fort will survive.”
Check out another article on this topic here from Yahoo News.
This past Saturday there was a Revolutionary War Reenactment taking place in Boston, but this time it was with bubbles and water guns. It was hosted by the Banditos Misteriosos, and was done for pure joy and entertainment. Here is a video from the event:
Recently I caught wind of an interesting article regarding the tent that George Washington supposedly used at Valley Forge. Someone shared the link with us on one of my lists, and I thought you might find it interesting.
Historians question Washington’s Valley Forge tent
Associated Press • July 7, 2008
Some historians now suspect that the tent — actually the 21-by-13-foot roof and one side panel — was not the one that sheltered Washington during the winter encampment of 1777-78, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday.
Evidence uncovered during preservation work on the tent strongly suggests that it is one Washington picked up shortly after leaving Valley Forge that June, said Dona McDermott, a National Park Service archivist who works at Valley Forge.
According to a bill from Philadelphia merchant Plunket Fleeson, the material for a set of tents made for Washington in 1775 was red-striped ticking, linen fabric with a distinctive weave, McDermott said.
It was assumed that a Fleeson-made tent was displayed at Valley Forge, but the forensic work showed that the fabric had thin blue lines.
The order for that tent was placed during the winter encampment, according to a letter book belonging to James Abeel, who was in charge of all camp equipment and quartermaster stores at Valley Forge.
That tent, and others ordered at the same time, were delivered in June 1778, according to Abeel’s records.
“It is clear that the surviving pieces were not the ones used at Valley Forge during the encampment,” McDermott said.
But R. Scott Stephenson, curator of the collection owned by the American Revolution Center, which includes the tent, is reserving judgment.
“The research is very much a work in progress,” he said. “It suggests that it may have been constructed during the encampment winter, but this is all very tentative. It is very early to be making definitive statements.”
McDermott said Washington used the tent in 1781 at Yorktown, Va., where the British surrender effectively ended the war.
The tent was carefully dismantled in October 2003 and taken to Williamsburg, Va., for the conservation work. It remains in storage and is expected to be the centerpiece of the American Revolution Center, a museum proposed for Lower Providence.
That project, on privately owned land within the congressional boundaries of Valley Forge National Historical Park, is being challenged by several residents and the National Parks Conservation Association.
It sounds like the final say on this is still up in the air. But I thought it was very interesting how detailed the research can get.
Recently the New York Times had an article about how George Washington’s boyhood home has been found. I found it to be an intriguing read. Here is a link to the article. And here is the text for you to read:
Researchers announced Wednesday that remains excavated in the last three years were those of the long-sought dwelling, on the old family farm in Virginia 50 miles south of Washington. The house stood on a terrace overlooking the Rappahannock River, where legend has it the boy threw a stone or a coin across to Fredericksburg.
On the subject of legend, the archaeologists who made the discovery could no more tell a lie than young George. No, there was not a single cherry tree anywhere around, not even a stump or a rusty hatchet. The tale of the boy owning up to whacking his father’s prized cherry tree, the one thing most people think they know of Washington’s youth, has long since been discredited as apocryphal.
But finding the house, archaeologists and historians say, may yield insights into the circumstances in which Washington grew up. Actual documentary evidence of his formative years is scant.
“What we see at this site is the best available window into the setting that nurtured the father of our country,” Philip Levy, an archaeologist and associate professor of history at the University of South Florida, said in an announcement of the discovery.
Dr. Levy and other members of the excavation team said the foundations, stone-lined cellars and other remains suggested that this was far from being the rustic cottage of common perception, but instead one befitting a family of the local gentry. It was a much larger one-and-a-half-story residence, with perhaps eight rooms and an adjacent structure for the kitchen.
David Muraca, director of archaeology for the George Washington Foundation, said the size, characteristics and location of the structure, as well as many artifacts from the time of Washington’s youth, had led experts to conclude that this was indeed the house they were looking for. “This is it,” Mr. Muraca said firmly.
The announcement was made by the foundation, owner of the National Historic Landmark site called Ferry Farm. Archaeologists described the excavations in a telephone news conference arranged by the National Geographic Society, a supporter of the research.
George was 6 when the family moved to the farm in 1738. His father, Augustine, had bought the farm, which then covered 600 acres, to be closer to an iron furnace that he managed. The father and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, and their six children occupied a house that had been built earlier in the century.
Among the few things known of that period are the death of a baby sister, a house fire on Christmas Eve 1740 and the death of Augustine, in 1743. George eventually inherited the farm and lived in the house until his early 20s, though he took to spending more time with his half-brother Lawrence at another family property, later known as Mount Vernon.
Washington’s mother lived in the house until 1772, when she moved to Fredericksburg, and the farm was sold five years later. The house was demolished sometime in the early 19th century; an 1833 painting shows its ruins. Other old buildings and newer ones were destroyed, their timber probably burned as fuel, when the farm was occupied by Union soldiers in the Civil War.
The search for anything left of the boyhood home began in earnest seven years ago. Three likely sites were excavated, Mr. Muraca said. At the first, two years of work turned up ruins from the 17th century. The second set of ruins proved to be from a house built in the mid-19th century.
For the last three years, the research team — sometimes as many as 50 workers in the field and laboratories — turned over the stones and soil at the remaining site. “If we didn’t hit here, we had no other place to look,” Mr. Muraca said.
From sections of foundation stones, the bases of two chimneys and remains of four cellars, the archaeologists determined the dimensions of the main house, a rectangle 53 by 37 feet, not counting the separate kitchen. Other evidence from debris indicated that the house had a clapboard facade and wooden roof shingles.
Mark Wenger, an architectural historian for Ferry Farm, said the house appeared to have had a central hallway with front rooms and back rooms on each side and possibly three rooms upstairs under the slope of the roof. The front rooms faced on the river, which in those days was navigable to large sailing ships.
“It was a very nice gentry house,” Mr. Wenger said, at a time when most people made do with houses of only one or two rooms.
The team found some charred ruins from the documented fire, but they seemed to be confined to one small area of the house. So stories that the family was forced out into the cold winter to live in outbuildings are suspect, the researchers said.
By the end of last year, Mr. Muraca said, “all our data lined up, and we felt that beyond a doubt we had found the Washington house.”
Artifacts from the Washington period were crucial. These included wine bottles, knives and forks, pieces of small figurines, wig curlers, bone toothbrush handles and a clay pipe with a Masonic crest that just possibly was George’s. Fragments of an elaborate Wedgwood tea set, presumably belonging to Mary Washington, showed that the family’s fortunes had revived after the hardships immediately following the father’s death.
The Washington foundation said archaeologists would continue the search for other buildings and gardens at Ferry Farm. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the house young George grew up in.
They also had a slideshow with a few pictures of the site and things they found there. I am sure that there will be more information regarding this site released in the coming months, should be pretty interesting to say the least.
