The Archaeology of Martin's Hundred: Part 1, Interpretive Studies; Part 2, Artifact Catalog 9781512819717

Table of contents :
Contents of Part I
List of Illustrations
List of Plates
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Who, What, When, and Where of Martin’s Hundred
Chapter 2. The People of Martin’s Hundred: The Physical Evidence
Chapter 3. Where They Lived, Worked, Fenced, and Sometimes Hid
Chapter 4. Arms and Armor in Martin’s Hundred
Chapter 5. Of Pots and Pertinence
Chapter 6. The Small Finds
Chapter 7. The Glass
Chapter 8. The Tobacco Pipes
Chapter 9. The Pits
Postscript
Fronttmatter2
Contents of Part II
List of Figures
User’s Introduction
Appendix I. Faunal Analyses
Appendix II. Index of Illustrated Tobacco-pipe Marks
Appendix III. Cited Excavation Register Entries
Appendix IV. Ceramic Nomenclature
Bibliography

Citation preview

The Archaeology of Martin’s Hundred

Frontispiece. An aerial view of the remaining Carter’s Grove acres photographed in 1967. Wolstenholme Towne lies under the dark planting flanking the James River and Site A in the L-shaped area of lighter planting adjacent to the white parking lot.

The Archaeology of Martin’s Hundred By Ivor Noël Hume and Audrey Noël Hume

Part I: Interpretive Studies

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION Williamsburg, Virginia

© 2001 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Noël Hume, Ivor. The archaeology of Martin’s Hundred / Ivor Noël Hume and Audrey Noël Hume. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-924171-85-5 (set : acid-free paper) 1. Martin’s Hundred Site (Va.) 2. Carter’s Grove (Va.) 3. Wolstenholme Towne (Va.) 4. Williamsburg Region (Va.)—Antiquities. 5. Plantation life—Virginia—Williamsburg Region—History—17th century. 6. Excavations (Archaeology)—Virginia—Williamsburg Region. 7. Carter, Robert, 1663-1732—Homes and haunts—Virginia—Williamsburg Region. 8. Williamsburg Region (Va.)—Biography. I. Noël Hume, Audrey. II. Title. F234.M378 N6253 2001 975.5'4252—dc21 2001001394 Printed in the United States

To Nathaniel “Nate” Smith Foreman and Friend

Contents of Part I List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix List of Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Chapter 1

The Who, What, When, and Where of Martin’s Hundred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Chapter 2

The People of Martin’s Hundred: The Physical Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Chapter 3

Where They Lived, Worked, Fenced, and Sometimes Hid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

Chapter 4

Arms and Armor in Martin’s Hundred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

Chapter 5

Of Pots and Pertinence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

Chapter 6

The Small Finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Chapter 7

The Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185

Chapter 8

The Tobacco Pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

Chapter 9

The Pits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195

Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

List of Illustrations Illustration 1 Illustration 2 Illustration 3 Illustration 4 Illustration 5 Illustration 6 Illustration 7 Illustration 8 Illustration 9 Illustration 10 Illustration 11 Illustration 12 Illustration 13 Illustration 14 Illustration 15 Illustration 16 Illustration 17 Illustration 18 Illustration 19 Illustration 20 Illustration 21 Illustration 22 Illustration 23 Illustration 24 Illustration 25 Illustration 26 Illustration 27 Illustration 28 Illustration 29 Illustration 30 Illustration 31 Illustration 32 Illustration 33 Illustration 34 Illustration 35 Illustration 36 Illustration 37 Illustration 38 Illustration 39

The principal Martin’s Hundred sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Location of cemetery at the south end of the Harwood plantation . . . . . . . .60 Plan of the domestic occupation area of Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 Sectional and plan view of the Company Compound’s male massacre victim’s grave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 Plan and sectional views of wood mold at bottom of Grave C8 . . . . . . . . . . . .72 Plan of the Domestic Unit area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 The buildings of Martin’s Hundred Sites A–H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 The buildings of Martin’s Hundred Sites A–H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Plan of the Wolstenholme Barn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 Plan of Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 Plan of the Boyse House at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102 Detail plan and profile of central section of the Boyse House’s west wall . .103 Plan of the Fort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 Plan of the Company Compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 The Wolstenholme Towne site projected into the James River . . . . . . . . . . .110 Plan of Site D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 Plan of Site E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 Plan of Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 Plan of Site B showing the ceramic distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124 Plan of Site B showing the phosphate distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 Plan of Site B showing the calcium distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 Diagrammatic treatment of the Site A structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 Sectional and plan views of the Site A, Structure D cellar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132 Diagrammatic view of a snaphaunce firing mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140 The components of two matchlock firing mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 Engraving of the accouterments typical of a musketeer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143 The basket hilt of a broadsword from the Mary Rose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145 The basket hilt of a broadsword from the Sea Venture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146 The front and back of a half suit of armor showing those parts found in the Martin’s Hundred excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149 Diagram identifying the principal parts of a full suit of armor . . . . . . . . . . .150 The Site H tasset reconstructed as a simulated six-lame guard . . . . . . . . . . .151 A jack reconstructed and in detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152 Gorget fragments from Wolstenholme Towne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155 Gorget drawn to show how the lining elements were secured . . . . . . . . . . . .155 Examples of Iberian-style jars from a kiln site at Spanish Santa Elena . . . . .165 Two tinderboxes identical to the Site B specimen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176 The handle and base fragment from a chafing dish or brazier . . . . . . . . . . .183 The title page from The Roaring Girle of 1611 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190 Plan and section through Pit I at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 40 Illustration 41 Illustration 42 Illustration 43 Illustration 44 Illustration 45 Illustration 46 Illustration 47 Illustration 48 Illustration 49 Illustration 50 Illustration 51 Illustration 52 Illustration 53 Illustration 54

Examples of tobacco-pipe bowl shapes in use aboard the Warwick . . . . . . . .197 Plan and section through Pit II at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198 Plan and section through Pit III at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198 Plan and section through Pit V and Granny’s grave at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . .200 Plan and section through Pit 1 in the Fort’s dwelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203 Section through Pit 2 and the Fort well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206 Plan and sections through the Fort’s Pit 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207 Plan and section through the Fort’s Pit 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208 Transverse sections through the Potter’s Pond in the Company Compound at Site C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209 Plan and section through Pit A at Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213 Plan and section through the only pit at Site D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216 The sole datable pipe bowl from the Site D pit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216 Plan and section through Pit 2 at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .218 Plan and section through Pit 3 at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219 Plan and section through Pit 9 at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222

List of Plates Frontispiece Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3 Plate 4 Plate 5 Plate 6 Plate 7 Plate 8 Plate 9 Plate 10 Plate 11 Plate 12A Plate 12B Plate 13 Plate 14 Plate 15 Plate 16 Plate 17 Plate 18 Plate 19 Plate 20 Plate 21 Plate 22 Plate 23 Plate 24 Plate 25 Plate 26 Plate 27 Plate 28 Plate 29 Plate 30 Plate 31 Plate 32 Plate 33 Plate 34 Plate 35 Plate 36 Plate 37 Plate 38 Plate 39 Plate 40A Plate 40B Plate 41

An aerial view of the Carter’s Grove acres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ii Uncovering the remains of a dairy northeast of the Carter’s Grove mansion . . . . .4 Site A stripped bare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 The Fort at the close of excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Preliminary excavations at Site J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Detail from the 1651 Ferrar map of Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 A reconstruction of the Boyse compound prior to the attack of 1622 . . . . . . . . . .19 Wolstenholme Towne as it may have have looked prior to March 22, 1622 . . . . .22 Wolstenholme Towne during the 1622 attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Graves of a male and female at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 The Company Compound’s massacre victim in course of excavation . . . . . . . . . .65 The massacre victim’s skull after reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 Forensic artist Betty Gatliff reconstructing the massacre victim’s features . . . . . . .68 The finished portrait beside the original skull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 The northern half of the multiple grave outside the Boyse palisade . . . . . . . . . . .75 An X-ray photograph of the shoe or boot remains from the multiple grave at Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 The femurs of the Site H woman showing the thimble and key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Project foreman Nate Smith excavating the skeleton known as Granny . . . . . . . .79 Granny’s skull still in the plaster egg used to shift her to the lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 Granny’s legs in situ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 A reconstruction of Granny’s burial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Granny’s reburial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Another Site H female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84 A model of Wolstenholme Towne prior to the massacre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 Wolstenholme Towne as seen from the high ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 A model of the Wolstenholme Domestic Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 The Wolstenholme Barn excavated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 Aerial view of the Boyse compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 The Fort reconstructed as it may have looked prior to the 1622 attack . . . . . . . .104 The posthole and ash-filled slot pattern of Structure C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 The Fort fully excavated and seen from the same point of view as Pl. 27 . . . . . . .107 The excavated Company Compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 An engraving of the cottage where Samuel Butler was born in 1612 . . . . . . . . . .112 The Wolsteholme Domestic Unit after excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 Site D seen from the west . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 The sectioned hole and mold for a Site D structure post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 The Site B dwelling after excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 Site A around the time of census taking in 1624/25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128 Details of inscriptions found embossed within window lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 Examples of lead-workers’ and glaziers’ vises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 The excavated cellar hole at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131 The outer breastwork slot at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136 A sectional view of the slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136 A matchlock musket shown with components from Wolstenholme Towne . . . . .143

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Plate 42 Plate 43 Plate 44 Plate 45 Plate 46 Plate 47 Plate 48 Plate 49 Plate 50 Plate 51 Plate 52 Plate 53 Plate 54 Plate 55 Plate 56 Plate 57 Plate 58 Plate 59 Plate 60 Plate 61 Plate 62 Plate 63 Plate 64 Plate 65 Plate 66 Plate 67 Plate 68 Plate 69 Plate 70 Plate 71 Plate 72 Plate 73 Plate 74 Plate 75 Plate 76 Plate 77 Plate 78 Plate 79 Plate 80 Plate 81 Plate 82A Plate 82B Plate 83 Plate 84 Plate 85 Plate 86 Plate 87 Plate 88 Plate 89 Plate 90 Plate 91 Plate 92 Plate 93 Plate 94 Plate 95 Plate 96

A powder flask with measured charge nozzle shown with a nozzle from the Potter’s Pond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144 The hilt of a rapier whose swept guard parallels one from Site A . . . . . . . . . . . .144 A basket-hilted broadsword beside a guard and pommel from Site B . . . . . . . . .145 A maingauche beside a comparable blade from the Wolstenholme Fort . . . . . . . .147 A brandistock shown in open and retracted modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148 A tasset dated 1636 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151 A coat of mail with examples of mail fragments from Martin’s Hundred . . . . . .153 The back of a brigandine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153 Cavalier in the Saddle by Gerard Terboch (1617–1687) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154 A gorget in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154 The couter or elbow cop from Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155 The Fort close helmet in situ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156 The Fort helmet, pedestaled and with its steel box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156 The Fort helmet in the laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156 The Fort helmet after conservation, shown with its reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . .157 The Company Compound close helmet after conservation, shown with its reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157 Artifact artist Patricia Kidd drawing a pipkin from Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 A Bartmann bottle whose shields of arms parallel an example from Site H . . . .162 Fragments of two Westerwald jugs of ca. 1600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 The Westerwald jug from Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 A Seville flask or costrel from Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164 A tri-footed Dutch pipkin found at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166 Detail from The Poultry Yard by Jan Steen (1660) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 A redware version of the green-glazed Dutch pipkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 A group of vessel shapes from Potter’s Pond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 The alembic from Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 The locally made slipware dish from Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 The breach of the musket barrel from the Potter’s Pond with lead shot . . . . . . .172 An iron spatula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173 Seals from bales of Augsburg fustian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175 A Dutch tinderbox found at Site B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176 A Dutch tinderbox from a Seneca Iroquois village site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176 A tinderbox bearing the pointing hand, found at London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177 Tinned brass hooks and an eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178 A woven gold point and fragments of twisted silver wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178 Portrait of a Woman (1646) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179 An agricultural bill from the Potter’s Pond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181 An ax from Site H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181 Half a pair of fire tongs from Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181 A reproduction fireback being compared with fragments from the Fort . . . . . . .182 Pewter porringer comparable to that from the Fort well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182 Pewter porringer similar to that in Pl. 82A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182 Reproduction of the Fort porringer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183 A sheet-copper-alloy skillet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184 Boy Drinking Wine by Bartolomé Estéban Murillo (1617–1682) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186 A case bottle from Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186 Site supervisor Eric Klingelhofer at work in Pit III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199 The northeast corner of the Fort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 The second close helmet in situ in the Company Compound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .210 A bucket pot from Potter’s Pond and a similar handle fragment from Site A . . .211 The Potter’s Pond in course of excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212 Part of the large Westerwald stoneware jug in situ in Site B’s Pit A . . . . . . . . . . .214 Site B’s Pit A in course of excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215 Seville tin-glazed earthenware flasks in situ at Site A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220 Site A’s Pit 9 in course of excavation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223 Site A’s Pit 9 with its alembic exposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224

Preface Let’s face it, nobody in their right minds will read these parts from cover to cover, and it is not meant that they should. This is an accumulation of interpreted data to be used by archaeo-historians who in general may have a need to know, say, what the earliest rat trap used in Virginia looked like or who worked at Carter’s Grove, and which buildings were located where in Martin’s Hundred. They can learn the former from Part II and the latter from Part I, but when they need to know the kind of household the trap belonged to, they will need to refer to both parts. From the outset the expectation of that kind of readership dictated the structuring of the books, particularly of Part I. In most books, be their subjects fact or fiction, their information is accumulative. The reader, having read chapter one, does not need to be told again that the butler found his master dead in the library, a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets in his outstretched hand. When, in chapter two, the author refers to the clue of the bloodstained sonnets, he can safely assume that the reader knows where they were found. Here, unfortunately, one has no such assurance. The reader seeking information about dwelling construction will dive straight into Chapter 5 without first reading the historical background provided in Chapter 1. Consequently there is much cross-referencing and some repetition. At the same time, I have supposed that some users will be content to know that the rat trap fragment came from Site H (believed to have been the home of the John Boyse family), and do not care that the broken spring came from feature and stratum 4143A, representing the top fill of Pit II and comprising dark brown loam sealed by the plow zone. Although C.G. (Carter’s Grove) 4143A is included in the catalog entry, the more specific information is to be found under the same number in Part II, Appendix III. Had the field number C.G. 4143 not had an “A” suffix, the reader could (and should) conclude that the object came from disturbed topsoil and could conceivably be

from any date between that of the site’s first occupation and the last time it was plowed. Every archaeological study begins with a list of those persons who have contributed advice or hard labor. In a project like this one that spans more than a quarter-century it is inevitable that somebody would get left out and be mortally offended. I have to confess that if my life depended on it I could not remember every name, and so I beg leave to thank you all collectively. You know who you are, and I know that we could not have accomplished all that we did without your contribution—for which many thanks. There are, however, some names that must be singled out, and they are these: William Kelso and David Hazzard, who conducted the preliminary Carter’s Grove survey in 1970–1971; and Eric Klingelhofer, Nicholas Luccketti, and John Hamant, who supervised the several phases of work between 1976 and 1982, all of whom contributed interim reports that have been drawn on to create the present work. Special gratitude is due to Jamie May, Patricia Kidd, Ruth Anne Clark, Patty Munford, Catherine Caramia, and Kim Wagner for their field and artifact drawings, without which these parts would be useless. Thanks, too, to the late Lawrence Angel of the Smithsonian Institution for his examination and reports on the human remains, and to Stanley Olsen for his studies of the faunal remains—and who was in no way responsible for the returning crate of specimens being discovered broken and scattered on a railroad track somewhere in Arizona. I am particularly grateful to David Gaimster at the British Museum and to Geoff Egan at the Museum of London for having read and commented upon the draft catalog and for their contribution of published sources hitherto unknown to me, as well as to Beverly Straube, curator of the A.P.V.A.’s burgeoning collections at Jamestown, for generously sharing her knowledge with me. As always I owe much to my old friend and mentor, Adrian Oswald, as well as to David Higgins,

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both of whom have made major contributions to the section on clay tobacco-pipes, and to David Barker and Taft Kaiser, who were among those who recognized the products of the Donyatt potteries among the Martin’s Hundred sherds. My abiding gratitude, too, to Stephen Clement of the College of William and Mary, who conducted the spectrographic analyses of the local pottery and clays, and to William Thorndale for sharing his finding of the two hitherto unknown Martin’s Hundred letters in the newly microfilmed Ferrar Papers. After the death of Audrey, my wife and archaeological partner for 43 years, I would have been unable to complete this manuscript were it not for the skills, perseverance, and, indeed, courage of Carol, who picked up the pieces where Audrey had left them. For the use of photographs I am indebted to Margaret Rule, C.B.E., director of the Mary Rose Trust; and to Daniel Barber, curator for archaeology in the Rochester Museum and Science Center, New York; as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of London; the National Gallery, London; the English National Trust; the Mauritshuis, The Hague;

and to the Institute of Jamaica. My gratitude, too, to the late A. V. B. “Nick” Norman, then Master of the Tower Armouries in London, and Claude Blair, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, both of whom provided valued counsel and documentation for our arms and armor. One need hardly add that without the artistry of Richard Schlecht it would be impossible for either layman or professional to make head or tail of most of the material here presented. Finally, I want to express my thanks to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and particularly to former vice presidents D. Stephen Elliott and Graham Hood for having supported this project from its inception and whose promise to see it through to publication kept our shoulders to the wheel. Had he lived, I am confident that Melville Bell Grosvenor, chairman emeritus of the National Geographic Society, would have been with us to the end, for were it not for his vision and financial support, Wolstenholme Towne would be a forgotten name still buried deep in the records of the Virginia Company of London. Ivor Noël Hume, O.B.E., F.S.A.

Introduction Mrs. Archibald McCrae, the owner of Carter’s Grove Plantation, died in 1960 and in doing so provided Colonial Williamsburg with an opportunity it had long been seeking. To understand and interpret the urban community of Williamsburg properly, it was necessary to portray the eighteenth-century Virginia plantation society upon which the town depended. Earlier attempts on behalf of benefactor John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in the 1950s to acquire Shirley Plantation had fallen through. The estate was, in any case, too far distant to be readily drawn into the Foundation’s 1 administrative and interpretive orbit. In contrast, Carter’s Grove lies only about seven miles east of Williamsburg and well within reach of its visitors. But there was a problem. Mr. Rockefeller had died on May 11, 1960, five months before Mrs. McCrae, and henceforth Colonial Williamsburg would have to operate more on budgets than on largesse. Consequently it lacked the funds to bid for the Carter’s Grove acres when they came on the market. Mary Corling Johnson McCrea was a collateral descendant of the Burwell family, whose Carter Burwell had built the Carter’s Grove mansion. Furthermore, her daughters by her first marriage were direct descendants of Robert “King” Carter, eighteenth-century colonial Virginia’s greatest landowner. Mrs. McCrae was ever mindful of her heritage. Widowed and married to Archibald M. McCrae, a prominent Pittsburgh industrialist, and with the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad for a father-in-law, “Mollie” McCrae was just the person to purchase the rundown Carter’s Grove farm and restore it to its colonial splendor. This she and her husband did, beginning

in 1928, a process that took several years and considerable treasure. The standards, philosophies, and procedures of colonial architectural restoration were then in their infancy. The archaeological exploration of the Capitol site in Williamsburg had only begun in April, and the differences between restoration and reconstruction had yet to be laid down. Indeed the terms are still debated and ofttimes loosely applied. To Mrs. McCrae, restoring Carter’s Grove’s 1755 brick mansion involved a compromise between repairing its surviving colonial structure and embellishments and at the same time converting it into a home fit for a wealthy American family of the 1930s. The chosen architect, Duncan Lee of Richmond, was sensitive to both mandates and wisely avoided calling the results a restoration. He preferred to describe it as a renascence. Writing in the journal Architecture in April 1933, Duncan Lee explained:

1. Here and hereafter the term Foundation is used as a convenient synonym for Colonial Williamsburg, although in reality it did not assume the legal cognomen until July 1, 1970. 2. Duncan Lee’s article is quoted in full in Mary Stephenson’s Carter’s Grove Plantation: A History (1964), pp. 162–166. It has long been supposed that Mrs. McCrae was the driving force in

the Carter’s Grove renaissance. However, Duncan Lee’s frequent use of the masculine pronoun suggests that Archibald McCrae was his principal client. Having completed his work at Carter’s Grove, Lee went on to build a virtual reproduction at Evelynton in Charles City County.

An old building can be and should be faithfully restored, and left at that, if it is to be used for museum purposes solely, but if a person buys an old house, pays a lot of money for it, and intends to use it as a year-round home, he is not going to be satisfied to take his bath in a tin foot-tub and to go to bed with a candle in one hand and a warming pan in the other just for archaeological reasons.2

The roof was raised, dormers added, exterior shutters applied, and the once-independent flanking outbuildings were partially rebuilt to a wider plan and linked to the house with quasi-colonnaded hyphens. The late Paul Buchanan, for many years Colonial Williamsburg’s premier architectural historian, shared

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the opinion of Duncan Lee that the east kitchen flanker was older than the other and that it served the mansion’s builder, Carter Burwell (1716–1756), as a home for himself and his bride, Lucy Grymes, during the long period of construction.3 There was no datable proof for that conclusion, however, and it seems likely to have been wrong. The records show that Carter Burwell was living on the plantation as early as 1738 and that expenses incurred point to a household of substance rather than of someone living in make-do lodging while waiting for his house to be built.4 Indeed a passing reference in the 1770s to “the old house” indicates the survival of an earlier dwelling.5 Mrs. McCrae’s enthusiasm for things colonial was characteristic of the era in which she lived. Indeed it mirrored the genteel and tranquil “chocolate box” beauty that Colonial Williamsburg itself projected, which was precisely what was needed, first during the grim years of the Great Depression and then as a reflection of the resurgent optimism and patriotism that were the hallmark of the postwar Eisenhower years. Mirroring that concern for the past, Mrs. McCrae’s will urged her executors to find and sell the property to some State or Federal Agency, or to some Association or Foundation or other type of organization, who, appreciating the historical significance of the place and its cultural and educational value as an outstanding example of Virginia Colonial architecture, might adequately provide for the future protection and maintenance and might make available, in greater or lesser degree, to interested persons the opportunity of seeing and enjoying its unique features.6

Fine though the house is, it cannot claim to have been important in the broad sweep of American history, a key factor when the United States Department of the Interior purchases properties. Nor was the Commonwealth responsive to the executors’ proposals. As Duncan Lee had explained in his Architecture article, Carter’s Grove had not been restored as a museum, but now in her will Mrs. McCrae was offering it as such. Furthermore, Mrs. McCrae’s eclectic taste in eighteenth-century-style furnishings posed problems to any history-oriented organization accept-

3. The Burwell account book shows that he made bricks at Carter’s Grove between May and July 1744, possibly marking the beginning of the construction period. The mansion was completed in 1755, only a year before Carter Burwell died. For documentation relating to the building of the mansion, see ibid., pp. 30–48. For Duncan Lee’s comments on the early dating for the kitchen unit, see ibid., p. 30, n. 2, citing Architecture, April 1933, n.p. 4. The Burwell papers show that in 1739 he provided slave Molly with a rug in the kitchen, and another to Cyrus in the house, clear proof that the kitchen was separate from the house (ibid., p. 31).

ing the responsibility to show the house and its contents as she had left them. Colonial Williamsburg had previously purchased Kingsmill Plantation, which lies farther up the James River and was somewhat more conveniently situated in relation to restored Williamsburg. Unfortunately, however, its plantation house had burned in the nineteenth century, leaving only its two ruinous brick outbuildings as reminders of its undoubtedly elegant past. There could be no question that a standing eighteenth-century plantation house, no matter how changed, was a more manageable proposition than attempting a total reconstruction. Lacking the capital itself, the Foundation prevailed upon the Rockefeller family to purchase the 522-acre estate, and in 1963, through the good offices of the late Winthrop Rockefeller, it was acquired by the Sealantic Fund and opened to the public in the following year under Colonial Williamsburg’s stewardship. Knowing that the Foundation would one day obtain title to the Carter’s Grove property, Colonial Williamsburg’s management spent much time during the next five years debating what should be done with the house and its appurtenances when that day came. Because the Foundation’s policies were still strongly influenced by the philosophies of traditional authenticity in architectural restoration, the weight of opinion favored undoing Duncan Lee’s changes and returning the house to its eighteeenth-century proportions.7 In 1969 the Sealantic Fund conveyed the property to Colonial Williamsburg, which thereupon applied to it the same research and development process as it would to any half-acre house and lot in town. Using an excellent house history prepared by Mary A. Stephenson of the Research Department in 1964, the architects had studied the structure as far as they could without taking it apart, and now it fell to an already hard-pressed Department of Archaeology to undertake an in-depth (in ground) survey of its more than 500 acres of plowland, woods, and swamps. Because the permanent archaeological staff was working on other in-town projects, Dr. William Kelso was hired under contract to direct a Carter’s Grove archaeological survey in search of eighteenth-century structural remains that could be rebuilt to complete

5. During the construction of the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum for Martin’s Hundred, a scatter of shellmortar-bonded bricks and domestic artifacts of the first half of the 18th century was encountered on the ridge west of the museum, and these may be clues to the location of the earlier Burwell residence. 6. James City County Court Records, Will Book 7, pp. 178–193. 7. A few voices were raised (Audrey Noël Hume’s among them) urging that the evolution of the house into the 20th century was as much a part of its history as any other earlier period and should be protected and respected.

INTRODUCTION

3

the mansion’s operational complex (e.g., smokehouse, icehouse, dairy, ciderhouse, barns, stables, and slave quarters). Kelso had begun his archaeological career by working for two summers as an excavator in Williamsburg, and had recently set up a program in historical archaeology in Georgia. Supporting him as field supervisor was David Hazzard, who would go on to become the Commonwealth’s distinguished rescue archaeologist. Other members of the team were drawn from the Foundation’s permanent archaeological field crew. In the 1960s historical archaeology was still in its infancy, and with the exception of the Park Service’s work at Jamestown, very little work had focused on sites of the seventeenth century. Furthermore the ground-paring mechanical equipment that would become a staple of the craft in the 1970s was not then available to strip away unproductive topsoil. The procedure known as shovel testing was used to determine whether the plowed fields retained any undisturbed stratigraphy. Having determined that they did not, an ordinary bladed bulldozer was used to cut 6´wide trenches across them at 10´ intervals, the crew walking beside the machine on the lookout for any artifacts or subsoil discolorations marking the locations of ditches, pits, graves, and postholes. The procedure was crude but effective, and at the time was the only means of economically exploring large fields. In the woods, on the other hand, there could be no substitute for hand digging. Although archaeology is as likely to turn up answers one would rather not hear as it is to confirm and amplify one’s expectations, the very specific aim at Carter’s Grove was to find outbuildings, walkways, gardens, and so on that would help the Foundation’s architects in their mission to return the mansion to its ca. 1755 appearance and environment. Unlike plantations that grew outward from a central hub (usually the owner’s home that grew as he prospered), Carter’s Grove was already a thriving amalgam of small farms when combined by absentee landowner Robert “King” Carter of Corotoman. In his will Carter left the use of the lands he called “Merchant’s Hundred” (a corruption of Martin’s Hundred) to his daughter Elizabeth, with instruc-

tions that upon her death they would pass to his grandson, Carter Burwell—which they did.8 Several large Virginia plantations had been created in this way, rich men buying up the acres of failed seventeenth-century farmers or those that were sold upon the death of an owner. Such units became quarters worked by gangs of field slaves directed by an overseer who lived in the old farmhouse. Carter’s Grove was made up of such a grouping and encompassed about 1,400 acres.9 It is safe to assume that upon his marriage in 1738 Carter Burwell took up residence (or continued to reside) in the old plantation house adjacent to what once had been the heart of Martin’s Hundred, which had been providing “King” Carter and his daughter with income for the preceding 15 years. Consequently when Carter Burwell decided to build a new house, he located it at a distance from the support activities that many an expanding plantation would have had close around them. All that he needed were the few ancillery structures necessary to support the household: kitchen, privy, dairy, and possibly a smokehouse and icehouse.10 For these reasons the exploratory excavations carried out by Kelso and later by staff archaeologist Neil Frank yielded relatively little that could assist the Foundation in its mission to restore Carter’s Grove to the Burwell era (Pl. 1). However, the fenced garden with its large insulalike planting beds has been reconstructed on the basis of the retrieved information.11 Farther away to the northwest, groupings of rectangular rubbish-filled pits dating from the 1770s were initially identified as relating to the process of tanning. Later, when Kelso excavated at Kingsmill Plantation on behalf of the Anheuser Busch Corporation and found similar pit groupings within the confines of structural foundations, he realized that the Carter’s Grove pits, like those at Kingsmill, were characteristic of slave dwellings.12 These were later reconstructed by Colonial Williamsburg using information from secondary sources, no trace of log cabin foundations having been found on the site.13 In the course of his survey Kelso uncovered slight but tantalizing evidence of much earlier colonial occupation scattered in a wide ring around the man-

8. There are several references to the continuing use of the name Martin’s Hundred when referring to the Burwell property, e.g., the Nelson Letter Book (1766–1775), p. 160, William Nelson writing to the deceased Carter Burwell’s agent Samuel Athawes on September 1, 1772. 9. This was a relatively small item in Carter’s property inventory. At his death in 1732 he owned more than 300,000 acres scattered across several counties. 10. These last could as well have been left at the older house site if, as is suspected, Burwell’s former residence was only a few hundred yards from the new.

11. A summary of the 1970–1972 survey has been published by the Foundation under the title Digging For Carter’s Grove (Ivor Noël Hume [1974]). 12. For William Kelso’s Kingsmill findings, see his Kingsmill Plantations 1619–1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial Virginia (1984). 13. Although the foundations of two support buildings were found immediately to the northeast of the mansion (one probably a dairy), neither has been reconstructed because the Foundation eventually elected to restore the house to its McCrae era, not to its 18th-century, appearance.

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Plate 1. Uncovering the remains of a dairy immediately to the northeast of the mid-eighteenth-century Carter’s Grove mansion.

INTRODUCTION

5

sion. He also found a cluster of graves northeast of the modern stable building.14 Because these graves— there were seven of them—were located north of the colonial kitchen building and the Burwell family graveyard’s table-tomb stones were grouped on the ridge west of the mansion, it seemed reasonable to conclude that the discovered graves were those of slaves.15 The potential social problems in 1971 that might attend upon the full excavation of the graves or the extension of digging to uncover others around them caused an area of close on two acres to be left unexplored. The southern and westerly extremities of the excluded area were defined by the presence of graves, on the east by a service road, and on the north by two refuse pits that appeared to date from the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Other seventeenth-century features and artifacts were encountered in the woods east of the service road, and on the plain between the mansion and the James River. Exciting and potentially important though these traces were, none were explored in full, for investigating the seventeenth-century occupation was not part of the mission. Four years later approaching celebrations commemorating the bicentenary of the American Revolution prompted the Foundation to think of Carter’s Grove as a potential safety valve for the volume of visitors expected in Williamsburg in the summer of 1976. Needing a readily accessible area whereon to erect temporary craft exhibits (coopering, shingle making, and the like), the Department of Archaeology was instructed to return to Carter’s Grove and further explore the previously off-limit two acres to determine the extent and age of the graveyard with a view to using as much of the square footage for site exhibits as political prudence permitted. It turned out that the graveyard was not that of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Burwell slaves, but of colonists who had died more than a century earlier. The trash pits to the north proved to belong to a major complex of buildings dating from the second quarter of the seventeenth century and later determined to have been the home of Martin’s Hundred’s governor, William Harwood. Fortunately for archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer, the barely eight weeks allowed him for the excavation were permitted to

extend through the summer. Newspaper estimates of the expected crowding had caused countless potential visitors to stay away, and in consequence Colonial Williamsburg needed no Carter’s Grove safety valve. The 1976 excavation of the complex designated as Site A (Pl. 2) yielded the most complete early plantation layout yet discovered in Virginia. It was a major contribution to the social, economic, and architectural history of the colony, yet it remained beyond Colonial Williamsburg’s interpretive sphere and so generated little enthusiasm outside the Department of Archaeology. Consequently in early October the site was backfilled and the crew returned to its duties in Williamsburg. Shortly thereafter, however, the Foundation’s president, Carlisle Humelsine, received unexpected guests. Melville Bell Grosvenor, chairman emeritus of the National Geographic Society, and his wife arrived in town to enjoy a weekend of sailing as Mr. Humelsine’s guests. But they had come a week too soon. In a stalling action while he rearranged his schedule, and to avoid embarrassing the Grosvenors, Humelsine sent them down to the Department of Archaeology to hear and see what had been happening at Carter’s Grove that summer. The Grosvenors heard that in the course of the digging evidence of nearby pottery manufacturing had been encountered and there was reason to believe that the kilns lay across a ravine to the east where Kelso’s in-the-woods testing had revealed more early seventeenth-century potsherds. At the end of the slide presentation, Mel Grosvenor remembered the yet-to-be-found kiln and urged that it be sought. He asked whether financial support from the National Geographic Society would enable the work to resume and was cautiously told that his expression of interest might be sufficient to generate greater enthusiasm on the part of the hitherto eighteenthcentury-oriented Foundation. Thus began an association with the National Geographic Society that would enable the Carter’s Grove excavations to continue until early in 1981.16 The year 1977 saw the search extended beyond the ravine east of Site A, where another larger house was found along with unexpected quantities of artifacts from the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Although, unfortunately, no identifiable kiln site was

14. A McCrae construction, later used by Colonial Williamsburg as an orientation center. 15. In 1983 staff archaeologist John Hamant carried out excavations in search of an enclosure wall around the Burwell tombs but found nothing. He also dug close to the tombs themselves in search of other unmarked graves and even for proof that the table tombs did, in fact, stand atop Burwell graves. No such evidence was found, but without dismantling the tombs themselves no one could be certain that no burials existed. However, the mortared brick walls of the tombs look suspiciously like McCrae-era work. That, coupled with the fact that they stand improbably close together, suggests that the

gravestones may have been found elsewhere in the field and have been brought together on the ridge to protect them from damage by plowing, and that once there the McCraes gave them prominence by elevating them on brick-walled, tomblike boxes. 16. In 1976 Colonial Williamsburg received the first of three grants (nos. 1693, 1823, and 1960) to underwrite excavations in Martin’s Hundred. A summary of the results was published as Ivor Noël Hume, “Excavations at Carter’s Grove Plantation, Virginia, 1976–1979,” National Geographic Research Reports, vol. XVII (1984), pp. 653–675.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Plate 2. Site A stripped bare. Pits 5, 6, and 7 are in the extreme left foreground, Pit 4 at the end of the slot to their right, and Pit 3 behind the same slot. The dark circle to the right is Pit 2, and the smaller dark circle at the southeast corner of the main dwelling is Pit 9, while the lighter circle to its right is Pit 10. Close to the vehicle and surrounded by a protecting berm of dirt is Pit 8, while the dark rectangle in the middle distance is the cellar of Structure D. View from the north. discovered, the size of the house and the quality and variety of the recovered artifacts fully justified the work in the woods designated as Site B.17 In May hot spring weather and the arrival of deer flies in plague numbers forced the crew from the Site B woods, and although the National Geographic Society’s grant made reference only to that site, the crew was transferred to another area found during the 1971 Kelso testing, closer to the river where the prevailing wind drove the flies inland. By sheer chance the selected location proved to be within the Fort that had protected the rear of Martin’s Hundred’s principal settlement at Wolstenholme Towne.

Preparatory testing showed that the chosen area had been plowed to its subsoil, allowing the overburden to be mechanically stripped. Thus revealed were the postholes for the Fort’s northeast corner, the outline of the structure interpreted as a watchtower, and the well. From this last came spectacular finds, including the first close helmet found in America.18 The success of the riverside work on the area designated as Site C was sufficient to prompt the National Geographic Society to continue to fund the project into 1978 and beyond. With cooler weather the crew returned to Site B and continued to work there into the winter of 1977, when the discoveries merited a

17. The recovered evidence by no means excludes the likelihood of a kiln having been burned at Site B. Fragments of three slip-decorated dishes are almost certainly local wasters. One of them, dated 1631, is the earliest known dated example of American-made slipware (Pl. 68 and Pt. II, Fig. 22, no. 1)A flue-shaped pit (Pit A) may have been associated with a

largely above-ground kiln, while a shed of rectangular shape closely paralleled another found in Wolstenholme Towne and there believed to have been a potter’s drying shed. 18. Pt. II, Figs. 53–54, nos. 1.

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Plate 3. The Fort at the close of excavation and after the well shaft and India Pit had been backfilled. View from the west. visit from the National Geographic Society’s research committee on a wet and muddy November 2, 1977. In 1978, with work on Site B completed, the crew again turned its attention to Site C, simultaneously completing the excavation of the Fort (Pl. 3) while working to uncover a large structural complex to the east of it, an area that came to be known as the Company Compound. It was here that the workshed paralleling one at Site B was found. Nearby, in a once water-filled borrow pit, was discovered the debris from pottery making in the period 1620–1622, 19 along with a second close helmet and fragments of abandoned body armor.20 The approach of winter halted excavation at Site C just as they reached the western side of the open area of Wolstenholme Towne’s village green. Three large postholes marked what was thought to be the eastern side of another large building. However, that interpretation was wrong. When work resumed in the spring of 1978 it became clear that the three large

holes represented the center line for an A-roofed barn. Beyond the palisade-enclosed Company Compound, and extending the easterly building line to the river, was a dwelling that had a shed roof in front and an oval fenced yard behind it. For want of a better identification this building came to be known as the Domestic Unit. Beyond it and dropping away from the rapidly eroding cliff were 14 graves, some arguably those of victims of the Indian attack of March 1622. With the work on the remains of Wolstenholme Towne complete, attention was turned to the east where, beyond a tree-lined gully, more early artifacts had been found. The first hint that there might be something there came in 1971 when Kelso’s testing south of the Burwell mansion’s garden revealed a rectangular pit lined with what he thought were tree branches, thus prompting him to identify the feature as an early duck blind. Renewed testing in 1978 pro-

19. Pt II, Fig. 12, nos. 1–13. The latter date is put at March 22, 1622, the day that the Indians destroyed most of Martin’s Hundred’s assets.

20. Pt. II, Figs. 55–57.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

duced a few potsherds along the tree line east of the gully, but promised nothing of great significance—or so it was assumed.21 The summer of 1978 had been extremely hot—the temperature on Site C often reaching 120˚F—necessitating the hosing down of the baked clay to enable it to be scraped in search of postholes. This had required laying hoses to the site all the way from an outlet at the mansion. Supervisor Klingelhofer therefore proposed shifting the water supply beyond the gully to enable him to do further testing before dismantling the hoses.22 The enlarged testing quickly expanded into the full-scale excavation of a site that lay partly in plowland where no stratigraphy survived, and partly in heavy woodland where it did. The mechanical removal of the plow zone quickly revealed a highly complex pattern of postholes (sometimes confused with root traces) that shaped up into a house surrounded by a substantial palisade equipped with artillery flankers facing both east and south. There was evidence that the building had burned, and outside the palisade to the northwest two graves were found. Another individual, a partially scalped woman, lay in a preexisting pit, and four more skeletons lay buried head to toe in the pit previously thought to have been a duck blind. Its rotted tree limbs proved to be human bones, one of the individuals wearing a single hob-nailed boot. There was no doubting that most, if not all, of these people had been victims of the 1622 Indian attack. If their number and sexes could be equated with the names of the massacre dead listed at Martin’s Hundred, then it would be possible to identify the ownership of this property. Successful research by the late Audrey Noël Hume would identify the fortified house as the home of the Hundred’s warden, John Boyse.23 Because the site (identified by the letter H) was relatively small and its defenses enclosed but a single house, the presumption had been that this was an addition, a suburb to Wolstenholme Towne. That there was indeed a direct connection between the

two was provided by the discovery of lead Augsburg bale seals24 both in a pit at Site H and in the Potter’s Pond within the Company Compound. Such seals suggested that they had been removed from woolen fabric sold in bolts, and thus were representative of company supplies rather than of household waste.25 As previously stated Site H, being small and selfprotected, was first considered a suburb of Wolstenholme Towne. There was, however, a second and subliminal reason for so identifying it: it was found second. There is, of course, no logic to that assumption, but made it was. And wrong it was. Documentary evidence would leave little doubt that the building of Site H preceded that of Wolstenholme Towne and, indeed, that of every other dwelling in the Hundred. As the history will show, deaths in transit in 1619 led John Boyse to serve as the Martin’s Hundred Society’s temporary leader in Virginia. To secure the more than 20,000 acres assigned to it and its shareholders, their representative had to take immediate possession lest the unoccupied land should be assigned to another applicant. Consequently Boyse selected a site midway along the ten miles of river frontage assigned to the Society, one close to a freshwater spring and adjacent to flat land that could best accommodate a future company town. Then, too, the chosen site needed to be able to command any approach up the gully to the tableland above. Site H fulfilled all these requirements. Field testing located two more occupation sites of the Martin’s Hundred era, one of them, to the east of Site H, known formally as Site D and informally as “Audrey’s delft site” after the discovery there of several important pieces of English delftware, among them a base from a rare, manganese-stippled salt.26 The second site was that of a small, fenced house on the ridge northwest of the eighteenth-century mansion, one that also yielded a small but interesting collection of ceramic and metal artifacts.27 Together Sites A, B, C, D, E, and H (Ill. 1) represent the subject of this study and of the catalog that follows it.28 However, another site was partially exca-

21. In truth, the presence of even one 17th-century sherd beyond the gully separating the find-spot from the remains of Wolstenholme Towne should have been sufficient to raise questions about how it got there. Potsherds do not move of their own accord. But with so much else going on at the Wolstenholme site, the further investigation of the “duck blind” site seemed not to be worth the time and cost. However, it would provide a classic example of the inadequacy of the nationally adopted process known as Phase I testing. 22. This secondary testing is known in the profession’s jargon as Phase II, and simply means making the Phase I test holes bigger. By itself Phase II testing is unlikely to determine the scope or importance of a site; it only confirms what is already known while doing additional and unwarranted damage to the site. Consequently it should be used only if total excavation is intended (Phase III), and if it is, there may be no need for Phase II. 23. For the supporting evidence, see Ch. 2.

24. Pt. II, Fig. 61, nos. 1–8. 25. There always is a danger in reaching this conclusion. Lead being in short supply and much needed, it is likely that seals collected from woolen or dyers’ warehouses in London were parceled and sold as scrap. 26. Pt. II, Fig. 17, no. 12. 27. Pt. II, Fig. 18, nos. 1–13. 28. Sites F and G were discovered on Colonial Williamsburg property east of the modern Carter’s Grove tract and flanking the swamps of Grice’s Run. Both were found during Phase I surveying by archaeologist John Hamant in the winter of 1977. Although yielding artifacts of the second quarter of the 17th century, neither was fully explored in the belief that some Martin’s Hundred sites should be preserved for excavation by another, better-qualified generation of archaeologists. Unfortunately, this attempt at conservation was more praiseworthy than practical. When the land was later leased for clear-

INTRODUCTION

9

vated before the Carter’s Grove excavations came to an end early in 1983. During the construction of the Rockefeller-funded Country Road linking Williamsburg to Carter’s Grove, a small trashpit was cut through by the road grader and yielded fragments of leaded window glass and a latten spoon of the late seventeenth century. The find was made at the north end of one of the small fields whose tongues flank the main ravine that bisects most of the remaining Carter’s Grove acres. This field was to assume greater importance as plans for the expanded interpretion of Carter’s Grove developed and when a site in the woods at its southern extremity was chosen for a visitor center. Road access to it and a parking lot were essential to the plan, and both threatened the unknown dwelling site whence came the spoon and window fragments. Suspecting that the house site lay somewhere in the middle of the field, the archaeological staff opposed the proposal to run the road down the center of it, and chose instead its western edge. However, a 50´-wide test strip revealed two graves, several trash pits from the mid-seventeenth century, fence lines, ditches, and a possible palisaded enclosure (Pl. 4). All this was umbilically related to whatever remained hidden in the middle of the field, and archaeology once again played the spoiler and demanded that no road be laid over the revealed features until the entire field had been excavated. It proposed, instead, locating the road on the other side of the field and called for time to excavate a matching 50´ strip. The work revealed the eastern extensions of several fences and ditches found at the other side of the field, as well as the posthole patterns for two small houses dating ca. 1680–1700. These presumably were support buildings for the still-to-be-found “House of the Latten Spoon.” Needless to relate, to propose that no road be laid over these features would have been akin to commanding the sun not to rise. Site J and its finds, important though they are, are not included in this study for two reasons: the heart of the site remains unexcavated and without its contributions any conclusions are worthless, and because it appears to date largely from the post-Martin’s Hundred half of the seventeenth century. The site remains, nevertheless, of the utmost significance, providing as it does the histo-archaeological bridge between Martin’s Hundred and “King” Carter’s eighteenth-century Merchant’s Hundred.29 Public interest in the Martin’s Hundred discoveries was first whetted by two long articles in the National Geographic magazine, next by a popular book, and

then by an award-winning television program. More influential than these, however, was the National Geographic Society’s mounting of an exhibition of the Martin’s Hundred artifacts at its Washington, D. C., headquarters, where the displays were seen by an estimated quarter-million visitors. Many of them later visited the site and wanted to know when and where similar exhibits would be available for Williamsburg’s visitors. The magazine articles and newspaper reports published while the excavations were in progress drew large numbers of visitors to the site. Although there was little to be seen beyond parched clay punctured by postholes and other dirty marks, the crowds kept coming—even after the excavations at Wolstenholme Towne were at an end. Site H, too, became a draw, interest in it excited by the National Geographic’s having featured the scalped woman known familiarly as Granny. Consequently when it came time to backfill the excavations, visitors still came, making it necessary to decide how best to accommodate them and their interests. The first step in that direction was to insert modern fenceposts in all the colonial postholes before they were filled in, and to link the posts together with different colored ropes to represent the outlines of palisades and primary and secondary structures. Although these outlines readily made their point to the people who installed them, to everyone else they made little sense, and from a distance the posts looked like a forest of oversized toothpicks. Something more substantial was needed, but there was no unanimity on the course to take. A proposal to reconstruct and equip the Fort’s artillery flanker was vehemently opposed by the senior archaeologist, who argued that although the settlers were known to have a “Peece of Ordnance, 1 w th all things thereto belonging,” 30 a cannonball found at Site A indicated that the gun had been of saker caliber and much too large to fit on the Fort’s platform. Less obviously controversial would be the reconstruction of the Fort’s largest projection, which was believed to have been a landward-looking watchtower. When rebuilt, however, the contrast between its solidity and the still-standing “string-and-toothpick” interpretation was awkward at best. A visit to the Ptolemaic temple at Dendera in Egypt provided the answer. There the stone temple was surrounded by a curtain wall built from mudbricks interrupted at each side by granite gateways. Although originally 16´ in height, the curtain’s soft brick walls had eroded in places to as little as 3´, contrasting with the time-untouched Aswan granite gateways. As

cut logging, Site G was severely compromised by the tracks of heavy machinery.

period there of which very little is known.

29. Coupled with the yet-to-be-lettered and investigated dwelling site on the ridge west of the museum, Site J provides the century-long bridge to the Carter’s Grove mansion, a

30. See 1624 muster for Martin’s Hundred in Annie L. Jester, ed., Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607–1625 (1956), p. 43.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 1. The principal Martin’s Hundred sites excavated or discovered between 1976 and 1982.

INTRODUCTION

11

Plate 4. Preliminary excavations at Site J along the intended impact area for a road to the Carter’s Grove visitor center. The white stakes all mark postholes, evidence that caused the relocation of the road. In 1999 this important site of the second half of the seventeenth century has yet to be excavated. View from the north. the dawning sun came up over the desert skyline it cast long shadows across the courtyard, even though the walls were low and broken. If a similar treatment could be applied to the wooden walls of Wolstenholme Towne, reconstructing major features such as the gateways to their full height and leaving the curtain walls to a height of only a few inches above their first stretcher, a similar effect could be achieved. Visitors would be able to identify space and size without the necessity of rebuilding walls in their entirety, thus slipping beyond knowledge into the realm of hypotheses. This approach came to be known as the “Dendera Solution.” Just as public interest had fueled the need to exhibit the site, so that same interest led to the building of a museum wherein to exhibit some of the recovered artifacts. Thanks to Winthrop Rockefeller’s sustained interest in Carter’s Grove, after his death his executors found it appropriate to assign

31. The museum opened in 1991.

several million dollars to building a Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum. 31 Set into the ridge behind the town site, the museum provides visitors with an opportunity to learn something of the history of Martin’s Hundred, the steps and procedures of excavation, and to see recovered artifacts, all before visiting the town site itself. Thus its partial reconstruction became the ultimate artifact. Today barrelhoused audio programs strategically located around the site provide visitors who have the time and inclination with a further 45 minutes of description and interpretation. Although students wanting to get the most from their museum visit can spend more than an hour there, the galleries only contain about 200 artifacts, all chosen because they have something to say about themselves or about the places where they were found. The same is true of the catalog accompanying this volume. The illustrated artifacts have been select-

12

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

ed because they have something to contribute. They have also been chosen because in most instances they are sufficiently intact to be recognizable. Although the excavation of seventeenth-century sites in erstwhile British America began around the turn of the century at Jamestown, until relatively recently the techniques of digging and recovery employed failed to provide close dating for the recovered objects. Consequently it was not unusual to see eighteenth- or nineteenth-century objects attributed to the seventeenth century and vice versa. Indeed in England, where post-medieval archaeology was as new as historical archaeology was in America,32 one can find close parallels for Martin’s Hundred objects published as Roman.33 Unlike many historic sites that have been occupied from their day to this, the premier sites in Martin’s Hundred can be dated to a three-year period, namely

1619–1622, thus providing a discard date for everything found there.34 Consequently the artifacts illustrated in Part II can be of help to fellow archaeologists, curators, and collectors whose dating for comparable objects is less precise. What follows is not an archaeological report in the usual sense, for it does not purport to describe and discuss every dirty mark in the subsoil, nor does it name the individuals who may have labored mightily to find them. Just as it is not relevant for mathematicians to publish every page of figures that led them to their conclusions, so it is purposeless to reprint every field note or to discuss every posthole. As in the museum, therefore, the information and illustrated objects have been selected, singularly and collectively, to contribute to a broader understanding of the life and times of the men and women who so unwisely ventured their lives in Martin’s Hundred.

32. There being few European medieval sites in North America, the study and excavation of sites dating from periods of literacy are known as historical archaeology. A national society devoted to this post-aboriginal era was founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1967. 33. E.g., Sian E. Rees, Ancient Agricultural Implements (1981), figs. 19c and 27b.

34. In archaeological parlance such brackets are known as termini post and ante quem. For Martin’s Hundred the terminus post quem (meaning the date after which) is provided by the arrival of John Boyse and the construction at Site H in 1619, while the terminus ante quem is the Indian attack of March 22, 1622—the date before which the settlements were occupied.

CHAPTER 1

The Who, What, When, and Where of Martin’s Hundred Who was Martin? What was a hundred? When did it begin and end, and where was it located? Four simple questions, all of them with complex and sometimes unsatisfactory answers.1 But before providing them it is first necessary to set the scene and briefly explain the train of events that led the Gift of God and its heavy load of passengers on their voyage to Virginia. In 1584 Sir Walter Ralegh and a group of his westward-looking friends sent two ships to the New World to determine whether or not Englishmen could profitably compete with the Spaniards already long established in the Caribbean basin. When the ships returned, their masters, Captains Philip Amadus and Arthur Barlowe, reported that the land was rich and the natives welcoming. The Ralegh enterprise’s bad timing was the result of deteriorating relations between England and Spain that would culminate in the latter’s failed invasion of Britain by Philip II’s supposedly invincible Armada in 1588. De facto war with Spain continued through the rest of the century and formally halted in 1604. The cessation of hostilities, coupled with the sustained belief that further exploration would lead both to mineable gold and a western passage to the Orient, prompted English merchants to underwrite further New World voyages, both in search of the Lost Colony and to seek more suitable locations whereon to plant one or more colonies. On April 10, 1606, James I granted a single charter to two groups of merchant adventurers. One was

based at Plymouth in Devonshire, sustaining the earlier efforts of Ralegh, Grenville, and their associates, and the other in London, where a new cast of characters, most of them businessmen, intended to risk the lives of employees rather than their own. In the charter’s wording the London group was to create “the Firste Colonie” and could settle their people “at any place upon the saide coast of Virginia or America where they shall thincke fitt and conveniente betweene the said fower and thirtie and one and fortie degrees of the said latitude.” The charter’s eastern beneficiaries would call themselves the Virginia Company of London.2 The 1606 charter had created a Royal Council to oversee the Company’s activities. But three years later, when the 1607 settlement at Jamestown seemed to be at death’s door, the Company applied for a new charter that extended their holdings westward to the China Sea, replaced the Royal Council with another created and elected within itself and headed by a treasurer, and made it into a joint-stock company. Its ponderous corporate title henceforth would be “The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia.” The title recognized that the Company would be composed both of adventurers who adventured only their money and of planters who took themselves to Virginia and there created plantations. In Virginia itself the old council of seven named when the first Jamestown settlers landed was now abandoned as inefficient and divisive. It was replaced

1. This section is based on the late Audrey Noël Hume’s unfinished history of Martin’s Hundred, which she had planned to expand into book form. 2. The charter’s “Seconde Colonie” sponsored by West Country interests should be located “betweene eighte and thirtie degress of the saide latitude and five and fortie degrees of the same latitude.” Lest there should territorial disputes between

the two companies, the charter further stipulated that they should not plant themselves “within one hundred like Englishe miles of the other of them that firste beganne to make theire plantacion.” For transcripts of the three royal charters (1606, 1609, and 1612), see Samuel M. Bemiss, ed., The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London (1957).

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by a single individual appointed by the London Council and named Lord Governor and Captain General of Virginia, who would choose his own Council. Needless to say, the shareholders expected to make a profit on their investments commensurate with the number of shares owned. Instead they were called upon to dig ever deeper into their pockets to sustain the unprofitable plantations. Consequently there were those who advocated abandoning their Virginia Adventure rather than buy a new saddle for a dead horse. However, the majority were prepared to stay the course. To help them secure additional funding, in 1612 the King authorized the London Company to hold lotteries. Unfortunately they were not particularly successful and were blamed for an increase in public disorder.3 With the exception of growing tobacco, which the King looked upon as a noxious weed, attempts to establish profitable industries in Virginia had proved singularly unsuccessful. Many planters and tenants were unable to grow anything but the barest staples of life, while some eschewed even that in favor of planting tobacco. In despair, the Company relaxed control of landowning in Virginia, and beginning around 1616 it allowed individuals to set up semiautonimous “colonia” under the umbrella of its overall government. Anyone with £10 10s. to invest could be granted 50 acres, the location of which was to be determined upon arrival by the governor and his Council. Once again, some of these new settlements were manned by employees of the London Company’s merchant adventurers and called “particular plantations,” and some by planters who took themselves, their families, and their servants to work the land that would be termed “private plantations.” Taking what they hoped would be advantage of this opportunity, the merchants, who called themselves the Society of Martin’s Hundred, obtained title to about 20,000 Virginia acres (Pl. 5) and sent their people out aboard the Gift of God to work them. This brings us back to the opening questions: Who was Martin? What was a hundred? When did it begin and end, and where was this particular plantation located? The list of original subscribers to the Society of Martin’s Hundred has not survived, nor has its original charter, the date of which was almost certainly in the 1617–1618 period. The Society evidently was named for its principal shareholder, whose name was

Martin. But which Martin? Three of them were alive and potential candidates when the Society’s charter was awarded. The first and least likely was Captain John Martin, whose association with the enterprise began as one of the seven council members named in 1607 when the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery arrived in Virginia. A quarrelsome individual, John Martin was the son of Sir Richard Martin and brother-in-law to Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls and a powerful figure at court. That John Martin had his own private plantation and lived off and on in Virginia, however, make him a poor candidate for being the Martin of Martin’s Hundred. His father, Sir Richard, on the other hand, was a more logical figurehead around whom to float a company. Sir Richard Martin was born in 1534 and therefore was about 82 in 1617, when the Company was chartered. He had been goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth, Lord Mayor of London, and in 1580 was appointed Master of the Mint, a post he held until his death in July 1617. One way and another, Sir Richard Martin smelled of money and would have given the new Company the appearance of rocklike solidity. That he was prominently associated with the Virginia Company of London is demonstrated by a letter of December 18, 1616, promoting a lottery to the Mayor of Salisbury and signed by seven Company members.4 Although Martin’s name is listed one from the last, it precedes that of Sir John Wolstenholme, for whom Martin’s Hundred’s only town would be named. The third candidate, another Richard Martin, was an active member of the London Company and the writer-producer of royal masques—which would not in itself commend him to the average cautious investor. Born in Otterton in Devonshire in 1570, he was elected Member of Parliament for Barnstaple, the birthplace of Martin’s Hundred’s governor William Harwood, in 1601. In 1610, Martin became M.P. for Christchurch in Dorsetshire, but held the seat for only a year. He died in early November 1618, shortly after being appointed Recorder of the City of London and having lived just long enough to be considered a naming candidate for Martin’s Hundred.5 Although the exact date of the first Martin’s Hundred settlers’ departure is not known, we do know that “the Guift of God sett out in the year 1618 the number of 220 psons,” the chartering of which and the assembling of whom must have taken several

3. The Virginia lotteries would be banned by royal proclamation on March 8, 1621, as the King looked with increasing disfavor on the management of the colony. 4. Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records Of The Virginia Company of London (1906–1939), vol. III, p. 67f. 5. Described familiarly by perennial letter writer John Chamberlain as Dicke Martin, who noted on October 24, 1618, that he had been stricken with smallpox, calling it “a strange disease

for a man of his fashion and yeares.” On November 7, John Chamberlain (The Letters of John Chamberlain [1979], vol. II, pp. 170, 174, and 180) noted his death. John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (1982) contains a short profile of this Richard Martin, describing him as a “very handsome man, a graceful speaker, facetious and well-beloved,” adding that he “Died of a symposiac excess with his fellow wits” (p. 198).

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

15

Plate 5. Detail from the 1651 Ferrar map of Virginia, the only one that shows Martin’s Hundred (circled), which by then had long since ceased to be a private company venture. Reproduction courtesy of the Clements Library, University of Michigan. months.6 As the second Richard Martin was not made Recorder until October 1, 1618, his rise to prominence almost certainly came too late for him to have been the Martin of Martin’s Hundred. On balance, therefore, of the three Martins, Sir Richard is the most logical choice to be the Society of Martin’s Hundred’s promotional namesake. Now to the question: What was a hundred besides being five score? One of the earliest English dictionaries, The New World of Words (1671), defined a hundred thusly: “a part of a Shire consisting of ten tithings, each tithing consisting of ten household, called in Latin ‘Decennae.’”7 From this, one would suppose that a hundred contained as many taxable households. However, the origins of the term are not that certain. Chambers’s Cyclopaedia states that “It was so called, either because

of old each hundred found 100 sidejussers or sureties of the king’s peace, or 100 able men for his war.”8 None of these definitions accurately describes the place of hundreds in Virginia. But equating the colony as a whole as an English shire, it is reasonable to define a hundred as a semi-autonomous subdivision of large but unspecified dimensions.9 Little is known about the ship Gift of God beyond the fact that she sailed from England on January 19, 1618/19, with 220 passengers bound for Martin’s Hundred. The ship’s name was common, and although it would not have been simultaneously duplicated in her port of origin, there was nothing to prevent a Thames vessel from having the same name as another out of Plymouth. Nevertheless, to carry 220 passengers plus her crew, the ship should have been large, for the emigrants amounted to twice the

6. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 594, copy of a repatent for Martin’s Hundred, January 30, 1621/22. 7. E. Phillips, The New World of Words: Or, A General Dictionary (1671). 8. Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia; Or, An Universal Dictionary of

Arts And Sciences (1738), vol. I. 9. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1959) defines a hundred in this context as follows: “A subdivision of a county or shire, having its own court; also formerly the court.” It also adds: “A division of a county in Delaware, 1621.”

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

number who reached Jamestown Island aboard three ships in 1607.10 Although the Gift of God is known to have reached Jamestown on April 19, 1619, no immediate attempt seems to have been made to settle the new arrivals on their London sponsors’ dividend. Instead most were put to work on land assigned to the governor, Sir Thomas Wyatt, where they remained until July 1620. The obvious question is: why? The answer, Audrey Noël Hume believed, was hidden in the lost log of the Gift’s voyage. For several years she worked untiringly on a novel and dramatic thesis that proposed that the first shipload of Puritan dissenters went not to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December 1620, but reached Martin’s Hundred in the spring of 1619. The reasonableness of Audrey Noël Hume’s argument and logic are such that they bear scrutiny here, in part because the case serves as a warning that a single missing piece of historical evidence (and there are missing pieces in most carefully constructed historical mosaics) can unhorse the surest rider, and in part because the first “Pilgrims” really did come to Virginia in 1619 (and some, perhaps, to Martin’s Hundred), nearly two years before the Plymouth landing. The English Puritan movement, which would later lead to civil war and the beheading of Charles I, had its origins in Continental Europe and sought the freedom to introduce new ideas into church doctrine. Needless to say, the established Protestant Church vehemently opposed any and every change. Some among the several Puritan groups wished to stay within it, but others who called themselves Separatists wanted everything to be decided by the congregation. Their insistence on holding their own services in their own chapels rather than attending the rites of the established church led to their persecution in the latter years of the sixteenth century—particularly of those Separatists living in London and the eastern counties. One of the largest of the Separatist groups was led by Yorkshireman Francis Johnson, who was forced to flee to join a similar congregation in Holland. Meanwhile his younger brother George, a former schoolmaster, formed his own group in London, to which Francis later returned. The brothers, together with a

wealthy haberdasher convert named Edward Boyse, were arrested and thrown into the notoriously filthy Clink prison in Southwark, where Boyse died of “gaol fever.” His widow, Thomasina (described by a contemporary as a “bouncing girl” prone to overdressing and staying abed too long on Sundays), married Francis Johnson while he was still in prison—where he would remain for two years. After his release Johnson returned to Amsterdam and in 1613 took his group to Emden, where he fell out with Francis Blackwell, a voluble member of his congregation. In 1617 Johnson’s Separatists returned to Amsterdam where, in 1618, he died. Out of favor with the Dutch government the group, now led by Blackwell, returned to London and there he was arrested along “with sundry godly citizens” and imprisoned in the Wood Street compter. To gain his freedom Blackwell informed on a member of his congregation who had hitherto escaped arrest. The capture of Sabine Staresmore earned Blackwell the Bishop of London’s “applause and his solumn blessing to proceed in his voyage.” All that is recorded of this voyage is culled from William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation 1620–1647, and it reads thusly:

10. A Gift of God of only 80 tons sailed out of Barnstaple in North Devon around 1598 (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 94). This may have been the same ship that carried some of the 100 settlers who sailed from Plymouth on May 30, 1607, to found the second colony in what is now the state of Maine (David B. Quinn, North America From The Earliest Discovery To First Settlements [1977], p. 407). Another ship of the same name and 140 tons took 100 passengers to Virginia in April 1622, but here again the tonnage is too small to have carried the Martin’s Hundred settlers (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 639). Audrey Noël Hume’s draft includes the following:

Research on the forty-one known ships which took settlers to Virginia between 1619 and 1623 indicate a passenger to tonnage ratio of between 1:1 and 1:5 applied to 70% of the voyages. Fifty-two percent of the latter had passenger to tonnage ratios of 1:1.1 and 1:1.9. The lower ratios rose suggesting perhaps that by this time cargo was of greater importance than passengers.

Mr. Blackwell’s ship came not there till March, but going towards winter they still had northward winds which carried them to the southward beyond their course. And the master of the ship and some six of the mariners dying, it seemed they could not find the bay till after long seeking and beating about. Mr. Blackwell is dead and Mr. Maggner, the Captain. Yea, there are dead, he saith, 130 persons, one and other in that ship; it is said there was in all an 180 persons in the ship, so as they were packed together like herrings; they had amongst them the flux, and also want of fresh water, so as it is here rather wondered at that so many are alive, than that so many are dead. The merchants here say it was Mr. Blackwell’s fault to pack so many in the ship.11

Here, then, was an unnamed ship leaving the Thames “going towards winter” in 1618, taking the northern route via the Western Isles (Azores), and arriving in the James River in March 1619. Only one large influx of people to Virginia is recorded early in 1619, and they were aboard the Gift of God. Among

Thus, for example, in 1621 the ship Flying Hart of 200 tons carried 60 men and 40 cattle (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 639). 11. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (1979), p. 356f.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

17

them was the unusually named John Boyse, who may well have been related to the London Separatist Edward Boyse. Something happened en route that deprived the Martin’s Hundred settlers of their leadership and kept them at Jamestown for more than a year, circumstances that left it to John Boyse to hold the investors’ acres until new instructions could arrive from London. Although shipboard diseases were as common as ocean storms, it seemed a pertinent coincidence that Blackwell’s crowded passengers were thinned by the flux, illness that struck at both top and bottom of the passenger list. For several years prior to 1617 dissenting Puritan groups in Holland had been in touch with members of the Virginia Company, who apparently were sympathetic to their desire for religious freedom. Among these Company members was Sir John Wolstenholme who, in January 1618, was commended in a letter from members of the Leydon-based group (now known as the Massachusetts “Pilgrims”) for his “singular care and pains in the business of Virginia.” Written over the signatures of John Robinson and William Brewster, the letter went on to pray that “your Worship may see the fruit of your worthy endeavours, which on our parts we shall not fail to further.”12 What worthy endeavours could Sir John Wolstenholme have been advancing early in 1618 that needed the support of exiled English Separatists? The answer, Audrey Noël Hume suggested, was that because volunteers to populate the newly planned Martin’s Hundred were slow to enlist, Wolstenholme saw the harrassed Separatist congregation as hardworking (if religiously difficult) and ideally sober settlers for the Society’s Virginia plantation. On the basis of this cumulative evidence it was hard not to accept Audrey Noël Hume’s thesis that Blackwell’s people came aboard the Gift of God, and that they were among the 220 destined for Martin’s Hundred and reported to the Virginia Company as having embarked upon that voyage. Much depended on the date at which the Gift left the Thames and that of her arrival at Jamestown. The Blackwell voyage seemed to have begun in late

August 1618 and ended the following March. Accepting the departure date as August 1618 means that in New Style (our calendar) they traveled at some date before March 25, 1619, the date of the Julian calendar’s year change. Four individuals are listed in the muster as having come aboard the Gift of God in 1618 (Old Style), and this Audrey Noël Hume interpreted (as others had before her) as the date of those settlers’ arrival; in this case they had to have disembarked before March 25, 1619 (New Style)—as had the Blackwell survivors. It is apparent now, however, that the muster’s cited dates are those of the ships’ departure from England and not their arrival in Virginia. To prove it, a single overlooked document brought the whole beautifully constructed thesis tumbling down. The minutes of a meeting of the Court of the Virginia Company of London dated June 14, 1619, includes the following:

12. Ibid., p. 353, the letter dated “January 27, Anno 1617” (O.S.). 13. Kingsbury, vol. I, p. 229. 14. Ships cited in the 1624/5 muster as having sailed for Virginia in 1618 (O.S.) are as follows (the number of surviving individuals given in parentheses): Bona Nova (1), Diana (6), George (5), Hercules (1), Marygould (3), Neptune (10), Sampson (4), Trial (1), William and Thomas (7). Due to the many vicissitudes that beset the Virginia colony between the time that the ships docked and the day the muster was recorded, there is no assurance that the listed numbers bear any percentage relationship to the numbers of passengers aboard any one ship. 15. William Thorndale, “The Virginia Census of 1619,” Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, vol. XXXIII, no. 3 (1995), p. 160. For

the date of the Gift’s voyage and identification of the related deaths, see Kingsbury, vol. I, p. 229. The voyage out had taken 90 days and the return no more than 47. In the proceedings of the General Assembly, August 4, 1619, the already landed Gift of God passengers were described as “inhabitants of Paspaheigh, alias Martin’s hundred people” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 175), and so it is possible that others who had arrived earlier in time for the 1619 census had been placed at Paspaheigh (Argall Towne) to await the arrival of their leaders and the distribution of the 20,000 acres allocated to the Martin’s Hundred Society. The Virginia Company’s records give a total of 280 colonists shipped out between 1618 and 1621, but cite the departure of none earlier than those aboard the Gift of God, which sailed on January 19, 1618/19 (ibid., p. 594).

The Guift being now returned from Virginia and having brought ltrs from Sr George Yeardly directed to Sr Edw: Sandis intimating the sore voyage they had; being going thither from the 19th of Ianuary to the 19th of Aprill following, In wch time there dyed 14 Landmen and three seamen as also two childred was borne at sea, & dyed.13

Here, then, were the exact dates of the Gift’s departure and arrival as well as an accounting of the dead that bore no resemblance to the massive losses blamed on Blackwell. Considering Sir John Wolstenholme’s interest in their cause, one cannot say that there were no Separatists aboard the Gift or that John Boyse was not one of them, but it does mean that we must look elsewhere for the name of Blackwell’s ship and for the people who survived its calamitous voyage to Virginia.14 Discovered since Audrey Noël Hume’s death, the Virginia census of March 1619 put the colony’s total population at 928 and that of Martin’s Hundred at 72—45 men, 14 women, and 13 young persons. Taken at face value the 1619 census would have these people arriving before the Gift of God landed on April 19 with those who survived from the 220 who set out on January 19, 1618/19. But who sent them and why they were listed as being at Martin’s Hundred before the land had been apportioned remains a mystery.15

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

The ships arriving in the spring of 1619 found the colony in the hands of the soon-to-be-departing governor Samuel Argall, a strong administrator intent on improving the lot of the colonists—particularly his own. He had appropriated 24,000 acres (as his right for having transported 24 settlers) on the mainland west of Jamestown, which came to be known as Argall Towne and subsequently were incorporated into the Virginia Company’s own 30,000 acres that were to be called the Governor’s Land.16 In theory the arriving Martin’s Hundred settlers should have been sent immediately to begin work on the 20,000 acres purchased by the Society’s investors. But it was not to be. Instead Argall put them to work on his land, apparently contracting with them to clear 300 acres of woodland at a price of 600 pounds of tobacco.17 Reporting to London in January 1619/20, John Rolfe wrote that Martynes Hundred men seated at Argall Towne wth good & convenyent houses have done best of all New-Comers. Many who were industrious have reaped good cropps, but most not of equall spirit and industrious have less, yet exceed other NewComers. Many of these have also died of syckness, but not comparable to other places.18

and land of the Governor of Virginia.”20 The instructions went on to say that 50 people accompanying Yeardley at the Company’s charge were to be located and put to work on the new Governor’s Land—land then claimed by Argall and occupied by the bulk of the Martin’s Hundred settlers. The Martin’s Hundred people appealed successfully to the General Assembly and were freed of their obligation to Argall and Powell. Upon his arrival Governor Yeardley, rather than recognizing that the Martin’s Hundred people had been illegally detained, elected instead to charge them rent. On January 16, 1619/20, John Pory tried to explain his governor’s action: He tooke that petty rente of Martins Hundred people, to make them acklowledge by ye same act of theirs that Paspaheigho by expresse wordes in ye greate Comission did belonge to ye Governo and that they had bene wrongfully seated by Capt Argall upon that lande.21

The question, of course, was why these industrious and healthy men were working for Argall and not for the Martin’s Hundred shareholders who had paid their passage? The logical answer is that the 14 “landsmen” who died in transit included the new Hundred’s leader (or governor), and that John Boyse was appointed warden of the Society’s interests until a new leader could be sent over with a fresh set of instructions. But logical though that answer may be, the loss of only 14 out of 220 meant that 206 people (twice the number sent in 1607 to populate Virginia) had arrived with documents to validate the extent of the expected acreage. Instead Argall and his agent, Captain Powell, reaped the benefit of the Martin’s Hundred men’s labors until July 1620, while proposing to charge them 50 pounds of tobacco each for building them the houses that Rolfe had called “good and convenyent.”19 The arriving Governor Yeardley brought with him instructions from the Virginia Company that he should set aside 30,000 acres to be located “next adjoining the said town [Jamestown] to be the seat

A year later, in a letter to the Council in London written in January 1621/22 and signed by the then governor Sir Francis Wyatt, the members were told that at that date, of the 100 tenants who were supposed to be working the land, only 46 were actually there.22 One may deduce, therefore, that the departure of the Martin’s Hundred settlers had left the Governor’s Land seriously depleted. The possibly religiously awkward John Boyse was one of two delegates from Martin’s Hundred to the July 1619 General Assembly. The other was one John Jackson.23 A month earlier there had arisen the affair of the questionable cattle; the question being who owned ten cows that should have been assigned to the people of Argall Towne. The newly arrived Governor Yeardley concluded that they should be sent there (from wherever they were kept), they being the property of Argall himself. The Martin’s Hundred people were pleased to have them, but insisted that they belonged to the Society of Martin’s Hundred and not to Argall. A year later the problem was still in dispute, causing Yeardley to explain that he had given “promise and order for ten to have bine lent to Smith’s hundred and as many to Martin’s Hundred.”24 At this point in the history of Martin’s Hundred we know nothing of its men and women other than its General Assembly representatives, John Boyse and

16. On November 18, 1618, Argall’s successor, George Yeardley, was instructed to secure 3,000 acres of the “Lands formerly conquer’d or purchased of the Paspeheies and of other grounds next adjoining” (ibid., p. 99). 17. Ibid., p. 176f. 18. Ibid., p. 247. 19. Ibid., p. 175, proceedings of the General Assembly, August 4, 1619, referring specifically to the “inhabitants of Paspaheigh, alias Martin’s hundred people.”

20. Ibid., p. 99. 21. Ibid., p. 255. 22. Ibid., p. 584. 23. Ibid., p. 154. 24. Richard Sackville, “Lord Sackville’s Papers Respecting Virginia,” American Historical Review, vol. XXVII, no. 3 (1922), p. 501. This communication lists the kine claimed to be owned by the Virginia Company on September 26, 1620: “Cowes 19, Hayfers 14, Steirs 3, Bulls 2, Young calves of this yeare 21.”

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

19

Plate 6. A reconstruction of the John Boyse compound prior to the Indian attack of 1622. Painting by Richard Schlecht. John Jackson, and of the latter nothing but his name. As will be demonstrated, archaeological evidence was to combine with the surviving documentation to place John Boyse at Site H adjacent to Wolstenholme Towne (Site C) in 1622 (Pl. 6).25 Circumstantial evidence, therefore, indicated that while the vast majority of the Gift of God’s passengers labored in Argall Town (later the Governor’s Land) John Boyse established himself at Site H to secure the ten miles of river frontage that he had selected on behalf of the Society. The Virginia Company’s instruction had been that no plantation should be established within five miles of any other, and for this reason Site H was chosen to hold the five miles upstream and the same distance downriver. There is, however, a possible flaw in the reasoning. One surviving document complains that rather than remaining with his fellows, Boyse had “forsaken their Plantacon and settled himselfe elsewhere.” This complaint was presented to the Court of the Virginia Company on April 3, 1620, prompting one to ask: What plantation? No documentation survives to state whether or not the Martin’s Hundred people were still at Argall Town or had moved to modern Carter’s Grove when their complaint was shipped to the Soci-

ety’s administrators (probably at least three months earlier) and who in turn forwarded it in writing to the Virginia Company. If they were complaining from Argall Town, it is possible that John Boyse’s move to Site H was misunderstood by the complainants, but if the Argall Town people had already moved downriver to their new home, then the complaint against Boyse was that he had not remained with his flock after they got there. Like so many of the surviving records, the written complaint omits essential amplifying details. Furthermore, no information survives to tell what action was or was not taken in response to it beyond instructing Yeardley to address the grievances “and further them in their lawfull desires.” The pertinent text reads as follows:

25. In her draft manuscript Audrey Noël Hume stated that John Boyse “almost certainly built the site [settlement] to the east of the town.”

26. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 331f.

A Complainte in writinge beinge now presented by some of the Adventurors of Martins Hundred, for redresse of some wrongs, pretended done them pticularly by one Boyse entertayned there to be a Bayly of their hundred who contrarie to Coveñnts hath forsaken their Plantacon and settled himselfe elsewhere.26

In examining this evidence Audrey Noël Hume noted that there were no fewer than four people in

20

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

the colony named Boyse, among them Thomas Boyse and his family, who would be listed among the Martin’s Hundred dead in 1622.27 There can be little doubt, however, that the complainants’ “one Boyse” referred not to Thomas but to John Boyse. He was, after all, one of the Hundred’s two representatives to the Assembly, and the reference to Boyse being a “Bayly” or bailiff can only mean what the Oxford English Dictionary would have it mean: “One charged with administrative authority in a certain district, the chief officer of a hundred.”28 That the complaint said that Boyse was to be “a Bayly” and not the bailiff suggests that he was one of two or more, i.e., wardens John Boyse and John Jackson. The problem with such slender evidence is that there is a searing temptation to manipulate it to create a fuller interpretation. Thus, for example, one might postulate that John Boyse resented the Martin’s Hundred people being put to work at Argall Town and so took himself to Charles City to live with kin who were already there.29 When word came to move his charges to Carter’s Grove, he continued to set himself apart and built his palisaded home at Site H while his compatriots were erecting the nearby Wolstenholme Towne. Skeptics might argue that if this scenario is correct and both sites C and H were developed simultaneously, why would Boyse’s palisades be built to incorporate two large cannon platforms when the Wolstenholme Fort had smaller flankers? The 1624/25 muster shows that Martin’s Hundred had but one “Peece of Ordnance,” and that was listed in the household of Governor William Harwood.30 The date of Harwood’s arrival is unknown, though it is generally accepted as being in 1620 and, by extension, that the move to modern Carter’s Grove

took place after his arrival. If, however, the move preceded his arrival and took place when Boyse was still bailiff/warden, then it would be reasonable that he should continue to live apart from his people, particularly when by placing himself downstream from the town the cannon, then still in his charge, could be situated to its best advantage. On November 12, 1619, while the Martin’s Hundred people presumably were still at Argall Town, Governor Yeardley appointed four “Tasters” to establish the price for tobacco. They were “Ensign William Spencer, Iohn Boys gentl, Iohn Iefferson gentl, and Iohn Tooke M mate of the Georg.”31 The last choice was a surprising one, but useful because the George returned to England on January 16, 1619/20. Thus it would appear that the four tasters were appointed only to assess the quality of the 1619 crop. Governor Yeardley called it “a most extraordinary good yeare both for Corne and Tobacco,” and the colony’s secretary, John Pory, added that it was “the best Tobacco that ever grew in Virginia. As good as ye Spanish.”32 That good news may have been the stimulus needed for the several groups of adventurers to fit out more emigratory voyages to Virginia. In the last quarter of 1619 (first of N.S. 1620) the Company sent out 598 new settlers. 33 Audrey Noël Hume’s research notes indicate that five people destined for Martin’s Hundred were among the 200 who boarded the Jonathan in February 1619/20.34 The ship reached Jamestown on May 27, 1620, after a sickness-ridden voyage that took the lives of 25 emigrants (and more who died on arrival) as well as the ship’s master and three mariners. This loss prompted Secretary Pory to advise the Company to avoid sending unseasoned emigrants out to arrive in the spring, and that the ships should take the northern, Western Isles–Ber-

27. The others were Chyna (or Cheney) Boise, who lived in Charles City, had come to Virginia aboard the George in 1617, and at the age of 18 was too young to be a Martin’s Hundred leader, and Luke Boyse. The latter arrived on the Edwine in May 1619 and, like Chyna, lived in Charles City (Jester, pp. 15 and 8 respectively). 28. Phillips, New World of Words (1671), includes the following definition:

32. Ibid., p. 257f. Yeardley’s putting corn before tobacco was an example of 17th-century political correctness. He added that the colonists did not intend to rely “upon a commodity as much importuned as little necessary.” 33. Ibid., p. 115. The largest of the ships, the 350-ton Jonathan, carried 200 passengers. The tabulation shows that many of the people sent out by the Company were specialists: ironworkers, pitch and tar makers, sawyers, silkworkers, vine tenders, saltworkers. There also were a surprisingly large number of people being sent to interfere with the religious beliefs of the Indians: 50 men “sent by their labours to beare up the charge of bringing up Thirty of the Infidels children in true Religion and civility.” This effort was financed by an “unknowne person who, together with a godly letter, contributed £550 in gold ‘for bringing up children of the Infidels.’” The deceased Virginia Company member Nicholas Ferrar left £300 in his will to the “Colledge in Virginia, to be paid, when there shall be ten of the Infidels children placed in it.” 34. These were the employees of Society members Sir Lawrence and Nicholas Hyde (ibid., p. 450f., Governor Yeardly writing from James citty [sic] on May 16, 1621). I have been unable to find the documentation to confirm the five’s arrival aboard the Jonathan, a ship carrying Company rather than secondary company people (“particular Adventurers for private Plantations”).

a Magistrate appointed, within a Province . . . to execute Justice, to maintain the peace, and to preserve the people from wrongs and vexations, and is principal Deputy to the King, or Supream Lord, also ther Officers of each hundred. 29. See n. 27 above. 30. Little is known about Harwood’s background beyond the fact that he was born in Barnstaple. It is possible, however, that he was a relative of Sir Edward Harwood, a Martin’s Hundred shareholder, who on July 21, 1619, had proposed that “some Land to be given to the Corporacon of Martins Hundred for their further encouragmtt” which was supported by Sir John Wolstenholme, but not acted upon “by reason itt grew late” (see Kingsbury, vol. I, p. 273, Quarter Court of the Virginia Company of London, November 17, 1619). 31. Ibid., vol. III, p. 229.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

muda route rather than the long haul through the West Indies.35 It is unlikely that Martin’s Hundred–bound people were among the Jonathan’s 25 dead, for in writing to Company Treasurer Sir Edwin Sandys, John Pory referred to the 25 as “yor land people,” meaning Virginia Company personnel. It is clear, nonetheless, that Sir Lawrence and Nicolas Hyde’s five arrived at a bad time of the year. Writing in broader terms Governor Yeardley called it “a most fervent and contagious time” and noted “Of these servants of their coming in (as others did) . . . some are dead.” However, he identified only one, Nicolas Hyde’s man Lawrence Clarke. Yeardley’s letter explaining the provisions he had made for locating the Hydes’s people is one of the most informative to survive—insofar as it relates to the accommodation and distribution of people in Martin’s Hundred. Although dating as late as May 16, 1621, Yeardley is still seeing John Boyse as the Hundred’s leader. Speaking of the new arrivals, Yeardley wrote that he “could not devise, how to doe them better service, then by recomending their men & the provisions they brought to the care of Mr John Boys Warden of Martins hundred.” The latter had written a note citing his placement of the men, and this, though penned in a hand “very rude and muche blurred,” Yeardley sent home to England. Warden Boyse’s note explained that Nicolas Hyde had three people, Ralph Dickins [Dickinson] and his wife Jane, “her husband dwelles wth Thomas Boys.” The note added that the single man’s name was Stephen Collier, who was living with John Boyse. More revealing, however, was the following: Sr Lawrence Hyde hath one servant dwelling wth Thomas Cumber, whose name is Richard Chelsey, who is to have for his wages till Christmas next 80lb of Tobacco, three barrells of corne, & to have an house new builte him 14 .foot long, & twelve foote Broad.36

This is the only documentary information pertaining to the dimensions of the Martin’s Hundred dwellings—dimensions significantly smaller than anything yet revealed by archaeology. The same letter from Yeardley went on to explain why Boyse was parking the Hydes’s servants with others already seated—including himself. Wrote Yeardley:

35. Ibid., p. 301, John Pory to Sir Edwin Sandys, June 12, 1620. 36. Ibid., p. 450f. 37. Ibid. 38. The Kiskiak (or Chischiack) Indians were a small tribe living northeast of the Martin’s Hundred tract in the direction of modern Yorktown. William Strachey (The Historie of Travell Into Virginia Britania, 1612 [1953], p. 69) recorded that the tribe was led by werowance Ottahotin and could field 50 warriors.

21

I shalbe ready to give them the best assistance I can to settle them upon their own lande; about the laying out whereof I will take order wth Mr Boys who hath not yet assigned any land at all for any particular adventurer remaining in England, and shall appoint those twoe gentlemen their dividends wth the first. The reason why I have bene so slowe in doing it is because we have never a surveyour in the lande and by that meanes cannot performe suche a service to any purpose, but might therein muche wronge either the owners, or suche as should be their next neighbours.37

Yeardley went on to note that he doubted whether the Society of Martin’s Hundred would feel comfortable having someone other than their own officer mete out acreage to the newcomers. He added that he had heard that the Society had in mind to buy land from the Kiskiak Indians and that this area might be one from which the Hydes might like to select their dividend.38 In the absence of a professional surveyor, it is reasonable to deduce that Warden Boyse used Wolstenholme Towne as the hub for his land distribution (Pl. 7) and that the parcels were assigned to abut at north, west, and east of the central administrative settlement. Those Society adventurers who had put up money but had sent no people would have to take their turn—turns which for many never came. The lack of a surveyor meant, however, that all the parcels fanned out from Wolstenholme Towne and that in consequence the extremities of the 20,000 acres were never settled. It explains, too, why so many households were located so close to the hub. At the same time, this expediency had the advantage of rendering the several properties more interdependently defensible. Shortly before the Hydes’s people reached Virginia, another ship was setting out from London. The Francis Bonaventure was large, 240 tons, carrying 153 passengers, among them William Harwood, Martin’s Hundred’s new (replacement?) governor. The ship left the Thames on April 20, 1620, and unlike many a voyage, this one was relatively uneventful. Indeed, by December the Company was able to congratulate itself for having delivered in 1619/20 close on 800 new settlers and losing no ships.39 Although William Harwood is once referred to as “governor,” there is no evidence that he formally

39. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 115, and vol. I, p. 430. In her passage the Francis Bonaventure (Captain Wilkins) had lost only one person. Although her date of departure is given as April 20, it is clear that she did not arrive in the Downs to commence the voyage until May 1, 1620 (ibid., vol. III, p. 270, letter by Treasurer Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar from his home at Northborn in east Kent).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Plate 7. Wolstenholme Towne as it may have have looked prior to March 22, 1622. The Company Compound is in the right foreground and the Domestic Unit lies beyond it . The Fort lies in the center and the Barn is beyond. This last is shown with low side walls, an interpretation later repudiated (p. 116). Painting by Richard Schlecht. enjoyed that title.40 At a General Court of the Virginia Whether or not this was the first time that any MarCompany meeting on June 28, 1620 (while Harwood tin’s Hundred people moved from Argall Town to was still in transit), seven new “Councellors of State” take up their master’s dividends is unclear. It is eviwere appointed, six of them in the morning, and “to dent, however, that even after Harwood’s arrival John them was now added mr Horwood the cheife of MarBoyse continued to hold a place of importance in the tins Hundred.”41 settlement’s administration. There is reason to believe that a second Martin’s Although the summer of 1620 saw the arrival of Hundred–bound officer traveled aboard the Francis Martin’s Hundred’s new leader, in terms of their Bonaventure, one Richard Kean who would later be investment the London adventurers had little reason referred to as “Lieutenant Rich: Kean.”42 It is likely for confidence. For the best part of a year, therefore, that together, upon their arrival, Harwood and Kean the Society sent out no new settlers, meaning that no set about getting Martin’s Hundred into higher gear. more of the original members were prompted to take

40. In a letter addressed to the governor and Council in Virginia (August 12, 1621) and probably written by John Ferrar, mention is made of “their governor Mr Harwood”—governor with a small “g.” 41. Ibid., vol. I, p. 383. 42. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 570. Audrey Noël Hume’s reseach notes

state that an unnamed Martin’s Hundred–bound individual accompanied Harwood aboard the Francis Bonaventure and speculated that he was Richard Kean (ibid., vol. III, p. 594). He is referred to as “Mr Richard Keane now resident in Virginia” in a letter from the Virginia Company to the governor and Council in Virginia dated September 11, 1621 (ibid., p. 506).

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

up their dividends. The nature of the problems that beset the settlement in that year is not recorded. We know only that by September 11, 1621, the Virginia Company’s Council in London was able to assure its Jamestown counterparts that, among other reassuring happenings, “The Society of Martins hundred whose designes by many misfortunes as well here as in Virginia have beene hitherto checked, do now againe go forward cherefully.”43 A major problem facing all the particular plantations revolved around their ability to receive and house sudden influxes of new settlers. With nowhere to put them, the existing houses being fully occupied, the newcomers found themselves with inadequate shelter, inadequate food, and, if they arrived in the spring, a climate intent on carrying them off. A broadside published and circulated by the Virginia Company on May 17, 1620, called upon each of the large plantations to construct guesthouses. Each of them, [shal] at their common charge, labour, and industry, frame, build, and perfect, with all things thereto belonging, a common house to bee called a Guest house, for the lodging and entertaining of fifty persons in each, upon their first arrivall.44

The reason for issuing these instructions in the form of a broadsheet is clear enough. It was saying simply that we, the Virginia Company, will take care of you when you get there. So don’t hesitate to volunteer. Although that was none too subtle a come-on, the Company was serious about the need to make the newcomers welcome and to keep them healthy. It is clear, however, that for one reason or another, new arrivals were not received at Wolstenholme Towne as cheerfully as the Virginia Company could have wished. The succouringe, and cherishinge of them and theire proceedings, we in effectuall manr recommend unto you, desiringe youe to be by all possible favors aidinge and asistinge unto them: and in pticuler if the Inhabitants of Wolster-Holmes Towne, their old tenants shall unkindly refuse to enterteine for a while these new Comers in theire howses, we desire that by yo r Comand they may be billited amongst them, and they compelled to so charitable and bounden a duty.45

23

that docked at Jamestown in 1621. The Marmaduke transported “twelve lustie youths” and apparently sailed alone.46 However, the 180-ton Warwick was to carry among its 100 passengers 28 Martin’s Hundred recruits, while its companion vessel, a 40-ton pinnace named the Tiger, was to carry 12 more.47 Between them the three ships’ passengers included 50 women, “maides” to be disposed of as either wives or servants, all modestly priced at 150 pounds “of the best leafe tobacco.”48 The Warwick arrived safely, but the Tiger was captured by “Turks,” then the generic name for Barbary pirates who, out of North African ports, preyed upon European shipping taking the long southern course to the New World. Under circumstances unexplained, the Tiger eventually was freed, but not until the Turks had “pillaged” her.49 Knowing that the Barbary Turks were much wedded to the use and sale of slaves, one would have expected that a cargo of weddable maids would have been quickly pillaged, but at the Virginia Company’s Court meeting of February 1621/22, the members were advised that thanks to “a strange accident” the Tiger escaped “and came safely with her people to Virginia.”50 Preparations for the Warwick’s departure meant the assembling not only of people but of supplies both for their maintenance and for sale in the Company store. The selection evidently became a subject of philosophical debate and the voicing of a fundamental concern that some of the Virginia settlers were forgetting their prescribed place in the social hierarchy. The Company’s Council put it like this: as for vanities and supfluities, although we find that they yeeld most profitt in Virginia; yet we have thought it most unfitt to norish by such supplies that evil humor of prid[e] and ryott wch we wish were utterly extirpated.51

Concern about the settlers’ riot of apparel was not new. In the first meeting of the General Assembly, voicing the requirements of the Council in London, an order was passed “Against Idleness, Gaming, drunkenes and excesse in apparell.” It would be reiterated in 1621, ordering that “all Kinde of ryott both in apparrell & otherwise be eschewed,” and that

The new arrivals who were to be received with mandatory cheerfulness arrived aboard several ships

no person residing in Virginia (excepting those of ye Counsill And heads of Hundreds and plantations ther wyves & Children) shall weare any gold in ther Clothes or any apparrell of silke, untill such time

43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., p. 276. See also p. 89 of this study. 45. Ibid., p. 506. Richard Kean was charged with looking after these people. 46. Ibid., p. 495. 47. Ibid., p. 594. In all, between January 1619/20 and January 1621/22, the Society claimed to have sent 280 persons to Mar-

tin’s Hundred. 48. Ibid., p. 505. 49. J. H. Lefroy, Memorials Of The Discovery And Early Settlement Of The Bermudas Or Somers Islands, Vol. I: 1515–1587 (1981), p. 257, deposition of Captain Elfrey, April 9, 1622. 50. Kingsbury, vol. I , p. 605f. 51. Ibid., p. 503.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

they have itt of the silke there made by Silkewormes & raised by ther owne Industry.52

the confusion, Martin’s Hundred’s governor, William Harwood, had been granted permission to surrender his seat on the Virginia Governor’s Council owing to the fact that the Hundred’s business required “his presence continually.”59 The same June meeting that heard of William Harwood’s need to attend to pressing Society matters also learned that the colony’s 1621 crop of tobacco had arrived aboard the ship George, but proved to be so “meane” that it could not find a buyer at three shillings a pound. The news left “the Companie . . . verie ill sattisfied.” It was no happier with the George’s sample of Virginia wine, which “was by long carrieing spoiled but principally, by the Mustie Caske wherein it was putt, so that it hath been rather of scandall then creditt unto us.”60 On January 30, 1621/22, seven weeks before the roof fell in on Martin’s Hundred (and on many another plantation), its London Adventurers applied to the Virginia Company for a new patent, probably because the number of members had markedly increased since the first, now missing, patent had been issued. Only by accident does this second license survive, for a copy was kept among Virginia Company papers as a typical example of a particular plantation patent. In it the territory of Martin’s Hundred “amountinge in the whole to 20000 acres” is clearly spelled out:

The discovery at Site A (the Harwood site) of a woven gold point would render this decree of particular significance.53 That officials on both sides of the Atlantic should be concerned about the way people dressed might suggest that all else was in order. But it wasn’t. For new arrivals reality differed markedly from expectations. Thus, for example, Frenchman Peter Arondelle wrote to Sir Edwin Sandys complaining that promises given him by Company Deputy John Ferrar had not been kept. He was to have been given “provisions for a whole year before hande, a house ready builte and Cattell”; but all he received, or so he said, was “a pinte and a halfe of . . . musty meale for a man a day . . . . As for the other things there is not one observed.”54 The situation in Martin’s Hundred in the summer and fall of 1621 can only be inferred. But it seemed that the harvest had been good—sufficiently so for resident Richard Staples to have 60 barrels of corn stored on his property.55 The problems relating to the reception of new arrivals had been resolved, the Council in London being advised that “The People of martins hundred (as we are informed by m r H[arwood] doe willinglie & lovinglie receave the new Comers, who alsoe shall have from us all lawfull aide and asistance in all things.”56 It would appear that in the summer of 1621 Harwood had received new instructions from the Society. Writing to the governor and Council in Virginia, the London Company advised that Harwood “is enioyned to accquaint youe wth his instruccons, to whom wee pray youe accordingly give yor best assistance.”57 Unfortunately, the nature and scope of those instructions are not recorded, nor is there any record of Governor Wyatt’s response to them. The apparent successes in Martin’s Hundred attributable to a good harvest in 1621 evidently had their downside, for on January 28, 1621/22, the Virginia Company’s Court was advised that Martin’s Hundred was in no position to undertake the education of “a certain number of Infidells children” because the plantation was “sorely weakened” and “in much confusion.”58 Perhaps in an effort to eliminate

To the previously patented 20,000 acres there is now added a further 1,500 acres to be put to “such publque uses and no other as the said Adventurors their heires and assignes shall thinke meet.” Referring to Wolstenholme Towne, the patent noted that more people would be sent over to “inhabite and to erect and make pfect a Church and Towne there alreadie begunne.”61 The additional acreage would be glebe land, though not necessarily adjacent to the

52. Ibid., vol. III, p. 469, Virginia Company instructions to the governor and Council of State in Virginia, July 24, 1621. 53. See Pt. II, Fig. 89, nos. 40/40A. 54. Ibid., p. 434f., letter of December 15, 1621. Arondelle was living at Elizabeth City. His sponsor, John Ferrar, appears to have recruited others for the Society of Martin’s Hundred. 55. H. R. McIlwaine, ed., Minutes Of The Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia (1979), p. 131, Court session January 10, 1625/26.

56. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 583, report from Virginia of January [no day] 1621/22. 57. Ibid., p. 495. 58. Ibid., vol. I, p. 586. 59. Ibid., vol. III, p. 651. This comes from a letter sent by the Virginia Company to its governor in Virginia on June 10, 1622, before news of the March Indian attacks reached London. 60. Ibid., pp. 646–648. 61. Ibid., p. 594ff.

The same land to be bounded in manner followinge namely from the place where the Towne in Martins Hundred is nowe seated called Wolstenholme Towne five miles upward towards James Cittie and five miles Downeward towards Newports News all alonge the great River called Kinge James River and Northward to the River called the Queenes River alias Pacomunky together with the one halfe of the River or Rivers that is to saye to the middest thereof as shall adioyne to the saide lands.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

church, but possibly at and around the house supplied to the Hundred’s minister, Robert Pawlett.62 The patent states that 100-acre shares in the Society were selling for £12 10s., but among other caveats and provisos the shareholders were required to yield and pay to the King one fifth parte of the Oare of all Mynes of gold and silver wch are or shalbe found within the precincts aforesaid And one other fifth parte of the said Oare to the said Treasurer and Companie and their Successors.63

In its June 10, 1622, letter to the governor and Council in Virginia, the London Company stressed its disappointment that the colony was sending home virtually nothing that was proving profitable, allowing that its own debts amounted to close to £2,000 and were becoming an embarrassment. Nevertheless, it intended to stay the course and planned to send out a supply ship under the command of Captain Each that would leave the Isle of Wight in August.64 Estimates of the number of people sent to the colony between 1619 and March 1622 varied widely, but the numbers went something like this—1619: 887 persons; 1620: 843 persons of whom 240 died as well as 120 “that ranne away and dyed in their passage”; 1621: 1,501 persons; 1622: about 1,240. In sum “there was 3560 or 3570 Persons transported to Virginia . . . whereof the remainder being about 1240 about the tyme of the Massacre65 it Consequentlie followes, that wee had then lost 3000 Persons within those 3 yeares.”66 This was an extremely heavy rate of attrition, and it cannot have escaped the notice of the London Adventurers that these deaths came during a time of tranquillity. The Spaniards were absent and the Indians quiet. The pro-Indian colonist George Thorpe contended that “if there bee wronge on any side it is on ors who are not soe charitable to them as Christians out to bee, they beinge (espetiallye the better sort of them) of a peaceable & vertuous disposition.” 67 He was less charitable toward the Spaniards, however, and asked for a supply of pikes,

62. Ibid., p. 651. 63. Ibid., p. 596. This was boilerplate language. By this date no one in Virginia expected to find either gold or silver in the clay-based lowlands of the Tidewater. 64. Ibid., p. 648. 65. The word massacre is here used for the first time in this history and occurs within a contemporary quotation. It is, however, one frowned upon (and often censored) by politically correct historians, who recoil from calling a spade a spade. There is, nevertheless, no other word to describe adequately the harvest of the Virginian killing fields in the spring of 1622. The O.E.D. defines the word as meaning “to kill indiscriminately (a number of human beings, occas. animals). Also occas. absol. To murder cruelly or violently, 1601. To mutilate, mangle—1651.” Assumed sensitivity on the part of Native Americans is the given reason for historians’ reluctance to use the word, yet there is no sensitivity on the part of whites to describe what happened

25

explaining that “By reason of the Spaniards behaviour towards Captaine Chester wee have some reason to doute wee maie alsoe heare of them in this place.”68 The Spanish bogeyman was no new specter. He had been around since the 1607 landing but had taken more solid shape in January 1619/20, when a report circulated that the Spaniards intended to invade in the spring. Assessing the colony’s ability to repel them, planter John Rolfe painted a singularly doleful picture: Wee have no place of strength to retreate unto, no shipping of cteynty (wch. would be to us as the wodden walles of England) no sound and experienced souldyers to undertake, no Engineers and arthmen to erect works, few Ordenance, not a serviceable carriadge to mount them on; not Amunycon of powlder, shott and leade. to fight 2. wholl dayes, no not one gunner belonging to the Plantacon.

Rolfe observed that “if wee gott not some Ord’nance planted at Point Comfort, the Colony would be quyte undone and that ere long.”69 Much later the Company would contract with Captain Each to bring over carpenters to build a river-commanding blockhouse at Blunt Point, near the mouth of the Warwick tributary. In the meantime desultory efforts were made to prepare for the colonists’ defense against both Spaniards and Indians, and it may well be that it was in this time of nervousness that Martin’s Hundred’s defenses were erected. The aged king Powhatan died in April 1618, bringing briefly to the fore his innocuous half brother Opitchapam, who was soon eclipsed by another, the redoubtable Opechancanough. One of the many circulating rumors had it that Opechancanough had plotted that at the ceremony of “the taking upp of Powhatans bones . . . the Salvages were to be assembled to sett uppon every Plantatione of the Colonie.” But when Opechancanough denied it and no proof was forthcoming “our people by degrees fell againe to theire ordinary watch . . . having had many the like Alarumes wch cam to nothinge.”70

in South Dakota in 1890 as the “Massacre at Wounded Knee.” Similarly, the English have no trouble describing their 1692 slaughter of the Clan Macdonald as the “Glencoe Massacre.” And again, there is no evident outrage among Chicagoans about calling the 1929 machine-gun murder of seven bootleggers the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Where appropriate, therefore, the word will continue to be used herein as dictionaries recommend and as history described. 66. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 537f. 67. Ibid., p. 446, George Thorpe to John Pory, May 15 and 16, 1621. 68. Ibid., p. 447. The reference to Captain Chester stands alone. 69. Ibid., p. 243f., John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys. 70. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 10, letter from the Council in Virginia to the Virginia Company, January 20, 1622/23.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Bit by bit the arriving English had been granted land taken or purchased from the Indians for the price of a few blue beads and several hatchets. But the Indians, not understanding the finality of ownership in the European sense of having and holding, traded more readily than they would have otherwise. Not until the fences went up and the guns pointed did they realize that they were being barred from the hunting grounds and watering places that had been universally theirs for centuries. Not unnaturally the colonists were daunted by the hard labor involved in felling primeval forests, and so wherever possible chose areas already cleared by the Indians, and that meant most of the river-fronting acres. Martin’s Hundred’s land was a good example. So, step by step, land transaction by land transaction, the Indians were driven ever further inland and onto inhospitable ground. At the same time English clerics did their best to undermine the authority of the Indian priests and, by extension, the entire Indian leadership. The Reverend Jonas Stockton wrote that he saw “no probability by faire meanes alone to draw the Savages to goodnesse . . . and till their Priests and Ancients have their throats cut, there is no hope to bring them to conversion.”71 Against this background (and worse besides) Opechancanough was able to bring wavering tribes into a punitive alliance against the English. Whether the time to strike had been long set or whether, as the colonists deduced, a single spark ignited the train will never be known. But that there was a spark is not disputed. In mid-March 1622 Nemattanow, an Indian werowance of some importance (known to the English as Jack o’ the Feather), was shot after his alleged murder of one Morgan, a trader in “such commodities as suited the rude taste of the Indians.”72 When Opechncanough first heard of the death of his premier lieutenant, he “much grieved and repined, with great threats of revenge,” but later he found it prudent to temper his grief with the “greatest signes he could [of] love and peace.” 73 Two weeks later, at about eight o’clock in the morning 74 and to the astonishment of the unprepared settlers, he struck (Pl. 8). On the Friday morning that fattall day, being the two and twentieth of March, as also in the evening before, as at other times they came unarmed into

71. Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1905-1907), vol. IV, p. 1779, Stockton to the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, May 28, 1619. 72. William Stith, The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia (1747), p. 208. 73. Philip L. Barbour, ed., The Complete Words of Captain John Smith (1580–1631) (1986), vol. II, p. 293. 74. Letter from Thomas Locke to the Rev. Joseph Mead, July 12, 1622, quoted in Thomas Birch, The Court And Times Of James

our houses, with Deere, Turkies, Fish, Fruits, and other provisions to sell us, yea in some places sat downe at breakfast with our people, whom immediately with their owne tooles they slew most barbarously, not sparing either age or sex, man woman or childe, so sudden in their execution, that few or none discerned the weapon or blow that brought them to destruction . . . and not being content with their lives, they felle again upon the dead bodies, making as well they could a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling their dead carkases into many peeces, and carying some parts away in derision, with base and brutish triumph.75

Archaeological evidence from Martin’s Hundred corroborates the brutality of the attack’s aftermath, but there is no proof that any of the survivors’ accounts were describing events in Martin’s Hundred. Indeed the only spelled-out example related to the fate of the overly trusting George Thorpe, to whom the Indians reportedly “did so many barbarous despights and foule scornes after to his dead corpse, as are unbefitting to be heard by any civill eare.”76 That the whole colony was not wiped out was due to the treachery of a Christianized Indian, Chanco, a servant on the plantation of William Perry. The latter’s neighbor on the south side of the James River was Richard Pace, who had settled 200 acres there in 1620. Like George Thorpe, Pace was friendly to the Indians, and therefore it was to him that Chanco revealed Opechancanough’s intent to attack on the following morning. Armed with that information Pace was able to warn Jamestown, which closed its gates and manned its palisades—to the deterence of those Indians assigned to attack the town. Finding it prepared, they backed off—as they did from the few plantations that were able to mount deterring resistence. Martin’s Hundred was not one of them. Fifty-eight settlers were killed and 15 women and five men were taken prisoner. The names of the dead were as follows: Lieut Rich: Kean Master Tho: Boise & Mistris Boise his wife, & a sucking Childe. 4 of his men. A Maide 2 Children Nathanael Iefferies wife. Richard Staples, his wife, and Childe. 2 Maides

the First (1848), vol. II, p. 321. The source of Locke’s information is unrecorded, but his letter was written only five days after news of the massacre reached London. 75. Barbour, vol. II, p. 294. This passage from Smith is lifted almost verbatim from Edward Waterhouse’s A Declaration Of The State Of The Colony And Affaires in Virginia, compiled from survivors’ reports and published “by Authoritie” in the summer or fall of 1622; see Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 550f. 76. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 553.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

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Plate 8. Wolstenholme Towne during the 1622 attack, the reconstruction from the same perspective as the companion picture, Pl. 7. Painting by Richard Schlecht. 6 Men and Boyes Walter Davies & his brother. Christopher Guillam. Thomas Comber. Master Iohn Boise his Wife. A Maide. 4 Men-servants. Laurence Wats, his wife. 2 Men-servants. Timothy Moise, his Man. Henry Bromage, his wife, his Daughter, his Man. Edward How, his Wife, his Childe. A child of Iohn Iacksons. 4 Men-servants. Iosua Dary, his Wife, A Man. Ralphe Diggionson, his Wife. Richard Cholfer. George Iones. David Bons. Iohn Bennet

77. The listing is given here as printed by Kingsbury, ibid., p. 570.

Iohn Mason. William Pawmet. Thomas Bats. William Lighborrow. James Thorley. Thomas Tolling. John Butler. Edward Rogers. Maximilian Russel. Henry a Welchman77

That list totals (or seems to total) 77 killed in Martin’s Hundred. However, the absence of a comma after “Master John Boise” could cause the entry to apply only to his wife. But give or take one or two, the total represents approximately half the number of settlers living in the Hundred at the time of the attack. Some three months later a letter from the presumed dead wife of John Boyse revealed that she and 19 more were held prisoner by the Pamunkey

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

and begged that the governor do what was necessary to secure their release. 78 This news, therefore, reduced the number of listed Martin’s Hundred dead to about 58. Of the 20 hostages, 15 were women and these alone survived, the five men being killed by the Indians. The presumption is that all 15 women came from Martin’s Hundred, but that is uncertain. The listed dead included only 16 women, and the archaeological discovery of one who had evidently died in the massacre at Site H (Boyse) left only the 15—an accounting that seems too neat to be plausible. News of the massacre at Martin’s Hundred reached Jamestown at the same time that reports were coming in from plantations up and down the James. The enormity of the disaster prompted Governor Wyatt to decide to withdraw immediately from the least defensible plantations and to consolidate survivors and their belongings in six enclaves. To this end, Captain William Pierce79 was sent to Martin’s Hundred “for ye reliefe of such as were left alive & ye recovery of such cattle goods & Corne as was left.” Although Pierce was testifying nearly five years later, his recollections suggest that the stored grain remained intact in no small quantities and amounted to at least 20 barrels of ears, belonging to Walter Davies but stored in the house of Richard Staples. Davis’s servant, Richard Dolphenby, recalled that “two dayes before ye Massacre Walter Davis receaved into his house 12 barrell of Eares.”80 If, as is supposed, Pierce’s expedition occurred on the afternoon of the massacre, it follows that the Indians had not yet pressed their attack to the point of looting and burning the homes of the slaughtered colonists. That conclusion is consistent with the previously cited, published statement that “they felle again upon the dead bodies, making as well they could a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling their dead carkases into many peeces.” The evidence of what happened where is fragmentary, but it is reasonable to deduce that there was a generic pattern to the attack and its aftermath. Although we know no more about the appearance of Wolstenholme Towne and its environs on the day of the massacre than emerges from Captain Pierce’s deposition, Sir George Yeardley’s experience at Flow-

erdew Hundred may well have been typical of many another plantation—including Martin’s Hundred. On the day of the massacre Yeardley went upriver by ship to his plantation but got no further than that of Captain Sanders before night began to fall and venturing ashore became too risky. 81 To pay the ship’s captain and crew, Yeardley noted that “the Marriners did throw som smale trompery in to the boat[,] things of litle or no vallew[,] the Indians havinge caried away all other things as it should seeme by there strowinge of old Chests and barrells about the feild.”82 A year later an unhappy postmassacre colonist, Richard Frethorne, would write that when he arrived in December 1622 all that remained of Martin’s Hundred’s houses were “butt 2 lefte and a peece of a Church, adding that our master doth say that 3000 pounds will not make good our plantacon againe.”83 Frethorne had put the premassacre Martin’s Hundred population at seven score (140) and after it “there was butt 22 lefte alive.”84 This figure of 118 differs considerably from the published death toll of 78 or the more accurate 58, but it is not impossible that the printed total failed to take into consideration the dead from smaller, more distant plantations, some of which were destroyed while some escaped unharmed. In his Generall Historie John Smith noted that “not far from Martin’s hundred where seventy three were slain, was a little house and a small family, that heard not of any of this till two daies after.”85 In most recorded instances the Indians returned to burn and destroy dwellings and other structures. Thus, for example, colonist Thomas Hamor barricaded himself in his house when the attack there began, only to have “the Salvages set fire on the house.” At the home of Lieutenant Basse the Indians set fire to his house “with the all the rest thereabout, slaine the people, and so left the Plantation.”86 One cannot be entirely certain, therefore, that throughout Martin’s Hundred the policy of looting one day and destroying the next was followed. There is, however, archaeological evidence that burning preceded burial.87 The first ships to arrive in the James in the immediate aftermath of the disaster were the Bona Nova with 50 pasengers and the pinnace Discovery with its com-

78. Barbour, vol. II, p. 309. 79. Later, if not already, military “Governour of James Towne” (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 111, George Sandys to John Ferrar, April 11, 1623). 80. McIlwaine, p. 131, Court proceedings, January 10, 1626/27. 81. Captain Sanders or Saunders appears in the list of the massacre dead as having lived at Martin’s Brandon on the south side of the river, where he is identified as Lieutenant Sanders (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 569). 82. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 516, Sir George Yeardley deposition of February 4, 1624/25.

83. Ibid., p. 41; Richard Frethorne to Mr. Bateman, March 5, 1622/23. 84. Ibid. 85. Barbour, vol. II, p. 296. 86. Ibid. There is no reference to Basse’s losses in the official list of the massacre dead. However, the reference would seem to be to Captain Nathaniel Basse, who reached Virginia in 1622 aboard the Furtherance and who established the plantation known as Basse’s Choice on the south side of the James west of the Nansemond River. 87. See p. 70.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

plement of 20 souls.88 Arriving early in April, these vessels had sailed before news of the massacre reached London. Not until April 20 (and possibly later) did the Council in Virginia write its first report of the attacks. By then the governor and his advisors had made their decision to regroup. Captain Ralph Hamor, who lived across the river from Martin’s Hundred on Hog Island, was given the task of evacuating “all the people and goods of Wariscoyack upp to James Cittie.” Five days earlier he had been given

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all other throughowt the whole Colonie we have beene fayne to abanden and to bringe the most of our Cattle to James Cyttie, the Island beinge the securest place for them.91

The report further stated that

There can be little doubt, therefore, that if Hamor did not immediately withdraw the Martin’s Hundred survivors, he did so around April 20 as part of the colony-wide mass evacuation.92 Depositing so many people along with their goods and cattle at Jamestown created an enormous logistical problem, one not in the least helped by the arrival of the Bona Nova and Discovery with their 70 extra mouths to feed. The Council’s report and plea to London put it bluntly. Two-thirds of the people then at Jamestown were women and children described as “unservisable people since there was never more cause to feare the miserable ruine of ye Plantacone by a relapse into an extreame famine then at this tyme.”93 The Council admitted that the planting of corn, though necessary, was hazardous and probably ultimately futile, as the Indians would cut it down and burn it. It might be possible to secure some corn from friendly Indians by trade or from hostiles by force, but the real solution, the councillors declared, was for London to send over enough “to Sustaine the whole Colonie this next yeere.” They asked also for large supplies of arms and ammunition, and that “a contynuall supplie may follow from tyme to Tyme.” As they intended to erect new and better fortifications, they also needed “some Skillfull Engineers fit for such A woorke, as alsoe great store of spades, shovells, mattocks, Peekaxes, and other tooles fitt for that purpose.” It was a hasty effort to convince the Company in London that all this would be offset by the colonists’ hard work, which would yield rich harvests of “very good Tobacco” and convert the colony into a “farr more safer happie and florishinge estate then ever it was before.”94 This upbeat conclusion to an otherwise depressing litany of disasters reached London in mid-July aboard the ship Seaflower, which was lying off Jamestown Island at the time of the attack. 95 The

88. There is no certainty that this is the same Discovery that brought 20 colonists in 1607, but the comparable number of passengers suggests that it was. She arrived on April 14, a week after the Bona Nova, carrying letters written in London in December 1622 (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 611). 89. Ibid., p. 610, instructions from Governor Francis Wyatt on April 15 and 19, 1622. 90. Ibid., p. 611. 91. Ibid., p. 612. 92. Audrey Noël Hume was strong in her belief that Martin’s Hundred was not abandoned and wrote in her draft manuscript that “Although there is some artifactual evidence to suggest that Martin’s Hundred was abandoned in accordance with the Council’s orders, documentary evidence would suggest that

any evacuation was not total.” Unfortunately, she did not present that evidence. For want of it, therefore, the weight of documentation points to an allowably temporary abandonment. 93. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 613. 94. Ibid., pp. 614–615. 95. A July 12, 1622, letter from Thomas Locke to the Rev. Joseph Mead discussed the newly arrived news and stated that “in Martins Hundred, too far off to have notice, almost all were slain, as namely 329” (Folkestone, vol. II, p. 294). A. Noël Hume’s research notes contain a further supporting quotation from the pen of a London law student written on July 12, saying that the dead were “Chiefly in St Martins Hundred to the full number of two hundred 29 of all sorts.” Unfortunately, she did not record her source.

absolute power, and comand in all matters of warr over all the people in Martins hundred, and to charge all the said people in the said Hundred, uppon payne of death to obey him uppon all such occacons, and to suffer themselves to be ordered and directed by him.89

Hamor’s instruction regarding Martin’s Hundred says nothing about moving its people to Jamestown, and it may be that that decision had not been reached when the instructions were issued on April 15, but had been by the 19th. On the latter date, while Hamor was to bring survivors upriver to regroup at Jamestown, Captain Roger Smith (whose plantation was at Charles City) was ordered to bring survivors downriver from Henrico Island and Coxendale plantation.90 The previously cited report to London written on or about April 20 spelled out for the first time that defensible consolidation was the order of the day, the Indians having burnte most of the Howses we have forsaken, but have alsoe enforced us to quitt many of our Plantacons, and to unite more neerely together in fewer places the better for to Strengthen and Defende our selve against them.

The report went on to list the places being retained: James Cyttie wth Paspehay and Certen Plantacons one the oth[er] side of the river over against the Cyttie, and Kickoghtan and Newports news Southampton hundred, Flowerdei hundred Sherley hundred & A Plantacione of mr Samuell Jourdes.

30

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Company’s initial response was one of angry recrimination: Wee have to or extreame grief undrstood of the great Massacre executed on our people in Virginia, and that in such a maner as is more miserable then the death it self; to fall by the hands of men so contemptible; to be surprised by treacherie in a time of known danger; to be deaf to so plaine a warning (as we now to late undrstand) was last yeare given; to be secure in an occacon of so great suspition and iealousie as was Nenemathanewes [Jack of the Feather’s] death . . . are circumstances that do add much to or sorrow & make us to confesse that it is the heavie hand of Allmightie God for the punishment of ors and yor transgressions.96

In short, the Company was telling its Virginia employees and debtors that they were an ungodly lot and deserved everything they got. Along with much else in the same vein, the Virginians’ “very Loving frends” in London stressed that The relinquishing of Charles Cittie, Henerico, the Iron Works, the Colledg lands and Martins hundred, are things, not only of discontent, but of evill fame; although we doubt not, undeserved; the replanting them is of absolute necessitie.97

For reasons that are not clear, the Virginia Company’s leadership was obsessed with the notion that the Virginia settlers were a dissolute group given to all manner of excess. The London leaders earnestly require the speedie redresse of those two enormous exesses of apparell and drinkeing; the crie whereof cannot but have gon up to heaven; since the infamie hath spredd it self to all that have but heard the name of Virginia to the detestacon of all good minds, the scorne of others, and o r extreame griefe and shame.98

A listing of the settlers who survived the massacre in Smith’s Hundred shows that a ship named the Furtherance sailed for Virginia in June “before the newes of the massacre was heard of.” She carried four settlers to Smith’s Hundred (one of whom was dead by

96. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 666, Treasurer and Council for Virginia to governor and Council in Virginia, August 1, 1622. 97. Ibid., p. 670. 98. Ibid., p. 666. 99. Ibid., p. 674, Smyth of Nibley Papers, August 1, 1622. 100. Ibid., note appended to a list of servants surviving in Virginia at Smith’s Hundred dated August 1, 1622. The Hundred paralleled Martin’s Hundred in being established by shareholders who formed the “Society of Smyth’s Hundred” and was named for the Virginia Company Treasurer, Sir Thomas Smith. A failing venture that had cost the shareholders a great deal of money, the Hundred (renamed Southampton Hundred in 1620) seems to have been abandoned soon after the massacre and its remaining inhabitants scattered to other plantations. The belated arrival of the Margaret and John is recorded in a letter from Christopher Davidson to John Ferrar, dated April14, 1623, carried aboard the returning Abigail. The letter

August), but whether she transported settlers to Martin’s Hundred and other plantations is unknown. Another ship sailed after the bad news reached London.99 A Smith’s Hundred–bound servant, John Burdely, went out aboard the Margaret and John, which left in August and took an extraordinary time to get there. She arrived on April 7 or 8 ending a voyage that had taken the best part of eight months and caused the Margaret and John to be written off as “a loss ship.”100 A larger vessel, the Abigail, had been scheduled to sail to Virginia in July carrying Governor Wyatt’s wife, the Lady Elizabeth, and her retinue, but after receiving the bad news, the sailing was repeatedly delayed. During this time the Company had cause to reconsider the harshness of its initial rebuke and to comply in some degree with the requests brought to London aboard the Bona Nova. Sir Edwin Sandys, the Virginia Company’s Treasurer, noted on September 22 that he expected to “spend most of this week in writing to Virginia,” and asked that someone from the Abigail call at his house at Northborn in Kent to collect the letters. 101 Although those do not survive, we do have a long letter to Governor Wyatt from the Company over the signatures of Nicholas Ferrar and Edward Collingwood. In it emphasis is placed upon the need to protect the river passage from foreign invaders, to which end the Abigail’s cantankerous Captain Each would take with him sufficient carpenters to build a blockhouse at Blunt Point. The “Adventurers of Martins Hundred” reportedly agreed to donate a fifth part of their Hundred’s time and labor to such defensive measures. More significantly, the missive stated that they “have now sett forth a verie chargeable supply of people for the reposessing of their Plantation.”102 On the evening of October 12 “Ladie Wyatt, wth manie other of hir frends & train took ship; as they were waighing anchor to be gone.” So, too, did Secretary George Sandys and his wife, who arrived so late that they were in danger of being left behind “ffor boisterous Captain Each would not have stayed for anie.”103 Nor would he wait for the seed corn so

also reported the arrival of Daniel Gookins’s ship Providence, which reached Newport News on or about April 10. Davidson added that the long-awaited Seaflower, “whose supplyes of corn & other provisions, our great necessity, at this tyme” had still not arrived. From this letter it would seem that Davidson was the source of a now-lost tabulation of the living and dead throughout the colony that precedes that of February 16, 1623/24 (ibid., vol. IV, p. 115f.). The Margaret and John had suffered considerable loss of life, including that of her captain, John Langley (ibid., p. 96, undated petition of the ship’s company to Governor Wyatt). 101. Ibid., vol. III, p. 680, Sandys to John Ferrar, September 23, 1622. 102. Ibid., pp. 686 and 689. 103. Ibid., p. 690, Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar, October 13, 1622.

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THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

badly needed to help the settlers launch their 1623 crop. Unwilling to wait any longer, Each left it to his companion vessel the Seaflower, which would remain in the Downs until the supplies could be loaded aboard. Each, therefore, sailed with Lady Wyatt and her people, along with about 150 replacement settlers bound for Martin’s Hundred and many another private plantation. Sir Edwin had arranged for eight barrels of seed wheat to be sent out on behalf of his brother George, the secretary, but Captain Each declined to accept them “neither yet anie thing else in Barrells here provided for my brother George.” After the ship sailed, Sandys wrote that Though my house have beein full in a manner all this last week, wth my Ladie Wyatt & hir train, & other frends going to Virginia: yet have I not neglected . . . to perform my Duetie toward Virginia in generall, & toward Southampton & Martins Hundred in particular.104

Evidently, therefore, the powerful Sir Edwin Sandys had a personal and particular interest in Martin’s Hundred, although the exact nature of that interest remains unclear. Throughout its life the Virginia Company had been the subject of internal contention and external gossip. With Virginia being part of his kingdom, James I took more than a passing interest in its fortunes and misfortunes. Now, at the Company’s

104. Ibid, p. 691. 105. The pistols were described as “wth fire locks.” Whether these were wheel locks or snaphaunces is unknown. This author has never heard of the alternative, namely a matchlock pistol—with the exception of contemporary toys that used that ignition system. 106. Ibid., vol. III, p. 676, warrant of September 1622. The list cited above was preceded by others. On July 29, 1622 the King at Whitehall authorized the supplying of “one hundred Brigandines, fortie plate-cottes, foure hundred shirts and cotes of Maile and 2000 skull of Iron, of those which remaine in your custody and chardge, and are out of use for the present tymes.” This document is titled “Lord Treasurer’s Warrant Respecting Arms, July 29, 1622.” It appears that once the King had been asked for help, Lord Treasurer Cranfield set about determining what military supplies might reasonably be released. Thus on August 7 the Commissioners of Ordnance (who included Virginia Company leaders Sir Thomas Smythe and Sir John Wolstenholme) submitted a certificate of evaluation “touching the decayed arms for the Virginia Company.” One may with some justification question whether the decay was as advanced as is suggested, for it seems unlikely that Smythe and Wolstenholme would have sent out equipment that they knew to be useless. It seems that the Company had already made its own inquiries regarding the Tower’s inventory, for a list made in July included 1,000 “Bucklers and Targetts” (shields). However, yet another “noate of such Armes in the Tower wch the Virginia Companye are humble Sutors for” put that figure at only 500 (see Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 665). The Commissioners’ response therefore began by noting that “the Peticioners were misinformed there being not any such [bucklers and targets] at all decayed in that Office.” The report went on to state that:

request, he stepped in to provide arms and armor to replace the reported losses. Under his royal warrant the Master of the Ordnance at the Tower of London, Sir Richard Morrison, was to supply the colony with the following: Brown bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1000 Bows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .400 Sheafs of arrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . .800 Callivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .700 Short pistols105 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .300 Arquebuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .300

The same royal warrant called on Sir William Cope, Master of the Tower Armory, to deliver the following: Skulls of iron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1000 Brigandines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 Plate coats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Shirts & coats of mail . . . . . . . . . .400

The penultimate wording of the warrant took some of the generosity out of it (perhaps deliberately so to minimize home criticism) when it noted that all of the material being unfitt for any moderne service here, his Matie is pleased, at the humble suite of that Company, to bestow upon them, as of his Mats princely and free guift, for the publique use of that Plantacon.106

In addition to the King’s donation of decayed arms to be shipped aboard the Abigail were private gifts, among them “60 Cots of Male” from Lord John St.

Of the old Brigandyns wee find in all Of Plate Cotes or Jackes of Plate Of Shirtes amd Jerkins of Mayle Of skulls

115 050 400 2000

All which are not only old and much decayed but with their age growne also together unfit and of no use for moderne service. And for any other use save for that for which they are desired we conceave them to be of very little worth. But beeing required by your Lordship to deliver our opinions aswell for their goodnes and value as for their use, wee doe esteemed the said Brigandies at [missing] the peece, the Shirtes of Maile at v s. the peece, the Jackes of Plate at iii s. the peece, and the Skulls at iii d. the peece, amounting together to the some of one hundred three score eleven pounds and five shillings. Just as today there tends to be some confusion in armor terminology, so the differences between brigandines with small rectangular riveted plates and jacks with sewn square ones, so in 1622 the cataloging was equally vague. Thus, another surviving document, an August (?) memorandum listing armor and arms to be delivered (from stores in the Minories?) lists them as follows: Briggandines alias Plate Coates Jackes of Plate Jerkins or Shirtes of Maile Sculls Besides swordes, Calivers and other pieces, pistolls and daggs Also Hallbertes what nomber they please

280 40 400 2000

All the preceding data are drawn from Sackville, pp. 502–505.

32

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

John of Basing House near Basingstoke, then blissfully unaware that 20 years later he would need everything he had to defend his home against the forces of Parliament.107 Some of the lists of weapons requested or offered included bows and arrows. This caused bureaucratic panic in London lest they fall into the hands of Indians, who thereby would learn to make better weapons than they already had. Consequently, the bows (and presumably the arrows) were shipped aboard the Seaflower, which would off-load them at Bermuda on her way to Virginia, where they were to remain until specifically called for by the colony’s defenders. They had also requested 20 barrels of gunpowder and from the King’s bounty they were assigned a dozen, but whether that was shipped aboard the Abigail or on the delayed Seaflower is not recorded; but if the latter its presence may have contributed to yet another disaster. The exact number of passengers aboard the armsand-armor-laden 140-ton Abigail is not known. One estimate put it at about 150. Because there is no reference to Martin’s Hundred’s Governor Harwood during the massacre period and its administration was subsequently put in the hands of Ralph Hamor, it seems reasonable to deduce that Harwood had been in London at the time of the attack (perhaps accompanied by John Boyse). It is also possible that both men were returning aboard the Abigail, along with perhaps 20 servants bound for Martin’s Hundred. One of them was the loquacious Richard Frethorne, in whose debt we are for most of what we now know about life in the Hundred in the winter of 1622–1623. For news of the voyage over, however, one turns to the words of Lady Wyatt: Deare Sister eare this you should have heard from me, had not th’extremitie of sicknes till now hindered me. For or Shipp was so pesterd wth people & goods that we were so full of infection that after a while we saw little but throwing folkes over boord . . . Few els are left alive that came in that Shipp: for here 107. In 1641 the House of Commons was advised that the Marquis of Winchester (Lord St. John) had in his house enough equipment to arm 1,500 men. The siege of Basing House became one of the great events of the English Civil War (Stephen Moorhouse, “Finds From Basing House, Hampshire (c. 1540–1645): Part One,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. IV [1970], pp. 31–91). 108. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 232f., Lady Wyatt to her sister, April 4, 1623. The beer to which Lady Wyatt referred had been supplied by a member of the Duppa family, probably Jeffery Duppa, who operated a brewery in Greenwich, a Thamesside location much used for the victualing of ships. He was an Adventurer in the Virginia Company to the sum of £50 (ibid., vol. III, p. 323). On March 28, 1623, the colony’s on-site treasurer, George Sandys, wrote “And by the way I would you Could hang that villaine Dupper who with his stinking beere hath poisoned most of the Passengers, and spred the Infection all over the Collonie wch before the Arrivall of the Abigall were recovered” (ibid., vol. IV, p. 65). In a letter to Samuel Wrote,

have dyed the Husband, wife, children & servants: They tould me they sent the Shipp less pestered for me, but there never came Shipp so full to Virginia as ours. I had not so much as my Cabin free to my selfe . . . Our Beare stunke so I could not endure the deck for it: This was or fortune at the Sea, and the land little better, for as well our people as our Cattle have dyed, that we are all undone.108

The Abigail had arrived in the James River on December 20, and although she was not the first to moor there since the massacre, her arrival had been long awaited.109 Apart from much-needed supplies, she carried the first letters of encouragement from the Company. The content of the previously quoted Company response can only have engendered dismay, followed swiftly by angry resentment; but of more immediate concern was the ill-health of the new arrivals. The terminally ill were disembarking into the arms of the near to starving. Had the colony’s physician, Dr. Pott, done his job, he would have quarantined all the passengers into one of the guesthouses that the company had been so anxious to see built. Instead, probably because Lady Wyatt and her retinue were already landed,110 the passengers were allowed to proceed to the various plantations where their London owners had assigned them. This was, in short, akin to firing a poisoned shotgun into the midst of the colony, and in consequence the Abigail’s legacy resulted in more deaths than had the massacre. Amid much else, Martin’s Hundredassigned servant Richard Frethorne had this to say: I am in a most miserable and pittiful Case both for want to meat and want of cloathes for we had meale and puision for twenty and there is ten dead, and yett our provision will not laste till the Seaflower come in, for those servants that were there before us were allmost Pined, and then they fell to feedinge soe hard of our provision that itt killed them that were ould Virginians as fast, as the scurvie & bloody fluxe did kill us new Virginians.111

Governor Wyatt was no less accusatory: “it is Certaine, That Duppaes beare hath beene the death of A very great number of ye Passengers and others after theire Landinge, & yf he bee notte by your authoritie made an Ensample, you are like to be noe better served, heerafter” (ibid., p. 100, letter to the Virginia Company of London, April 4, 1623). No document exists to show that the Company took action against Duppa. 109. The Abigail had been scheduled to sail in August, and captains of ships that had left London before news of the massacre reached England would have known of this intended voyage. 110. Colonist William Hobart in a letter to his father noted that “at his landing out of the Abigaile, The Governor & his lady at Mr Gookins Plantacon.” The latter’s tract was in Elizabeth City close to the mouth of the James (ibid., p. 229, Hobart’s letter of April 12, 1623). 111. Ibid., p. 41, Richard Frethorne to Mr. Bateman, March 5, 1622/23. Frethorne seems to have been unusually well schooled in the Bible, and in this letter he makes reference to

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

In a second letter, this one to his parents, Frethorne pleaded for food, saying that since he left the ship he never at anie thing but pease, and loblollie (that is water gruell) as for deare or venison I never saw anie since I came into this land, ther is indeed some foul, but Wee are not allowed to goe, and get yt, but must Worke hard both earlie, and late for a messe of water gruell, and a mouthfull of bread, and beife, a mouthful of bread for a pennie loafe must serve for 4 men wch is most pitifull . . . . I do protest unto you.

Frethorne went on “that I have eaten more in day at home then I have allowed me here for a Weeke. you have given more than my dayes allowance to a beggar at the doore.” Later in the same letter Frethorne declared that unless the Seaflower soon arrived “Wee are as like to perish first as anie Plantacon, for wee have but two Hogsheads of meale left to serve us this two Monethes.” He added that his master (Governor Harwood) had told his servants that “hee is not able to keepe us all, then wee shalbe turned up to the land and eate barks of trees, or moulds of the ground.” Waiting for the Seaflower had become the colony’s principal obsession throughout the months of March and April, indeed long after fate and a careless smoker ensured that they would wait in vain. The dearth of food was a misery matched only by fear of the Indians, which Frethorne said he did “everie hower.” Wee came but Twentie for the marchaunts, and they are halfe dead Just; and we look everie hower When two more should goe, yet there came some for other men yet to lyve with us, of which ther is but one alive . . . so that wee are faine to get other men to plant with us, and yet wee are but 32 to fight against 3000 if they should Come.

He went on to point out that the closest available help was ten miles distant. Although Frethorne’s estimate of the Indians’ strength is almost certainly exaggerated, his count of 32 settlers is likely to be accurate. So, too, is his list of the dead among those Martin’s Hundred settlers who came aboard the Abigail: John Flower John Thomas Tho: Howes John Butcher John Sanderford Rich: Smith John Olive Tho: Peirsman Willm: Cerrell

Jeremiah 31.10, also 31.20, as well as to Ecclesiasticus 35.20 and 37.6. Such piety may give additional credence to Audrey NoëlHume’s belief that there were Separatists among the Martin’s Hundred settlers.

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Geor: Goulding Jo: Johnson or Leiftennant his father and brother Tho: Giblin Geo: Banum a litle Dutchma one woman one maid one child

Frethorn explained that these came to “serve under our Leifetenants” and that they all “died out of my mrs house, since I came.” He added that “the Saylors say that ther is two thirds of the 150 dead al-ready.”112 There is always a danger of reading too much into a seventeenth-century letter (or into any other for that matter) because both spelling and punctuation were erratic. Nevertheless, one asks whether Frethorne’s reference to Lieutenant in the plural meant that another had survived the massacre or that he was referring to the deceased Lieuteant Kean. Then, too, one wonders what level of service the new settlers were to provide to the lieutenants, one being a woman, another a maid, and yet another a child. Although Frethorne’s spelling was as good as any and better than most, he was still wildly inaccurate (or hard of hearing) when, for example, he referred to William Harwood as “my Mr Harrod for so is this Mrs name.” The survival of Frethorne’s letter gives him a historical prominence that he probably did not deserve. But because his is the only clear voice calling us from the Hundred in the winter of 1622/23, he cannot be ignored. As cited above, he stated that all the Martin’s Hundred dead from the Abigail came from “my mrs house,” and taken at face value one would conclude that all 19 people had lived in the same building, the building wherein Harwood himself dwelt. That so many should have been crowded into one house makes little sense, and so one may reasonably conclude that Frethorne was referring to Harwood’s household rather than to his house. We may also deduce on the basis of the possessive pronoun that Frethorne was part of that household. But if so, and Frethorne was in daily contact with his master, it is hard to explain why he would so mispronounce Harwood’s name. Even if he constantly heard it mispronounced by others, one would have expected that the well-educated Frethorne would have asked someone, “How do you spell that?” Nevertheless, he was sufficiently sure of himself to point out his master’s name to his parents. From this one may deduce that Frethorne was not in daily contact with Harwood and that the latter’s household was scattered. 112. Ibid., pp. 58–61, Richard Frethorne in “Martyns Hundred” to his father and mother, March 20, 1622/23, and April 2, 1623.

34

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Frethorne’s place of birth has not been found, and consequently one may fall into the trap of reading too much between the letter’s lines. That he came from a large family cannot be disputed, for he ends the first part of his letter by hoping that “all my Brothers and Sisters are in good health.” It is clear, too, that his parents had been paid for sending him to work for the Company. His friends, the Jacksons of Jamestown, urged that he be repatriated “and saith, that if you love me you will redeeme me suddenlie . . . and if you cannot get the marchaunts to redeeme me for some little money,” then get “some good folks to lay out some little Sum of moneye” to buy him food. The suggestion here, therefore, is that Frethorne’s parents would not be able to afford to send him the supplies for which he begged. That he referred to the Jacksons as being “like a ffather and shee like a loveing mother” to him can be read as the cry of a chick not long from the nest. On the other hand, however, by bestowing a parental mantle on the Jacksons, an older and calculating son could be deliberately turning the screws of remorse on the parents who had sold him into slavery. The question of whether or not Frethorne had been shipped to Virginia to do what he had learned or been trained to do at home is not easily answered. His knowledge of the Bible and his ability to write with considerable eloquence indicate that he was more likely to have been a soft-fingered clerk than a horny-handed artisan. But were he in Martin’s Hundred to work as the governor’s clerk, he surely would have known how to spell his name. Furthermore, if, as seems likely, Harwood returned aboard the Abigail, one would expect Frethorne to have had close contact with him throughout the long voyage. He tells how he had to “Worke hard both earelie, and late,” suggesting that he did what he did under an unrelenting supervisor. But the only actual description of his work is related to his service as a sailor on a boat plying between Martin’s Hundred and Jamestown: When wee goe up to James Towne that is 10 myles of us, there lie all the ships that Come to the land, and there they must deliver their goods, and when wee went up to Towne as it may bee on Moonedaye, at noone, and come thereby night, then load the next day by noone, and goe home in the after-

113. Ibid., p. 59. 114. On receiving news of the massacre the Virginia Company’s response advised the survivors to roote out from being any longer a people, so cursed a nation, ungratefull to all benefitts, and uncapable of all goodnesse: at least to the removeall of them so farr from you, as you may not ony be out of danger, but out of feare of them, of whose faith and good meaning you can never be secure” (ibid., vol. III, p. 672, Treasurer and Council in London to governor and Council in Virginia, August 1,

noone, and unload, and then away againe in the night, and bee up about midnight, then if it rayned, or blowed never so hard wee must lye in the boate in the water, and have nothing but alitle bread, for whence wee go into the boate wee have a loafe allowed to two men, and it is all if we staid there 2 days, wch is hard, and must lye all that while in the boate.113

Besides being a crewman Frethorne may have been conscripted into the local militia unit to go out and harrass the Indians, for this had been Governor Wyatt’s policy ever since the March massacre.114 We have had a Combate with them on the Sunday before Shrovetyde, and wee tooke two alive, and make slaves115 of them, but it was by pollicie, for wee are in great danger, for or Plantacon is very weake, by reason of the dearth, and sicknes, of or Companie.116

Whether Frethorne’s use of “wee” referred to him personally or to the Martin’s Hundred settlers as a group cannot be determined. Nevertheless, the reference is of interest in that it refers to the captured Indians as “slaves” rather than hostages, and as the product of “pollicie.” Remembering that the Indians held 15 Martin’s Hundred women, the policy may have been to take Indians alive who could be traded in exchange for them. Retribution there undoubtedly was, but its impact tended to be offset by retaliatory raids by the Indians, who attacked here and there as opportunity allowed. Hog-raising plantation owner and volatile Irishman William Capps, who lived in Elizabeth City, had his own ideas on how to settle the Indian problem. He proposed seizing and making slaves of 24 Indians whom he would put to work building a fort. Lest they should try to escape “before I deliver them up,” he wrote, “I will make them sing new Toes, old Toes, no Toes at all, because they shall not outrun me, for I am sure they have made us sing a song this twelve moneth to the Tune of O man where is thy hart become not so fearing.” Regarding Martin’s Hundred, Capps assured John Ferrar in London that “Ffor Martyns Hundred if I had but one Body more I would have ben there to have secured them.” He added that “The Counsell was very earnest wth me to have comanded there, but the greater worke must be

1622). 115. Although the first black slaves had been traded into Virginia in exchange for ships’ supplies in 1619, the term slave was rarely if ever used in the 1619–1622 period, the presumption being that the blacks would work out indentures and eventually be freed. As late as the 1624 census there were only 22 in the colony, none of them in Martin’s Hundred, and all listed as “Servants.” 116. Ibid., p. 58.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

before the lesser: yet I will see them now & then, & be often on their Backes for their guard.”117 Another proposal to dispose of the Indian problem came from a source well known in Virginia as being fashioned in the Capps mold. In London John Smith offered to be transported with a hundred Souldiers and thirty Sailers by the next Michaelmas, with victuall, munition, and such necessary provision, by Gods assistance, we would endevour to inforce the Salvages to leave their Country, or bring them in that feare and subjection that every many should follow their business securely, whereas now halfe their times and labours are spent in watching and warding, onely to defend, but altogether unable to suppresse the Salvages.118

Smith’s proposal was not accepted on the grounds that the Company could not afford it and because “the Planters should doe that of themselves.”119 In the late fall of 1622 Captain Nathaniel Butler, governor of Bermuda, was recalled to London to answer charges that he had profited from the salvage of a Spanish wreck, the San Antonio, that had run foul of the Bermudian reefs on September 13 of the previous year. Like many a modern lame duck politician, before returning home Butler took a fact-finding trip to Virginia, probably at the instigation of his mentor and Virginia Company dissident Sir Nathaniel Rich, later Earl of Warwick. 120 The last thing that the beleagured Virginia administration needed in the aftermath of the massacre was a V.I.P. to be housed, dined, and entertained. Nevertheless, Butler stayed for about three months, during which time he participated in at least one sweep against the Indians. He did so from aboard a ship named the Adam and Eve,121 sailing up the Chickahominy River where he met with Captain William Powell, a veteran of 13 years in the colony. Together with a force of about 80, they invaded the villages of the Chickahominy Indians, who fled leaving their crops and possessions to be destroyed or looted. In the weeks that followed this

117. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 77, William Capps to John Ferrar, March 31, 1623. There is documentation to support Capps’s claim that the Council invited him to take charge at Martin’s Hundred, that task having been quickly assigned to Ralph Hamor. Capps also had some pithy opinions of Governor Wyatt and his administration, saying the Governor stood at that tyme for a Cypher whilest they stood ripping open or gutts: . . . and who must make this good againe? The old smoker our (I know not how to terme him but) Governor, so good so carefull mild, Religious, just . . . he undergoeth all your cares & ours, and I feare not but god will bless him in all his pceedings but who must be th’ Instrument to make all this whole againe?” To which he answered: “Why Capps.” 118. Barbour, vol. II, p. 305f. The beginning of Smith’s proposal reads strikingly like the Company’s August 2, 1622, instruc-

35

sortie Butler evidently visited several plantations, taking the notes whose end product would place him high in history’s list of ungrateful house guests. Planter Robert Sweete would swear that Butler was very urgent and importunate [with him] at two severall tymes to sett downe under his hande all such grevances and misbehaviours . . . or of any other iniuries or iniustices done by Mr George Sandys Thresurer, Promising . . . that yf there was any such thinge he wold remedy it in England.122

Armed with such complaints as he could garner, Butler passed his time on the way home by writing his infamous The Unmasked face of or Colony in Virginia as it was in the Winter of ye yeare 1622, which he presented first to the King. As no doubt he and Sir Nathaniel Rich intended, this document hammered a large nail into the coffin of the Virgina Company. No reference is made in The Unmasked face to Martin’s Hundred, but because of its importance, particularly to the hated Sir Edwin Sandys, we may fairly assume that Butler visited the Wolstenholme Towne plateau. He certainly did not find it, as he claimed for the plantations generally, seated uppon meer Salt Marishes full of infectious Boggs and muddy Creeks and Lakes, and thereby subiected to all those Inconvenyences and diseases, wch are soe comly found in the most unsound and most unhealthie partes of England.

Butler claimed to have found no fortifications, the ironworks abandoned and its men dead, and the “ffurnances for Glasse and Potts at a stay and in small hope.” This last is one of the few references to pottery making in the colony and of some significance in the context of the archaeologically proven pottery making in Martin’s Hundred both before and after the massacre. As for the settlers’ houses, Butler declared them to be “generally the worste that ever I sawe[,] the meanest Cottages in England being every way equall (if not superiour) wth the moste of the best.”123

tion to the survivors, suggesting, perhaps, that his voice had been heard at the first meeting of the Court after news of the disaster reached London. 119. Ibid., p. 307. 120. Butler was succeeded as governor of Bermuda by John Barnard “a Gentleman both of good meanes and quality” (ibid., p. 390) and the largest shareholder in the Society of Martin’s Hundred—13 shares, seven more than any other investor. 121. This may be the same ship aboard which Butler left Bermuda and John Smith had described as “a small Barke of Barnstaple” (ibid., p. 318) sent out by “two or three private men of the Company,” which having landed its supplies was to continue to Virginia (ibid., p. 388). 122. McIlwaine, p. 24, Court of October 10, 1624. 123. Kingsbury, vol. II, p. 374f., read at a Court held on the afternoon of April 23, 1623.

36

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

The Company immediately set about finding deponents who would rebut Butler’s charges, but first there was disconcerting supportive evidence to be heard—testimony provided by “divers sufficient and understanding sea men.” They reported that goods landed from the Abigail were left on the shore for more than two weeks while tides rose and fell over them, among them Armours, swords, musquets, truncks and such like goods . . . the trunks readie to bee swallowed. Likewise Iron bars and sowes of Ledd, and milstones and Grinstones and iron furnaces, lye right against the same place sunk and coverd with sand, the water dayly overerflowing them.

The seamen further stated that some passengers “out of the Abigall have died in the streets, at James towne, and so litle cared for that they have lien untill the hogs have eaten theyr Corps.”124 The rebutting planters addressed the charges one by one, declaring that “the plantacons at Newports News, Blunt poynt Wariscoyake Martins Hundred, Paspahey . . . are verie fruitfull and pleasant Seates.” The seamen’s charge that people were dying in the streets of Jamestown for want of guesthouses for new arrivals was more difficult to counter. There were no guesthouses, the planters admitted, and it could not be helped if “by ye hand of God” people fell dead in the streets “of this flourishinge & plentifull Citty.” As for Butler’s charge that others died under hedgerows and were left unburied, the Company’s defenders replied that this could not be so because there were no hedgerows in Virginia. Butler’s complaint that the houses were the worst he had ever seen elicited the answer from the planters that they were built for use rather than for ornament. Most were the homes of laboring men, but those built for men of better rank were such that “noe man of qualetty w thout blushinge can make excepcon against them.”125 Butler had sailed for England in February 1622/23, leaving a colony close to starvation, riddled with sickness, and reliant on the arrival of the

124. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 93f. Written between April and June 1623, Kingsbury suggested that the handwriting might be that of Nathaniel Butler. A list of emigrants written in 1622 states that at the time of the massacre there were about 1,240 people alive in the colony and “rather under then over,” and makes mention of “2 houses wherein some of Martins hundred people were placed,” these presumably in the vicinity of Jamestown. A marginal note gives the date of the listing as “the latter end of the yeare 1622” (ibid., vol. III, p. 537, “Notes from Lists showing Total Number of Emigrants to Virginia” in 1622). 125. Ibid., vol. II, pp. 381–383, “The Answers of divers Planters . . . &c.” 126. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 62, Frethorne to his parents, April 3, 1623. 127. As a boy Henry Spelman (Spellman or Spilman) had been traded to the Powhatan Indians by Captain John Smith. He, therefore, had grown up being fluent in the Indian languages.

Seaflower for its salvation.126 But while the colonists waited, another blow befell them. With his corn supplies close to extinction, Governor Wyatt sent Henry Spelman127 to lead 26 of his least sickly men on an expedition up the Potomac in search of supplies from hitherto friendly Indians. They sailed there aboard the ship Tiger, described by John Smith as a bark, towing a smaller vessel that Frethorne called a “Pynnace.” Soon after entering the upper Chesapeake Bay, Spelman encountered an Indian in a canoe who warned him that the Pascoticon tribe, which had previously been friendly toward the English, had now had time to reconsider their loyalties and so were no longer siding with the colonists. Heeding this warning, but still intent on bartering with the Pascoticons, Spelman went ashore with his men armored and with matchlocks loaded and fuses burning. Settler Peter Arundel described what happened next: Hee and his men cominge with theyr armour The kinge of that place asked why hee came soe armed? Spilman tauld him of his distrust and shewed him the man that gave him Warninge, Wheere upon ye kinge in his presence caused the fellowes head to bee cut of & cast into the fire beefore the sayd Capten (a bad reward to beetray him that had given him so faythfull a Warninge).

The next day Spelman and his men went ashore in their shallop without their armor and weapons—and were seen no more. According to Arundel, the first that the four sailors still aboard the Tiger knew of the massacre was the sight of Indians on the beach smashing up the pinnace.128 At about the same time 60 brave-laden canoes bore down upon the moored Tiger. Not waiting for further clarification the crew upped anchor and set enough sail to outrun the Indian paddlers. Richard Frethorne’s version is somewhat different. In his narrative the 60 canoes became 200 and the Indians 1,000, and the recognition of disaster came from the sight of Spelman’s severed head mounted on a pole in the stern of the lead canoe.129 Wrote Arundel of this disaster:

He had been a member of Powhatan’s household and was an eyewitness to the execution of John Ratcliffe and had lived with the Indians of the Potomac. In 1619 he was charged with making a disparaging remark about the then governor to Opechancanough, for which transgression he was demoted from Captain and made “a servant of the Collony for seaven yeares in quallytie of an Interpriter” (Edward D. Neill, History of the Virginia Company of London [1968], p. 171). With little more than three years of his penalty completed, however, Governor Wyatt put him in charge of the Potomac expedition (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 61, Frethorne to his parents, April 3, 1623). 128. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 89, Peter Arundel to William Caninge, April ?, 1623. Arundel called the bashed boat a “shallope” that had belonged to Mr. Pountise. 129. Ibid., p. 61, Frethorne to his parents, April 3, 1623.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Wee our selves have taught them how to bee trecherous by our false dealinge with the poore kings of Patomeche that had always been faythfull to the English, whose people was killed hee and his sonne taken prisoner brought to Jeames towne, brought home agayne, ransomed, as if [he] had been the greatest enemy they had: Spilmans death is a just revenge.130

The colony’s secretary, George Sandys, also reported on the loss of Henry Spelman and the “26 wel armed, sufficient to have defended themselves against 500 Indians” but who instead were “cut off or taken prisoners; either by ambushes or too much credulity.” Sandys, like so many others, equated salvation with the arrival of the Seaflower. “So that if the Seaflower com not quickly in,” he wrote, “there wil hardly be found a preservation against famin.”131 Because of the armor that would be found in the Martin’s Hundred excavations, Richard Frethorne’s otherwise dismissable fears assume some significance. He told how the Indians had gotten “peeces [muskets], Armour, swords, all thinges fitt for Warre, so that they may now steale upon us and wee Cannot know them from English, till it is too late, that they bee upon us, and then ther is no mercie.” 132 Frethorne may here be suggesting that the Indians would have donned the armor and thus made themselves look like approaching Europeans. But even if this was what Frethorne feared, it is unlikely that the Indians, whose advantage lay in their lithe mobility, would have encumbered themselves with the white man’s iron. While Sandys, Wyatt, Frethorne, and others impatiently awaited the Seaflower’s arrival, she was completing the first stage of her journey by entering Southampton Harbor in Bermuda. The voyage had been uneventful, and unlike her intended companion the Abigail, there had been very few deaths aboard and no evidence of contagious disease. In short it had been a smooth journey, in recognition of which some form of entertainment seemed in order. The captain, therefore, threw a party for his officers and leading Bermudians in the great cabin while his

130. Peter Arundel added that “It is a great loss to us for that Cap. was the best linguist of the Indian Tongue of this Countrys” (ibid., p. 89, Peter Arundel to William Caninge, April ?, 1623). 131. Ibid., p. 108f., George Sandys to John Ferrar, April 8, 1623. 132. Ibid., p. 61, Frethorne to his parents, April 2, 1623. 133. For details of the Seaflower’s demise, see Ivor Noël Hume, Shipwreck!: History from the Bermuda Reefs (1995), pp. 56–59. Summarizing the impact of the loss, Sir Nathaniel Rich wrote the following: they have no sustenance but Corne and of that so little that unles they be forthwth releived by the coming of a Shippe called the Sea Flower then expected they are in great danger of starvinge. This Ship wch was expected to releive the

37

son, the ship’s gunner, threw his below in the gun room. It was there that somebody tapped out a pipe on a barrel of gunpowder, resulting in an explosion of sufficient magnitude to blow the stern off the Seaflower. It quickly sank, taking down the seed corn and the long bows that had been the cause of the illfated Bermudian diversion.133 As Richard Frethorne feared, with the Seaflower’s relief denied, the specter of death stalked the fields of Martin’s Hundred and tapped him on the shoulder. A List of the Names of the DEAD in Virginia since April last, dated February 16, 1623/24, cites 28 in Martin’s Hundred, the twelvth being one Richard Frethram. The full listing reads as follows: Henry Bagford Ralph Rogers John Beanam John Kerill Mathew Staneling John Pattison kild Ux. Pattison John Walker John Catesby Christopher Woodward Nicholas Gleadston Richard Frethram Francis Atkinson Edward Davies Thoms Nichols Edward Windor Thomas Pope Richard Stephens Nicholas Dorington John Brogden Robert Atkinson Percevall Man 2 children of ye frenchmens Thomas Horner Richard Ston William Harris Joseph Turner134

}

On the same February 16, 1623/24, the following 24 individuals were still alive in Martin’s Hundred:

Colony from starvinge, is now reported to have miscarryed at ye Somer Ilands, by beeing casually blowne up in ye Harbour by firing of her owne powder (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 92, beginning of a rough draft of a certificate affirming the truth of statements made by Captain Butler). 134. John Camden Hotten, ed., The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; . . . (1962), p. 192. The identity of the “frenchmens” is not known and there is no certainty that because their children are listed among the dead they too died. In 1621 John Ferrar, for the Virginia Company, entered into a loose agreement with Britain’s ambassador to France, Sir Dudley Carlton, to settle 227 men, women, and children in Virginia, and listed the names of the volunteers, none of which bears any close resemblance to the lists of the dead and living in Martin’s Hundred in the period 1622–1625 (ibid., pp. 196–198, “Promise of certain ‘WALLOONS and FRENCH’ to Emigrate to VIRGINIA.”)

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

William Harwood Samuel March Hugh Hues John Jackson Thomas Ward John Stevans Humphrey Walden Thomas Doughtie John Hasley Samuel Weaver Vid. Jackson Filia Jackson Mrs. Taylor Ann Window Elizabeth Bygrave Mr. Lake Mr. Burren John Stone Samuell Culley John Helline Ux. Helline A servant man and ux. Thomas Siberry135

came in the Robert Addams Bona Nova Augustine Leak Winifred Leak his wife came in the George 1623. Servants Richard Smith aged 24 yeres came in the George 1623

}

Stephen Barker came in the James Humphrey Walden in the Warwick

}

John Jackson came in the Warwick Ann his wife A Child aged 20 weeks138 Servants Thomas Ward aged 47 yeres came in the John Stephens 35 yeres Warwick

}

A year later when a census (muster) was taken of the colony’s inhabitants and their military preparedness, ten of the 24 recorded as alive in Martin’s Hundred in February 1622/23 were missing and may be presumed dead.136 Then, too, 15 and more of those named in the muster were not resident in the Hundred a year earlier. Clearly, therefore, there was a continuing and considerable turnover in the two years following the 1622 massacre. Those listed in the muster were tabulated by household and read as follows:137 mr William Harwood came in the Francis Bonaventure Servants Hugh Hughs came in the Guifte came in the [1619] Abigall Ann his wife [Dec. 1622] Thomas Doughtie aged 26 John Hasley aged 22 years Samuel Weaver 20 in the Bony bess Elizabeth Bygrave 12 came in the Warwick

}

came in Ellis Emerson the George Ann his wife 1623. Thomas his sonn aged 11 Servants Thomas Goulding aged 26 yeres came in the George 1623. Martin Slater aged 20 cam fro Canada in the Swan 1624

}

135. Ibid., p. 181, “A List of the Names of the LIVING in Virginia, February the 16th, 1623/24.” 136. Mrs. Taylor, Ann Window, Mr. Lake, Mr. Burren, John Stone, John Helline and his wife, Thomas Silbury, and an unidentified “servant man and ux.” 137. The listing given here is adapted from the text published

Samuel March came in the William & Thomas. Collice his wife in the Ann 1623 Samuell Culley came in the London Marchant Robert Scotchmore and his Company now planted heare are reconned before in the Maine DEAD at Martins Hundred this yeare Allice Emerson a girle Robert a boy of mr Emarsons a girle of John Jacksons a Child of Samuell March

From the muster, therefore, one learns that at the time it was put together there were only eight families resident in the Hundred, these including Scotchmore’s household that had been listed as previously resident in the Maine: Robert Scotchmore came in the George 1623 Thomas Kniston came in the George 1623 Servants Roger Kidd aged 24 years in the George 1623

Just as one does when trying to equate household inventories with the known juxtaposition of rooms, one here is tempted to deduce that the muster was taken in a logical way, beginning at the hub with that of Governor William Harwood and extending to his immediate neighbors in one direction or another. Using that logic one would conclude that the Emersons were his closest neighbors. Unfortunately, however, the available archaeological evidence suggests by Jester (p. 43f.) the tabulation of possessions having been extracted for later use in the tabulation of arms, fish, etc. 138. The infant may be the unnamed “girle of John Jacksons” listed as having died during the year prior to February 1624/25.

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THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

otherwise, prompting Audrey Noël Hume to argue that John Jackson and his family and servants were the residents of Site B. It is entirely possible, however, that the Emersons’s single house stood to the north of Harwood’s plantation in an area that was not fully excavated. That there was indeed a close relationship between the Harwood and Emerson land is suggested by the record of a meeting of the Society of Martin’s Hundred’s shareholders on November 1, 1624. There a spokesman on behalf of the settlers declared that they had been unable to build a school proposed and financed by the East India Company because the carpenters would be unable to subsist of them selves upon certen Cleered grounde wch they might have had in Martins hundred, and cam in so late as they could hardlie have howsed themselves, But what Accomodations they could possiblely give them, was offered by mr Horwood and mr Emersone, but mr Careless utterly refused to seate there, though we advised him to it.139

That statement seems to link the acreages of Harwood and Emerson together, although it might be construed that the governor’s land was public to the extent of belonging (at least in part) to the Martin’s Hundred Society whereas the Emersons’s was privately owned. The injection of the unhappy Mr. Careless is a red herring, for he seems to have been one of the group of carpenters sent over to build the school that had been intended to be erected adjacent to the already commenced college at Henrico, but whose people had been slaughtered in the massacre.140 In January 1622/23, with Henrico still abandoned and in ruins, the Council intended to place the carpenters “with the first Conveniencie at martins hundred.” 141 Although there is no supportive evidence, it might be assumed that if the carpenters went to Martin’s Hundred they would not have been left to twiddle their thumbs. On the contrary, there was much rebuilding to be done and one would expect them to have been kept busy doing it. But even if they only rebuilt hous-

139. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 565, letter from the Council in Virginia to the Royal Commissioners for affairs in Virginia, June 15, 1625. 140. The carpentering group was led by one Leonard Hudson and his wife, aided by five apprentices, who were reported on their way in a letter from the Virginia Company to the governor and Council in Virginia on June 10, 1622, and before news of the March massacre reached London (ibid., vol. III, p. 650). 141. Ibid., p. 15, report from the Council in Virgina to the Virginia Company, January 20, 1622/23. 142. It does not follow that only Scotchmore had peas or that all but Scotchmore had dried fish. It demonstrates instead that there was no uniformity in the census takers’ instructions. Although all would report corn, some would measure it in bushels and some in barrels of indeterminate size. Some would

es that existed at the time of the massacre, by the time the muster was taken in February 1624/25 there were not many to be seen. The listing was as follows: Harwood Emerson Addams Barker Jackson March Scotchmore

houses “ “ “ “ “ “

3 1 2 0 1 0 ?

inhabitants “ “ “ “ “ “

6 5 4 2 5 2 3

That two and possibly three of the groups had no listed houses can only be explained by one of two means: (1) in the absence of the promised guesthouse and the cited assurances that Martin’s Hundred householders were happy to provide lodging for new arrivals, they were lodged with those who already possessed permanent homes; or (2) that the Barker, March, and Scotchmore groups were living in tents or temporary cabins unworthy of citation. The food supplies for these eight units were limited (at least on the parchments of the Martin’s Hundred census takers) to corn and fish: Corn, barrels of Fish, hundreds Harwood 10 12 Emerson 6 3a Addams 3 11 Jackson 1a 8 March 5 5 Scotchmore 15 bushells Peas, one hogshead142

Because nobody is listed as owning a horse (although horseshoes were found at Site A and equestrian equipment on most sites), one must assume that travel to and from Jamestown was by water—as Frethorne had described it. It is significant, therefore, that only two households owned a boat, those of Harwood and Adams. Writing in 1993 Audrey Noël Hume regretted that “The muster provided the last detailed information about life in Martin’s Hundred,” adding that “There would be no more lists or letters.”143 But as so often happens in historical research, when one believes that the last stone has been turned something new

list “Pease and Beanes” by the bushel, and some would list swine or pigs. In Martin’s Hundred, Harwood had “neat Cattell, 10 belonging to the Hundred,” but narry a pig or sow. Emerson, on the other hand, had no cows but two swine, as did Adams. Nobody is listed as having goats or chickens, although one would expect them to have had both. In some areas every protective fence or palisade of unspecified height was faithfully recorded, but at Martin’s Hundred none is mentioned. Thus one must ask whether the Fort had been dismantled by 1624 and the Boyse site with its extensive outworks completely vacated—as may well have been the case—or whether palisades simply were not on the census takers’ agenda. 143. Audrey Noël Hume, “History of Martin’s Hundred” (1978), ch. 8, p. 81.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

and important emerges from left field. A year later, while working with the newly microfilmed Ferrar papers, genealogical historian William Thorndale, of Salt Lake City, encountered and transcribed two letters written in Martin’s Hundred in May and June 1625. These letters are as important to the Hundred’s history as are the oft-cited Richard Frethorne letters written two years earlier. Because the writers of the newly found letters were appalling spellers (by modern standards) who eschewed punctuation, and because their message is more important than the educational idiocyncracies of the messengers, the following excerpts are (for the most part) converted into modern English, albeit word for word from the originals. The first of the letters was written on May 20, 1625. Its source is identified only as “Martinse hundreth” and signed by “your slaves in Virginia, Tho. Ward pottmaker and John Jackson bricklayer.” The identification of Ward as a potter was of immense importance in view of the fact that evidence of earthenware manufacturing was found at Site C prior to the massacre and at Site A after it. It is evident, too, that Ward worked in company with Jackson, and Audrey Noël Hume’s research led her to conclude that Site B was occupied by John Jackson, whereas the archaeology pointed to ceramic manufacturing on that site in the early 1630s. In the letter, however, Ward is writing on behalf of Jackson and together (perhaps along with others) they are speaking for the “poor tenants of Martin’s Hundred” and writing their complaints to Nicholas Ferrar, who seems to have been one of the Society’s administrators, a freeman of the Company but not a shareholder.144 In the muster garnered in February of the same year, John Jackson and his wife are shown as heading their household while Thomas Ward is listed only as a servant. Equally puzzling is the fact that the men’s trades are added as suffixes, Ward the potter and Jackson only a bricklayer. It can be argued, however, that their trades are added solely to distinguish between one Jackson and another or one Ward and another in the mind of Ferrar. Similarly, for example, when writing about his Jamestown mentor, another Jackson, Richard Frethorne wrote that “you must direct yor letters to Goodman Jackson, at James Towne a Gunsmith,” adding that “(you must set downe his frayt) because there bee more of his name there.” 145 The letter begins:

our families, for to give half our labor every year to your use & Mr. Harwood will not take under half every crop this last year.

The opening reference, with its use of the definite article “We the poor tenants” rather than “We poor tenants,” suggests that Ward was writing on behalf of all the Hundred’s tenants, each of whom was required to surrender to the Society half his crop. The letter goes on to suggest that not only did Harwood tax the tenants but also ran the Company store. Last year between John Jackson and myself we had but 11 [pounds sterling?] weight of tobacco and of that he [Harwood] took well near £6 11s (?), and now we are to buy corn to keep us at an unreasonable rate.

Abruptly changing the subject of his complaint to Ferrar, Ward declared that If you had been a man of your word, it would have been better for your promise was to us that we should have two servants a man, and the milk of some cows to help us. But we find no such matter here nor not so much as a fool to work with but what we buy ourselves. [We have neither] powder not shot to guard only us nor anything to help. [Mr. Harwood] doth all that ever he can to hinder us and hath done so ever since we came over. And we have our ground that we can but one of us work, for the other of us must guard or else we shall be in danger to be killed of the Indians.

It is evident, therefore, that fear of the Indians continued to be a fact of daily life long after the debris of 1622 massacre had been removed. Thomas Ward’s letter continued to complain about the character and activities of Governor Harwood:

We the poor tenants of martinse hundreth146 do desire you to let us know what you doe mean to do with us, for in this manner that you cause us to be used we are not able to live now to keep our fellows nor

we have made all the means we can to live for we have set our fellows in debt now that we know how to pay and paid if must be. And but one if us can work and Mr. Harwood wil have half of what little we do get. How do you think we should keep ourselves? We cannot get a pair of shoes under 5 lbs. of tobacco, nor hardly for tobacco we have worn out all our clothes and shirts, and we are not able to buy any more. Therefore, nether (?) the to keep us in this manner we pray you send some order to hang us out of the way, and you shall do better than to keep us in this manner, for we cannot no more than we will not endure this kind of living any longer, We haver wrott a petition unto the Lords of his Majesty’s most honorable counsel, and we desire you that this bearer may know your answer before it be prepared . . . We thought good first to let you know how things are with us and to know

144. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 593, “The Form of a Patent.” 145. Ibid., p. 60, Richard Frethorne to his parents, March 20, 1622/23. The word frayt in this context seems to mean “trade,” but the O.E.D. fails to confirm it.

146. This eccentric spelling used twice in the same letter may be of interest to students of phonetics, and perhaps suggests that Thomas Ward was not well acquainted with the reasons for calling the plantation Martin’s Hundred.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

what you mean to do with us. And as your answer is, so our friends will resolve upon it.147

Clearly this apparent spokesman for the Martin’s Hundred tenants was writing on behalf of a group of less than happy husbandmen. That Ward was emboldened to tell Ferrar that he and they had been mistreated long enough was a product of the recent survey by the King’s commissioners and the process of transferring dominion from the Virginia Company to the Crown. The reasons for the demise of the Virginia Company were more accumulative in their damage than independently decisive. It certainly was true that enemies of Treasurer Sir Edwin Sandys did everything they could to discredit him in the eyes of the King. At a private meeting in the Earl of Warwick’s London house, the ever-intriguing Sir Nathaniel Rich listened to the views of Company dissident, Captain John Bargrave. Bargrave told Rich that “there was not any man in the world that carried a more malitious hart to the Govermt of a Monarchie then Sr Ed. Sandys did.” He charged Sandys with deliberately encouraging Brownists and Separatists to emigrate to the colony and that it was Sandys’s intent to “erect a free state in Virginia.” In short, Bargrave was convinced that Sandys harbored “a marvailous ill affection . . . to the happie frame of a Monarchie.” 148 The Company would later do its best to discredit Bargrave, accusing him of failing to honor a bond of £800 for payment of “£500 principall debt for the use of the Virginia Accounts.”149 There can be no doubt that the King and the Privy Council were made uneasy by the suggestion that Sir Edwin Sandys was both disloyal to his King and maneuvering to launch Virginia out of the English orbit. Then, too, there were letters and petitions from the ever-vocal William Capps (who had been Nathaniel Butler’s host during his last weeks in Virginia) that claimed mismanagement at every level. Rather than the rivalries and infighting among the Company’s factions or the liberal views of Sir Edwin Sandys, it was a desire for efficient and harmonious management that governed the King’s thinking. When he became convinced that it could not be found within the framework of the Virginia Company, James moved to convert Virginia to a Crown colony. In October 1623, at the urging of the self-serving Sir Nathaniel Rich, the King appointed a review commission headed by Captain John Harvey (a ship’s

147. David Ransome, ed., Ferrar Papers , MS 1543. Ransome identified the recipient of this letter as Nicholas Ferrar. 148. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 194f., in the hand of Sir Nathaniel Rich “A note wch I p[rese]ntly tooke of Capt Bargraves discourse to me concern[ing] Sr E. Sandys. 16 of May 1623.”

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captain and later Virginia governor); a former secretary to the colony, John Pory; its former cape merchant, Abraham Piersey; planter and later governor, Samuel Mathews; and one John Jefferson. Harvey attended his first meeting of the General Assembly and found it beset with “most bitter invectives in the highest pitche of spleen and detraction, against the twelve yeares goverment of [Sandys’s predecessor] Sr Thomas Smith.” Writing from Jamestown to Rich in London, Harvey reported that ever since the arrival of the Bonny Bess the previous October, carrying news of the commission’s appointment, “these stormes have bin a breeding, and at our arrivall at James citty, wee found mens mynds fully possessed.”150 On October 8, 1623, Virginia Company spokesmen were called before the Privy Council and told that the Company’s charter was to be rewritten, its affairs being conducted by a treasurer and 12 “assistants” in London and a similarly constructed management in Virginia. Subsequent litigation kept the colony waiting until June 24, 1624, when the King, having dissolved the Company, appointed a commission chaired by Sir John Mandeville and put control of the colony in their hands. Although the Mandeville Commission quickly reinstated Governor Wyatt, it did not do the same for the raucous and volatile General Assembly—much to the dismay of its previously freely elected membership. Then, while much remained undecided, on March 27, 1625, King James I died. Two months later, and before news of the King’s death reached Virginia, in Martin’s Hundred Thomas Ward “pottmaker” wrote his letter. Its pleas for Nicholas Ferrar to promptly return a response telling the tenants what “you doe meane to doe with us” almost certainly went unanswered, for there was no certainty that the Ferrars or anyone else from the old Company would henceforth have the right or opportunity to do anything with anyone in its former possession. Like the first, the second newly found letter was the product of tenant dissatisfaction in Martin’s Hundred, but rather than chastising John Ferrar, this one (addressed as it was to both Ferrars) focused on the shortcomings of William Harwood. First, however, writer Robert Addames explained his movements before and after first settling at Martin’s Hundred. “In the beginning of the year 1623,” he wrote, after the fear bred by the bloody massacre here was blown over, I intending to go from James Island where I then lived to Harryhatocke [Arrahatock or

149. Ibid., p. 487, Commissioners and Adventurers of the Virginia Company to the Privy Council, June 26, 1624. 150. Ibid., p. 476, John Harvey to Sir Nathaniel Rich, April 24, 1624.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Harichatox] where I had a house built;151 [but] it pleased our worthy governor, with Sir George Yeardley and Master Treasurer to advise and direct me to Martins Hundred to better strengthen the place, and to secure and associate [with] Mr. Harwood and your other servants who then were returning thither.152

In this introductory passage Addames is providing important information regarding the speed at which the settlers returned to repopulate the Hundred. They waited until “feare bred by the bluddy masaker” had subsided and then “in the begining of the yeare 1623” for Addames to join other Martin’s Hundred tenants and servants “whoe then weare returninge thether.” It is important to be reminded, however, that in Addames’s mind the new year did not begin in January but on the old calendar’s 25th of March. Addames goes on to state that “Mr Harwood alotted me one piece of a house which then lay uncovered and some part of the ground formerly in the occupation of one Richard Staples.” Staples, one will recall, was killed in the massacre along with his wife, child, two maids, and six men and boys. His was one of the largest families in the Hundred and one of the worst hit. Moreover it was from Staples’s house that corn was retrieved immediately after the massacre and that Captain William Pierce, who had been in charge of the recovery operation, remembered “that there was twenty barrels of Ears in the house of Richard Staples belonging unto Walter Davis.” 153 Even supposing that the barrels were not in Staples’s dwelling but in a shed associated with his household, it would seem that he had been a person of some stature in the Hundred and may have served as a collector of produce on behalf of neighboring planters. Had the Indians destroyed Staples’s house on the day of the first attack, one must assume that there would have been no corn left to transport to Jamestown. 151. The exact location of Arrahatock has not been determined, but it lay on the north side of the James adjacent to Henrico City, the settlement eventually expected to replace Jamestown but destroyed in the 1622 massacre. National Park Service historian Charles E. Hatch (The First Seventeen Years, Virginia, 1607–1624 [1983], p. 53) wrote that “There is some reason to think that the settlement of Arrahatock reappeared after the massacre”. The Addames letter now proves Hatch right. 152. Ransome, MS 1491, endorsed on the back “Rob: Adams, Virginian to John or Nich: Farrar 1625 June 16.” The letter is addressed “To the Worshipful Brothers Mr Nicholas Farrer, Mr John Farrer, or either of them deliver These.” Like the first letter, this one’s use in the text is converted to modern spelling with added punctuation and additional words inserted in square brackets. 153. McIlwaine, p. 131, Court of January 10, 1626. 154. Richard Staples’s brother, Robert, had applied for the post of minister to the colony in October 1621. Although reportedly a man of honest conversacon and a good Scholler . . . the Companie wantinge meanes to furnish him out did move that

Now, with the benefit of the hindsight provided by the Addames letter, we know that at the end of March 1623, a full year later, the Staples dwelling had no roof and was otherwise sufficiently damaged to be termed “one peece of a house.”154 From these scraps of evidence emerges a picture of the plantation evacuated and abandoned, not for a few weeks but perhaps for the best part of a year. If so, one must then ask where Richard Frethorne and the Abigail survivors were residing through the deep winter of 1622/23. Frethorne’s letters of March 5 and 20, 1622/23, make it clear that he had been in the Hundred for some time, long enough at least to make several dispiriting boat trips back and forth to Jamestown. His listing of the Martin’s Hundred dead from the Abigail says that they “came ov[er] with us to serve under our Leifetenants”—plural.155 But only one is listed among the dead. A report to London of January 20 following the Abigail’s arrival notes that The Adventurers of martins Hundred whom have putt Liefe into the Accone by [Reenforcenge] their Supplies may prmise from us to themselves all possible asistance, Livt. Parkinson w th his people is alredie gone downe, ye like we shalbe redie to doe to ye rest of the Plantatione.156

Evidently, therefore, Lieutenant Parkinson was the second such official assigned to Martin’s Hundred who went down with his unspecified people before January 20, 1622/23. There is no other reference to Parkinson, but it is possible that he was the John Pattison who is listed (along with his wife) as “kild” in Martin’s Hundred in the roster of the dead in Virginia between April 1623 and February 1623/24.157 Martin’s Hundred was arguably the largest particular plantation in Virginia at that time. We know that it encompassed 20,000 acres and possibly a great many more.158 Located on the James River’s north some of the pticular Plantacons would imploy him . . . . Whereupon mr Darnelly signified that he thought that they of Martins Hundred wanted a Minister to whome he was recomended (Kingsbury, vol. I, p. 544, minutes of the Virginia Company Commitee, Tuesday, October 30, 1621). A. Noël Hume noted that the Staples family were to wait throughout the winter of 1621/22 and that it was not until May 1622 that Robert Staples was given £20 for his passage and some supplies. She did not cite her source. Minister Staples, therefore, arrived after the massacre to find, as Frethorne put it, only a “Peece of the church” standing. Neither the name of Robert Staples nor of any member of his family occurs in the lists of the living and dead in Martin’s Hundred in 1623. 155. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 60. 156. Ibid., p. 16f., Council in Virginia to the Virginia Company in London, January 20, 1622/23. 157. Hotten, p. 192. 158. In a tabulation of patents granted to settlers in Virginia (1626), Martin’s Hundred is described as “containeing, as is alleged, 80,000 acres, part planted” (ibid., p. 271).

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

bank in the Hog Island loop, Martin’s Hundred stretched into and across the narrowest section of today’s Williamsburg/Newport News peninsula. It is possible (though no confirming record has been found) that in 1623 a much larger slice of once-Indian land was added to the Hundred to broaden its northern extremity and give it wide access to the York as well as the James River—this for the purpose of erecting a fortified palisade denying the Indians overland access to the lower peninsula. Clearly Governor Wyatt saw Martin’s Hundred as a critical player in his strategem to rid the peninsula of its Indian population. Writing to the Virginia Company in a letter that was carried aboard the returning Abigail, Wyatt observed that along with plans for building cities and fortified towns, Martins hundred alsoe would be taken into your regarde, wch greatly ymporteth, the security & plentie of this Plantatione, & wthall the distructione of the Salvages, in that we shall have thereby a swifte passage to theire princypall seates, and the better Comande both of this & the other River, Which must be supplide, and that speedelie [gap in text] with greaster numbers, that may make good, this theire now Inhabited seate, & that of Chesceak, A pale being runn between Wynns the whole forest, and make it inaccessible to ye Salvages, An excellent place & not fitt to be left unpeopled any longer.159

Wyatt evidently had in mind a massive influx of new settlers into Martin’s Hundred using “Men seasoned, & experienced in this Countrey [who] wilbe fittest to Comand.” This grandiose scheme foundered for the usual reason—lack of adventured money—but it seems likely that hitherto unassigned acres were added to those actually paid for by the investors in preparation for the proposed influx. Like so many of the incomplete surviving records, Governor Wyatt’s plan for Martin’s Hundred can be read as proof that as late as April 1623 the Hundred was still unpopulated. However, earlier in the passage he spoke of “theire now Inhabited seate.” Knowing that by April Frethorne and his Abigail survivors were already there working for William Harwood, one must conclude that Wyatt meant that some settlers

159. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 102f., Governor Wyatt and Council to the Virginia Company, undated but post-April 4, 1623. 160. Hotten, p. 192, List of the dead in Martin’s Hundred since April 1623, drawn up on February 16, 1623/24. 161. There is no mention of the fate of Addames’s wife. She is absent from the 1624/25 muster for Martin’s Hundred, but she is also missing from the list of the dead between April 1623 and February 16, 1623/4. 162. The reference to a woman servant being killed in the summer of 1623 is puzzling, for the only female cited as being killed in Martin’s Hundred between April 1623 and February 16, 1623/24, is listed as “Ux. Pattison,” and one wonders whether the wife of Lieutenant Pattison [Parkinson ?] would

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were returning, but in numbers so small in relation to the acreage that the Hundred might as well be uninhabited. Among those who had sailed to Virginia aboard the ill-fated Abigail was the much-needed surveyor, Thomas Niccolls. That during his short life in the colony he twice wrote to Sir John Wolstenholme suggests that he had been recruited in response to Governor Wyatt’s much earlier complaint that the lack of a surveyor had hindered the distribution of land in the Hundred. It is equally possible that after being sent there early in 1622/23 he was used to begin the mapping needed for the setting up of the peninsulaspanning palisade. Whatever his duties and accomplishments may have been, he was destined not to live to enjoy the satisfaction of a difficult job well done. The name Thomas Nicholls appears in the same list of the dead in Martin’s Hundred as did that of Richard Frethorne [Frethram]. 160 Robert Addames’s letter goes on to say that accepting the ruinous Staples dwelling I came hither with my wife,161 one partner [Augustine Leak] and a servant [Richard Smith aged 24] reyedefied [ratified?] and now built a house for habitation and fell to setting and planting that summer [1623]. The same day that a woman servant of yours was slaine162 by the Indians I was assaulted by them, shot with a bullet in the leg and much of my corn cut down by them. It [was] by God’s blessing my partner and I with our powder and shot cleared the plantation of them.

Addames then tells how in the mean space my wife with much danger got to Mr. Harwood’s earnestly entreating their aid, but he out of too much fear and neglect would not stir out of the store where he was armed and guarded with your [Ferrar’s] servants till the Indians were fled. Neither would he endure her importunity, but forced her from them into a watch house where she stayed for the present.163

Addames then explained that he stayed a year at Martin’s Hundred (i.e., until the spring of 1624), when

have been described as a servant. It must be added, however, that the term was used very loosely to describe a servant of the Society or Company. 163. The location of Harwood’s store remains an enigma. The most likely candidate would be the structure known as the “barn” at Site A, for it was almost certainly built for storage. However, it would not be a building from which the Indians could easily be counterattacked. On the contrary, its high Aroof would invite fire arrows, and once ignited the flames would be impossible to put out from inside. The identity of the “watch house” is equally uncertain. If it were of no more than sentry-box proportions, then any one of the four-post “cribs” at Site A could have been so used.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Henry Barrow and John Stone164 leaving the plantation I [also] removed; but Mr. Emmerson at that time coming hither persuaded me again to return advising me not to doubt but that the worthy adventurers [in London] would consider of my charge in building and allow me a fit time to enjoy my labors. I allowed to [followed] his advice and returned and have since built another house and have begun a pale or pallisadoe about my house, though we receive little comfort by Mr. Harwood’s neighbourhood, for at this present [time] myself and your halvesmen165 being in some want of powder, Mr. Emmerson in our behalfs requested him to lend 50 lbs. of the powder amongst us which you last sent and to keep the rest with his former store to his own use. But this he denied alleging his great expense of these former [dangers] wch he termed false alarums, though he knows the cost we had. But the truth is [that] Master Harwood has least cause of expense for he and his halvesmen dwell in the midst [of] Mr. Emmerson and myself, one each side so that Mr. Harwood, though your servants under his charge are but few [who] may walk in safety from his house to your store.

Addames goes on to complain about Harwood’s handling of the contents of the store, which seems to have been common to the entire plantation. He further contended that the neighbours might have been pleasured, your servants comforted and the fearful never the worse if Master Harwood would have fenced in ground to have kept them here, to which since Mr. Emmerson came he has by him been often persuaded to that worke.

164. No information is forthcoming regarding Arthur Barrowe, but John Stone is cited in the 1624/25 muster as having emigrated aboard the Swan and being resident on Hog Island among Lieutenant Barkley’s men. It may be no coincidence that Ralph Hamor had seven servants resident on the island, though he lived in James City where he owned no property and was served by “Ann Addams a Maid servant” (Jester, p. 30). 165. The term halvesman, though used more than once by Addames, is not to be found in the O.E.D., the closest parallel being halver, meaning “one who owns a half share.” 166. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 537, A Declaration How the Monies . . . were disposed, which was gathered by M. Patrick Copland, printing in London in 1622. The Royal James was a large East Indiaman. While homeward bound with a cargo of pepper and passengers in 1621, her preacher persuaded his captive flock to contribute to a free school to be erected and staffed in Virginia and to be known as the East Indian School (ibid., p. 576, A Memoriall of Religious Charities Exercised on Virginia to the Glory of God and Good Example of Men, These Three Last yeares, 1619. 1620. 1621). See also ibid., p. 642. 167. Mr. Careless would seem to be the Robert Careles who was admitted to the Virginia Company and given one share on July 3, 1622 (ibid., vol. III, p. 65). It is evident from the court records that he was in charge of all the people intended for the East India School. Yt is the ioynte opinione of the Courte, yt it is most Convenient for Mr Carles to seat him self and his People at martins hundred, because that place hath been recomended

He goes on to refer to Master Carleses neglect of your directions and refusal of fit offer made him. [But] here we are discomforted but not doubting but that the wisdom of your worthy society will reform these errors, and in the hope of better days Master Copland’s coming and your plantation’s better peopling.

Addames adds that he will be pleased to remain if he could be assured a reasonable term in his house and current grounds and be at liberty “to clear more into the wood which lyeth unfit for any other habitation.” From these later passages it seems clear that Mr. Careless had indeed been associated with the East India school carpenters, who had been housed somewhere in the Hundred. Patrick Copland, who is elsewhere described as “Preacher in the Royal James,”166 was the driving force behind funding and promoting the building of an East Indian school, and it appears from the Addames letter that he intended to arrive in Virginia, bringing with him more like-minded people.167 The spring of 1623 could be termed revival time in Martin’s Hundred. Those who could be back were back, and the buildings that had lain a year in fireblackened ruins were being rebuilt. Although food shortages and fear of the Indians kept the colonists both wan and wary, optimists found enough to sustain them. Richard Frethorne’s previously mentioned sortie against the Indians168 and his colleagues’ capture of two whom they made into “slaves” was destined to place Martin’s Hundred, albeit briefly, at the unto him by the Commissioners and Adventurers (McIlwaine, p. 60, Court session for May 23, 1625). 168. Robert Addames’s encounter with the Indians cannot have been the same that Frethorne described because Addames put the time in the summer of 1623 when his corn was sufficiently advanced to be cut down by the invaders, whereas Frethorne put his “Combat with them on the Sunday before Shrovetyde,” i.e., March 2nd, three days before he wrote his letter to Mr. Bateman. Establishing that the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday fell on March 2 in 1623 was arrived at in the following manner: in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, John Chamberlain wrote on April 19, 1623, that “the King came hither the fifth of this present [month], and the next day (beeing Palme-Sonday) the Lord Archbishop preached” (Chamberlain, vol. II, p. 489). Palm Sunday occurs one week before Easter Sunday, and Shrove Tuesday immediately precedes the 40 days of Lent. Thus the Sunday before Shrovetide [March 4 in 1623] fell on March 2. There is an irony in Frethorne’s reference to Shrovetide (Shrove Tuesday) in a letter wherein he claimed to be starving, for this was a time in England of great gluttony. A description of the day written in that year (1623) reads as follows: Here must enter that wadling, stradling, bursten-gutted Carnifax of all Christendome, vulgarly enstiled ShroveTuesday. but more pertinently, sole Monarch of the Mouth, high Steward of the Stomach, chiefe Ganimede to the Guts, prime Peer of the Pullets, first Favourite to the Frying pans, greatest Bashaw to the Batter-Bowles, Protector of the Pan-cakes, first Founder of the Fritters, Baron of

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

vortex of American history. As previously stated, in writing to his parents on March 20 Frethorne noted that the reason for capturing the two Indians was “for pollicie.”169 In his previous letter he explained that “theise two Indians that they have taken doe tell us that the Indians have 15 alive wth them.”170 This was not the first news to reach Jamestown regarding captives. As early as June 1622 (about three months after the massacre) Warden Boyse’s wife was able to get a letter or message to Captain Isaac Madison, who was then trading with still-friendly Indians, revealing that she was held “prisoner with nineteene more at Pamaunke.”171 Like so much that has come down to us in shreds and patches of usually secondhand information, the capture of the two Indians at Martin’s Hundred is a tale that makes little sense. Frethorne’s account says that they were captured in “a Combat” and made slaves.172 One of them turned out to be Chanco, “who had lived much amost the English,” who had warned Captain Pace hours before the massacre and in time for him to alert Jamestown. Now Chanco came with a message from the “greate Kinge,” the effect wherof was this: that blud inough had already been shedd one both sides, that many of his People were starved, by our takinge Away theire Corne and burninge theire howses, & that they desired, they might be suffred to plante at Pomunkie, and theire former Seates, wch yf they might Peaceablely do they would send home our People (beinge aboute twenty) whom they saved alive since the massacre.173

When one recalls the fate of the Potomack Indian who warned Captain Spelman that he might be churlishly received, it is hard to understand how Chanco could have betrayed Opechancanough’s plot to the English and have survived his wrath. Yet here was the same Indian being used as the go-between to propose a cessation of hostilities—who just happened to be captured in the Sunday combat. Why, one must ask, was he carrying this important message if he was only to deliver it if he could not avoid being cap-

Bacon-flitch, Earle of Egg-baskets, &c. This corpulent Commander of those cholericke things called Cookes, will shew himselfe to be but of ignoble education; for by his manners you may find him better fed than taught wherever he comes (John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain [1849], vol. I, p. 65, quoting Vox Graculi [1623], p. 55). 169. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 58. 170. Ibid., p. 41, Richard Frethorne to Mr. Bateman, March 5, 1623/24. Frethorne’s use of the pronoun they makes it clear that he was not involved in the capture. 171. Barbour, vol. II, p. 309. 172. A proclamation loosely dated to 1623 (i.e., post-March 25), issued by Governor Wyatt, put a different slant on the “capture” of the two Indians. It begins

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tured? Then again, why would the great king choose this messenger if he was unaware that Chanco would be believed by the English? If, however, Opechancanough knew of that association, it follows that he also knew of Chanco’s “betrayal” to Pace. By extension one would have to conclude that not only did he know of it, he was himself responsible for the warning. But whatever his reason, there is a pattern to the three events: Pocahontas’s saving of Smith, Chanco’s warning to Pace, and Chanco’s “capture” in 1623. If this argument has substance, it also follows that Jamestown was not saved by Pace, but instead was spared by Opechancanough. Indeed, having seen how the attacking Indians were able to set plantation houses afire, it is easy to imagine how volleys of fire arrows launched into Jamestown from beyond the range of aimed musketry could easily have set the town in flames. Then again one has to wonder why, if the intent had been to wipe out the colony, 20 prisoners would have been taken as hostages and apparently from a single plantation. Furthermore, the June letter from “Boyse his Wife” makes it clear that the prisoners were being held at Opechancanaugh’s distant headquarters and not by the Kiskiaks or any other nearby tribe—again pointing to the seizure being a policy decision predating the attack. The inference has to be, therefore, that before the strike was ordered Opechancanough intended that there should be a surviving English leadership at Jamestown with whom to negotiate. So how can these “sparings” be explained? It has been suggested that Opechancanough had determined to cede his territories to Pocahontas’s son, Thomas Rolfe—which tale Governor Argall had written to London in 1618 while John Rolfe was still alive. The story was given no credence in London, however, where Company Treasurer Sir Thomas Smythe declared that Wee cannott imagine why you should give us warninge y t Opachankano and the Natives have given their Country to mr Rolfs Child and that they will reserve it from all others till he comes of yeares

Whereas the coming of certaine Indians lately to Martin’s Hundred hath given us cause to suspect, that theire intent is only to spy and observe the weakness of or plantations, that they may take the better advantage to effect any treachearous plott against us. Because one of the Indians was Chanco, to whom the colony appeared to owe no small debt, it is curious that Wyatt should doubt his credibility—unless, perhaps, Wyatt also suspected that Chanco’s warning to Pace came from the subtle mind of Opechancanaugh (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 167). 173. Ibid., p. 98f., governor and Council in Virginia to the Virginia Company of London, April 4, 1623, and sent home aboard the returning Abigail.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

except as wee suppose as some do here report it to be a Devise of yor owne to some espeaciall purpose for yor selfe.174

It makes infinitely more sense to conclude that the Indian leadership saw some good in the English presence and wished only to cut it down to manageable size—perhaps as a buttress against the greater evil of Spanish dominance. The second captured Indian “(called Comahum) an Actor in the Massacre at Martins Hundred, beinge agreat man and not sent by the greate Kinge, Wee putt in Chaines” explained Governor Wyatt in a letter to London, “resolvinge to make such use of him, as the tyme shall require.” While Comahum remained in chains, Chanco was sent back with word that in exchange for the prisoners the colonists would leave the Indians alone to “quietly sett theire Corne.” A week later later the Indians released John Boyse’s wife, Sara, sending her back “appareled like one of theire Queens, wch they desired wee should take notice of.”175 That the other prisoners were not then released was explained by the Indians’ irritation at comments made by interpreter Robert Poole. They would be freed later. In the meantime, to sweeten the pot of negotiation, the messenger was sent back carrying “Certen beads from the ffreends of the Prissoners, w ch by our experience of their Covetousne[ss] (we doupt not) will hasten their retourne.” That the bead senders were not all friends of the prisoners would later become manifest. It was no more true, however, that Wyatt and his advisors were negotiating in good faith: Yf they send home our people & grow secure uppon the treatie, we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & to cutt downe theire Corne, by knowinge where they plant, wch otherwise they will plant in such Corners, as it will nott be possible for us to finnde owte.176

Listed among the massacre dead had been “Ralphe Digginson, his Wife” named Jane. But just as the listing had been wrong in counting Sara Boyse, so it was in error in including Mrs. “Digginson.” On March 30, 1624, “Jane Dickenson Widdowe” petitioned the governor and Council saying that she had been the wife of Ralph Dickenson, who had been sent over by London Council member Nicholas Hyde to serve a sevenyear indenture. Her husband, she said, had served only half his time before being killed and she being

174. Ibid., vol. II, p. 52f., a letter from the Virginia Company to “Captayne Argoll” sent “in the good shipp the ‘William and Thomas,’” August 22, 1618. 175. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 98. 176. Ibid. 177. Ibid., p. 473, petition of Jane Dickenson, March 30, 1624.

“Caried away wth the Cruell Salvages, amongst them Enduring much misery for teen monthes.” She went on to explain that she and the other women had been ransomed and to that end “Doctor Potts laid out two pounds of beades for her releasement.” Afterward Pott claimed that she was “linked to his servitude wth a towefold Chaine the one for her late husbands obligation & thother for her ransome.” It was her plea, therefore, that she should be released from both obligations considering that she had already served ten months “tow much for two pound of beads.” Mrs. Dickenson added that she thought it just that she be released from servitude to Dr. Pott, “considering that it much differeth not from her slaverey wth the Indians.”177 The identities of only four of the 15 hostage women are known, but if (as Audrey Noël Hume believed) they all came from Martin’s Hundred, their names should be found in the list of those assumed to have been killed: Mistris Tho: Boise Margaret Davies Sara Boyse Henry Bromage’s daughter Jane Dickenson A maide Rich. Staples’ wife Laurence Wats’s wife Edward How’s wife Cisley Cooke’s wife Nat. Jefferies’s wife 2 maids Sarah Bromage Josiah Dary’s wife

Apart from Sara Boyse (the first returned) and Jane Dickenson, who appealed, the identities of only three other women are known: the wife of Nathaniel Jefferies; Anne, wife of John Jackson; and Sarah Bromage, who at the time of the muster was living at Neck of Land near James City with a two-year-old child who must have been born while she was in Indian hands.178 The Nathaniell Jeffreys of the muster, although living in James City, is assumed to be the “Nathanael Jefferies” who, mistakenly with his wife, was listed as killed in the massacre at Martin’s Hundred, and that his wife was “goodwife Jeffreys” listed as dead at “James Cittie” in 1624.179 The reason for Dr. Pott’s choice of the unhappy Jane Dickenson as the recipient of his generosity is not clear, but it is certain that he knew that she was

178. Jester, p. 35, Muster listing for Neck of Land, February 4, 1624/25. The presumption that Jeffreys of the muster is the same as Jefferies of the massacre list in Martin’s Hundred rests on the fact that in the muster he is listed as having come to Virginia aboard the Gift of God that brought the bulk of the Martin’s Hundred settlers in 1619. 179. Ibid., p. 34.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

alive once Sara Boyse was freed. Dr. Pott would eventually serve as deputy governor, and although later charged with horse stealing, he was a person of consequence in the colony.180 He had been sent over in July 1621 as “phesition to the Company” to be aided by “two Chirurgeio[ns]” and provided with a “Chest of Phisicke and Chirurgery.” London also sent him as his assistant Joseph Fitch, an apothecary, whose life ended abruptly at Falling Creek on March 22, 1622. Whether or not Pott or his sawbones surgeons ever ministered to the settlers at Martin’s Hundred is unknown. Moreover, there is no known connection between Pott and Ralph Dickenson’s London-based master, Nicholas Hyde. As noted above, the fourth female held hostage in 1622–1623 was Ann Jackson, who by 1629 had had enough of life in Virginia, as a hostage or otherwise. She appealed to the Quarter Court at James City requesting that she who Came from the Indians shall bee sent for England wth the first oportunity of Shipping and that her brother, John Jackson, shall give security for her passage and keepe her safe till she bee shipped abroad. The wch Mr Harwood hath undertaken to see Pformed.181

Because Harwood was made the expeditor of the court’s decision, there would seem to be no doubt that this Ann Jackson was the wife of the “John Jackson bricklayer” of Martin’s Hundred who was listed as such in the 1624/25 muster. One would have glibly continued to assume that to be so were it not for the recent discovery in the Ferrar Papers of several listings of women sent to Virginia in 1621—among them an Ann Jackson who is twice recorded. The second entry reads as follows: An Jackson aged 20 or there abouts borne in Salisbury her ffather Wm Jackson dwellsd in Tutle Street in Westminister a man of know honesty and conversacon by whose consent shee comes.182

One’s immediate response to this citation is that there has to be something wrong, for were she already married to John Jackson (bricklayer) she would not have been listed among weddable maids.

180. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 483, Treasurer & Company’s Ordinance and Constitution . . . &c. Dr. Pott is best remembered for having doctored the sack used to toast the health of King Apochanzion as well as the king of the Cheskacke Indians. As a result “tooe hundred weare poysned, and thaye [the English] comyng backe killed som 50 more and brought hom part of ther heades” (ibid., vol. IV, p. 221f., Robert Bennett to Edward Bennett, June 9, 1623. 181. McIlwaine, p. 181, Court records for January 20, 1628/29. 182. William Thorndale, “Maids For Virginia in 1621 as Described in the Ferrar Papers,” Virginia Genealogist, vol. IXL, no. 4 (1995), p. 253.

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On the other hand, if she were not married to him but would be later, her maiden name would be something other than Jackson. Setting this problem aside, it would make sense to deduce that the John Jackson described in the court record as Ann’s brother was in reality her brother-in-law and the John Jackson (gunsmith) of Jamestown who had befriended the ill-fated Richard Frethorne.183 Taking supposition a step further and presuming from the 1624/25 muster that, having been freed by the Indians, Ann Jackson was then living with her husband in Martin’s Hundred along with his partner (?) “Tho Ward pottmaker,” we may deduce that her husband died at some time between May 1625 and January 1628/29. The quantity of gun parts and metalworking waste found at Site B, coupled with the fact that Harwood remained involved with Ann’s fate, suggests she was still in the Hundred in January 1628/29 and that her gunsmith brother-in-law had moved there from Jamestown. Unfortunately, this carefully constructed histoarchaeological thesis is built on a false premise. The first listing of Ann Jackson among the exported maids shows that she sailed for Virginia aboard the Marmaduke in July 1621 and was thusly described: Ann Jackson borne in Salisburie, her fathers name is William Jackson[.] hee is a gardiner, and dwellth in Tuttle side in Westmynster neer to the Redd Lyon[.] her ffather brought her, and her Brother John Jackson goeth for Martins hundred in Virginea.184

According to the muster John Jackson and his wife, Ann, sailed to Virginia aboard the Warwick, which left England in August 1621, a month astern of the Marmaduke. That sister Ann was not traveling with her relatives may be explained by the fact (if, indeed, it is a fact) that her father, a humble gardener, could not afford to pay her passage. There is no denying that clerical mistakes were made in tabulations of maids or anything else, and that the presence of Ann in the house of John Jackson could have been incorrectly cataloged as his wife rather than his sister.185 But because the muster listing shows that John and Ann Jackson had a “Childe aged 20 weeks,” that is a less than credible explanation.186

183. Frethorne referred to Jackson only as “Goodman Jackson,” a term of respect toward an individual below the level of gentleman. 184. Ibid., p. 250f. 185. That the listing of exported maids is inaccurate is demonstrated by the duplicated entries for Jane Dier, who was “aged 15” in the first list and “aged sixteen” in the second. Another, Ann Tanner, is aged 27 in the first list and a year younger in the second. 186. Jester, p. 44.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

What, one must next ask, became of John (bricklayer) Jackson’s wife? She evidently survived the massacre, indeed escaped it—which makes one ask why her sister-in-law did not. Then, too, the List of the LIVING in Virginia on February the 16th, 1623/24 cites John Jackson, a Jackson ux, and a Jackson filia, but no soror. Thus at the beginning of 1624 (N.S.) we are left asking: Where was sister Ann and who was the daughter—evidently not the child who would be but 20 weeks old a year later; nor was she the “child of Iohn Iacksons” listed among the massacre dead in Martin’s Hundred in March 1621/22. Why, too, if Ann was brought to Virginia to find a husband was she still Ann Jackson in 1629 when the court allowed her to go home? And if she had not previously been living in Martin’s Hundred, where was she before and after she fell into Indian hands?187 Alas, until more documents come to light, these questions will remain infuriatingly unanswered. In the meantime, however, remembering the curious instruction that Ann’s brother should “keepe her safe till she bee shipped aboard” and that her name is absent from the list of living and dead in Virginia in 1623/24, the following theory is worth considering: Ann Jackson barely had time to understand what life was like in the colony before she was taken prisoner by the Indians. Unhardened either by privation or knowledge of the “salvages,” she was unprepared for a year of captivity. By the time she was released she was mentally unbalanced and perhaps physically unweddable and so was placed in the care of brother and like-named sister-in-law in Martin’s Hundred. Being neither dead nor usefully alive, she was omitted from the 1623/24 list of the living and dead. She remained in the Jackson household for a further five years until the death of John Jackson’s wife, whereafter, unable to care for mad Ann, he gave “security for her passage” and sent her home to their parents. A second explanation for Ann’s long unmarried stay in Virginia relies on the fact that we have no final listing of the women returned by the Indians, only the few already cited. The supposition that all 15 were returned may be nothing more than that, in which case it can be argued that the cruel treatment complained of by Jane Dickenson and reported to London was not endorsed by all 15, and that Ann Jackson preferred life with the Indians to servitude as

the wife and chattel of some evil-smelling Jamestown oaf.188 If so, the Court reference to Ann Jackson as one who “Came from the Indians”189 may refer to her release not in 1623 but much later, in 1628. The supposition, therefore, is that Miss Jackson became a “white Indian” and a pariah in a colony wherein it was permissible for the governor to propose marriage to an Indian child or for a respected planter to actually do so but it was forbidden for a white woman to marry a savage. A possible shred of supporting evidence is provided by the court records, which recall an unspecified mission by one “Iohn Jaxson” of Martin’s Hundred along with Robert Linsey who together

187. There is no Ann Jackson in the tabulation of the massacre dead; but it is possible that she is there as an unidentified “maide,” of whom four were listed among the killed in Martin’s Hundred. 188. I am greatly indebted to genealogical historian William Thorndale for putting forward this “nice-girl-gone-native” thesis. 189. McIlwaine, p. 181, Court session for January 20, 1628/29. 190. Ibid., p. 128, Court session for December 18, 1626. 191. Thorndale, “Maids for Virginia,” p. 247. For Mylend read Mile End. John Stow in his A Survay of London . . . Written in the

Yeare 1598 (1598) wrote of Mile End that

wth certaine Indians unto Pamunky, then this examinate haveing leave to come away home & ye said Robert Linsey being detained there the said Robert at ye departure of this deponent said that concerning his goods whatsoever he had at home, he gave unto one Sara Snowe.190

Did John Jackson belatedly learn that his sister had been held by the Indians for five years and so launch a two-man expedition to get her back? If so, why was Robert Lindsey detained by the Indians, and why did a disgraced Ann remain for a further three years before being shipped home? I hasten to add that although the foregoing reconstructions fit otherwise inexplicable pieces of evidence into logical patterns, they are without a shred of substantiation. Indeed, it may instead provide a graphic example of the dictum that in historical research a little documentation may be more misleading than none at all. Another Martin’s Hundred–bound “maide” was Mary Ellyyott Aged 19: years daughter in lawe to Maximilian Russell who now goeth over in Martyns Hundred by whome shee was brought up and likewise recommended by many good testimonies from Mylend.191

Maximilian Russell arrived in the Hundred in time to take his place among the massacre dead, but there is no mention of his daughter-in-law who, if she was lucky, became one of the 15 hostage women. The same Quarter Court whose records identify Ann Jackson as one of the freed Indian prisoners also provides information about the writer of the second

this common field, being sometime the beauty of this city on that part is so encroached upon by building of filthy cottages, and with other purpressors, inclosures and lay stall, that in some places [Mile End Road] scarce remaineth a sufficient highway for the meeting of carriages and droves of cattle. See also Ben Weinrib and Christopher Hibbert, eds., The London Encyclopaedia (1986), p. 516. Small wonder is it that Mary Ellyott sought a better life in Virginia.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

49

recently discovered letter, Robert Addames. On January 29 a Commission of Administration was granted to “Mrs Adams of Martins Hundred uppon the estate of her husband,” whose oral will had been proved on April 9 of that year.192 The session also ruled against Mrs. Adams, her late husband having promised to pay merchant John Wareham 300 pounds of tobacco “for a servante sold unto him.”193 The court that approved the will of Robert Addames as spoken to and attested to by Martin’s Hundred’s current minister, John Lyford, also found Harwood at the bench arguing that Martin’s Hundred was too poor and too thinly populated to pay Lyford. The Court agreed that Harwood and the Hundred’s parishioners had entered into a covenant to pay their minister 2,000 pounds of tobacco and “a sufficient quantity of Corne yearly.” But because the parishioners had been persuaded to enter into the agreement by Harwood “uppon some hope of inlardging the said P[ar]ishe by adding some plantacon neere adioyninge, to the same,” the Court ruled that Harwood should pay one-third and that the parish should cover the rest.194 The Hundred had been served successively by a motley of clerics beginning (it would seem) with David Sandys, a cousin of Sir Edwin Sandys, who had journeyed to Virginia aboard the Francis Bonaventure in 1620 along with William Harwood.195 Sandys died before he could serve. Later came Robert Keith or Keth, who prior to October 10, 1624, had “voluntarilie removed him self from his Cure and Charge [at Elizabeth City] and placed him selfe minister at Martins Hundred.” As the court at Jamestown made very clear, the privilege of appointing ministers to any of the four “Ancyent Buroughes,” of which Elizabeth City was one, was retained by the Virginia Company. The parishioners had no business independently either hiring or ousting their minister. It is likely, however, that Keith196 did not stay long in Martin’s Hundred. By April 1627 he had returned to Elizabeth City.197

Later (if not next) came the Reverend Mr. Mynnard, whose presence is documented by a single appearance in court in an effort to get the always reluctant parishoners of Martin’s Hundred to part with their tithes. The court record for March 2, 1628/29, ruled in his favor “Notwthstanding their agreemt wth Mr Ly[ford] now minister.”198 John Lyford came to Martin’s Hundred from Plymouth in New England with a wife and five children and burdened with more baggage than Harwood or the Hundred’s parishioners realized. Whether they ever discovered what William Bradford knew has gone unrecorded, for Lyford died soon after getting the Martin’s Hundred position. To put it mildly, John Lyford was a noticeably bent pillar of the Anglican Church.199 His New England hosts, who had welcomed their weeping, cringing, new arrival in 1624,200 would eventually discover that he had left his Irish parish after taking marriage counseling to the point of demonstration. It turned out, too, that he had sired a bastard prior to his marriage to his long-suffering and doubtless embarrassed wife, Ann. Not everyone believed the charges against him, and when he moved briefly to Nantasket on Massachusetts Bay his adherents went with him. They did not follow him to Martin’s Hundred, however, where he seems to have been received as God’s worthy messenger. The date of John Lyford’s death is not known. Bradford wrote only that “he left his friends that followed him and went from thence to Virginia, where he shortly after died; and so I leave him to the Lord.”201 The demise of the Virginia Company heralded the winding down of its record keeping and the transition from a historical to a less satisfactory archaeological chronology. Nevertheless there continued to be moments of written insight when Martin’s Hundred residents sued or were taken to court and thus earned themselves a modicum of immortality. Most of such cases involved William Harwood and his reluctance to pay his public and private debts. Thus, in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre (and before

192. McIlwaine, p. 181, Quarter Court, January 21, 1628/29. See also p. 196, Court records for April 9, 1629. 193. Little is known about merchant John Wareham beyond the rather surprising information that in May 1629 he was “aged twenty five yeares or thereabouts” (ibid., p. 179, A Court at James City, May 10, 1629). 194. Ibid., p. 196, Court session for April 9, 1629. 195. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 269f., Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar, May 1, 1620. In 1625 the court at Jamestown ruled that in spite of the fact that David Sandys had not performed “his Covenant by resone of his Death,” the Martin’s Hundred parish should “paye the full dews as other parishes doe” (McIlwaine, p. 77, Court session of November 28, 1625). 196. McIlwaine, p. 22, Court session for October 10, 1624. There is contemporary confusion regarding the spelling and name of Martin’s Hundred’s minister, which could be Robert or George and which appears both ways in the records.

197. Ibid., p. 146f., Court session for April 3, 1627. Keith later went back to England and returned to Virginia about a year later and took over the combined parishes of St. Mary’s Mount and Waters Creek (ibid., p. 189, Court session of March 4, 1628). 198. Ibid., p. 188. 199. Samuel Eliot Morison, in his edition of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, suggests in a footnote (p. 148, n. 7) that “it is unlikely that he [Lyford] had ever taken holy orders” and although he had had a Protestant parish in Ireland, it may have been “obtained under false pretenses.” 200. Bradford described Lyford “as if he had been made all of love and the humblest person in the world” (ibid., p. 158). 201. Ibid., p. 169. Ann Lyford returned to Massacushetts with three of her children and in 1634 married Edmund Hobart of Hingham and died 15 years later.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Robert Addames moved into the remains of Richard Staples’s dwelling), the brother of massacred Walter Davis (Staples’s partner) worked to “ye clearing of the ground belonging unto Richard Staples & Walter davys deceased lyeing at Martins Hundred according as the said Mr Harwood hath formerly payd unto Mr John Boise & others.” The Court added that it seemed “to be very reasonable that the said John Davys shall receive the same 400l of Tobacco,” and it was ordered that “Mr Willm Harwood shall make satisfaction unto [him].”202 From this case we gain a small insight into the clean-up process that followed the massacre at Martin’s Hundred. If, as seems likely, Harwood had returned aboard the Abigail at the end of 1622 (N.S.), reconstruction in the Hundred did not begin until the New Year, at which time Harwood (on behalf of the Society of Martin’s Hundred) agreed to pay the workers 400 pounds of tobacco per property. We learn, too, that John Boyse was similarly paid, suggesting that he was in the colony at the beginning of 1622/23. As no ships had returned to England since Christmas until the Abigail sailed early in April, there was no way that John Boyse could have left sooner. By the time the ship left, however, his wife had been released.203 Neither John nor Sara Boyse figures in the 1623/24 lists of the Living and dead in Virginia, thus promoting the obvious conclusion that they had had enough of Virginia and had returned to England. The Addames (Adams) partnership with Augustine Leak also had its problems, not the least of them created by their own servant, Richard Smith, aged 24 in February 1624/25, who had come to Virginia in 1623 aboard the George along with Augustine’s wife, Winifred. Smith was in court on April 19, 1625, accusing Addames and Mrs. Alice Procter of “Killinge of a hogg of George Graves, for two yeers and a halfe agoe.” But as Smith provided no evidence and was considered a person “who hath been fownd in divers Contrary tales,” he was ruled to have “Done it in Malice” and ordered to receive 30 lashes.204 On the basis of this judgment, one might deduce that Smith had

been hired by Mrs. Leak and that finding himself with two masters (one more outgoing than the other) he chose to side with the Leaks and to resent Robert Addames. The relationship, if any, between the unmarried Robert Addames and Alice Procter, wife of John Procter, is unknown. There is reason to conclude, nonetheless, that the Procter household at Pace’s Paines in James City was not entirely tranquil. In October 1624 John Procter was charged with the wrongful death of his maid, Elizabeth Abbott, who, according to an eyewitness, had been so severely beaten that “her fflesh in some places was raw and very black and blew” and that she had told him that “she was whipt wth fishookes.” Several other witnesses attested to the maid’s ill treatment. Neighbor Alice Bennett recalled finding the girl, whose body was “full of sores and holes very dangerously raunckled and putrified both above her wast and uppon her hips and thighes and this examinate asked her who did soe beat her[,] she said her misteris” Alice Procter. In the course of the testimony the fate of another Procter servant was introduced, that of Elyas Hintone, who had been beaten by John Procter with a rake. “That same night ye said Elyas went away but was noe more seene till he was fownd dead.”205 Although the evidence was overwhelming in its coloring of John and Alice Procter as vicious and violent individuals who were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of two servants, there is no evidence that the court ever ruled against them. John Procter was, after all, one of the few surviving “ancient planters” who had been in Virginia since the beginning in 1607, 206 and one did not mess with one’s good ol’ boys, particularly when the evidence had shown that both servants were prone to run away when sufficiently beaten. A month later Robert Addames’s servant, Richard Smith, was in court as a witness saying that Robert Addames had not gathered any of William Harwood’s corn “nor that his said Mr did ever bid him to gather any of M r Horwood’s Corne.” 207 The back-

202. John Davis had had to wait a long time to get paid. The hearing in his favor was not held until February 9, 1627/28 (McIlwaine, p. 166). In a letter from George Sandys to London Virginia Company leader Samuel Wrote on March 28, 1623, he noted that “for evrie labourer wee give one Pound of Tobacco a daye, besids his diet[,] and 3 or 4 a day to Artificers.” Sandys (no doubt like Harwood) asked “from whence shall theis payments arise?” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 65). 203. Audrey Noël Hume was of the opinion that with his wife presumed dead, John Boyse had returned to England and was no longer in the colony when Sara was freed. It is possible, however, that he had indeed returned to England and perhaps, like Harwood, was there at the time of the massacre. If so, he almost certainly returned and was back by the late winter of 1622/23. Whether he was paid for cleaning up his own home site (which is unlikely) or that of his namesake Thomas Boyse, where at least nine people died, has gone unrecorded. It is

important not to lose sight of the documentation that can suggest that John Boyse was killed in the massacre, for such an assumption predicated that he was thought to be in Martin’s Hundred at the time of the attack. However, the entry follows that of “Master Tho: Boise, & Mistris Boise his wife, & a sucking Childe,” and reads “Master Iohn Boise his Wife.” The absence of punctuation in the latter citation can be read to mean only the wife of John Boyse (ibid., p. 570). 204. McIlwaine, p. 54, Court session of April 19, 1625. Smith’s accusations were based on an earlier charge against Addames for “Killing of Certen hogs about the same tyme” for which crime “he receaved his Censure.” Unfortunately the surviving court records contain no other reference to this case. 205. Ibid., pp. 22–24, Court session for October 10, 1624. 206. Jester, p. 36, muster of 1624/25. 207. McIlwaine, p. 30, Court session for November 8, 1624.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

ground to this testimony is lost, but it supports other previously discussed evidence that Addames’s property (previously that of Richard Staples) abutted Harwood’s. The same day’s hearing also involved Addames. This time he was testifying to a deal struck between neighbor Ellis Emerson and a servant, James Davis, who was to be freed from his service in exchange for “one servant boy and A Cowe.”208 As so often is the case, the surviving records contain no resolution of this transaction nor any hint of what had gone amiss with the deal. Whatever it was, there would be no evidence of it when the muster of Ellis Emerson’s holdings was recorded three months later. He then had two male servants, one aged 20 and the other 26, neither of whom could be classified as a “servant boy.” Furthermore Emerson possessed two pigs, but he had no cow. Robert Addames made his last appearance from the docket of the January 1626/27 Quarter Court, brought there by the Provost Marshall to answer to a charge of public drunkenness. He was found guilty and fined.209 He died at some date prior to January 21, 1628/29, when his widow was granted a commission to administer his estate.210 In January 1624/25 we find Harwood in a dispute with Ralph Hamor (who had been put in charge of Martin’s Hundred after the 1622 massacre) concerning the estate of Walter Davis and his surviving brother, John.211 It was later resolved in Hamor’s favor and cost Harwood 50 pounds of tobacco and four barrels of corn. However, the same court’s ruling in another not fully explained matter concluded that the Virginia Company owed Harwood two hogsheads of meal and one of peas.212 Yet another court action, this one in March 1624/25, provided our only information about the preparation of lumber intended for use in Martin’s Hundred. The citation reads as follows: Mr Wm Horwood sworne and examined sayeth, that he went to Pasbyhayes to Georgre ffryer to bye 208. Ibid. 209. Ibid., p. 133, Court session for January 11, 1626/27. The same day heard testimony concerning John Davis and a bill for 200 pounds of tobacco. Witness Richard Dolphenby swore that he had examined the document “and saw the seale & hand of Mr Thomas Boise putt therunto” (ibid.). This appears to be the only postmassacre reference to Thomas Boyse, who, according to the list of the killed, died along with all his family in Martin’s Hundred. For want of evidence to the contrary, it seems fair to conclude that the document seen by Dolphenby had been sealed and signed by Thomas Boyse at some time prior to March 22, 1622, and that his listed death is correct. 210. Ibid., p. 181, Court session for January 21, 1628/29. 211. Ibid., p. 44. There is confusion regarding the identity of John Davis as brother to the killed Walter. The massacre listing includes “Walter Davvies, & his brother,” yet in 1627 one John Davies was to be paid for clearing the Staples/Davis property, making it highly likely that this John Davis was indeed brother to Walter (ibid., p. 166, Court session for February 9, 1627). 212. Ibid., p. 57, Court session for May 2, 1625.

51

some boordes, at wch tyme he bought of George ffryer six boordes of eighteene foote longe and eighteen Inches deepe at the price of five pound of tobacco per boorde, of wch ye Governor havinge two, Mr Horwood demanded two other of George ffryer, who replide he had non of ye same length, but shewed him another stock of twelve foote longe, and 18 inches deepe.213

Prior testimony in this case revealed that Fryer was asking six pounds of tobacco per board but did not specifiy whether this was the price of the 18- or the 12-foot lengths, nor is their thickness recorded. In view of the fact that there were so few people living in Martin’s Hundred in the immediate postmassacre years, it is remarkable that there was such constant discord among them and their neighbors. Governor Harwood’s relationship with Hamor was one of constant suspicion that somebody was doing something to the other’s detriment. Thus, for example, on April 20, 1624, Hamor had written to Harwood as follows: Mr Horwood I prsume you will not fayle to paye that 100li of Tobacco to Mr Chew accordinge to your pmise, yf you shoulde, you shall doe me more iniurye than the Tobacco is woorthe, yf you pay it I pray you seale a bill to him for a 100li more ye next yeare and then I shall accquictt you of your bonde, I pray you Comand my man Tho: Waterman to returne home to me, I heere he is at your plantation, yf he come not home the sooner, I shall seach [reach?] hym to his coste. Yours in wt I may Ralphe Hamer214

Ralph Hamor evidently had little time for William Harwood, and in truth he had little even for himself, for he died in 1626—one of the last of the truly ancient planters and a vocal champion of the colony.215 His dislike of Harwood may well have been occasioned by the fact that he, Hamor, had been forced to pick up the pieces in Martin’s Hundred 213. Ibid., p. 50, Court session for March 14, 1624/25. 214. Ibid., p. 52, notes of a convening before Governor Wyatt, George Sandys, and Ralph Hamor on April 7, 1625, at which time Hamor introduced for the record the letter that he had written to Harwood on April 20 a year earlier. Thomas Waterman does not figure in the 1624/25 muster’s listing of Ralph Hamor’s servants, and no other person of that name appears in the Virginia records between 1623 and 1625. A Thomas Waterman is listed as licensed to go to Barbados in 1634, but being only 27 years old it is unlikely to be the same individual (Hotten, p. 40, a listing of persons transported to Barbados aboard the Hopewell, February 17, 1634). Mr. Chew was John Chew, who succeeded Hamor as commander of Hog Island. It is unlikely that he gave his name to chewing tobacco (McIlwaine, p. 192, Court session records for March 7, 1628/29). 215. Ralph Hamor sailed for Virginia aboard the ill-starred Sea Venture, arrived in 1610 with Sir Thomas Gates on the Bermuda-built Deliverance, and remained in the colony until 1614 when he returned to England with Captain Argall. The following year he wrote his immensely valuable A True Discourse of the

52

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

after the 1622 massacre and so had a somewhat proprietary interest in its future. At the same time Harwood may have resented that interest and may have felt some guilt at not having been on hand when he was most needed. It is conceivable, however, that he was there and that he locked himself in the Fort and left the fighting to Lieutenant Keane. There is no evidence of such cowardice other than Robert Addames’s account of Harwood locking himself in his storehouse and refusing admission to Addames’s wife when the Indians attacked again in 1623. Among those living in the Hundred in 1623/24 was Captain John Stone, but he was later evicted by Governor Harwood and, like so much else, the affair wound up in court. Evidence was presented to show that Stone had built the house at his own “coste and Charge” and its location had been approved by the “Socyetie and Compeny of martins hundred.” The court ordered Harwood to compensate Stone to the tune of 250 pounds of tobacco and to do so by the tenth day of November 1626. It may be significiant that the 1624/25 muster showed that Stone, with his wife Sisly, had already moved across the river to Hog Island where Ralph Hamor resided.216 Although Ralph Hamor died in the spring of 1626, retribution for speaking ill of him took its time for Martin’s Hundred resident Richard Crocker. Robert Addames testified that in August 1626, while in the house of William Harwood, he had heard Crocker accuse Hamor of extortion and declaring that neither he nor Abraham Piercey the cape merchant were fit to serve on the governor’s council.217 Another Martin’s Hundred resident, Maximilian Stone, testified against Crocker, saying that while in Harwood’s house Crocker had complained that “many great men went aboard shipps and bought many goods & sold them againe at unreasonable rates”—the “great men” presumably being or including Hamor and Peirsey.218 Further evidence was provided by potmaker Tom Ward, who recalled “being in ye woods at Martins-Hundred” and heard one Henry Elyott and Richard Crocker discussing Hamor’s charging a barrel of corn and ten pounds of tobacco for a thousand nails, whereupon Crocker accused Hamor and

Present State of Virginia (1957). He returned in May 1617 and served on the colony’s Council until his death in 1626 at the early age of 37. Hamor served on the Virginia bench for the last time on April 3, 1626 (McIlwaine, p. 100). The Court session for October 23, 1626, granted Ralph Hamor’s widow 200 acres on Hog Island (ibid., p. 122). 216. Ibid., p. 114; and Jester, p. 42. 217. McIlwaine, p. 132, Court session of January 11, 1626/27. 218. Ibid. Stone put the date of this statement as “before ye middle of July last past.” 219. Ibid., p. 135, Court session for January 12, 1626/27. 220. Ibid., p. 136, Court session for January 13, 1626/27. 221. Thorndale, The Virginia Census, p. 169. Three years earlier John Rolfe had made a colony-wide tally of its livestock and put

Peirsey with dealing “uppon nothing but extortion.”219 Crocker paid a high price for his indiscretion. The court ordered him imprisoned for one month and then to be placed in the pillory with his ears nailed to it. He was also to give a bond of 300 pounds of tobacco as surety for his future good behavior.220 The court records contain several arguments regarding the ownership of cattle, and as the archaeological evidence would strongly indicate the use of the Wolstenholme Towne Fort as a place for housing and watering cattle, even the most oblique reference is of importance. The Virginia census of 1619 indicates that there were more head of cattle in the colony than had hitherto been supposed: Sum Totall of all ye Cattle Head Cattle publique and pryvate great & small Horses and mares Goats and Kidds Tame swine of all sorts

336 010 233 308 887221

The ownership of cattle was to become a long-running source of friction between the Virginia Company and the particular plantations. It stemmed from a dispute over the ownership and disposition of cows left behind when Governor Argall was recalled. Shortly afterward ten head were loaned to Martin’s Hundred and over time were considered to belong there. The importance of cattle to the colonists was well understood by the Indians, who had no use for cows themselves. Consequently at the time of the massacre and continuing into 1623, their raiders made a point of killing cattle.222 Recalling the complaints by Frethorne and the threats voiced by Harwood (and supposing that conditions in Martin’s Hundred were typical of all), one might assume that throughout the colony the settlers were starving and reliant on the Seaflower for their salvation. If that really was so, the recovery between March 22, 1622, and February 1624/25, when the census was taken, was almost miraculous.

the numbers considerably lower: “Cattle 144 (cowes, heffers calves 83, steers 41, bulls 20); horses 3, mares 3, goats and kids 216; Hoggs, wild and tame, not to be numbered” (Neil, p. 112). 222. A cow with a most unusual name found its way into the court records in 1626/27, giving a clue as to the worth and condition of some of the colony’s cattle as well as proof of the Indians attacking them: Tho: Harris sworne & examined sayth that he knoweth that one Cowe lately in the possession of Luke Boise named brooken leggs and killed by y e Indians at the Necke of land was one of those eight cowes that Capt John Martin had formerly in his possession (McIlwaine, p. 129, Court session for January 9, 1626/27).

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

In using the muster as a yardstick for the demographics of early Virginia, it is important always to remember that the lists were made by different people who asked different questions for different areas. Thus, for example, the recorder for the Lower James River, both north and south, decided to include pallisadoes (27 of them), while the recorder for Martin’s Hundred did not. Similarly, the scribe making the list from the Falls down to Charles City counted chickens (1,239) while those working to the east did not. Recognizing, therefore, that the 1624/25 muster is incomplete, the following figures provide minimal rather than bone fide totals: Horses Cattle Swine Goats Poultry Boats Canoes

1 359 520 221 1,239 40 3

The Martin’s Hundred muster specifically notes that the ten head of cattle in Governor Harwood’s possession were “belonging to the Hundred.”223 However, it would seem to be the same ten cows that were in litigation in January 1626/27, when Dr. Pott and colonial secretary William Claybourne both claimed that cattle belonging to the London Company should be housed and used on their plantations as perquisites of their offices. The court resolved that Claybourne should have “delivred him tenne of those Cowes wch doe belonge to the publique & are nowe to be delivd up by Mr Horwood of Martins Hundred and doe as much as in them lyeth estate them to the place of [the] Secretary.”224 Important to the livelihood of Martin’s Hundred’s handful of postmassacre settlers was their ability to move by water—unpleasant though Richard Frethorne found it. The Hundred possessed only one boat of uncertain size, listed in the muster as being in the possession of Governor Harwood. Such distribu-

223. Jester, p. 43. 224. McIlwaine, p. 136, Court session for January 13, 1626/27. The court record concerning the disposition of Samuel Argall’s alleged cattle ownership required the presence of William Harwood and John Jackson to represent Martin’s Hundred (ibid., p. 55, Court session for April 25, 1625). These cannot have been the same ten head of cattle that had been the subject of much aggravation in 1619. See p. 52. 225. It was aboard his barque that Yeardley tried to reach his plantation on the afternoon of the massacre (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 515f.). Yeardley explained that he “manned his Shipps boatt and went on shore,” which leaves us asking: what boat? Did the listed skiff represent the ship’s longboat, or was there a fourth boat that did not get listed? Although irrelevant to Martin’s Hundred, that such questions can be asked prompts caution in the use of the muster listings. 226. Had the muster of Richard Tree’s holdings on Jamestown Island been taken three months earlier, it would have read “House 1; Boat, 1.” Tree had come to the colony aboard the

53

tion was not unusual. There were in all (according to the muster) only 40 boats in the colony. Only four plantations had two, and only Sir George Yeardley had three, those identified as a 40-ton barque, a 4ton shallop, and a skiff.225 Archaeological evidence (coupled with the exercise of logic) will suggest that prior to the massacre the governor resided in the house within the Fort at Wolstenholme Towne, and it would be reasonable to conclude that the Society’s lone boat was beached below the draw adjacent to John Boyse’s Site H. An offshore search for pier, wharf, or dock remains proved negative, however, and although such evidence is rarely positive, it seems probable that Martin’s Hundred had no formal landing place, and that, unless carefully tended, bad weather could result in severe damage to a beached boat. The fate of Richard Tree’s boat226 when hauled ashore at Martin’s Hundred speaks both of the danger and of the quarrelsome and uncooperative attitude of one colonist to another: John Clarksone sworne and examined sayeth y t Richard Tree did lend a boate to Mr Thomas Hithersoll, wch boat Mr Hethersoll did pmise to deliver safe again to Richard Tree at James Cyttie and Cominge to Martins hundred, Mr Wm Cooke & Mr. Hethersoll, Richard Craven and this Exã beinge in ye boate they went ashore, And this Exam seeinge much fowle wether Cominge, he went and requested M r. Cooke and M r. Hithersoll to Come, and helpe to draw y e boat to som Convenient place where she might be owt of danger, but they answered they wold not, by reason whereof ye boat was split and lost.227

There is no indication of the size of the unfortunate Mr. Tree’s boat beyond the fact that it carried four men, who, if they had been willing, could have hauled it up the beach to safety. Lighter and much easier to handle were canoes,228 and there is no knowing how many were available to the settlers. The

George (date not cited) and had a 12-year-old son named John, plus a servant of 28 named Silvester Bullen. Their placement on the muster page suggests that Tree lived close by another’s house, that of John Barnett (aged 26), who shared with John Stoaks and his wife, Ann (who owned no house). From this evidence one may deduce (a) that Tree owned the boat unilaterally and that it required only himself and his servant to operate it, or (b) that he relied on Barnett and Stoaks (Jester, p. 34). 227. McIlwaine, p. 35f., Court session for December 13, 1624. 228. Londoners had been shown the maneuverability of Indian canoes when a sample “cannow” and rowers are thought to have been brought back from Samuel Mace’s 1603 expedition to the Chesapeake. The Indian oarsmen gave their demonstration on the Thames for the edification of antiquary Sir Walter Cope on September 2, 1603 (Quinn, New American World, A Documentary History of North America to 1612 [1979], vol. V, p. 166; Ivor Noël Hume, The Virginia Adventure: Roanoke to James Towne: An Historical and Archaeological Odyssey [1994], p. 106).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

1624/25 muster lists only three, but those were all owned by planters living upriver. The chances are that only one recorder thought canoes worth including. The colonists made a practice of destroying Indian canoes, and it is reasonable to deduce that some of the wreckers may have concluded that theft was preferable to destruction. In any case, for more than 20 or 30 years virtually all traffic between the James River plantations was by water—as is attested to by the fact that the muster listed but one horse in all of Virginia while the good time tally of 1619 puts the number at ten or 11, all of them in Charles Hundred or at Henrico—and none in Martin’s Hundred.229 The rapid decline and eventual demise of the Society of Smythe’s/Southampton Hundred added further worries to beset the people of Martin’s Hundred. Because both plantations belonged to essentially the same group of London adventurers, it is entirely probable that supplies sent to one might be transferred to the other if circumstance so dictated. Thus in November 1625 we find Harwood appealing for the return of property loaned to the then head of Southampton Hundred, John Utie. The incomplete listing included the following: “19 shirtes, 18 payre of shewes, 18 payre of fresh ferkins, 4 felling Axes.”230 On March 7, 1628/29, the Court ordered the renewal of commissions to eight individuals to serve as commanders of their plantations. Below are four more who may be interpreted not as renewals but as new appointees. One of the four was John Utie “Comaunder of all the plantacons between Martins hundred and Archers hope Creeke.”231 From this one might deduce that William Harwood of Martin’s Hundred had either died or left the colony, leaving Utie to fill the vacuum. But this clearly was not the case, for as noted earlier, on April 9, 1629, William Harwood was in court being told to pay the preacher one-third of the parish debt due to him. This is, nonetheless, the last record of Harwood’s presence. Just as Ralph Hamor had taken charge of Martin’s Hundred in the immediate aftermath of the massacre while residing in part on his Hog Island plantation, so it is to be supposed that Utie, another Hog Island resident, continued to live there while commanding the plantations immediately opposite the island on the James’s north bank—plantations that

did not include Martin’s Hundred, but only abutted it to the northwest. That conclusion immediately raises two questions: Why did Utie take command of the Hundred while Harwood was still there, and what became of Harwood’s residence once he had gone? As is invariably the case in archaeology, the recovered remains most often date from the time of a site’s abandonment, while traces of earlier activity become increasingly hard to separate. Consequently the archaeological record of the plantation thought to have been Harwood’s (Site A) appears to date largely from ca. 1623–1645, a period wherein less and less is known as the date gets later. The dissolution of the Virginia Company in 1624 soon brought its recording to an end, while that other prime source, the Minutes of the Council and General Court, is lost after February 9, 1632, until April 15, 1670, by which date Martin’s Hundred lived on only as a parish within James City County. In 1634 the Virginia Company’s four general plantations and the seven subsidiary particular plantations had been formally abolished and eight “countries” set up to replace them. Until that reorganization under Crown rule was formalized, the governor and his Council did what they could and hoped for the best. In October 1629 the General Assembly had convened at Jamestown, at which time Martin’s Hundred was represented by two burgesses: Thomas Fawcett or Fossett (about whom we know virtually nothing)232 and Thomas Kingston, who is likely to have been the Thomas Kniston listed as a member of Robert Scotchmore’s household (both of whom came in the George in 1623) and moved to Martin’s Hundred early in 1624/25.233 But Kingston’s prominence was short lived. When the Assembly convened again six months later, Scotchmore had replaced him and served alongside Fossett/Fawcett.234 From this point forward the people of Martin’s Hundred become mere names while the properties they occupied become equally rootless, there being no certainty of who lived where or whose acres abutted whose. When the General Assembly convened again on March 24, 1629/30, Martin’s Hundred was still represented by Scotchmore and Fosset/Fawcett. 235 Perhaps significantly, nobody represented Martin’s Hundred in the Assembly of February 21, 1631/32. Messrs. Thomas Farlery and

229. Thorndale, The Virginia Census, pp. 166 and 169. That all 11 horses were recorded as being upriver might tempt one to conclude that there again one recorder listed horses and that another did not. However, the wording of the record is clear in saying first “Sum total of all the Personns maynteyned out of the Collony 928,” and then “Sum total of all ye Cattle . . . Horses and Mares 010.” 230. McIlwaine, p. 77, Court session for November 28, 1625. 231. Ibid., p. 192, Court session for March 7, 1628/29. 232. Court records for March 7, 1623/24, mention one “ffossett,” who had been at the Falling Creek settlement suffering

from dropsy, but had been cured by Edward Gifton. It is possible that during the time that the Falling Creek ironworks operation was abandoned, Fossett moved to Martin’s Hundred (ibid., p. 11). 233. Jester, pp. 28 and 46. 234. William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 [1819–1823], vol. I, p. 146. 235. W. G. Stanard, “Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. I (1893–1894), p. 54.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

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Percival Wood represented the Hundred’s upstream neighbor at Archer’s Hope, while below it the sector described as “Kethe’s Creek to Mulberry Island and Saxon’s Gaol” was represented by Thomas Harwood236 and Captain Thomas Flint.237 In the Assembly for September 4, 1632, Martin’s Hundred was represented by Robert Scotchmore and Percival Wood,238 the latter a new name in the records of the Hundred. In the muster of 1624/25 Wood is shown to have been living on Mulberry Island along with his wife, Anne,239 both of whom had come over on the George (probably in 1623). At the next Assembly, that of February 1, 1632/33, Scotchmore is listed second to another newcomer, David Mansfield.240 He had come to Virginia in 1619 aboard the Bona Nova as a “hired servant” to George Sandys, and in the 1624/25 muster he was listed as being in the Treasurer’s Plant in James City. By 1627 he had worked out his indenture and was a free man able to settle where he chose, and had done so by acquiring the lease for 100 acres at Archer’s Hope.241 Through the next several years, although the General Assembly met, no lists of its members have survived. It was in this period (1634), too, that the old Virginia Company’s plantations were formally abolished and the land converted into counties. Consequently by the time that the next at least partial listing of Burgesses comes down to us—that of January 6, 1639/40—Martin’s Hundred no longer existed as a separate unit. The entry reads “Martin’s Hundred to Kethe’s Creek: Thomas [missing].”242 From this point onward there are no surviving records to show who represented the remaining inhabitants of the old Martin’s Hundred tract—with the possible exception of the list of Burgesses for 1657–1658, which

shows Thomas Loveinge to be one of four representing James City.243 By this time there is no certainty of the old plantation’s new parochial boundaries, and only one artifact survives to provide information of any definitive sort. This is the ledger stone lying in the church or churchyard of Martin’s Hundred parish, which reads as follows:

236. There is no evidence that Thomas Harwood of Mulberry Island was related to William of Martin’s Hundred. The reference to Kethe’s Creek is almost certainly to Skiffes Creek, which bordered Martin’s Hundred to the south. Thomas came to Virginia on the Margaret and John, arriving in April 1623 (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 127f), and represented Mulberry Island and later Warwick County in the General Assembly from 1629 until at least 1649, when he served as Speaker. He died in 1652. His original plantation seems to have been located on the neck connecting Mulberry Island to the mainland and was called “Queene Hive.” Jester (p. 363, n. 8) interpreted the name “Hive” as “Hith” explaining that “as an old English term for borough or hundred.” I believe this to be wrong, and that instead the source for “Hive” is “Hythe,” whose etymology according to Phillips’s New World of Words (1671) is a “little Haven to land wares out of Boats.” Nathaniel Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1749) goes further: “HITHE a little Port or haven for landing, loading or unloading Goods, as ‘Queen-hithe.’” This is a reference to the medieval Thamesside dock (now above Southwark Bridge) that was closely associated with the wool trade. That would be of no relevance were it not for the suggestion that Thomas Harwood had close London ties whereas William Harwood of Martin’s Hundred was a Devon man. 237. Stanard, p. 56. 238. Ibid., p. 57.

239. Jester, p. 47. At about the same time (January 1624/25) Wood and his wife had sold a tenement and 12 acres at Black Point “late Nathaniell Hutts” to Sir George Yeardley for 250 pounds of tobacco (McIlwaine, p. 45). In the muster, Percival Wood had corn, two pounds of gunpowder, a musket, an armor and a sword, but no house. 240. Stanard, p. 58. 241. McIlwaine, p. 166, Court session for February 7, 1627/28. In 1652 Captain David Mansfeild [sic] released 162 acres in Hampton Parish to one Thomas Whitehead (Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grant 1623–1666 [1983], p. 232).

Here Lieth in hope of joyfull Resurrection the body of SAMVELL POND of Martins Hundred parish in james Citty County in the Dominion of Virginia Phsycian whoe Departed this Life the 26 of october in the year of ovr Lord 1694 aged 48244

Here, as has so often been the case, the loss of the James City County records that were taken to Richmond for safety during the Civil War creates a void into which one can all too easily fall. The fate of Dr. Samuell Pond is but one example. His presence in the parish may have been of long or short duration, and either way his professional contributions must have been widely appreciated—yet not one reference survives to tell us where he lived or for how long. In 1978 Colonial Williamsburg historian Dr. Kevin Kelly embarked upon research he titled “An Inquiry into the Seventeenth-century Ownership of the Carter’s Grove Property,” and one is tempted to quote at length from it. But what it boiled down to was this: In the end all we can say with certainty is that after the Virginia Company period, Robert Carter is the first known owner of the Carter’s Grove property.245

242. Stanard, p. 60. The editors have interpreted the missing surname as either Kingston or Fawcett, but there had been no evidence of continuity by either individual. The Thomas might just as well have been someone entirely different. 243. Ibid., p. 73. 244. Dr. Pond’s widow, Rebecca, had married Captain Thomas Mountfort by December 1695 (Jester, p. 427). 245. The first firm date to establish Robert “King” Carter’s ownership is to be found in his diary for June 19, 1722, where he recalls visiting “Mercht. hundred” (Robert Carter, “Diary, 1722–1727”).

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The late Audrey Noël Hume believed that Thomas Loveinge (later a Burgess for James City) had taken over William Harwood’s plantation site, which was archaeologically believed to have been located at Site A, and that these acres extended in a strip reaching to the river and originally included Wolstenholme Towne. Court records for 1670 reveal that Thomas Loving was long since dead and that in 1666 his widow had married one Edward Thruston.246 Eight years later one Charles Roan brought suit against Edward Thruston, who was then said to be “in Martins Hundred”—but where in Martin’s Hundred remains a mystery.247 Summarizing the evidence relating to Loving, Thruston, and one William Whitaker, who owned acreage downstream from Wareham’s Run (the northern boundry of Martin’s Hundred), Kelly could say only that “The possibility that William Whitaker, Thomas Loving, and Edward Thruston owned part or all of the Carter’s Grove property at some point in the seventeenth century must remain just that, a possibility.”248 It is clear that once the Company and Society plantations were dissolved, servants who had worked out their indentures were free to move wherever they chose, and that many of them did so. Several evidently came to the land that lies between Wareham’s Pond and Skiffes Creek. Acreage already allocated to Martin’s Hundred adventurers remained in those parcels or in some cases absorbed others that were either smaller or less productive. The problem facing the researcher trying to tie titles to specific acres is to find a still-existing starting point. Thus, for example, we know that in 1637 one David Mansell acquired 500 Martin’s Hundred acres “within James City County, adj. his own plantation or neck of land” and that it ran “backward into the forrest N.E. towards the maine river S.W. adj. land of Mr. Warren.”249 For this Mansell paid the cost of transporting ten people, nine of them men. Eventually “David Mansell of Va. gent” sold his “new plantation in Martin’s Hundred

Parish in the rich neck” to one Walter Penrose. But the bill of sale is undated and the acreage unspecified.250 Between 1642 and 1652 Thomas Loving acquired four parcels of land amounting to 2,750 acres, which Kelly believes encircled what later became Colonial Williamsburg’s diminished Carter’s Grove tract on all three of its landward sides. That is not to say that it did not also include the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites. There is simply no evidence one way or the other. All that can be said is that at least 19 individuals had property there in the post-Martin’s Hundred Society to pre–Robert Carter years. Their names are these:

246. McIlwaine, p. 206, Court session for April 18, 1670. Thomas Thruston authorized the sale of his plantation in 1695 (Kevin P. Kelly, “An Inquiry into the Seventeenth-Century Ownership of the Carter’s Grove Property” [1978], p. 5). 247. McIlwaine, p. 414, Court session for June 18, 1675. 248. Kelly, p. 5. 249. Nugent, p. 76. Because we do not know precisely where Mansell’s already owned plantation was located it is impossible to place the forest into which the new acreage projected in a northeasterly direction. Similarly, the knowledge that the land ran toward the James River does not help us unless we also are told how far toward the water. On July 22, 1635, David Mancell [Mansell] had secured another 500 acres in Martin’s Hundred. It was defined as “adj. the plantation or neck of land in his possession, N.E. towards the maine river & S.W. adj. Mr. Barhams land.” Thus in the space of a year David Mansell had acquired 1,000 Martin’s Hundred acres, these expanding around his original grant, whose size and location we do not know (ibid., p. 29). In 1638 he obtained a further 250 acres that bordered west upon the “land of Thomas Loveing in Martins hundred,

N. by a ridge of Land whereon the Church standeth, E upon land of John Oberry and south upon Skethe’s Creek” (Nugent, p. 106). 250. Ibid., p. 117, Patent Book No.1, Part II, p. 687. Other patents and transactions recorded on the same page are dated 1639. 251. The listing of post–Virginia Company land grants is derived in part from Kevin Kelly’s incomplete and unpublished distribution map of October 20, 1978. Tempting though it is to try to read significance into the relative sizes of the parcels or to see those issued in some years as evidence of something or other (e.g., change in administration, a program of land clearance, the aftermath of contagious death, the change from Company to Crown control), to do so on so little undermines the credibility of all else. Nevertheless, it is a fact (significant or otherwise) that in the years immediately after the change from plantation and hundreds to counties and parishes (1635–1637) ten grants in Martin’s Hundred amounted to 24,000 acres— slightly more than the 21,500 believed to have comprised the Martin’s Hundred shareholders’ 20,000 acres plus the 1,500

Name Acres Tomas Atkinson 64 William Barber, Lt. Col. 596 Richard Barnhouse, Capt. 160 David Crafford 87 John Dennett 200 George Holmes 200 “ “ 350 Clement Hardon 277 John Hayward 150 John Hayman 463 Robert Holder 250 Robert Hubbard 30–40 Thomas Loving (Loveinge) 664 “ “ 186 “ “ 1,500 “ “ 400 David Mansell (Mancell) 500 “ “ 500 “ “ 250 Peter Ridley 100 Thomas Smith 350 Samuel Snead 200 William Stafford 100 John Wade 45 William Whitacre, Capt. 90 Richard Whitaker 135 Thomas Whithead 162

Date 1717 1662 1653 1667 1635 1636 1637 1685 1639 1667 1667 1718/19 1642 1642 1643 1652 1635 1637 1638 1639 1637 1637 1635 1710 1656 1666 1653251

THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND WHERE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

That the people whose names occur in the surviving land patent records played no part in the Society of Martin’s Hundred era is unfortunate, but it would be infinitely more so if most of the archaeological sites dated not from the first half of the seventeenth century but from the second.252 By then there were many more parcels and many more people scattered over a much wider area. Not to know which was which would have been monumentally frustrating. As previously noted, the first known owner of the tract that came to be Carter’s Grove was Robert “King” Carter of Corotoman, in Lancaster County. He acquired it ca. 1722 and called the tract “Merchant’s Hundred Plantation.” Just as there is no certainty of precisely when he bought the land, so there is no knowing from whom he purchased it. This last is particularly galling because the remains of a dwelling believed to have been the “old house” that preceded the 1755 Burwell mansion have been found on the ridge northwest of the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum. Although unexcavated, it seems to date within the brackets ca. 1690–1740.253 Although the Martin’s Hundred and Carter’s Grove acres are among the most intensively excavated British colonial sites in the world, much still remains to be learned, both from the history and from the earth. Indeed, the gaps in both are as wide as the biggest barn door. Much remains speculation; but were that not so, archaeology would have been denied the opportunity to play the historian at his own game. Audrey Noël Hume was both archaeologist and historian, and had she lived longer she might have made greater contributions than her half-finished researches suggest. Nevertheless, in her work on Martin’s Hundred she assumed the mantle of the social historian long enough to embark on a related study of socioeconomic levels based on the adjacent York County inventories.254 She was trying to determine whether the presence or absence of certain categories of artifacts could be employed as markers of affluence or poverty. Unfortunately, none of the surviving inventories date prior to 1637 and some thereafter lacked valuations. A further problem was presented by the fact that although valuations in the first half of the century are cited in pounds of tobacco, in the second half monetary valuations became increasingly common. Using the tobacco poundage, Audrey established six levels:

added for glebe and other official uses. However, none of the grantees tie back to those who figured in the Hundred’s Virginia Company-period history. 252. One does so, namely Site J, most of which has yet to be excavated and does not figure in this study. Some of its features may go back to the 1620s, but others date to the last quarter of the century and possibly into the very early 1700s. 253. This unlettered site may well have been contemporary in

I. II. III. IV. V. VI.

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1 to 1,000 pounds 1,001 to 3,000 pounds 3,001 to 5,000 pounds 5,001 to 10,000 pounds 10,001 to 20,000 pounds 20,001 to 31,000 pounds

Within these groups she broke down the inventories by object and by date, thus making it possible to determine, for example, in which economic group and at what date such supposedly luxury items as glass mirrors first appeared. The answer, in that instance, was at Level I (776 pounds) in 1648, where it was described as “1 old looking Glasse.” The first sword to be listed does not occur until 1653 and then only at Level V (17,941 pounds), but “1 gunne unfixt” occurs in the smallest inventory at the lowest economic stratum (Level 1; 156 pounds). Knives, however, are not recorded below Level II (1,380 pounds) or before 1646. Drinking glasses do not occur until 1653 and then only at Level V (17,941 pounds), itemized as “1 Livery Cubbard with Glasses & Earthenware upon it.” The foregoing items are cited because they relate to items found on Martin’s Hundred Sites A and B. Fragments of mirror plate come from Site B and not from Site A; swords are present on both; so, too, are guns and table knives; but drinking glasses have been found only at Site A. The archaeological evidence demonstrates that the inventory data cannot be used without great caution and taking several ancillary factors into consideration. Thus, for example, the frequency at which weapons are found on sites of the second quarter of the seventeenth century is at variance with their prevalence (or rather lack of it) in the inventories. The explanation might be that most of the excavated weapons were the property of the Virginia Company or the hundreds (and later the Crown colony) and were loaned to householders for their protection. Consequently such items would not figure in personal inventories. Then again the occasional absence of beds and other essential furniture may have been occasioned by the omission of the widow’s share. Much more difficult to explain is the dearth of identified ceramics at all economic levels and dates. As the inventory from one Site B pit in use ca. 1631 shows, no fewer than 38 vessels were represented by sherds in that deposit alone. Inventories, however, list none before 1646 and then only “2 Earthen

its first years with the last of those at Site J. 254. Historian Philip A. Bruce stated that “The inventories belonging to the period preceding 1650, upon which we have to rely to obtain a just conception of the size of the personal holdings in Virginia in that age, were comparatively few in number” and that “The records of York alone throw any real light upon the point in inquiry” (Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century [1964], vol. II, p. 247).

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pannes” and “one stone Jugg” (Level III; 3,255 pounds). Two years later the most wealthy individual in Level I (776 pounds) was shown to possess “an Earthen Jugg” and “old earthen ware,” and this data taken at face value would suggest that no one below that individual’s poundage (and no one above it at Level II) possessed ceramics of any kind. And that, palpably, is nonsense. In none of the inventories does one find a reference to glass bottles, yet a conservative estimate puts the number at Site A at 108. If bottles were considered of so little value as not to be worth listing, their absence might be expected. However, contemporary English inventories and account books indicate that a quart glass bottle was valued at about sixpence,

which, as tobacco was worth approximately twopence a pound in the 1640s, means that Site A’s bottles had an individual value of three pounds and a combined total worth of 324 pounds (£2 14s. 0d.). Compare those figures with the poorest of the York County inventories and it becomes evident that bottles were far from worthless. Based solely on the corrolation between inventories and artifacts as demonstrated in Audrey Noël Hume’s very preliminary studies, one must conclude that in the first half of the seventeenth century, when it comes to the study of personal possessions, the archaeological evidence is far more reliable than are the documentary sources.

CHAPTER 2

The People of Martin’s Hundred: The Physical Evidence Most studies in historical archaeology follow the introductory history by a description of the excavation and, in particular, the methodology employed. This can produce an effect akin to the boredom created by a fisherman who describes his bait, his hook, his line, and his sinker before getting to the size of his catch. It is enough at this point to assert that in the areas opened no sod was left unturned, no posthole unexcavated. In this extensive process of clearance 40 graves were encountered and all of them opened. The trick was to tie correct name tags to the toes of their occupants. At Site A (the Harwood site) the graves numbered 23, laid out in three groups and evidently at different times. The first to be uncovered was a group of five, encountered in the preliminary testing in 1970, which lay along the outside of the farmstead’s westerly perimeter fence. When first found, prior to excavation, their proximity to the Carter’s Grove mansion’s kitchen (though by no means close) prompted the conclusion that these were the graves of eighteenthor nineteenth-century slaves. There being no physical anthropologist on the Colonial Williamsburg staff, these and all other graves (with the exception of Site J) were studied and reported on by Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, of the Smithsonian Institution.

Because Colonial Williamsburg’s plans for the 1976 Bicentennial called for the use of Site A as the location for craft exhibits, Larry Angel was asked to study the occupants of any encountered graves, the request based only on the tentative conclusion reached in 1970. By the time he arrived, however, we knew that these were not the resting places of later colonial or nineteenth-century slaves, but instead were burials dating from ca. 1620–1645. That conclusion was based on their relationship to the farm fence line and to the presence in some graves of large-headed shroud pins of a type characteristic of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately this information, although shared with Dr. Angel, did not register as it should, and in consequence his preliminary assumptions and conclusions were built upon the proposition that the first five graves were those of black slaves rather than of white settlers. These deductions were later revised, Dr. Angel noting that mouth projection (prognathism), though Negroid in character, was found to occur in a large group of Londoners found in a mass burial in Farringdon Street in 1925 whose remains were attributed to the seventeenth century.1 In his notes on the Site A skeletal remains, Dr. Angel concluded by saying that “Even with [a] complete skull and skeleton, determination of ‘race’

1. The published source for this suggested parallel is Beatrix G. E. Hooke, “A Third Study of the English Skull with Special Reference to the Farringdon Street Crania,” Biometrika, vol. XVIII (1926), pp. 1–16. Careful reading of the text indicates that the London remains had been redeposited from either a charnel house or an abandoned burial ground, and consequently the

measured crania were (a) of a variety of dates, both 17th century and earlier, and (b) were disassociated from the rest of the skeletal material. Nevertheless, it can be said with reasonable confidence that at those dates very few (if any) blacks would have been among the Farringdon Street group.

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Illustration 2. Location of cemetery at the south end of the Harwood plantation. Graves 1–5 are believed to have been interred at the same time, probably the result of infectious disease. is chancy on a single individual. Only comparisons between groups are safely protected by statistics.”2 Of the first five skeletons examined, all were buried in graves of comparable depth set out in so straight a line that they could only have been interred at the same time (Ill. 2). Were that not the case, the backfilled dirt of one would overflow the edges of the shaft, obscuring them and making it impossible to dig the next to the same line. In these

five instances, the east (feet) edges of the shafts were in a continuous row.3 Reading from south to north, Dr. Angel determined that no. 1 was a male aged no more than 19; no. 2 was a woman of about 28; no. 3 a man aged around 36; no. 4 was an under-30 female; and no. 5 a male of around 25. It was the prognathism of woman no. 4 that had at first led all five to be accepted as black slaves. Dr. Angel described her like this:

2. J. Lawrence Angel, “Early Colonial Skeletons at Carter’s Grove” (1976). 3. The graves were numbered in series as well as by Excavation Register number. The series of five were recorded thusly: Grave 1 (C.G. 1741); 2 (1742); 3 (1743); 4 (1744); 5 (1745). “C.G.” is

used as an abbreviation for “Excavation Register.” For Martin’s Hundred the full prefix reads “C.G.E.R.,” meaning “Carter’s Grove Excavation Register”; in the interests of brevity, however, entries in the catalog omit the “E.R.”

THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

There is one skeleton with extreme alveolar projection who also shows tibial elongation, extremely broad nose with rounded and dull sills, and upper incisors with trace of shovel form plus lingual tubercle. In my opinion she is not white. I cannot readily label her as local Indian, although she is similar to specimens seen at the late 16th-century Hand site on the Nottoway River, Maryland. Her shovel incisors are less developed than is usual for Indians, and she could possibly compare with examples of the West African Ebo and Gaboon tribes.4

In verbal debate Dr. Angel voiced the possibility that the woman might have been a “mulatto,” but if she was 28 and buried (as is likely) prior to about 1640, she would have been born ca. 1612, before any blacks are known to have been imported into Virginia. It is conceivable, of course, that the woman was born interracially on a slave-holding island in the Caribbean and subsequently imported to Virginia as a servant.5 The cause of death among these five individuals remains a mystery, as does their identities. Even when the skeletons were relatively well preserved there was no indication of violence, though that is not to say that it could not have occurred. The skulls, by and large, were not in good condition and due to Dr. Angel’s time limitations were not pieced together—a necessary precursor to detecting the shallow scars of scalping. The listing of those who died in Martin’s Hundred of disease and starvation in 1623 includes no women, though one, the wife of John Pattison, is cited as “kild.” It is safe to conclude, therefore, that Graves 1–5 did not contain indviduals named in the 1623 listing. But what about the roster of the dead from the 1622 massacre? Here again the listing is not broken down by household, although family associations are recorded—but not always accurately. Thus, for example, the list includes “Ralphe Digginson, [and] his wife.” As we have seen in the previous chapter, Ralph Dickinson’s wife was taken prisoner by the Indians and later ransomed by the poisoner Dr. John Pott. In several cases children are listed in the family groups, but none was present in the five graves. In short, no five-person combination listed in the roster of the 1622 dead matches the three men and two women in those Site A graves.6 The sixth grave lay alone alongside Fence 9 and more or less on a straight line to the south of two more coffined burials.7 This grave contained a short 4. Ibid. 5. No documentation confirms this practice. 6. Of the women, Grave 2 measured ca. 161.6 cm; and 4, 153.2 cm. The men, as might be expected, were somewhat taller: Grave 1, 171.7 cm; 3, 162.3 cm; and 5, 158.7 cm—all on the short side by modern standards. 7. Graves 7 and 8. 8. Artifactual evidence suggesting that Site A was home to

61

man (163 cm in height) and Dr. Angel estimated his age at 60—which was old in Martin’s Hundred terms. A line of six nails running the length of the body suggested a coffin of (what was then) considered unusual and puzzling construction. That he lay alone at a distance of ca. 77´ from the coffined pair suggested that this was a person of importance—the obvious candidate being governor William Harwood.8 The previously mentioned pair of coffins lying to the north and closer to the structural complex contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, the former lying with his head to the west in the usual Christian manner, but the woman with hers to the east (Pl. 9 and Ill. 3). A likely explanation for this anomaly is that as the coffins were rectangular, the burial party brought the box to the site in a cart, laid it down, and there being no visible difference between head and foot, mistook one for the other. The man was aged ca. 30 and stood 168.7 cm in height, while the woman was older (ca. 48) and some 150.9 cm tall. She had four brass pins on or near the skull, suggesting that she had had some kind of head covering or

Plate 9. Graves of a male and female at Site A, she inadvertently interred facing from east to west. It is possible that these are William Harwood’s servants, Hugh and Anne Hughs.

William Harwood is provided by a point or aiglet of woven gold (Pl. 76 and Pt. II, Fig. 89, no. 40), a clothing detail worn only by “heads of hundreds”; a saker-bore cannonball paralleling the shot for the settlement’s only piece of artillery (Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 16), which is known to have been located at Harwood’s residence; and by the presence of a broken brandistock blade (Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 4), which normally also served as an officer’s walking staff.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 3. Plan of the domestic occupation area of Site A; see also Pl. 2. that a shroud had been secured at her head.9 Dr. Angel found no pathological evidence in either grave. The placement of these graves parallel to each other but askew to the the main north–south fencelines (Fences 5 and 6), not dug to a predetermined line, suggests that though the occupants were related they were not buried at the same time—as was the previously discussed group of five. The 1624/5 muster had a married couple heading the list of Harwood’s servants: “Hugh Hughes, came in the Guifte

and Ann, his wife,” who is bracketed with other servants who survived the disease-wracked voyage of the Abigail, which arrived in December 1622. Although the ages of other servants are cited, those of Mr. and Mrs. Hughes are not. We therefore know only that he came over with the original shipment of Martin’s Hundred settlers who left England in 1619, and that she followed three years later. Although there is no proof that the pair had been married in England, her age and the fact that she came over in the known

9. Because these burials were cleaned and ready for photography late in the day, the latter step was deferred until the following morning—by which time a heavy nocturnal rain had filled

the graves with water, causing the bones and nails to be washed out of position and into a meaningless jumble.

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THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

aftermath of the massacre make it unlikely that Ann came as a husband-seeking “maid.” The line of five burials is cataloged as Group I, and the three coffined interments as Group II. A third assemblage (Group III) was located to the south of, and straddling the line of, a post-flanked avenue leading to the Harwood houses and sheds (Ill. 2).10 The group comprised 13 graves, most of them with their skeletal remains in poor condition. Nevertheless all were studied by Dr. and Mrs. Angel. The above-cited northerly grave (no. 9) was found to be empty, but its small size pointed to its occupant having been a child of no more than 10 years. Four more graves were evidently those of infants or children: no. 11 (small and empty), no. 13 (teeth only), no. 21 (teeth only), and no. 23 (one femur fragment). Based on so little, Dr. Angel was unable to suggest either sexes or ages for these children. The fact that there were four of them, however, prompts one to note that the 1624 muster lists four children “DEAD at Martin’s Hundred this year.” 11 Because there is evidence that one of the four was buried alone on her home site, it is unlikely that the other three are represesented in this Site A burial group. An east–west fenceline immediately west of the assemblage (Fence 11) may have determined the northerly extent of the burial ground while a paralleling but invisible line created by the five most southerly graves may have determined the ground’s southern extremity. Drawn on paper the Group III burials look as though shaken out of a sack to pile up haphazardly along the southern line. Two were coffined (nos. 16 and 19, one female and the other male) and were lying in the conventional east–west position. Another male (no. 14) seemed to have had at least two sides of the shaft lined with wood, but was unconventionally oriented north–south, his head to the north.12 He was not alone, however; a woman (no. 10) also lay with her head to the north, while skeletons nos. 15 and 17 (female) rested with their heads to the south. There is no evidence that orientation was based on sex, though it is possible that the coffined graves (nos. 16 and 19) were those of a married couple. These people were not the first to be interred on this ground, for no. 19 cut through the grave of a man aged ca. 22. Another for a 28-year-old man (no. 18) cut through the north-facing foot of no. 17. No evidence of stakes or stone markers was found at the heads of any of the Martin’s Hundred burials, and the absence of such memorials on other

early Virginia sites suggests that this was not practiced in the colony at that time. Indeed the identification of persons interred in English churchyards at that period is limited to the tombs of the wealthy. Brass pins were found in Graves 15, 17, 19, and 22, but as half the skeletons were male and the other female, no sexing assumptions can be drawn based on the presence or absence of shroud pins. Their placement, however, may have something to say, for the skulls of the two women each had one pin resting on it. In the male graves one (no. 19) had two pins flanking the body and two more close to the skull. The other male example (no. 15) had three pins alongside the skeleton and none at the skull. This was not very helpful, for Grave 19 was coffined and 15 was not. Then again Grave 15 had his head to the south and 19 had his to the west.13 One can deduce nonetheless that Graves 15 and 17 were among the earliest, as was Grave 22, but that the coffined pair (nos. 16 and 19) were among the last. Dr. Angel’s simplified analysis reads as follows:

10. Fencelines 5 and 6 ran parallel to each other on lines 15´ apart, ending (or lost to plowing) 8´ to the north of the most northerly of the Group III burials (Grave 9). 11. Jester, p. 46; see also n. 17, below. 12. No traces of coffin nails were present. 13. Another male (Grave 12) had a brass aiglet at his neck, suggesting that it had belonged to the drawstring of a nightshirt or

shroud. 14. Individual excavation register numbers were given to all graves, but because the straight number (e.g., C.G. 1730) always refers to unstratified topsoil, these grave numbers officially are labeled with an “A” suffix (e.g., 2004A), indicating that they are stratified deposits, albeit grave fill, below the plowed and unlettered overburden.

Grave no. Register no.14 Males 1 1741 3 1743 5 1745 6 1746 7 1747 12 2004 14 2006 15 2007 18 2010 19 2011 Females 2 1742 4 1744 8 1748 10 2002 16 2008 17 2009 20 2012 22 2014 Children and Infants 9 2001 11 2003 13 2005 21 2013 23 2015

Age

Height (cm)

19– 36 25 60 30 32 25 23 28 27

171.7 162.3 158.7 163.0 168.7 166.3 170.3 172.7 170.3 169.4

28 30– 48 22 25 30– 26?? 24

161.6 153.2 150.9 ? 164.8 156.5 ? 158.8

? ? ? ? ?

? ? ? ? ?

Who, one asks, were these relatively young men and women, who were all buried in the same place at different times and with differing degrees of defer-

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ence? That they straddle and render unusable what may have been the fenced avenue leading from Harwood’s plantation toward Wolstenholme Towne suggests that they date from a time when the plantation stood alone, with no fenced link between the elements of Martin’s Hundred’s seat of power. That time can be read as (a) in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre, or (b) following the death of Governor Harwood in or about 1629. We know that a church was built and that a succession of preachers was hired, but archaeology has found no trace of a church. Although no evidence of fencing was found around the grave complex, it is possible that the church stood on the flat ridge south of Site A in an area not available for excavation. But even if that is so there was considerable separation between graveyard and church.15 Site B, whose house is believed to have been that of John Jackson and Thomas Ward, yielded but one burial16—a nailed and gabled coffin of infant size (length: 2´6˝) containing no surviving bones. The burial lay less than 5´ from the south end of the large Site B dwelling, and the grave was only 1´9˝ deep. Although the coffin’s eastern upper end had been disturbed by tree roots, what remained was able to be studied in detail. Archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer reported as follows:

which suggests an ignorance of certain theological doctrines . . . . Examination of the position, orientation, and length of each nail in the coffin revealed much information concerning its construction. The sides were attached to the base by horizontally driven nails, nine on the left side and probably the same number on the right side, though 13 nails were found there. The nail at each end may have been slightly longer than the others and may have been used to secure the head and foot boards to the sides. At each end, three nails were found standing vertically inverted. They may have been driven up through the coffin base and into the end boards. The latter, therefore, had been fitted in place upon the base boards and between the side boards. This type of construction may have required more carpentry skill than a simple end-on attachment, but not necessarily, if the side boards overlapped the end irregularly and were not at matched lengths with the base board, as previously had been assumed. Lid construction was, as usual, extremely difficult to ascertain because of the dislodgment of nails during the coffin’s collapse. Only three lid nails were recognized along the sides, and it is estimated that the top was fastened to the side boards by just four nails per side, as opposed to the six or seven nails along the sides of the bottom (excluding the four corner nails). An east–west line of nails was found in the upper fill near the middle of the coffin in the western, undisturbed part. The similarities of placement and height to such central lines found in the other coffins at Carter’s Grove, suggests that in this grave (#24), the line of nails ran from end to end, original down the central axis of the coffin . . . . Any discussion of lids based upon a central line of nails in the upper fill should also take into account a line of nails which was found along the bottom of the coffin and which also lay along the main axis. Three of the five nails so located were found pointing upward with their heads down. They would thus appear to have been hammered upward into the bottom of the coffin. Nails in similar inverted positions were found in some of the other coffin burials, but a linear pattern was not as obvious as in the case of the Site B grave.

Fifty-five nails were found and plotted within the coffin, but it is believed that several of those served no structural purpose and were either mistakes in carpentry or perhaps nails previously used in old boards making up the coffin. Of the examined nails, 32 exhibited signs of oxidation patterns of wood grain, and four in a row on the north side of the base showed an absence or change of grain at a distance of c˝ from the far end of the head. It is thus likely that the north side board was c˝ thick, the remaining length of the nails having been driven through it into the baseboard. Twenty nails were found to be either complete, or with only a tip missing, making an estimate of total length fairly easy. Of these, 16 measured 1a˝ long, two were 1b˝ long, while one was only 1˝, and another was all of 2˝ long. The fact that 80% of those nails that could be measured with some degree of accuracy had a length of 1a˝ suggests that this length nail was either the most common at the site at the time of burial, or it was preferred over other lengths for this particular task. Inside the grave, the softer, darker soil within the coffin and the plot of nail positions revealed that the coffin had been four sided, 2´6˝ long. Its ends, however, were of unequal width; the foot was 6˝ across, while the head was 10˝ from side to side. The wider end lay to the east, not in accordance with normal Christian burial practice, but one

Dr. Klingelhofer’s very careful analysis of the Site B coffin’s construction generated several useful conclusions. It left no doubt that early seventeenth-century colonists buried their infant dead in coffins as carefully built as those for adults. That this coffin tapered from wide at the east to narrow at the west suggests that the colonists were not particular about burying their relatives and colleagues with their heads facing the wrong way. More importantly, and ever groping for datable connections, it is notable that the Site B

15. A second group of 12 or more sometimes overlapping burials was found at Wolstenholme Towne, and there again one would speculate that these were the fruits of Indian success in

1622 and that they were located not far from the settlers’ new church. 16. C.G. 2253A.

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coffin’s baseboard and end construction matched that of nail patterns in the suggested Harwood and Hughes graves, pointing to a similarity of date and perhaps to a single coffin-building carpenter. The identity of the Site B coffin’s occupant cannot of course be proven beyond all doubt, but if we are right in attributing the Site B dwelling to the Jackson/Ward group then it is reasonable to equate the infant with the February 1624/25 muster reference to a then-living Jackson “child aged 20 weeks,” and possibly to identify it as female.17 The Wolstenholme Towne complex yielded a further 15 graves, none of them in the immediate vicinity of the Fort. The best-preserved was found behind the dwelling and south of the Potter’s Pond. The interment (C.G. 3092D) lay in an east–west-oriented grave dug deeper than most, its depth reached by means of a step down along the right side of the cut, which at first made the trench appear to be that of a double burial (Ill. 4). The hole was sealed by a stratum of brown dirt heavily flecked with charcoal yielding a rim sherd from an earthenware cauldron or storage jar and a large iron fishhook of the kind that would have been needed to land sturgeon.18 The skeleton lay on its back, its skull severely crushed but still clearly exhibiting a vertical gash immediately to the right of the nose and above the right eye socket (Pl. 10). That there was other extensive damage was not revealed until the skull was taken to the archaeological laboratory, still imbedded in the wet clay beneath it. The skeleton was somewhat arched to the left, suggesting that it had been thrown into the grave from the southerly stepped side by two persons, one holding the shoulders and the other the feet. No traces of clothing were found and a very small clay tobacco-pipe bowl and stem fragment19 found immediately on the pelvis almost certainly got there when the grave was backfilled and not from any association with the corpse. Dr. Angel studied the skeleton in the ground and the skull in the lab, and described the latter as a man with “a strikingly linear head, face, and nose, sloping forehead, orthognathy, and wide and muscular jowls (bigonial breadth), fits a really northern origin

(from Scandinavia to Iceland) with European Paleolithic groups in mind” (Pl. 11). He added that “Such comparison is an uncertain guide.”20 Waterhouse’s published contemporary description of the Indians taking the colonists completely by surprise, eating breakfast in their houses and then killing them with “their owne tooles and weapons,” fits the physical evidence of the massacre victim’s death.21 The short and deep gash in his forehead does not equate with a sword blade or the crushing blow from an Indian stone ax, but it does fit almost exactly the shape and character of a blow from the corner of an iron-shod spade.22

17. Ibid., p. 46. It should be noted here and in all other uses of the Muster citation that the same listing is to be found in Hotton, but spelling, capitalization, and punctuation differ. The muster, in an appendixed list of four children headed “DEAD at Martins Hundred this yeare” includes “a girle of John Jacksons.” The others were a “Allice Emerson a girle, a boy of mr Emarsons and a Child of Samuel March.” Is there, one must ask, an implied age difference between a “child” and a “girl,” and, if not, can Jackson’s “child aged 20 weeks” be the “girle of John Jacksons” in the listing’s appendix? The 1671 edition of Phillips’s The New World of Words offers nothing under “child,” and under “girle” only the following: “a Term in hunting, being a Roebuck of two years.” Eighteenth-century dictionaries are no more helpful, defining child as an offspring of either

sex and no specific age, and a girl as female. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, therefore, it is cautiously possible to deduce that Jackson’s child of 20 weeks in February 1624/25 was female and dead soon afterward. 18. C.G. 3092B; Pt. II, Fig. 60, no. 14. 19. Pt. II, Fig. 91, no. 3. 20. Lawrence Angel, “Early Colonial Settlers in Virginia at Carter’s Grove” (n.d., but probably 1980). 21. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 551. 22. For details of how a modern English murder investigation provided convincing evidence that the damage had been caused by a spade blade, see Ivor Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred (1982), pp. 247 and 283–284.

Plate 10. The Company Compound’s massacre victim in course of excavation. Note the small tobacco pipe in situ over the lower abdomen. The picture taken after flooding that turned the clay fill to mud.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 4. Sectional and plan view of the Company Compound’s male massacre victim’s grave. The circular hollow shown in the pre-excavation plan view is reflected in Profile C–D. The boxed plan at bottom right shows the grave in relation to the northeast corner of the longhouse and the adjacent Potter’s Pond.

THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

67

before a hairlock had been cut from the left side of his head. Dr. Angel’s review of the evidence in support of a spade having been the first weapon used had this to say: If such a weapon entered the brain cavity, frontal sinus and right orbit it would probably cause death from bleeding and escape of cerebrospinal fluid and brain, but not immediately. Certainly the victim would fall, probably unconscious. Afterwards as he lay on the ground blows with a flat instrument on the side and back of the head could logically explain the stacked-up appearance of the skull vault fragments and the laterally crushed face found at excavation. Earth pressure alone, in my experience, does not cause this combination of breakage, but acts chiefly from one direction.

A shallow scratch or groove starting deep above the left ear and extending upward to the crown, becoming lighter as it progressed, suggested that the man’s hair had been held from behind with the left hand while the right had been used to cut the scalp. Wrote Dr. Angel:

Plate 11. The massacre victim’s skull after reconstruction, showing how a contemporary spade blade fits the gash above the right eye.

The cut mark on the left side across [the skull’s] frontal bone and left parietal (above the frontal boss and between the stephanion and pterion) is most plausibly from scalping; it is at the rather high level seen in Indian survivors of scalping, including a pre-Columbian example from Georgia excavated by the Park Service.

Upon the removal of its clay matrix the skull was found to have been hit from behind and broken into poker-chip-sized fragments, many of which had been driven forward into the brow cavity. There could be little doubt that while lying face down the felled victim had his brains beaten out with a club. This apparent barbarism can be seen as ritualistic, an assurance that a fallen and killed enemy would not come to life again in the next world “to wreack vengeance upon the slayer.” In 1587, soon after the arrival of John White’s colonists at Roanoke Island, one of their number, George Howe, went crabbing and was discovered by Indians who “gave him sixteen wounds with their arrowes: and after they had slaine him with their woodden swords, they beat his head in pieces.”23 Then, too, John Smith described a similar practice performed on Powhatan’s orders: “Sometimes he causeth the heads of them that offend him, to be laid upon the altar or sacrificing stone, and one with clubbes beates out their braines.”24 There can be no doubt that this had befallen the Site C victim, but not

Several efforts were made to identify the dead individual, and for want of evidence to the contrary, it was assumed that this was a senior man, second only to Harwood, and therefore the military commander Lieutenant Richard Kean—who headed the published list of the massacre dead in Martin’s Hundred. Two attempts were made to bring the man to recognizable life by reconstructing his facial features. The first was by National Geographic artist Jay H. Matternes, whose pencil-drawn product25 was described by one critic as resembling an Italian waiter, and later by Betty Pat Gatliff, who specialized in clay reconstructions of tissue and flesh over the original skull, a service used by police trying to trace relatives of otherwise unrecognizable accident and homicide victims (Pls. 12a–b). The Gatliff reconstruction proved to be entirely different from the Matternes interpretation but much closer to the Nordic characteristics suggested by Dr. Angel.26 That the man had been killed by Indians in the massacre of March 22, 1621/22, there could be not

23. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation (1927–1928), vol. VI, pp. 201–202, John White’s account. In an earlier passage, Ralph Lane described his fear of a nocturnal attack, saying that as soon as he quit his burning house “the instant whereof they would have knocked out my braines” (p. 156). 24. Barbour, vol. I, p. 174, “A map of Virginia.”

25. Ivor Noël Hume, “First Look at a Lost Virginia Settlement,”National Geographic, vol. CLV, no. 6 (1979), p. 767. 26. Audrey Noël Hume frequently denounced the Gatliff formula for facial reconstruction, arguing that it was based on 158 Austrian cadavers whose tissue depths were recorded in the late 19th century. The sampling was too small and too localized in its source to be valid for all regions and races, and that if it was

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Plate 12B. The finished portrait beside the original skull.

Plate 12A. Forensic artist Betty Gatliff reconstructing the massacre victim’s features, built on modeling clay over a cast of the skull. the slightest doubt, but the time of burial was another matter altogether. Much depended on the sequence of events following the early morning attack. First we need to establish how early was early. We know from the Waterhouse narrative that “in some places [the Indians] sate downe at Breakfast” with the unsuspecting colonists “at their tables.”27 The same contemporary source has more to say regarding the Indians’ timing: These small and scattered Companies had warning given from one another in all their habitations to meete at the day and houre appointed for our destruction, at all our severall Townes and places seated upon the River; some were directed to goe

inapplicable for most it should considered useless for all. That Betty Gatliff’s reconstruction is exhibited in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum (along with that of Jay Matternes) is justified on the grounds that rightly or wrongly the study was made and the results were legitimate, if only to demonstrate how differently two experts can interpret one skull. Furthermore it graphically dramatized archaeology’s

to one place, some to another, all to be done at the same day and time, which they did accordingly: some entring their Houses under a colour of trucking, and so taking advantage, other drawing our men abroad upon faire pretences, and the rest suddenly falling upon those that were at their labours.28

From this we know that besides those colonists who were surprised at breakfast, others were already “at their labours.” We can safely assume that for settlers to be out working, it was already light. The question then is: at what time did the colonists eat breakfast? One might expect that even if no specific time was prescribed in Virginia, it should be easy enough to define in England. Writing in 1577 the usually reliable William Harrison said otherwise: Heretofore there had been much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days, for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon . . . Now these odd repasts—thanked be to God—are very well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young hungry stomach that cannot fast till dinnertime) contenteth himself with dinner and supper only.29

underlying purpose, namely to put flesh on the bones of history. 27. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 551. 28. Ibid., pp. 554–555. 29. William Harrison, The Description of England (1994), p. 140.

THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Forty years later and only five before the massacre the helpfully observant traveler Fynes Morrison provided confirmation, noting that “Those that journey and some sickly men staying at home may perhaps take a small breakfast, yet in general the English eat but two meals (of dinner and supper) each day.”30 However, social historian Christina Hole has noted that there were widespread exceptions to that rule. “Cold meat, fish, or cheese, washed down with beer, was sometimes served at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and occasionally more elaborate repasts at a later hour,” she wrote.31 Commenting on Samual Pepy’s having provided five guests with a New Year’s Day breakfast in 1661 that comprised “a barrel of oysters, a dish of neats’ tongues, and a dish of Anchoves—of all sorts, and Northdown ale” that kept the party “very merry until about 11 a-clock,” 32 author Hole countered that menus such as this “scarcely ranked as breakfasts . . . for those who partook of it had often been up for several hours before they stopped for what was really a sort of mid-morning lunch”33 or, as we would say in America, a brunch. Unfortunately there are no diaries and journals to describe the daily life of working Virginians in the seventeenth century, and in the first half of the eighteenth those that survive were penned by members of the gentry like John Custis and William Byrd of Westover. The latter always mentioned his breakfast. In both winter and summer he rose between six and seven and sometimes eight, and invariably—at least in his early life—his eating habits were much the same: March 22, 1710 “I rose at 6 o’clock and read the Psalms and some Greek in Anacreon. I said my prayers and ate milk for breakfast.”34 On February 18, 1721, however, he “had some chocolate for breakfast,” adding that “About 10 o’clock I . . . went to Major Bolling’s where we had another breakfast of sausage and eggs.”35 Here, albeit a century later, we have a direct reference not only to the lightness of early breakfast but also to the more substantial brunch eaten later in the morning.

30. Quoted from Morrison’s “An Itinerary” (1617) in Christina Hole’s The English Housewife in the Seventeenth Century (1953), p. 46. 31. Ibid., pp. 46–47. 32. Robert Latham, ed., The Shorter Pepys (1985), p. 107, entry for January 1, 1660/1. It should be noted that Ms. Hole’s quotation differs from this edition of Samual Pepys’ diary in spelling but not in substance. 33. Hole, p. 46. On the same page Ms. Hole had this to say about dinner: Dinner was eaten about noon in the earlier part of the [17th] century and gradually became later until, in Queen Anne’s reign, two o’clock was the more usual hour . . . . simpler folk clung to their noon-day dinner and ate it with their servants and farm-hands as their ancestors had done before them. But whenever it was served, it was always the main meal of the day.

69

William Byrd’s diaries may or may not be helpful in paralleling weather conditions of the fatal Friday morning 100 years before, but they are the best we have: March 21, 1710: It rained a little today . . . the gust on Sunday last blew down three houses.36 March 22, 1721: The weather was clear and cold, the wind northwest.37 March 21, 1741: The weather was cold and the snow deep, the wind north. March 22, 1741: The weather was cold, with a thaw, the wind still north.38

In the absence of data to the contrary, it seems likely that the average Martin’s Hundred colonist was up by sunrise to work in the fields and forests, toiling in cold if not icy weather, and returning for breakfast refreshment around nine or ten o’clock. That would be consistent with Indians being at the plantations to trade with the colonists soon after the households were up and about their business but before they ate breakfast. Assuming that the attacks occurred between eight and ten in the morning and that they were all over in no more than half an hour,39 we face the next question of how soon the salvagers from Jamestown reached the Hundred. As noted earlier the only clue comes from the court deposition of Captain William Pierce, who stated that “at the Massacre being sent downe to Martins Hundred for ye releife of such as were left alive & ye recovery of such cattle goods & Corne as was left.”40 Although Audrey Noël Hume’s research led her to conclude that Pierce’s visit occurred on the afternoon of the massacre, in his deposition made more than four years later he did not say so, nor is there any other documentation to indicate the time that the relief party reached Wolstenholme Towne. On the contrary a case can be made for the Pierce expedition to have been delayed until the following day. If the massacre in Martin’s Hundred began around ten o’clock and was over by, say, ten-thirty, there

34. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling, eds., The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709–1712 (1941), p. 135. 35. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling, eds., The London Diary (1717–1721) and Other Writings (1958), p. 497. 36. Wright and Tinling, The Secret Diary, p. 155. 37. Wright and Tinling, The London Diary, p. 509. 38. Maude H. Woodfin, ed., Another Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1739–1741 (1942), p. 144. 39. That assumption is based on the knowledge that when challenged the Indians quickly backed away, meaning that when they were not, they swiftly accomplished what they had to do. The Waterhouse relation called them a cowardly people “who dare not stand the presentment of a staffe in manner of a Peece [musket], nor an uncharged Peece in the hands of a woman, from which they flye as so many Hares” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 556). 40. McIlwaine, p. 131, court session for January 10, 1626/27.

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would surely have been a period of shock and uncertainty during which time survivors looked first to their homes and to those of their friends and neighbors. Then with their military leader, Lieutenant Kean, among the dead, they would have debated to whom they would entrust leadership and, having done that, they would have argued whether it was yet safe to try to get word to the governor at Jamestown. One has to remember that if most of the survivors had taken shelter behind the palisades of the Fort they would have been insulated from the events outside, and so would not have known when the Indians departed. Indeed they could not be sure whether the attackers had retreated only far enough to encourage the remaining settlers into opening the Fort gates and venturing forth. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to suggest that as much as an hour could have elapsed before they emerged. We also have to remember that the Martin’s Hundred survivors knew nothing beyond the fact that they had been victims of a surprise attack and that they had been severely gored as the result of it. For all they knew Jamestown might be in ashes and the governor dead, or alternatively the Hundred might have been the sole victim of the Indians’ wrath. Arguing those possibilities would have taken time and there might have been as many alternative scenarios and ways of playing them as there were survivors. It therefore seems reasonable to deduce that it was past noon before a deputation boarded a boat and headed upstream to Jamestown Island. Depending on the wind and particularly the tide it may have taken the rowers (or sailors) a good hour to get there. On arrival the Martin’s Hundred spokesmen would almost certainly have found Jamestown in chaos bordering on panic as survivors came in from upriver plantations to tell their stories. If so, the Martin’s Hundred people may well have had to wait their turn for debriefing. Then too it is equally fair to conclude that before sending relief parties out hither and yon, Governor Wyatt would have wanted to be sure that he had all the available information and, most importantly, the assurance that the Indians had played their hand and left the table. Although we know that the independent ex-governor Yeardley boarded his own ship on the afternoon of the massacre and headed upriver toward his plantation at Flowerdew Hundred, we also know that he only got part way (to Captain Sanders at Martin’s Brandon) before night fell.41 All in all, therefore, it seems unlikely that Captain Pierce, in an open boat (albeit large enough to carry barreled corn and cattle), would have set out for Martin’s Hundred without the assurance of getting back by nightfall. Before accepting this interpretation one must be aware that there is no documentation to say what the

Martin’s Hundred survivors did or did not do. Nobody tells us that they sent a deputation to Jamestown. One thing is certain, however: they could not have done so without a boat, and it is reasonable to expect that the Indians would have sunk, stolen, or burned whatever craft lay at the Wolstenholme waterside. Setting that caveat aside, logic suggests that Captain Pierce’s relief boat did not venture downriver until the following day. In his deposition he says nothing about the conditions at Martin’s Hundred as he first saw them. Indeed there was no reason for him to do so because he was in court as a witness only to the fact that he had saved corn from the houses of Richard Staples and Walter Davis. Nevertheless it is surprising that he did not note that both Staples and Davis were dead, along with the former’s family and servants, for one would have thought that the sight of their scattered corpses would have been indelibly etched in Pierce’s memory. He said nothing about burying the dead or about the reception he received from the living. Nevertheless somebody buried the corpses, and did so some time after the event. To continue to discuss the burial of the man in the Company Compound before commenting on the several other candidates for massacre martyrdom may seem like cheating. But the fact remains that he was found first and had to be considered without the benefit of knowledge gained from the several burials that would be found at the cliff edge south of the structure known as the Domestic Unit, as well as at the Boyse Site. Because he was buried deeply and alone in the Company Compound, as previously stated the man is thought to have been Lieutenant Richard Kean, who, when the Indians were done with him, lay face down for several hours. During this time the blood congealed enough to glue the bone fragments in place and to keep them there when the corpse was turned over and tossed into the grave. Waterhouse’s relation tells how

41. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 569.

42. Ibid., p. 551.

not being content with taking away life alone, [the Indians] fell againe upon the dead, making as well as they could, a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling the dead carkasses into many pieces, and carrying some part away in derision, with base and bruitish triumph.42

It seems likely, therefore, that the Indians did not burn the houses until they returned to loot more than they could carry in the first raid—and only then setting the stripped houses afire. Because fragments of wind-blown (?) charcoal were found at the bottom of the grave under the corpse of the supposed Richard Kean, we may conclude that he was interred at some time after the “second murder”—which may

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71

have included the ritualistic hammering of the dead man’s head. To the south of the Company Compound with its pottery shop, longhouse, and storebuilding stood another dwelling, one that came to be known as the Domestic Unit. It was far too small to have been a church; nevertheless, at least 13 graves had been dug adjacent to it, the closest being only 2´ from the south wall. This, Grave 8 of the group,43 was ca. 7´ long, 1´10˝ wide, and 2´4˝ below modern grade. No trace of human remains was found in it. Instead the grave contained a 5´10˝ length of dressed wood measuring 6˝ x 9˝ in section, into which at least eight or nine nails had been hammered (Ill. 5). 44 Several explanations for this anomaly were put forward, the least controversial being that the grave was dug in wet weather and, with water collecting in the trench, the timber was placed at the bottom to elevate the corpse above the water so that mourners would be spared the sight of the loved one splashing down into it. However the timber lay with its narrow (6˝) side up, whereas the 9˝ span would have given more support to the cadaver, which might otherwise have slipped off into the water. More to the point it is highly unlikely that the mourners, if any, would have been that concerned about the corpse getting wet. If they were, a quick bailing job with a bucket would have done the job more efficiently—wood being prone to float. Although Colonial Williamsburg architects who studied the timber and its nails could neither confirm nor deny that the timber had been an architectural element, the likelihood that it came from a support post or framing timber of the adjacent Domestic Unit is still a strong possibility. Couple that with the Waterhouse description of the Indians’ “second murder” and one has a reasonable if grisly scenario. The Waterhouse narrative speaks of defacing, dragging, and mangling the dead carcasses into many pieces, and carrying some parts away in derision.45 From this one can conclude that some parts were left behind—

one of them perhaps tied to a post of the Domestic Unit’s lean-to, or to its own corner post if the dwelling had already been burned. That victims were tied to trees or posts to suffer their skin to be carved from their faces and other extremities is documented by John Smith in the cases of George Cassen and President John Ratcliffe. 46 Left hanging from the post, the remains may have been more expeditiously buried by hewing it down rather than untying what was left of the victim and then having to carry it to the grave. Once again the question of timing is posed and not satisfactorily answered. Says Waterhouse: “they fell after againe upon the dead, making as well they could, a fresh murder.”47 Does this, we may ask, mean that the Indians returned to the plantations after withdrawing with their loot and prisoners, or does it mean only that after killing the colonists and amusing themselves by looting and burning, they ended their morning’s work by mutilating the corpses? Only in the case of George Thorpe does the Waterhouse narrative specify a location or describe what happened to a named individual. That much related to Martin’s Hundred is inferred because it was from there that most, if not all, of the prisoners were taken. At a small plantation where an entire family was wiped out the Indians could very well have gone away and returned the next day to mutilate stillunburied corpses. But at Martin’s Hundred there were survivors, maybe 60 or more, who, once the coast was clear, could have been expected to emerge from the Fort to set about assessing the damage and burying the dead. Thus the suffering of the occupant of Grave 8 would have been visible to horrified shelterers in the Fort but out of musket range. Indeed it is possible that this luckless colonist was not dead, but suffered the fate of Cassen and Ratcliffe as an exercise in psychological intimidation on the part of the Indians. The rest of the interment group (Ill. 6), although clearly contemporary, had very little to contribute,

43. C.G. 3308, no. 30 in Dr. Angel’s list and tables. 44. Ivor Noël Hume’s ms. report to the National Geographic Society for October–December, 1978, pp. 17–18, contains the following notes contributed by supervising archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer:

tween the grain and the head. This 1b˝ space may indicate the thickness of a board formerly attached to this beam. 45. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 551. 46. Cassen was “stripped naked, and bound to two stakes, with his back against a great fire; then did they rippe him and burne his bowels, and dried his flesh to the bones, which they kept above ground in a bye-roome” (Barbour, vol. II, p. 175, n. 10). Ratlciffe was “bownd unto a tree naked wth a fyer before And by woemen his fleshe was skraped from his bones wth mussell shelles and befre his face throwne into the fyer. And so for want of circumspection [he] miserably Perished” (George Percy, “‘A Trewe Relacyon’: Virginia from 1609–1612,” Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. III [1922], p. 266). 47. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 551.

Nails were found protruding into this feature: two at the west end pointing downward, two in the west half, also pointing down, and one in the east half, found lying horizontally at the bottom of the impression. At the east end a pair of nails angled in from the southeast, another was found in the opposite side, pointing in the opposite direction, and a single nail had been driven into the very end of the beam. Examination of the nails showed that all had been 2˝–2a˝ long, though some appeared to have been broken before the beam entered the grave. Six of the nine nails show wood grain impressions adhering to the oxide surfaces. Only one (#4), however, has a gap be-

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 5. Plan and sectional views of wood mold at bottom of Grave C8 adjacent to the Domestic Unit in Wolstenholme Towne. The positions of nails in the decayed wood are shown both in plan and profile. For grave location, see Ill. 6.

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THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 6. Plan of the Domestic Unit area. The numbered graves are identified by age and sex based on the conclusions reached by the late Dr. Lawrence Angel. the human remains ranging from poorly preserved to nothing at all. Nevertheless, Dr. Angel did offer sex and age opinions for most of them:

14 15 16

Grave no. 348 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

In several of the graves no more than teeth and sometimes longbone fragments survived. In most instances the corpses had been deposited with their heads to the west, but a few (nos. 3–4, 10, and 14) were reversed. Graves 9, 11, and 12 contained nothing. A small number of artifacts were recovered, none of them closely datable:

Angel no. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 x 34 35

C.G. no. 3303 3304 3305 3306 3307 3308 3309 3310 3331A 3332 3333

Sex F M M M M M ? F ? M M

Age 18 26? adult 28? adult adult49 child 25 child?50 adult 35

48. Grave 1 is the Company Compound’s massacre victim (Lt. Richard Kean?), and 2 a small empty grave (?) of infant dimensions found close to the Compound’s northerly gate. 49. Grave 8 (C.G. 3308) is the previously discussed timber beam burial wherein no traces of human remains were found.

36 37 x

Grave no. C.G. no. 3 3303 7 3307

3334 3335 3336A

M M x

32? 27? x

Artifact small gauge lead shot (1) burnt daub and brick fragments

One can only suppose that the late Dr. Angel based his “adult” conclusion on the length of the timber (5´10˝), but how he determined sex will never be known. 50. Dr. Angel did not comment on this empty grave, but its small size would indicate that it was that of a child.

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8 9 13 14

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

3308 3309 3333 3334

beam mold and nails (9) small gauge lead shot (1) Late Woodland sherd ditto, and web of iron key

The fragment of burnt daub could have come from the wattle-and-daub walling of a burnt building (the Domestic Unit?), but could equally well have come from the scorched lining of a chimney. The Indian sherds came from the disturbed topsoil and were redeposited. Only the key web was surprising, it being of sufficient size to have resisted breaking from its shank, leaving one to wonder how the separation occurred. It is possible that it was blacksmith’s waste waiting to be reworked. There was no other evidence, however, to suggest that the Domestic Unit may have been used as a smithy. The placement of the graves could be read to suggest that they lay on either side of a track that veered southeast after passing the dwelling’s lean-to shed, perhaps indicating that the cadavers had been brought there on a cart, some being decanted from one side and some from the other. This certainly was suggested by the locations of Graves 3–6 and 10, as well as 13 and 14, both of which had been disturbed by later burials (nos. 15–16) partially overlying them further to the southeast. Grave 15 must have been dug after the occupant of 14 had disintegrated, suggesting a lapse of a year or more. Grave 16, on the other hand, is doubtful, almost all of it having been eroded by a gulley caused by rainwater running away over the cliff’s edge. How many more graves had been lost to erosion was anybody’s guess—as, indeed, was the reason for depositing any of them so close to the obviously secular building. If, however, one accepts the scenario proposed for the beam burial (no. 8), it might be argued that because the appalled gravediggers were determined to move the mutilated settler as short a distance as was possible, having interred one it made sense to place the rest in the same newly created cemetery. Not knowing what buildings (including the church?) had stood between the Domestic Unit and the river in 1622, or that might have been built after the massacre, it is impossible even to speculate whence came the two later interments. Just as Dr. Angel might be charged with drawing conclusions regarding age and sex from too little evidence, so to try to identify the people by name is to invite similar criticism. Nevertheless it is an exercise worth attempting. The list of the massacre dead in Martin’s Hundred published by Waterhouse begins

51. The inclusion of Walter Davies and his brother in this questionable exercise is occasioned by the need for an eighth male interment. Davies was, we know, a neighbor of Staples and was mentioned in the 1626/27 court action when Pierce testified that 60 barrels of corn in Staples’ house belonged to him. 52. William M. Kelso, “Report on Exploratory Excavations . . .

with “Lieutenant Rich: Kean,” making it reasonable to suppose that senior people living in Wolstenholme Towne would have been named before those from the outlying farms. Going down the listing looking for a contiguous group of eight men, two women, and two children, the next-listed household of “Master Tho: Boise” does not fit. But when one gets to Richard Staples the series reads like this: Richard Staples, his wife, and Childe. 2 Maides 6 Men and Boyes Walter Davies, & his brother

Here then is a listing of nine men, three women, and one child, by no means an exact match but conceivably pertinent if key graves have been lost to erosion or Dr. Angel erred in some of his interpretations. Were this the household of Richard Staples, then the occupant of Grave 8 might well have been that of Staples himself. Knowing as we do that when Lieutenant Pierce came down to retrieve the corn he got it from the house of Richard Staples, it is reasonable to deduce that he lived in Wolstenholme Towne and close to the James—perhaps so close that his dwelling has long since been lost to the river. It would make sense, too, for the Domestic Unit to have been home to his “6 Men and Boyes.”51 Clearly part of, but separated from, the Wolstenholme Towne administrative center was the Boyse site (Site H), where the remains of four men and three women were discovered, all of them seemingly dead during or prior to the massacre. The men were buried in a single deep and sharply cut grave located outside and southeast of the Site H compound, interred alternately head to foot in what might be termed the sardine system (Pl. 13). The grave had been found in the 1970–1971 Carter’s Grove survey, at which time the shaft was bisected, removing to the natural subsoil all the fill of the southerly half. Survey director William Kelso described the feature as follows: A rectangular pit (3 feet 1 in by 6 inches [sic], 3 feet 2 inches deep (C.G. 1092) was found in field 8 . . . 300 feet south of the mansion. It contained musket balls (C.G. 1092A & B), a sherd of brown stoneware and the remains of what appeared to be tree branches. It is possible that this feature had been used for a hunting blind sometime in the seventeenth century.52

Kelso’s interpretation made it appear of little or no relevance and it was only as the result of Klingelhofer’s urging (as explained in the introduction)

&c.,” Jamestown Rediscovery II (1996), p. 62. The incomplete measurements do not equate with the field notes, which cite the feature as being 3´1˝ wide at the south and the exposed sides being 3´8˝ and 4´2˝ in length. The 1979 excavations showed the grave to be 5´8˝ in length, 3´ wide, and 2´ deep below 1´ of topsoil.

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Plate 13. The northern half of the multiple grave outside the Boyse palisade. The line in the foreground represents the edge of the 1971 backfill after the excavators had concluded that the bones were sticks at the bottom of a duck blind. Surviving are the ghost images of two skulls (the scale between them), and dark to the left the shod foot of one of two other men whose heads had been in the previously dug half of the grave. The very dark vertical line leading to the shoe was less visible in situ than it is in the photograph suggesting, perhaps, that the man had worn a boot reaching to his knee. that Site H was investigated any further. The “tree branches” had been the matching remains of two of the grave’s four occupants: two skulls, upper torsos, and two sets of tibias and pairs of feet. Kelso’s field notes show the two musket balls lying together against the west edge of the grave at what would be waist height. In the surviving “half” of the burial there was a darker stain close to what could have been one man’s waist, suggesting that he had been wearing a thick leather belt. It is possible that the two

musket balls may have been in a leather or fabric pouch hung from such a belt. The 1971 field notes show a nail parallel to the musket balls and close to the east side of the grave, but no further information is available. The stoneware sherd, however, (though not located in the drawings) proved to be a fragment of a Bartmann bottle and was consistent with a premassacre date. The 1979 excavation yielded one iron clothing eye close to the neck of one individual, while a triangular

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darker stain was all that remained of a single shoe on the foot of one of the individuals whose upper body had been destroyed in 1971. Lifted in its clay matrix, the stain was taken to the laboratory, pared down, and x-rayed to reveal a pattern of shoe nails,53 the heads of some of them of large size and suggestive of a working man’s hobnailed boot (Pl. 14). Those that were found clenched, however, pointed to thinner soles, leading to the conclusion that this was simply a heavy working shoe but not an industrial-weight boot. Although the skeletal remains were reduced to no more than dark, woodlike stains, making it impossible to determine ages or sex, the hob-nailed shoe left little doubt that its wearer was male. Because John Boyse lost “4 Men-servants,” it is reasonable to conclude that these were they. To the west of the compound—and again outside its palisade54—lay the skeleton of a young woman whose age, in Dr. Angel’s opinion, was between 18 and 21. No traces of a coffin were found nor were there pins or other fasteners to suggest that the woman had been either clothed or enshrouded when buried. Beyond the fact that she was in some way related to the adjacent stockaded dwelling, no dating evidence was forthcoming, and there was no clue to the cause of her death. A second female lay in an equally shallow grave (barely 4˝ into the subsoil), surviving only as a pair of legs (two incomplete femurs and one tibia), the rest having been removed either by later plowing or by hungry animals (Pl. 15). That the latter may be the correct explanation is suggested by the discovery of part of a human pelvis at the bottom of the adjacent ditch. The left femur was found fractured and carefully lifted with the two pieces still in their in-earth relationship. Three surgeons examined the bone; two concluded that the fracture occurred after death, but the third that it occurred in life. Dr. Angel leaned in the latter direction. “[This] femur fracture could not easily have come from earth-pressure,” he wrote, “and the slight bevel of the broken end fits fracture at death (as well as the separation and offset).”55 Dr. Angel’s assessment of this incomplete skeleton was as follows: There is no good way to be sure of sex of [this female] since her femur shaft thicknesses approach the upper end of the female range and are at about the middle of the male range; but I do indeed find several of my modern middle-class females to be equally robust. One of these is a willed skeleton of a lady who was obese. But although the [Site H 53. Pt. II, Fig. 68B, nos. 1–27. 54. C.G. 4071B. 55. Dr. Angel to INH, pers. comm., January 28, 1980. 56. Ibid.

woman] is apparently about 61–66˝ tall there is no reason to think of her as overweight.56

The square-bracketed words in the cited passage subsitute for the name we gave to this skeleton on the basis of evidence not yet explained, and upon which the legs’ sex was determined. A copper-alloy (brass?) thimble lay outside and close to the top of the left femur, while a key lay 7a˝ lower and between the legs, resting against the right femur (Pl. 15). Consequently she became known as the “key lady,” and thus did Dr. Angel refer to her. Here was a woman who had gone to her grave clothed, probably with a broken leg, and with the closet key hanging from her girdle, from which also hung a purselike bag called a pocket containing the thimble. Documentation for womens’ girdle-hung keys is to be found in several Dutch and Flemish paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To place the thimble in a pocket we have William Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700), wherein Lady Wishfort chided her maid for having brought her a bottle of wine but only a china cup out of which to drink it. “Dost thou take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn?” she demanded. “Why didst thou not bring thy thimble? Hast thou ne’er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket . . . ?”57 Clearly the key lady met an untimely death and was buried clothed and in haste; but when and by whom? There is a slight hint that the Boyse house was rebuilt after the massacre, in which case the survivors in Martin’s Hundred, along with those who joined them from aboard the disease-wracked Abigail, considered themselves dying of “plague,” a definition then used to define any communicable disease. 58 Consequently, if the key lady died of the sickness that carried off so many in the winter and spring of 1621/22, the burial party would almost certainly have rushed her to the grave with all possible haste. If one accepts that scenario one also has to assume that (a) the Boyse site was reinhabited in the winter of 1622/23, and (b) the people who buried the key lady lived there. Why then would they not relieve her of the key that so evidently belonged to a locked box or cupboard that still needed to be opened? The alternative seems infinitely more logical: the key lady died in the massacre and was buried by people unattached to the Boyse homestead—a dwelling perhaps already destroyed. Under those circumstances the key would have no significance either to the disassociated burial party or to furniture destroyed in the house. As long as it was thought that John Boyse’ wife, Sara, had died in the attack, it was fair to propose that she, as mistress of the house, was

57. Act III, scene 3. 58. See William Byrd’s “A Discourse Concerning the Plague” (1721) in Wright and Tinling, The London Diary; and Woodfin, Another Secret Diary.

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Plate 14. An X-ray photograph of the shoe or boot remains from the multiple grave at Site H showing the placement of the iron nails. Above: sole view; below: side view.

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➔

➔

Plate 15. The femurs of the Site H woman known as the Key Lady showing (arrowed) the thimble beside her right leg and the key that had hung between them. also carrier of the key. But when Sara turned up as the leader of the hostage women, she vanished from the field of candidates. It is entirely possible, of course, that the key lady was visiting from another homestead and could be any one of seven other wives listed among the dead.59 Of all the dead discovered in Martin’s Hundred, the third female from Site H attracted the greatest popular interest by virtue of being featured in the National Geographic magazine.60 She lay on her side in

a rubbish pit outside the palisade’s southwest gate. The pit contained the remains of a puppy, its head separated from the rest of it, and also several tenter hooks61 that were found in a scree of hearth ashes, suggesting that parts of an old tenter frame had been used as fuel. The woman (Pl. 16) came to be known as “Granny” because the loss of her lower molars suggested that she was of relatively advanced age. However, Dr. Angel put her at between 35 and 45. He pointed out

59. The wife of Ralph Digginson [Dickeinson] is omitted from that list, as she survived and was ransomed by Dr. Pott. 60. January 1982, p. 52.

61. P. 184; and Pt. II, Fig. 67, nos. 15–22.

THE PEOPLE OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

that the skull sutures were beginning to close, that arthritic lipping around the knee joints ranged from trace to slight, and that tooth wear fell into his medium range. An iron band terminating at one end in a pewter knob and at the other in a rough twist of the metal had been used to secure a linen or lace cap to her head. Such bands are common in seventeenthcentury Dutch portraits and were worn in various degrees of elaboration depending on the affluence and social standing of the wearer.62 The band, rectangular in section, bent down over the right ear (and consequently in the Netherlands was known as an “ear iron”)63 but at the left side of the head it stuck straight up as though deliberately bent out of place (Pl. 17). All known ear irons possess small loops in the wire that enabled them to be pinned to the caps, and this one is no exception. The absence of the left pewter terminal might be explained by the fact that Granny’s head was small and that the ear iron had been cut down to fit it.64 When the skeleton was first uncovered the author deduced from the ear iron that the wearer was a person of importance in the household, but on finding that servants wore such bands and realizing that this one had been adapted from a larger one, Granny slipped from a person of importance to the “A Maide” listed among the massacre dead at the John Boyse homestead. Dr. Angel judged the woman to be “medium tall— about 63a to 66a—and her bone shaft thickness average to slender.” Commenting on the discovery of Granny and the legs of the key lady, he wrote “It’s a bit surprising to find 2 such tall women. They raise the Martin’s Hundred group mean to 62a.”65 The skeleton lay in a stratum66 of mixed yellow and orange clay mottled with gray/brown loam and having a maximum thickness of 12˝. Significantly the skeleton’s left leg rested on top of this layer with the clay separating it from the right leg, which rested on the bottom of the stratum (Pl. 18). This suggested that the clay had been in a condition of wet mud when the woman first assumed her posture in the pit, and that the left leg “floated” before the mud dried. Her position in the pit and the placement of her right arm in relation to her head were such that she could not have been thrown into the pit as had first been thought (Pl. 19). While the excavation of Granny and the pit around her was still in progress, the author caught the flu and remained in bed for several days, during which time he found himself awaking in the same position as Granny had adopted in her pit: legs slightly flexed,

62. Pt. II, Figs. 68C, no. 1; and 46, no. 5, n. 337. 63. Information provided Dr. Jeremy Bangs, curator at Plimoth Plantation. 64. For Netherlandish examples of ear irons (oorijzers), see J. J. Lenting et al., eds., Schans op de Grens (1993), p. 436f. For additional information and source citations, see p. 179 and Pl.

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Plate 16. Project foreman Nate Smith excavating the skeleton of the sleeping woman known as Granny. left arm across the chest, the hand clenched, and the right arm raised and cradling his head. Photographs of the in situ skeleton shown to Dr. Samuel V. Dunkell, director of the Insomnia Clinic at the New York Hospital’s Payne Whitney Institute, prompted him to reply that: The position of the skeleton closely resembles the most common sleep position. In this side position the trunk is somewhat curved to conserve heat and protect the vital internal organs. The arms are flexed moderately and extended away from the body, and the knees are drawn up slightly.

Dr. Dunkell characterized people who sleep in this semi-fetal posture as “middle of the roaders who go along with the opinions and intermediate positions of the group culture.” He added that “this personality type is norm seeking.”67 Dr. Dunkell did not note, as well he might, that this was the first time he had had the opportunity to psychoanalyze a patient who had been dead for more than 350 years.

77. 65. Dr. Angel to INH, pers. comm., January 28, 1980. 66. C.G. 4115L. 67. Samuel V. Dunkell, M.D., pers. comm., April 2 and 20, 1980.

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asleep and drifting into a life-threatening coma, he said. If, as seems likely, the damage to Granny’s ear iron had been occasioned by taking a scalplock from the left side of her head, the procedure could easily have severed her left temporal artery, causing her to die from loss of blood within an hour or two. Although Granny had not been a coffined burial, on a wet afternoon of November 8, 1989, her remains were reinterred in the pit wherein she died (Pl. 20), encased in a gabled coffin based on the extensive coffin research that had stemmed from the study of the interments at Sites A and B which are discussed above.68 The high proportion of dead women (Pl. 21) found at the Boyse homestead site (three out of seven) does not fit easily into the scenario favored by Audrey Noël Hume, to wit, that all 15 women taken hostage by the Indians came from Martin’s Hundred. Why, one may reasonably ask, would the attackers take Sara Boyse while killing three others, when the policy seems to have been to take females prisoner? In addition, one has to remember that in the Boyse household, once Sara is removed from the list of the dead, only one female remained there—not three as were found. In his summary based on the skeletons from Sites A and C (but not H) Dr. Angel noted that: The startling thing about the early 17th-century adults is their youth. Dying at 25 for females and 32 for males (28 and 33 years for the whole Carter’s Grove sample) they are fully 8 years younger than [Dr. Angel’s previous] Colonial sample and of course 40–45 years younger than modern Americans.

Plate 17. Granny’s skull still in the plaster egg used to shift her to the lab. The finger points to the head wire that passed over her right ear and looped around the back of her head.

He adds, however, that the adult longevity could indicate sudden death rather than poor health. “Site C stature,” wrote Dr. Angel,

Unfortunately Granny’s personality had no recognizable relevance to the circumstances of her death. Pathologist consultant Dr. Marcella F. Fierro, deputy medical examiner in Richmond, Virginia, noted that in the hours before death exposure victims dying of hypothermia have been known to shed clothing and to settle into a state of hallucinatory well-being that would be consistent with Granny’s posture. Death from exposure seemed a likely conclusion—were it not for the fact that we had no evidence regarding the weather conditions on March 22, 1622. A later conversation with an emergency room physician at the Medical College of Virginia generated a more plausible explanation. Accident victims suffering from loss of blood need to be prevented from falling

is tall for men (68.9˝) though only 60˝ for 2 women. But for the entire 17th-century sample stature is medium, about 62b˝ for women and 66a˝ for men, comparable with roughly contemporary Londoners and 1b˝ less than the later colonials . . .The total adult stature gain from 1620 to 1970 of about 5 cm or 2˝ is under 4 mm or 0.1˝ per generation—less than usually assumed. Our early 17th-century sample of 22 statures may be both too local and too small for generalization, but clearly Colonial Americans were not the runts which some myths imply. We don’t know how many may have come from difficult or impoverished backgrounds in England, but some probably did: 11 out of 15 people from Sites A and C (13 of 18 in 17th century totally) show varying degrees of lines of growth arrest of tooth enamel (one form of hypoplasia) compared

68. Ivor Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, enlarged ed. (1991), pp. 348–359; also Ivor Noël Hume, In Search of This & That: Tales

from an Archaeologist’s Quest: Selected Essays from the Colonial Williamsburg Journal (1996), pp. 44–51.

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Plate 18. Granny’s legs in situ showing the wide dirt separation between left and right. with 24 of 31 people in later Colonial times and under half this incidence today. Each such line marks a temporary phsyiological insult to the growing child either from disease or malnutrition . . . But Colonials of both periods had many more such arrests of growth than we do. Probably, therefore, their shorter than modern stature was more environmental in background than genetic, though later on hybrid vigor as well as diet may have caused the observed increases. Colonial forearms tend to be relatively shorter than today.

In discussing the dental evidence, Dr. Angel noted that the Martin’s Hundred people appeared unusually healthy despite one edentulous woman (C.G.1748), and striking individual caries as in (C.G. 3092). If the early people had lived the 7 or 8 more years of the later [colonial sampling] their dental lesions would have increased at most 15%, up to almost 5 lesions per month, or less than half the dental disease of later Colonial and modern times.

game. The minimum breadth of the jaw ramus reflects strength of chewing muscles and at 30.2 and 32.3 mm for females and males the early-17th century jaw ramus is 5% bigger than that of our jaws using soft diet by 9% bigger than the later Colonial jaw ramus breadth among people eating bread from stone-ground flour.

Dr. Angel allowed that “there may be a contradiction,” but he nevertheless concluded that “as far as the early Colonial people are concerned jaw and chewing strength from childhood diet is more important in adult wear of teeth than is gritty corn or flourmilling.” Under the heading “Cultural factors” Dr. Angel observed that

probably ate stone-ground corn-meal supplemented by imported flour, and peas, squash, fish and

one striking detail of Colonial tooth wear has a direct cultural cause: smoking of a clay pipe. 6 of 21 17th-century incisor-canine tooth rows show beveled notches or cups in upper and lower teeth usually on the left side; though neither of 2 from Site C show this, 3 of 14 from Site A do. [Analysis] suggests that men smoked more steadily than did women, and that the later Colonial people show the same frequency (about p) and sex side occurance, occasionally behind the upper canine tooth also.69 In some cases extra incisor wear may also come from industrial use, though one should be

69. The association of tooth wear and tobacco-pipe smoking has become a staple of archaeopathology. It is, however, the archaeologist’s job to question not only the past but also modern theories about it. If it is true that the wear is “usually on the left side,” it is reasonable to ask how this equates with visual renderings of smokers in the 17th century who, with rare exceptions (e.g. David Teniers the Younger’s Een Rokende Man, ex Wetzlar Collection sold at Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, June 9, 1977), are shown holding their pipes in their right hand and inserting the mouthpieces between their right lips (e.g., Arent

Diepram’s Interior of a Tavern [1665] and Willem Duyster’s Interior with a Man and a Woman playing Tric-Trac, [pre-1630]; see Christopher Wright The Dutch Painters [1978], pp. 82 and 90. See also Jan van Meiris’s A Lady and a Cavalier [pre-1690], Catalogue of the Wallace Collection [1960], p. 126). It is true that in these paintings the smokers are concentrating on smoking and are not at work while smoking. Ford Madox Brown’s famous mid-19th century painting Work shows an apparently righthanded laborer with a pipe clutched in the left side of his mouth (Tom Prideaux, ed., The World of Whistler, 1834–1903

“This is surprising,” Dr. Angel added. “Early Colonial teeth are almost as healthy as Classical Greek teeth.” He went on to deduce that the early colonists

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Plate 19. Discovering her dead in the pit outside the palisade gate, returning colonists were content to shovel dirt over Granny’s corpse and to leave it where it lay. Painting by Richard Schlecht.

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Plate 20. On a wet afternoon in November 1989 Granny, now in a reconstructed seventeenth-century coffin, was reburied in the pit where she died. Officiating was the Reverend Richard May, with (clockwise) bearers Woodrow Abbott, who built the coffin; Nate Smith, who excavated Granny’s remains; archaeological supervisor John Hamant; and the author.

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able to distinguish this flatter wear; no one has looked for chemical traces of porcelain on teeth.70

Dr. Angel said nothing about the presence or absence of lead from the studied bone, probably because he considered data retrieved from Martin’s Hundred people as being potentially misleading. The adults were all relatively young, first-generation settlers, and none had been resident long enough for any lead ingestion to make a recognizable difference. Furthermore, because the Martin’s Hundred emigrants came from a variety of locations, trades, and social backgrounds, no pattern could be guaranteed. It is possible, however, that if potter Thomas Ward had been among those buried to the south end of Site A, the use of lead in his glazes might have set his lead/bone ratio apart from all others. 71 But then again a musketeer who from time to time parked his lead ball in his mouth might be more lead-endowed than were his compatriots. Attempting to read beyond the physical evidence of Martin’s Hundred’s bones is at best a risky exercise; nevertheless it must be attempted if archaeological evidence is to have any historical value. There is, however, a danger that in reaching for historical relevance we may be guilty of overlooking the poor quality of the bricks with which we build our theses.

Plate 21. Another Site H female. Buried northeast of the Boyse palisade, her presence and identity remain unexplained. The badly decayed skeleton is characteristic (indeed, better than most) of the kind of condition one grew to expect of burials in the lower clay plain of Martin’s Hundred.

[1970], pp. 74–75). But with that acknowledged it is a fact that very few 17th-century clay pipes have been found with their stems broken and the fractures reworked into secondary mouthpieces. Furthermore I know of no examples of pipe-stem fragments that show wear or cuts resulting from being gripped between the teeth. It follows that if the relatively soft stems do not abrade, the much-harder tooth enamel is even less likely to be worn away. If, however, the association is valid, it follows as a corollary that the smoker was a laborer or an artisan who worked with both hands.

70. The previous quotations come from the late Dr. Angel’s “Early Colonial Settlers in Virginia at Carter’s Grove.” 71. For a landmark paper on lead in bone, the reader is referred to Arthur C. Aufderheide [et al.], “Leadon in Bone II: Skeletal-Lead Content as an Indicator of Lifetime Lead Ingestion and the Social Correlates in an Archaeological Population,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. VL (1981), pp. 285–291. On p. 290 the authors warn that their “study has emphasized the importance of appropriate sampling and the control of social variables.”

CHAPTER 3

Where They Lived, Worked, Fenced, and Sometimes Hid Just as the decayed skeletons of the Hundred’s inhabitants provide often confusing clues to their identities, so the dark stains of postholes and sills are inadequate testimony to the shape, character, and purposes of the structures whose sites they mark. Similarly, just as the historical evidence has been used to try to tie names to bones, so the same data has to be used to link buildings to named locations (Pl. 22). Thus Site A is identified with Governor William Harwood and his immediate successors, Site B to John Jackson and Thomas Ward, and Site H to John Boyse. The last had gone by the time the 1624/25 census was taken, but Harwood, with a household of six, was shown to have had “Houses, 3”; whereas John Jackson, with five to maintain, had only “Houses, 1.” The muster gives no hint as to the size of the houses, and so it falls to archaeology and its ground stains to show that Harwood had three small dwellings (one later doubled in size) while the Jackson family had one big one. The apparent spacial inequity dissipates, robbing the unwary of the opportunity to argue that the leader of Martin’s Hundred had room to spare, whereas bricklayer Jackson and his potter pal Tom Ward were crowded into one small dwelling that might have been no more than a hovel. A classic demonstration that everything that survives in documentary form does not become acceptable history was provided by Captain Nathaniel Butler’s self-serving treatise, The Unmasked face of or Colony in Virginia as it was in the Winter of ye yeare 1622. In it 1. Kingsbury, vol. II, p. 375. 2. Butler’s visit to Virginia has been discussed on p. 35ff., following his recall after Spanish complaints that he had seized treasure from their wrecked ship, the San Antonio. With that in mind, the Assembly in Virginia began its assault on Butler’s treatise with an attack on the man:

Butler described the colony’s accommodation thusly: Their howses are generally the worste that ever I sawe[,] the meanest Cottages in England beinge every way equall (if not superiour) wth the moste of the best. And besides soe improvidently and scatteringlie are they seated one from an other as ptly by their distance but especially by ye interposicons of Creeks and Swamps as they call them, they offer all advantages to their Savadge enymies and are utterly depryved of all suddaine recolleccon of them selves uppon any terms whatsoever.

Butler went on to write equally disparagingly of the colony’s defenses: “I found not the least peec of ffortification,” he averred. “Three peeces of Ordinance onely mounted att James Citty and one at fflowerdue hundred butt never a one of them serviceable.”1 Were this the only record, and in the absence of any other contrary information, one would almost certainly accept Butler’s observations as gospel and remain forever grateful to him for his frank analysis of the colony’s condition in the winter of 1622/23. In reality, our gratitude is limited to thanking Butler for having goaded men who might otherwise have remained silent to write what one hopes are more truthful rebuttals.2 In April 1623, within days of Butler’s “Unmasking” being circulated, the Virginia Company rounded up as many “divers Planters that have long lived in Virginia as alsoe . . . sundry Marrinrs and other persons yt have bene often at Virginia . . .&c.,” interviewed them, and then wrote the sum of Ye greatest disparagement that some of them receaved, have pceeded from his Riotts and lascivious filthiness wth infamous women, purchased with his royalls of eight [pieces of eight], and wedges of gould, the spoyle of the distressed Spanyards in the Bermudas (Neil, p. 406).

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Plate 22. A model of Wolstenholme Towne as it may have looked immediately prior to the massacre. Model-builder Walter Vaughn has included a pottery kiln in the foreground within the Company Compound. their responses in enumerated rebuttals to Butler’s main points. Thus his paragraph no. 5 on the inadequacy of housing was matched by a responding no. 5: ffirst that the houses there were most built for use and not for ornament and are soe farr from beinge soe meane as they are reported yt throughout his Mats: Dominions here, all labouringe mens houses (wch wee cheifly pfesse our selvs to be) are in no wise generally for goodnes to be compared unto them[.] And for the houses of men of better Ranke and quallety they are soe much better and convenyent yt noe man of quallety wthout blushinge can make excepcon against them; Againe for the Creeks and Swamps every many ther that cannott goe by Land hath either a Boate or a Conoa for ye Conveyinge & speedy passage to his neighbo rs house. As for Cottages ther are none in Virginia that they knowe.3

could mean something as humble as a mere shed or temporary shelter.4 The Oxford English Dictionary cites a statute enacted in the thirty-first year of Elizabeth (1588/89): no man may build such a Cottage for habitation, unless he lay unto it four acres of freehold land, except in Market-townes, or Cities, or within a mile of the sea, or for habitation of labourers in Mines, Saylers, Foresters, Sheepeheards, &c.

This last statement automatically raises doubts about the objectivity of the rebutters, but it does so because our interpretation of the word cottage is very different from theirs. Webster’s Dictionary gives as its primary definition “the dwelling of a farm laborer or small farmer,” then as “a small usu. frame one-family house.” In the Tudor and early Stuart eras a cottage

Clearly, therefore, there were two distinct meanings to the word cottage, the second being shelters for laborers working away from home, and the first meaning the permanent dwellings of the laboring classes. Thus the 1671 New World of Words, which defined a cottager (but not a cottage), stated that the term “signifieth in Law he that dwelleth in a Cottage or house without land, or at most having but four acres belonging to it.” The 1749 edition of Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary reduced the definition of a cottage simply to “a little House in the Country.” It would seem, therefore, that in its published rebuttals the Virginia Company was playing semantic games, choosing to define cottages as workmen’s sheds in the woods whereas Butler had been

3. Kingsbury, vol. II, p. 383. 4. Describing how George Thorpe built a house for Powhatan, Edward Waterhouse’s “relation” explained how “this king

before dwelt onely in a cottage, or rather a denne or hog-stye, made with a few poles and stickes, and covered with mats after their wyld manner” (ibid., vol. III, p. 552).

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

referring to small dwelling houses of the kind that in England could stand within as many as four freehold acres.5 In truth, in Virginia there almost certainly were both temporary shelters and semipermanent frame houses of sizes that in England would have been considered cottages.6 To try to put the domestic architecture of Martin’s Hundred in an English perspective, and recognizing that Tidewater’s natural building resources were predominantly clay for brick and tile making and timber for framing and boarding, architectural historian M. W. Barley’s comment on the modest homes in the area of East Anglia and the Wash seem appropriate: A third of the inventories mention no rooms, or no more than one, and it is more likely here than anywhere else in the region that there was a substantial minority of single-roomed houses. Among middling peasants, with goods worth between £15 and £50, a house with four rooms was normal. Most of them were husbandmen, a few yeomen, and their houses contained hall, parlour, one chamber, and one service-room—either a kitchen, a milkhouse or a buttery.7

Measured against this yardstick, the best of Martin’s Hundred were housed no better than, and probably not as well as, Barley’s “middling peasants.” No extant houses in Virginia date to the Martin’s Hundred period, and I define that in its broadest terms, to wit: 1619–1645; nor are there drawings, paintings, or plans of any such houses. One is tempted, as I have demonstrated, to draw parallels from

5. The need for indentured servants transported to Virginia to be supported until they should be able to fend for themselves was well understood by masters who were there or had been there. On September 1, 1620, Richard Berkeley, George Thorpe, and others entered into an agreement with Richard Smyth, a gardener; his wife and two sons; also Robert Bisaker, a glover; and Richard Hopkins, a husbandman—all of Wotten Underedge in the county of Gloucester. In addition to their transportation costs the signers undertook there to mayntayne and keep them with convenient dyet & lodginge in their family there amongst their other servants from the day of their landinge untill one convenient house shall be for them erected & built in [a] place convenient, and the same to be furnished w th necessary implemts . . . and to allot unto them soe much ground convenient and adioyninge to the said house as they shall be able to cleere manure order dresse, husband and use, eyther in orchards, gardens, vineyards or for Tobacco, corne, mayz or Indian Wheat and more (ibid., pp. 393–394). 6. As late as May 22, 1638, a letter signed by Governor Harvey and others reported that at Jamestown there were then 12 houses and stores, one of which houses was the fairest that ever was known in this country, and that by this example “others have undertaken to build framed houses to beautifye the placez” responding to the King’s instruction “that we should not suffer men to build slight cottages as heretofore” (Lyon G.

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surviving houses in, say, Massachusetts, England, and even continental Europe. Although this can be an intellectually stimulating exercise, any conclusions derived therefrom are founded not in fact but amid the shifting sands of speculation. In Martin’s Hundred the only facts are postholes and sill slots. Indeed, regardless of discovering that John Jackson identified himself as a bricklayer by trade, not a single brick-constructed chimney base has been found.8 That is not to say that all chimneys were of board or wattle-and-daub. It is entirely possible that bricks from chimney footings would have been salvaged for reuse elsewhere. As fragmentary bricks have been encountered on most Martin’s Hundred sites, one must suppose that brick footings that were not robbed were shallow and have been plowed out.9 The point, however, is that while archaeology has provided data regarding the sizes and placement of chimneys, as well as the certainty that some were at least framed in wood, to assert that their builders made use of any other material would be to sacrifice fact on the altar of fancy (Pl. 23). We are inclined to think of early seventeenth-century Englishmen as being divided into two groups: rich and poor, or gentlemen and others. But that is no more valid than might be the assumption that because both Jews and Italians live in New York, they all eat the same food. One has only to study the passenger list from any emigrant ship to realize that not only did the newcomers hail from very different parts of the country, they had been apprenticed into an equally wide range of trades. A list of those who took

Tyler, ed.,Virginia Magazine of History, vol. III [1895], pp. 29–30). 7. M. W. Barley, The English Farmhouse and Cottage (1961), p. 80. A buttery is defined in Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1737) as a “Butlery, a Place where Victuals is set up.” A milkhouse on the other hand served as it sounded: a dairy where milk and other dairy products were kept cool. 8. In September 1623, responding to questions from Lord Chichester, who had been appointed by the King to look into the affairs of the colony, a group of unidentified respondents stated that There is good store of earth fitt to make brick almost in every place; And heretofore much Brick hath ben made in the Contrie [the following scratched out] And it were would exceedinglie both strengthen and beautifie the plantacons if they (people) were enjoyned to make all their buildings thereof. The next response (no. 9) picked up the same theme, insisting that “if some convenient number of houses were built (together) of Brick and enclosed wth a brick wall that might deserve the name of a Towne” (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 260). 9. It is possible that bricks were used above ground rather than below it, e.g., as nogging or as hearth paving. It may be significant, however, that none of the yellow Dutch bricks so well represented, say, at Mathews Manor, have been found on the Martin’s Hundred sites.

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Plate 23. Wolstenholme Towne as it may have been seen from the high ground by reconnoitering Indians. The amount of land lost to erosion is estimated as ca. 600´, but no attempt has been made to guess at what structures may have been there. Painting by Richard Schlecht. the Oath of Supremacy after arriving at Jamestown in September 1623 broke down as follows: Origin Worcestershire London Berkshire Lancashire London London Leicestershire Hampshire Somersetshire London Portsmouth London Bedfordshire London London London Oxford Norwich London London Bedfordshire

Trade Gentleman Joyner Gentleman Chandler Bricklayer Haberdasher Gent Husbandman Carpenter Joiner Husbandman Grocer Gentleman Leatherseller Gentleman (Lawyer?) Tallow-chandler Student Gentleman Haberdasher Goldsmith Gentleman

10. These people came over to help turn the tide after the loss of more than half the population as the result of the 1622 massacre, the sickness brought aboard the Abigail, and the addi-

Yorkshire Yorkshire London Surrey London Middlesex London London Somersetshire London Somersetshire Bedfordshire Wiltshire

Merchant Gentleman Grocer Husbandman Carpenter Vintner Chandler Cooper Husbandman Carpenter Tailor Carpenter Servant10

From this sample list one can see that although these settlers came predominantly from London (15 out of 34) and from the south, some came from the Midlands and others from the North. The assumption that the backbone of early Virginia’s farming hands came from the West Country is not endorsed by this list. No men from Devon or Cornwall are included, and only three from Somerset, of whom only one was a husbandman. More importantly these people came from areas where stone was the predominant build-

tional attrition of the spring of 1623. They came aboard the Ann, which docked on September 5, and on the Bonny Bess, which arrived on September 12 (McIlwaine, p. 6).

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

ing material, and others from areas heavily wooded or rich in brick clay. In some pennant slabs were the normal roofing material, in others tiles (both flat and “Flemish” pan) were the norm, and in still others thatch predominated. It is worth noting, too, that of the 34 men listed, only four were carpenters, one a joiner,11 and one a bricklayer. Consequently few of these new arrivals were capable of building a house, and, there being no real estate salesmen waiting at dockside, they landed essentially without the prospect of shelter. It was small wonder, therefore, that many of them died before they could become acclimatized.12 The need for guesthouses to provide shelter for new settlers was a persistent cause for concern in London. Indeed the records have more to say about such buildings than about any other domestic structure. The previously cited 1620 broadside issued by the Virginia Company to promote emigration instructed each of the four boroughs13 as well as the particular plantations (of which Martin’s Hundred was one) to: frame, build, and perfect, with all things thereto belonging, a common house, to bee called a Guest house, for the lodging and entertaining of fifty persons in each, upon their first arrivall. Of which houses, to be raised in due and wholesome places, each shall be sixteene foot broad within, and nine score [180] foot long, (unlesse it seeme good to divide that length into two houses:) And in each of them shall be set up all along on the one side, five and twenty Bedsteads of foure foot broad, sixe foot long, and two feet height from the ground in equal distance, and with partitions of Boords betweene them: And there shall be raised in each of them in convenient places, five Chimnies. These houses we also require to be strongly built for continuance, with windowes well placed for wholesomnes of aire.14

These were major structures that the Company required the localities to underwrite, and not even the promise “to grant and give to each Burrough, in consideration and aide of that work, two Kine or Heifers, to be delivered at our charges” was adequate compensation for the cost and labor. Furthermore nothing was said about giving and granting livestock to the plantations, whose ability to comply was even

11. In Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1737) a joiner was “one who makes wooden furniture.” Joinery was “employ’d chiefly in small work, and in that differs from carpentry, which is conversant in larger work.” 12. A letter from the Governor and Council on November 11, 1619, warned the Company that men arriving in the winter months “might miscarry by lyinge in the woods before such time as Conveniente howses Could be erected for the harbouringe of them all” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 226). 13. The four boroughs were James City, Henrico, Charles City, and Elizabeth City (formerly Kecoughtan).

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less than that of the boroughs. Replying for the colony, secretary John Pory stalled: Nowe as Concerninge ye buyldinge of guest-houses, this tyme of ye year is most unfittinge, in respect of ye tymbr to be felled, wch would nowe be full of sap in respect of ye heate, and lastly in respect of ye peoples attendinge their corne, where on depende ye lives of us all. In winter some good wilbe done in that kinde.15

That most outspoken and vainglorious of men, William Capps of Elizabeth City, claimed not only to have been able to save Martin’s Hundred from the Indians, but could build the best guesthouses that anyone could wish to see. But there was a trick. First, the Company would have to send him “x or xij Carpenters Sawyers & brickmakers with puision for the first yeare.”16 Knowing Capps, it is highly likely that he was aware that the Company had ordered the Corporations and Particular Plantations to provide the labor and cover the cost of building the guesthouses, and therefore his offer would be declined. Another respondent was not sure that guesthouses were as good an idea as they were claimed to be. Buildings did exist that could provide housing for newcomers and did so, in the writers’ view, “wth more convenience in ou r oppinions, then in publique Guest howses, where many beinge sick togeather, are likely to bringe a generall infectione, and find no willinge attendance.” There was, of course, a difference between a guesthouse and a pesthouse, and it was the former that London was promoting and the latter that was no less needed. The Council in Virginia, writing on January 30, 1623/24, with the lethal gift of the Abigail still very much in mind, reminded the Company: how the ships are pestered Contrary to your agreements Victualed wth mustie bred the reliques of former Vioages, and stinckinge beere, heertofore soe ernestly Complayned of.17

In responding to Butler’s charges regarding the inadequacy of houses, the view from Virginia was very different from that put about in London to reassure the Company’s shareholders. Referring to the 12 years in which Sir Thomas Smith had been its treasurer, the Assembly replied:

14. Ibid., p. 276, broadside dated May 17, 1620. 15. Ibid., p. 302, John Pory to Sir Edwin Sandys, June 12, 1620. 16. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 78, William Capps to John Ferrar, beginning of April, 1623. 17. The previous complaint related to the charge that victualler Geoffrey Duppa [or Dupper] had provided the beer that had launched the contagious fever that had wracked the Abigail in the last weeks of its voyage, and led thereafter to the massive loss of life in the winter and spring of 1622/23 (ibid., vol. IV, p. 451, Council to Virginia Company, January 30, 1623/24).

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For or howses and churches in those tymes they were so meane and poore by reson of those calamities that they could not stand above one or two yeeres, the people never goinge to woorke but out of y e bitternes of theire spirrits threatning execrable curses uppon Sr: Thomas Smith, neither could a blessinge from god be hoped for in those buildings wch were founded uppon ye bloud of soe many Christians.18

The cited popular bitterness against the ancien régime evidently spilled over into the writer’s ink; yet there may well be truth in the claim that the early dwellings were of such shoddy construction that two years would see them out. Ralph Hamor, describing the houses at Jamestown as they were after being up less than three years, recalled the sloth of their inhabitants and the fact that “their houses [were] ready to fall upon their heads.”19 Much later, replying to questions regarding the state of the colony in the late summer of 1623, an unnamed deponent noted that the plantacons are farr asunder & their houses stande scattered one from another, and are onlie made of wood, few or none of them being framed houses but punches sett into the Ground And covered wth Boards so as a firebrand is sufficient to consume them all.20

Although it is nonsense to suggest that a firebrand might ignite a puncheon building but not a frame, the statement is important in that it separates the two: post-driven-into-the-earth buildings on the one hand, and box-framed structures on the other. It was not, however, a clear and valid distinction, for frame buildings could still stand on posts, albeit in pairs, sometimes singly and sometimes tied together staplewise with a tie-beam mortised to the tops of the posts. When these occur, the molds within the postholes are generally flush to the longitudinal line of the building, the U-shaped bay-creating units having been laid flat on the ground and then raised against the sides of the paired postholes and dropped into them, with the dirt then backfilled around them. Once box-frame buildings became the norm the bay posts, either earthfast or mortised into running sills, became standard units of length. Thus, for example, Bridges Freeman, commander of the magazine at Jamestown, petitioned the Court to order one

18. Neil, p. 409. 19. Hamor, p. 26. 20. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 259, “Notes For An Answer To The Propositions Made By Lord Chichester,” [August or September] 1623. 21. McIlwaine, p. 199, an undated Court session of 1629. 22. Richard Reid, The Shell Book of Cottages (1977), p. 33. The word cruck is said to be derived from the medieval crokke or crook, as in shepherds’. The reconstructed glasshouse near Jamestown employed crucks, but there was no archaeological

Fowler to “build him three lengthes of housinge wth a Chimney & a Ptition.”21 In England (but rarely, if ever, in Virginia) the bays from ground sill to ridge beam were created from pairs of curving members, a technique known as cruck construction, i.e., the crucks in bay-creating units. Architect Richard Reid has noted that in barns “Grain was measured by the bay while some houses were assessed for taxation by the number of crucks.”22 That potentially useful yardstick is offset by English architectural historian R. T. Mason, who thinks otherwise: “we are accustomed to speak of ‘bays’ in timber framing as plan units,” he wrote, “but should not regard them as in any sense units of measurement. They vary from 4ft. 6in. in length up to 20ft. or so and it therefore follows that there can be no such thing as the ‘half-bay’ so popular with some writers.”23 Regardless of whether or not bays were perceived in the seventeenth century as a defined unit of measurement in house building, it is a fact that in Martin’s Hundred single-cell structures large enough to extend to two bays were halved by them. Thus at Site A three buildings measuring 20´ x 18´ (A, B, and C1) had their postholes at 0´, 10´, and 20´, while structure H, measuring 15´ x 10´, had its median bay posts at 7´6˝ (Ills. 7–8). Unfortunately in archaeology what you (the archaeologist) see is not necessarily what they (the people of the past) had. In an effort to increase longevity the sections of posts to be buried in the ground were not adzed, sawn, planed, or even barked, meaning that the actual above-ground measurements of a building might be an inch or two smaller than the postmolds suggest. Then again, in crudely and hurriedly built structures, the posts may not be straight, causing the posthole seating to be out of line to accommodate the deviation. When the building was clay walled (as opposed to weatherboarded) all that mattered was that the tops of the posts be true to the line when they reached the plate. Among the several buildings excavated in Wolstenholme Towne (Site C) deviation was the norm, a significant difference from the buildings of the Harwood homestead (Site A), where right angles were the rule. Although the diameters of framing posts may give a clue to their length, as a rule (and certainly in Mar-

evidence to support it. A stone-foundationed building at Flowerdew Plantation was at first hailed as being of cruck construction, a claim later laid to rest. Because cruck members may begin their curve above ground, no evidence need survive in the earth. But if it did there would be a pronounced angle to the postmold, those in each bay leaning pronouncedly toward each other. No such feature was detected in Martin’s Hundred. 23. Reginald T. Mason, Framed Buildings of England (1974), p. 29.

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

Illustration 7 . The buildings of Martin’s Hundred Sites A–H.

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Illustration 8. The buildings of Martin’s Hundred Sites A–H.

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

tin’s Hundred) the posthole depths and patterns of earthfast structures give little hint of whether the structures were of story-and-a-half or two-story height. One remembers that such dwellings within the Jamestown palisades were described by Ralph Hamor as “all of framed Timber, two stories, and an upper Garret or Corne loft high.”24 Alas, Hamor did not mention the sizes of these two-story buildings, but as the Jackson/Ward dwelling at Site B measured 44´ x 22´, the possibility of documentary support for a second story would be extremely helpful. In truth, better documentation says otherwise. Describing two houses having approximately the same plan dimensions as the Site B dwellings that were to be provided for children employed in the flax trade, Hening’s Statutes described them as forty foot long apeece with good and substantial timber, the houses to be twenty foot broad apeece, eight foot high in the pitche and a stack of brick chimneys standing in the midst of each house, and that they be lofted with sawne boards and made with convenient partions.25

Ordered in 1646 and therefore several years later than the Martin’s Hundred sites’ apparent demise, this description of an early colonial sweatshop provides a rare pre-1650 reference to a brick chimney stack. But, more relevantly, these factories/dwellings were only slightly smaller than the house at Site B and yet were only a story-and-a-half high and 8´ to the plate. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, prudence dictates that we read all the Martin’s Hundred structures as having above-ground elevations no taller than is required to create a story-and-a-half building—or, to be more exact, a building with a story-and-a-half exterior. The English yeoman’s cottage developed over several centuries into a roof-reaching central hall unit, in the midst of which a central hearth provided the warm heart of the house—regardless of the fact that the room almost certainly filled with smoke when the wind was contrary and the opening in the roof provided an inadequate chimney. Later, when the fire was contained in either a central chimney or an endattached hood, part of the space above the plates (usually one bay deep) was floored and sheathed to create a separate solarium or bedchamber. This is how the very simple puncheon-style building at Wolstenholme Towne (Structure H) has been interpreted (Pl. 24). Other dwellings almost certainly were divided in this way. In some cases the bay beneath the floored solar would also have been enclosed, shut off from the hall for private family use. Regrettably, archaeology tells us no more about the attics and solars of Martin’s Hundred buildings 24. Hamor, p. 33.

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than it does about the roofs that covered them. Such hypotheses as are permitted are culled from the study of contemporary cottages in England. There, roof construction could be achieved in several ways, the simplest being demonstrated in the so-called Company Barn at Wolstenholme Towne (Site C, Structure J; Pl. 25), where three large posts carried the ridge-pole, creating a tentlike structure whose roof rafters extended from pole to ground, leaving angled impressions that barely reached into the subsoil (Ill. 9). The covering that provided the barn with both wall and roof was almost certainly of reed thatch, and undoubtedly straw or reed thatch was the most common roofing material in Martin’s Hundred. The nature of the covering dictated the shape of the roof, those of tile and slate requiring a steeper pitch than did thatch. The latter, therefore, could sit well on a mansard or half-hipped roof. Unfortunately there is no way that archaeology can confirm the shape of a roof, and that is why reputedly “authentic” reconstructions based on this alone are nothing of the sort. There was, however, one roof form that dictated the placement of the posts that supported it, a technique that went back to prehistoric times, whenever the structure was a single-cell (room) unit, be it a small hut or great granary. The roof was assembled on the ground, beginning at one hipped end by setting up pairs of collar-braced rafters. When complete from end to end, the wall plates were inserted under and tied within. With the roof thus true, the placement of the wall posts was marked out on the ground. The entire roof was then moved away, the vertical puncheon or posthole-dug posts were then erected, each with a crutchet top to receive the pre-

Plate 24. A model of the Wolstenholme Domestic Unit. Built specially for the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum by Walter Vaughn, it is seen through the south wall looking toward the hooded fireplace. Compare with the site plan, Ill. 6. 25. Hening, vol. I, pp. 336–37, entry for October 5, 1646.

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Plate 25. The Wolstenholme Barn excavated. The secondary post beside the foreground central support is thought to indicate the location of a doorway. View from the northeast. constructed roof assembly.26 A simple method of coned basement. Cut through its earthen floor were the struction, it could have been employed in building deep-set pairs of posts to create a two-bay structure. the simpler single-cell Martin’s Hundred structures Intermediate posts provided studs for interior board (e.g., Site C, Structure E). sheathing. This building is thought to have been Another structure whose roof could have paralHarwood’s storehouse, and in all drawn interpretaleled that of the Site C barn was found at the Hartions it is shown with its roof reaching from ridgewood Site, but it differed in every other respect. This pole to ground level. However, the depth into the almost square unit (18´ x 17´; Site A, Structure D) subsoil and the size of the six framing posts might be was set in a carefully cut hole creating a well-insulatinterpreted as belonging to a basement and full

26. F. W. B. Charles, “Post-Construction and the Rafter Roof” (1980).

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

Illustration 9. Plan of the Wolstenholme Barn. The dashed lateral lines represent scarring caused by modern tractor tracks.

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above-ground story of a store that doubled as a defensible blockhouse, into which Harwood retreated at the time of the 1623 Indian attack.27 On balance it would seem that assurances of, or demands for, sound building practices came from London while the complaints came from Virginia and were, one would presume, closer to the truth. With that said, one has to allow that Ralph Hamor, who had been in Virginia during the worst of the teething years, on returning to London in 1614 declared that: whosoever (now, or heerafter) shall happily arrive there, shall finde a hansome howse of some foure roomes or more, if he have a family, to repose himselfe in rent free, and twelve English Acres of ground, adioyninge thereunto, very strongly impaled, which ground is onely allotted unto him for Roots, Gardaine hearbs, and Corne.28

Hamor was almost certainly referring to the accommodations at Henrico that some feel were still largely on the drawing board when he returned to England, for other descriptions of Virginia’s intended new capitol were distinctly less rosy. Nevertheless Hamor does give us a yardstick by which to assess the ideal Virginia one-family home: four rooms and 12 fenced acres. In November 1619 one Lieutenant Jabez Whittaker set himself up on Company land near the mouth of the Chickahominy River while regrouping after being unable to feed the large company that he had brought with him. He was one of the few who undertook to build a guesthouse, describing it as “forty foote long, and twentie foote wide.” He provided “an ould woeman” to wash the lodgers’ clothes and “keep the hous cleane and [had] built a little roome for ye surgeon y t he may be ever neere and helpful to them.”29 In the same letter to Sir Edwin Sandys, Whittaker noted that at first he had assigned six men to each house, but that he had subsequently concluded that this was overcrowding and had reduced the ratio to three persons per house. Unfortunately he did not give the dimensions of the houses. In Martin’s Hundred we have but one documented set of measurements, namely the dwelling provided to Richard Chelsey, a servant of Sir Lawrence Hyde. In payment for a year’s service Chelsey was to have “an house newe built him 14. foot long, & twelve foote

27. See p. 43. 28. Hamor, p. 19. 29. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 441, Jabez Whittaker to Sir Edwin Sandys, May, 1621. The former’s reference to the provision of a surgeon serves as a reminder that skilled medical help was always in short supply. Surgeons provided their cures by amputation, whereas physicians employed physic and bleeding and were much better equipped to handle the travel-sick new arrivals than were the limb-loppers. 30. Ibid., p. 451, A note from Secretary John Pory, accompany

Broad”—also to have the rest of his wages paid in “80 li of Tobacco [and] three barrells of corne.”30 Unfortunately, this scale cannot be taken to be the standard for the services of one man for one year. In 1623, in payment for like service, Michael Wilcocks took his master William Ganey of Elizabeth City to court for failing to “sett him up of his owne cost & Charges a house of 20 foote long and 15 foote wide.” Ganey was ordered to get on with it.31 Ten years later, in Accomack County, settler Edward Stockdell reported that he had built a house “twenty five foote long and sixteene foote wide with one partition[,] one chymnyth[,] one Buttery.” The house was on the plantation of one Samuell Wools and was reported “tenanteable and there was one hundred foote of thatched houseinge besides.”32 The dimensions of this house are akin to several in Martin’s Hundred, with a plan similar to that of a slightly larger house at Somersby in Lincolnshire (33´ x 15´), which had a central chimney dividing the parlor from the hall, beyond which was a buttery only 4´ in depth. A story-and-a-half house built of mud and stud, its A-roofed attic bedchamber (the medieval solar) was approached by a ladder and overlay only the parlor area.33 To reach the loft or lodging room of most, if not all, early houses, one did so by means of a ladder braced by the side of the chimney, if that was internally constructed. When the space was intended primarily for storage, a trapdoor provided entry. At a court held in April 1625 the bench heard testimony regarding the suicide of John Verone, a servant boy who had hanged himself with a chain. A witness, Richard Baule, “went up the ladder thinkinge the boy had been a sleepe in the loft, and openinge the trapp doore he saw where the boy did hange.”34 When seeking documented details one tends to forget the settlers of the Eastern Shore, or to think of them as frontiersmen (albeit of the ocean) and therefore living in more primitive housing than their compatriots at Jamestown. This was not so, and the records indicate the development of plantations on a par with many on mainland Virginia. Thus a parsonage built in Accomack County in 1635 was to be forty foot long and eyghteene foot wyde and nine foot to the wall plates [?] and that ther shalbe a chimney at each end of the house, and upon each

ing a letter from Sir George Yeardley to Sir Edwin Sandys, shipped to England aboard the Bona Nova, May 16, 1621. 31. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 288, Michael Wilcocks’s petition to Governor Wyatt, leaffall to winter 1623/24. 32. Susie M. Ames, ed., County Court Records of AccomackNorthampton, Virginia, 1632–1640 (1954), p. 104, deposition of Edward Stockdell. 33. Barley, p. 81. 34. McIlwaine, p. 53, Court of April 11, 1625.

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As William Penn noted, houses of comparable durability were generally walled with weatherboarding over the studs, a process costly in nails, which, depending on their length, could in the massacre’s aftermath sell for 20s. per 1,000.37 Before it the ship Supply out of Bristol brought over 22,500 “nayles of sev[er]all sorts” that together had been purchased for £3. 10s.38 Requiring few if any nails was the alternative process of filling the space between the studs

with straw-reinforced clay or with wattle-and-daub. The latter often employed prefabricated hurdles or, if the house was built with sills either interrupted or running, with ozier rods set into drilled holes in the sills. In walls built without sills (e.g., Site C, Structures C and E; and Site A, Structure C-2) the intermediate studs were either driven into the ground or set in dug holes, as were the main framing posts. Penn’s reference to walling being “filled up between” can be read to mean the use of clay (or even nogged brick) between the framing posts and studs to provide greater warmth in winter and in the summer to retain the nights’ cool air. This infilling also served to support interior plasterwork. Unfortunately, no evidence of this kind was found on the Martin’s Hundred sites, and the few fragments of burned clay could as easily have come from the interior of chimneys as from fire-destroyed walls. Just as information about people is derived primarily from the anomalous few who wound up in court rather than from the majority who came and went without making enduring waves, so the ordinary details of buildings were rarely described by diarists or letter writers. Consequently few people wrote about their hearths and whether they were bricked or clay, or how their windows opened, and whether they were shuttered and/or glazed. In England window-glass manufacturing developed into a major industry in the second half of the sixteenth century, growing at first out of the medieval glass-blowing craft centered around Chiddingfold in the Weald. The glass was made by both the muff and crown processes, the latter being more expensive and of increasingly better quality as the discs (crowns) were made ever larger. Although many crown glass fragments have been found together in recent excavations within the fort area at Jamestown and datable prior to ca. 1615,39 the presence amongst it of siege potsherds suggests that it was brought to the island not for glazing but to serve as cullet to help the Virginia glass industry get started. Nevertheless in late Tudor England, particularly in the south, diamondpaned windows40 were becoming common even in relatively modest yeomen’s houses. We can deduce

35. Ames, p. 43. 36. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Delaware, 1609–1888 (1888), vol. I, p. 165, quoting William Penn ca. 1684. 37. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 89, Peter Arundel to William Caninge, April (?), 1623. 38. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 388, “The Account of A. B.” for furnishing the Supply, September, 1620. Just as ships wrecked and grounded off Bermuda were burned to the waterline to retrive metal hardware, so ruined and abandoned houses were burned to retrieve their nails. This must have been particularly the case in the months following the 1622 massacre when nails were selling at super-premium prices. That may explain the relative dearth of 1a˝ nails on Martin’s Hundred sites, a negative clue that might otherwise suggest that the dwellings had been clay rather than board-covered. This reasoning holds within it an

important caveat: the evidence of burning encountered on massacre-related sites may be testimony to nail salvage rather than to Indian agression. 39. Ivor Noël Hume, “All Ashore at Jamestown,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal, vol. XVII, no. 4 (1995), p. 32. 40. The diamond-shaped pieces of glass (rarely more than 3–4˝ in height) were known as “quarrels” (or sometimes “quaries”). Mason (p. 76) states that the diamond-shaped panes were “replaced in the second half of the seventeenth century by rectangular quarries.” But while it is true that those who could afford it would have changed to the larger panes once they became generally available, it does not follow that the diamond-shaped quarrels were no longer made. Thus, for example, the third edition of Richard Neve’s The City and Country Purchaser, and Builder’s Dictionary; or, Compleat Builder’s Guide

side of the chimneys a rome, the one for a study, the other for a buttery alsoe a pertition neere the midest of the house wth an entry and tow doures the one to goe into the kitchinge the other into the chamber.35

Athough later than our period, it is to William Penn of Pennsylvania to whom we turn for a detailed construction description of a dwelling akin to the Accomack parsonage or the better dwellings of Martin’s Hundred. Penn, in his Information and Direction to such Persons as are inclined to America, wrote the following: To build them an House of thirty foot long and eighteen foot broad with a partition near the middle, and another to divide one end of the house into two small Rooms, there must be eight Trees of about sixteen inches square, and cut off to Posts of about fifteen foot long, which the House must stand upon, and four pieces, two of thirty foot long and two of eighteen foot long, for Plates, which must lie upon the top of these Posts, the whole length and breadth of the House, for the Gists [joists] to rest upon. There must be ten Gists of twenty foot long to bear the Loft, and two false Plates of thirty foot long to lie upon the ends of the Gists for the Rafters to be fixed upon, twelve pare of Rafters of about twenty foot to bear the Roof of the House, with several other small pieces, as Windbeams, Braces, Studs, &c., which are made of the Waste Timber. For covering the House, Ends and Sides, and for the Loft we use Clabboard, which is Rived feather-edged, of five foot and a half long, that well Drawn, lyes close and smooth: The Lodging Room may be lined with the same, and filled up between, which is very Warm. These houses usually endure ten years without repair.36

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on archaeological evidence that in Martin’s Hundred by ca. 1625–1630 there were glass windows in the home of William Harwood at Site A.41 In late medieval English framed houses, window openings were either square or rectangular and protected from intruders by vertical diamond-sectioned bars mortised into the frame at top and bottom, sometimes square to it or sometimes on the diamond. Both colonists and their London sponsors realized that circulation of air was an important protection against contagion. Thus, in the previously cited broadsheet of 1620, the description of the guesthouses included an instruction to be sure that they should be built with “windowes well placed for wholesomnes of aire.”42 R. T. Mason, in Framed Buildings of England, stated that with the advent of the rectangular quarrel in the second half of the seventeenth century came “the introduction of an openable type of wrought iron casement—one of the greatest advances towards domestic comfort during the whole history of English domestic building.”43 Mr. Mason does not cite his evidence for so late a date for openable casements, but one is inclined to doubt it. Glazed windows of considerable elaboration were available at the beginning of the century, including at least one “how-to” book of designs directed to glaziers, “And not Impertinent for Plasterers, and Gardiners.”44 Once such leaded designs were mounted in frames (as was necessary to support them in the window opening) one would expect that such units would be perceived as little doors—that could open. When glazed windows were installed on William Harwood’s property, it is highly unlikely that in the hot Virginia summer he would have been content to close himself around with nonfunctional glass windows. Although flat shards of greenish glass were found on what are thought to be premassacre sites in Martin’s Hundred, the similarity between small pieces of quarrell and those from the sides of square glass bottles is too close to distinguish one from the other. From the post-1625 filling of the cellar (Structure D) at Site A came several fragments

of window glass, 45 none of them large enough or lead-bonded to be able to determine their size or pattern. No clear evidence of weathering was to be seen on the exposed pane areas, and so there was no hint as to the length of time the glass had remained part of a window. In this connection it is worth noting that Dutch genre paintings would suggest that, once installed, many a window would be allowed to remain with missing and broken quarrels. In Virginia, following Bacon’s Rebellion, Lady Berkeley’s own room at Green Spring suffered from broken panes—through which she inspected activities in the yard below.46 Remarkably, in England in 1603, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, allowed himself to be painted against a casement window with at least one broken quarrel.47 It seems likely, therefore, that once installed at Site A, casement quarrels remained in situ in the C dwelling windows until the time of its enlargement. It is fair to assume, nonetheless, that in Virginia’s first colonial years only the leadership (be it of the colony or the plantations) would have aspired to glazed windows, and that barred and perhaps horn or oiled-parchment windows would have been the norm, many of them with interior shutters pierced by firing slots for musketry. Just as windows were never a topic for elaborate written record, little was said in early Virginia about “necessary houses” or that there were such conveniences. Thus, for example, it is through his misbehavior that we hear how Lieutenant “fflint” (Flint) chose to relieve himself. On passing the house of Robert Poole, and having been arrested for blaspheming against the governor, Flint “desired that he might goe to the howse end to make water” and while doing so took the opportunity to try to stab one of his captors. Although Flint seems to have been deranged, it is likely that in early colonial Virginia the necessities of life commonly sent one behind the barn or into the woods, for no privy pits have been found on Martin’s Hundred sites. Nevertheless, four small four-post structures (two of them at Site A: E and F; and two at Site C: C and F) could have been

(1736) stated that “Quarrels of Glass are of two Kinds, viz. square and long, and these again are of different sizes.” Neve gave the acute angle of the “long” (diamond) quarrel as “67 Degrees and 22 minutes.” Neve also provided valuable information regarding the use of lead in windows, and addressed the common modern error of calling the installed window lead “cames.” These were

groove on each Side, to go on upon the glass.” 41. See Pt. II, Fig. 90, nos. 1–4. 42. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 276, Virginia Company’s promotional broadsheet of May 17, 1620. 43. Mason, p. 76. 44. Walter Dight, Booke of Sundry Draughtes...&c. (1615). 45. Evidenced by matte-surfaced edges once gripped in the window’s turned lead. 46. I. Noël Hume, In Search of This & That, pp. 140 and 145. 47. The portrait attributed to John de Critz, 1555–1641 (Gervaise Jackson-Stops, ed., The Treasure Houses of Britain [1985], pl. 36, p. 114). For another carefully rendered painting of an English window and its reinforcing bars, see the portrait of John, Lord Bellasys (1636), (ibid., pl. 51, p. 128).

small slender Rods of Cast-lead, of which the Glaziers make their turn’d Lead. For their Lead being cast into slender Rods, of some 12 or 14 Inches long each, is called the Came, and sometimes they call each of those rods a Came, which being afterwards drawn thro’ their Vice, makes their turn’d Lead. Under the heading “Lead for Glass-work” Neve made the same point even more clearly: “They call it Turn’d-lead, when the Came has pass’d thro’ the Vice, and is thereby made with a

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used as privyhouses if fitted with above-ground, emptyable tanks.48 That other staple of domestic life, the household well, was rarely described, and consequently we know nothing about well heads or winding gear in the early seventeenth century. There is, however, a 1622 reference to a well at Elizabeth City said to be “of fresh water mantled with bricke, because the river and cricks are brackish or salt.”49 A lengthy series of depositions given at a Court in December 1624 told how an “Infant Child” named George Pope had gone to fetch water from a well only to fall in and drown. The father of a boy witness testified that Pope had “kneled Downe on his knees to dip up water and the water being muddy ye said George went to power it owt and to take upp Cleerer and soe fell in.”50 Nothing is said about the lining of the well, but the dirtiness of the water in wells on Jamestown Island was by no means rare. The only seventeenth-century well found on the existing Martin’s Hundred acres was shallow and cut through stiff clay, and seemed never to have been lined. No better or more frequently described were fences, either defensive or animal-controlling. Sometimes the records note that a house and its acres were well impaled, but rarely, if ever, was the height or character of the impaling described. Taken at face value the 1624/25 muster would tell historians that there were no defensive palisades at Martin’s Hundred, and as Indians would have had difficulty burning uncovered vertical timbers or planks, one might conclude that none had existed prior to the attack.

Instead the archaeology makes it very clear that Wolstenholme Towne had a palisaded fort, that the Boyse homestead was similarly protected, and that there were fences or palisades around the rear of the complex we called the Company Compound. That none of these were listed in the census can be explained by the fact that the tabulation was made by different people. The individual who made the listing for the lower peninsula considered palisades worth listing, and so enumerated at least 23 located east of Mulberry Island, each identified as “Pallizado, 1.”51 The closest and best-documented parallel to Martin’s Hundred was Berkeley Towne, which was established in 1619 on land assigned to the Corporation of Charles City. Arriving aboard the Margaret of Bristoll with 35 settlers was their leader, Captain John Woodleefe. He was ordered immediately to erect houses “fit for the present shelter and succor of our people . . . [to] be built homelike and to be covered wth bordes.”52 Special attention was to be paid to the framing of two buildings “one for the safe keeping of the tooles implements of husbandry powder, shott, Armor, and victuall, wch wee wish may be strongly planted on the inside: And the other for your assemblies at time of prayer and time of diet,” this last, therefore, a combination chapel and mess hall.53 Against this background of what others built or were instructed to build, we turn now to the often enigmatic reality of the houses, stores, and sheds built at Martin’s Hundred between 1619 and 1640.

48. See p. 106. 49. This reference was found without identifiable attribution in the late Audrey Noël Hume’s notes. 50. McIlwaine, p. 38, Coroner’s Court held December 31, 1624. 51. In the case of Edward Bennett’s plantation the recorder identified “Dwelling houses, 2 in severall Pallisadoes; Store, 1 wthin one of ye Pallisadoes.” Also known by the Indian name Warrascoyack, Bennett’s plantation was the hardest hit, probably because it was close to the territory of the much-put-upon Nansemond tribe. It is likely, therefore, that the pallisading of Bennett’s houses and store was undertaken after the massacre (Jester, p. 48, the muster taken on February 7, 1624/25). 52. Archaeology rarely has much to say about roofing materials other than those of plain rectangular tile or ogee “Flemish” pantiles. Covering with boards, as was proposed for the Berkeley Hundred houses, meant short lengths of clapboard overlapping in the manner of tiling. The use of bark shingling was unknown in England, and according to Samuel Purchase (vol.

IV, p. 1753) “they have found a way to cover their houses; now (as the Indians) with barke of Trees, as durable, and as good proofe against stormes, and winter weather, as the best Tyle.” However, the stripping of bark to prepare trees for later felling was, it seems, a common practice in England. A letter from the Company to the Council in Virginia urged it to fell great numbers of white and black oak, and that more should be “barked to season by standinge. The time most fitting to fell and barke yor trees,” the Company advised, “is in November and December, and the begininge of Januarie” (Kingsbury, vol. III, pp. 496–97, Virginia Company to the Governor and Council in Virginia, August 12, 1621). The reconstructed watchtower at the Fort has been re-roofed with bark at least three times in the course of its life, twice at times when the bark was not properly cured, resulting in its curling and splitting. 53. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 209, Sir William Throckmorton et al., “Ordinances Directions and Instructions to Captaine John Woodlefe,” September 4, 1619.

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Site H The Boyse Homestead, ca. 1619–1622 STRUCTURE A If our assumptions are correct, the earliest colonial structure built in Martin’s Hundred was the palisaded Boyse homestead. It was also one of the most difficult to interpret, part of the ground over it having been plowed since the eighteenth century and the rest being heavily wooded, thus converting postholes to treeholes and causing some that were shallow to be obliterated (Pl. 26). There is a tendency to omit

those holes that do not make sense or that intrude into the geometry of what one wishes (correctly or incorrectly) to convey, and in some published versions of the Site H plan the house outline has been simplified in the interests of “tidiness.”54 The truth, however, is that H was a singularly untidy site and incredibly hard to interpret (Ill. 10). The plan shows two sections of what appeared to be sill slots running longitudinally, the longest of them cut through by bonafide postmolds and thus predating them. On balance, nonetheless, the house appears to have been a three-bay structure 30´ in length and 12´ wide, and suggestive of a two-bay hall and one-bay parlor with, perhaps, a lodging chamber above it. Two postholes within the “parlor” could be (have been) read as the location for an interior hooded

Plate 26. Aerial view of the Boyse compound. The four postholes in the left foreground represent the outline of the easterly flanker. The kneeling figure at top right is working on the female skeleton (Pl. 21). View from the east. For additional orientation, see Ill. 10. 54. E.g., I. Noël Hume, “Excavations at Carter’s Grove Plantation,” pp. 653–675.

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Illustration 10. Plan of Site H. The four postholes to the right are those shown in the foreground of Plate 26. chimney. If true, then the parlor would have been the place where food was prepared, i.e., the kitchen. For this there is no supporting evidence, there being no scorch marks where a hearth should have been. There is, however, considerable evidence of structural burning, most of it in postholes along the east side of the house and the support posts for its easterly lean-to (Ill. 11). This last is a somewhat enigmatic feature, there being two large postholes to the south of it that might be read as supports for an exterior chimney. Lean-to additions like this are common to the residence within the Fort (Site C, Structure A) and to Harwood’s home (Site A, Structure C-2; Ills. 7 and 8). Another significant feature may be the large posthole at the southern end of the westerly slot, which is ringed with small rocks (Ill. 12). A quarter-

round section of the postmold at the building’s northwest corner is similarly treated. There would appear to be a posthole-flanked doorway immediately northeast of the parlor and leading into the leanto. But whether that was a closed shed or an open veranda no one can tell; see Pl. 6. Although there were several post- and/or rootholes around the house plan, there was no direct evidence of any rebuilding, and with several of the posts burned, there certainly was no remodeling after the fire. Nevertheless, there are a few pipe bowls in an adjacent pit (Pit I, C.G. 4061) that one would have expected to be 20 years later. But rather than assuming postmassacre reoccupation, it makes better sense to conclude that our knowledge of pipe-bowl evolution is less accurate than one would wish.

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IIlustration 11. Plan of the Boyse House at Site H. The reconstructed palisade is based on posthole evidence and the fact that a height of 7´6˝ seemed to be the documentable norm.55 There was no evidence

for a parapet step, and a 1613 Spanish report referred to Virginia forts being

55. Instructions to John Woodlefe upon setting up the Berkeley Plantation: “cause to be inclosed 400 acres (or more) wth a stronge pale of seaven foote and halfe highe” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 209). At Ferryland in Newfoundland Captain Edward Wynne “got home as much or as many trees as served us to Paizado into the Plantation about foure Acres of ground, for the keeping off of both man & beast, with post and rayle seven foot high, sharpened at the toppe, the trees being pitched upright and fastened with spikes and nayles” (D. W. Prowse, A History of Newfoundland from the English, Colonial, and Foreign Records [1895], p. 129). At Ferryland, therefore, the posts and rails supported young trees sharpened to a point, but probably not cleft in two, hence the reference to spikes. At Jamestown in

1610 secretary William Strachey found the settlement with “a pallizado of Planckes and strong Posts, foure foote deepe in the ground, of yong Oakes, Walnut, &c.” (Quinn, New American World , vol. V, p. 295, originally published by Samuel Purchas in 1625). Similarly at Henrico, Ralph Hamor described the preparing of “pales, posts and railes for the present impaling this new Towne” (Hamor, p. 28). On the basis of this Virginia documentation, the Wolstenholme Towne and Site H palisades and fences have been reconstructed using boards, both sawn and riven, rather than tree-poles as was used at Ferryland. For further discussion of palisade construction, see I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, pp. 237–238.

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Illustration 12. Detail plan and profile of central section of the Boyse House’s west wall. of boards and so weak that a kick would break them down, and once arrived at the ramparts those without would have the advantage over those within because its beams and loopholes are common to both parts—a fortification without skill and made by unskilled men.56

For exhibit purposes, therefore, the Boyse palisade was provided with musketry loopholes created by cutting rectangular notches into the edges of abutting boards. The precedent for this approach came from a French woodcut of 1558 of a board-covered armored vehicle. The posthole pattern suggested that the posts were intended to be erected on 14´ centers, which was rel-

56. Lyon G. Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606–1625 (1946), p. 221, Letter of Don Diego De Molina, 1613.

atively wide. Where the spacing narrowed to 5´, openings are assumed for gates ca. 4´ wide. There were three of them, two facing the ravine (and thence to the spring and to the shore, and another facing east). Two flankers project, one to the southeast facing downriver across the open plain toward Grice’s Run, and the other square to the river to command any approach to the ravine landing. This last bastion is clipped at its westerly corner, suggesting that it was so shaped to enable the Hundred’s artillery piece (saker) to be levered to fire in a downstream-ranged arc. Two postholes under the platform are thought to have been there to give greater support directly under the heavy gun.

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Plate 27. The Fort reconstructed as it may have looked prior to the 1622 attack. For archaeological orientation, see Pl. 28. Painting by Richard Schlecht.

S i t e C : Wo l s t e n h o l m e To w n e The Governor’s House and Fort, ca. 1620–1622 There can be no certainty that the dwelling within Wolstenholme’s bawn-style Fort was the first in the “Towne” to be constructed, but logic dictates that it reasonably could have been. In reality several buildings may have been simultaneously under construction (Pl. 27).

STRUCTURE A One of the most irregularly shaped buildings found anywhere in excavated Martin’s Hundred, being 35´ in length and 14´ at one end and only 12´ at the other, Structure A is assumed to be the first residence of Governor William Harwood (Ill. 13). In its 35´ length only the corner posts and one pair of off-center bay posts were found, suggesting that there

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Illustration 13. Plan of the Fort. Note that the cannon platform at the southeast corner was first supposed to have supported the saker-bored cannon believed to have been housed at Site A after the massacre. It was subsequently determined that the flanker had housed an anti-personnel weapon, probably a small-bore, swivel-mounted falconet or murderer. may have been intermediate posts so shallow as to have been plowed out. No trace was found of a riverand main fort gate–facing doorway, but it is almost certain that one had existed. One short length of sill slot was encountered at the northeast corner, and both it and the corner postmold contained black ash. Beyond the quasi-central framing post was a landward-facing doorway opening into a lean-to that seems to have been exited at its southeast end and facing in the direction of the Fort’s east or postern gate. Like the building it abutted, the lean-to tapered along its 24´ length from 12´ to 9´. If the dwelling had a chimney, a single posthole suggested that it may have stood in the southeast corner. However, there was no evidence of ground scorching. 57 Fronting the conjectural hearth and placed to one side (central to the ridge-pole) was a rectangular pit

from which no datable artifacts were recovered.58 When first encountered this feature was thought to have been a small privy pit. So little was left of this important building that no reconstructing elevation was attempted. It clearly was a house hurriedly erected by workmen having a disarming disregard for right angles. One’s best guess is that this was a hall-and-parlor dwelling entered through the hall and exited to the rear via the parlor. The possibility cannot be ruled out, however, that this long and narrow building was a single-cell structure serving as the Hundred’s provisional meetinghouse and chapel until the church was completed. This presumes that from the outset William Harwood was domiciled at Site A, a hypothesis unsupported by the posthole evidence from that site, where the earliest two-bay buildings (Structures A, B, and C-1)

57. Evidence for the presence of a chimney was provided by the discovery of fragments from a cast iron fireback molded with the royal arms of James I (Pl. 81 and Pt. II, Fig. 42). The presence of more brickbats in this area than in any other might

be construed as evidence of a brick chimney or brick-laid hearth. None were found in situ. 58. C.G. 3017, shell layer 3017D.

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dence of destruction by fire. Measuring only 6´3˝ x 5´5˝, the probable shed had stood on four posts, those at the north end identified only by ash-filled holes and at the south by one triangular mold and one square (Pl. 28). Partially ash-filled slots extended across the south side and almost halfway up the east and west sides. On the south side were traces of three vertical timbers represented by darker ash. A massive spread of ash formed a semicircle around the east side of this little building, whose purpose remains unknown.

PALISADES

Plate 28. The posthole and ash-filled slot pattern of the shed (Structure C) seen from the south. The diagonal grooves are the marks of modern plowing. For orientation, see Ill. 13. appear to be better built than anything in Wolstenholme Towne. The existence of the long lean-to also speaks in favor of this being a domestic rather than (or as well as) a civic building.

STRUCTURE B To the rear and northwest of Structure A was a small building measuring 13´ x 6´ with a shallow separate room or set of raised shelves measuring only 6´ x 3´6˝. No artifacts were associated with this building, but it is assumed to have been a store, the far end, perhaps, with shelves to store budge barrels of gunpowder off the damp ground.

STRUCTURE C The Fort’s third building was smaller still, but notable for being the only one exhibiting clear evi59. Graphic confirmation of this interpretation was provided by a field at Tandridge in Surrey (U.K.), in which a small cattle pond had developed where a large tree had been removed. Approaching this circular, water-filled depression were three tracks akin to those at the Fort. Members of the herd grazing in the field were seen to follow these three tracks, each animal one behind another, never deviating from the narrow path they had created. 60. The Fort’s palisades have been reconstructed as being 7´6˝ in height using the previously cited Ferryland documentation, but also on the basis of a 1649 contract between the Duke of Ormond and two Irish carpenters to build a palisade around

The Fort’s best-defined features were its own palisades, whose generally square postholes were set on ca. 9´ centers enclosing a trapezoidal area measuring 121´6˝ x 85´6˝ (Pl. 29). Four large postholes at the east corner have been interpreted as the outline of a watchtower, and beside it the opening for a 5´ postern gate. An uneven, loam-filled depression wound its way from outside the Fort through the gateway and on into the edge of a trash-filled feature (Pit 2), beyond which lay the Fort’s well. There was no doubt that this depression marked the route of cattle returning from pasture outside the palisades and heading for a pondlike area that expanded after the well within it had been abandoned.59 A second projection, less boxlike than the watchtower, protruded from the Fort’s south corner. Slightly tapering , it contained the loam-filled impression of a split log pressed into the clay beneath it. This curious feature is interpreted as the base upon which stood a vertical log into whose top was thrust the swivel for a small piece of artillery. The platform within this flanker would not have been large enough to support a gun of saker bore, whose firing would, in any case, have jeopardized the roofs of nearby buildings. But it could have supported a much-smaller gun such as a falconnet or murderer mounted on a post-supported swivel, which could have poured small shot as infilade fire down the exterior of the south and east walls to cover both the main and postern gates.60 Two more projecting postholes were found at the palisade’s northwest corner, but as one of them had three Ulster villages. It described in great detail how the posts, rails, and pales should be spaced, set, and supported. The document is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Ms. Carte 176). At reconstructed Wolstenholme Towne the height of the firing step was arrived at by taking the average heights of the excavated Martin’s Hundred male dead, using a person of that height holding a musket in the firing position, and measuring down from the underside of the barrel to his feet. This provided the distance from the 6˝ cleft in the 7´6˝ pales to the musketeer’s feet. The distance from there to the ground became the height of the step.

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Plate 29. The Fort fully excavated and seen from the same point of view as the painted reconstruction (Pl. 27). The dark patch in the middle distance marks the location of the well shaft and cattle pond excavated and backfilled in 1977. been severely mutilated by root action (and as neither was deep) field supervisor Eric Klingelhofer erred on the side of caution and did not accept these holes as proof of a third flanker. Because this was needed to infilade any attacker who had reached the palisades, I concluded that a third projecting bastion had existed. To our surprise, no trace of any special protection was discovered at the north corner—the surprise stemming from the fact that this corner of the Fort was closest to the deep ravine that skirted the site at the north and provided the Indians with an approach and rallying cover before their attack. One would have expected this confluence of the Fort’s walls to be the most elaborately defended. Instead the opposite was true.

In accepting or rejecting these interpretations, it is imperative that one realizes that the approximate point-blank range of a standard matchlock musket was, at best, ca. 125´.61 With poor powder and loosefitting shot the distance could have been considerably less. It is strange, therefore, that there was no trace of a flanker at the palisade’s northeast corner, for musket fire from the watchtower (the only means of defense once an enemy neared the pales) would barely reach the northeast corner with any degree of authority. Instead the Fort’s defense relied on musketeers standing on a raised step and firing over the top of the V-cut palisade posts. Evidence for this step was provided by an interior slot paralleling the palisade posts along all four sides.62 Although plowed out here

61. Sir Thomas Smythe, who had little respect for the worth of firearms, stated in 1590 that soldiers armed with “harquebuses . . . must take heed that they do not give their volley at the horsemen till they come within eight, ten, or twelve paces, and not eight, ten, or twelve scores, as our . . . men of war do fondly talk and teach” (Sir John Smythe, Certain Discourses Military [1964], p. 65). 62. Unexpected dating evidence for the construction of the firing step slots was provided by the discovery in one close to the

southeast flanker of a tinned copper Harington farthing token issued in the spring of 1613 and abruptly recalled three months later when it was found to be under weight (Pt. II, Fig. 47, no. 1). Taken at face value this would have been valuable dating evidence for the Fort’s construction. In reality it pointed to the salvaging of the withdrawn tokens and their later shipment to Virginia to provide much-needed small change.

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and there, the loam, clay, and marl-filled slots were clearly visible but halted at what is believed to have been the river-facing main gateway. It was not large, however, being only ca. 5´6˝ in width, not wide enough for the passage of a wagon. Outside the Fort’s main gate and a short distance to the right of it was a very large posthole63 measuring 5´ x 4´11˝ and 2´ deep, with the mold of a post ca. 1´ square. The largest posthole found on any of the Martin’s Hundred sites, it is thought to have supported a bell, a flag, or a gibbet. The well shaft found behind the main dwelling arguably falls into the category of a building, but as nothing remained of any above-ground structure, it seems reasonable to leave a discussion of it to be addressed along with the pits. Suffice it to say here, therefore, that no traces of brick or wooden lining were encountered, and that artifacts found in the filling were more puzzling than informative. It was clear, however, that in the pre- and postmassacre periods the Fort palisades served as an enclosure for cattle, whose track was identified entering and leaving in single file through the postern gate. Dating for the Fort remains uncertain. Not only is there no documentary description of it, there is no written evidence that it even existed. But it did, and quite clearly it predated the 1622 massacre; but whether it was erected by John Boyse using labor borrowed from the Governor’s Land settlement, or whether nothing was done (beside building Boyse’s house and palisades) until the arrival of Harwood in 1620, we simply cannot say.

The Company Compound, ca. 1620–1622 The palisaded complex southeast of the Fort (Ill. 14) was contained within two kidney-shaped fences, one enclosing a store (Structure E) and the western end of a longhouse-style dwelling (Structure D), and the other enclosing the easterly rear of it as well as a long and narrow shed (Structure F) and a simple

63. C.G. 3138A. 64. Whereas the high palisades reconstructed at the Site C Fort and at Site H have been pit sawn, the shorter breastwork boards used at the Company Compound have been riven to illustrate the different methods of creating palisade planks. In truth, of course, there is no knowing which method was used or where. 65. The Company Compound was so called because four Augsburg lead fabric seals were found in the large pit known as the Potter’s Pond. The inference was that the seals came from bolts of cloth sent over by the Martin’s Hundred adventurers and were dispensed from the company store. Because the longhouse was evidently domestic and as the man buried behind it

four-post unit (Structure G). Like the Fort, the posts for these enclosures were set on 9´ centers, and there is no knowing whether they stood to comparable height. In the interests of education, therefore, they have been reconstructed at 4´6˝, or breast high, to illustrate another method of defense, namely the fire-over-the-top timber breastwork.64 The two oval enclosures are identified as the “Byre Yard” and the “Potter’s Yard,” the former having gates leading toward the ravine spring and Site H, and the other onto the village green adjacent to the longhouse (Ill. 15). The Potter’s Yard is thought to have had an exit to the north, protected by a mini-flanker and opening in the direction of the Fort, and another at the rear of the longhouse beside Shed G, opening into the unfenced avenue between the two yards (Pl. 30).

STRUCTURE D The Company Compound’s principal building was Structure D, whose 60´ x 15´ dimensions made it the longest in Martin’s Hundred.65 It was divided into two or possibly three residential units internally measuring 16´ x 12´, 10´ x 12´, and 13´ x 12´, and at the southern end there was a byre measuring 14´ x 12´.66 A large, framed external chimney stood against the north end, and slight scorching of the clay immediately south of two internal postholes and their connecting slot suggests the presence of a second hearth. The walls were built with paired posts irregularly dug and set, meaning that the tie-beams were added later. Interrupted sills ran the length of the west wall line (including the byre’s rear wall), but only the three domestic bays to the east. No slot or intermediate post occurred at the south end of the byre, although two posts beyond the rectangle may have taken a hipped roof projecting, perhaps, beyond a feeding trough. The byre’s east side was represented by two posts, one at the corner and the other midway along its length. This last almost certainly served as the jamb between two large doors. Just such a post is to be seen in Flemish artist Jan Siberecht’s painting of a farmyard.67 The farmhouse

is thought to have been Lieutenant Kean, logic dictated that the building was divided into apartments for company employees. 66. Reid, p. 33, states that in England the average byre was 16´ in length and provided stabling for two pairs of oxen. It is possible that the unit flanking the byre could have served as a barn, in which case the dwelling may have been a single unit of hall and parlor with the barn between it and the byre. Such home-barn-byre structures are correctly termed “laithe houses.” 67. The painting is in the collection of the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels. See also I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 188.

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Illustration 14. Plan of the Company Compound. is post-built, thatched over a hip-ended roof, mudcovered between the uprights, with double doors at the byre end.68 The byre differs from the Wolstenholme example in that there appear to be matching doors on the opposite side. But like Structure D,

there is a domestic doorway at the opposite end of the side wall. Evidence for such an entrance into the Potter’s Yard is provided by an oval loam impression extending out from the sill slot that may well have seated a split-log doorstep.69

68. For a home-and-byre dwelling with its chimney at one end, the door beside it, and a hip-roof at the other end (all features of Structure D), see Reid, p. 33. The author pointed out that in this Welsh example it lacked the common ridge line characteristic of the traditional longhouses of Dartmoor. On the next page, however, he shows another Devonshire example that also

breaks the roof ridge at the junction of home and byre. 69. This impression was similar to the logmold (C.G. 3242B) found within the southeast flanker at the Fort, which is thought to have carried the weight of a small piece of artillery.

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Illustration 15. The Wolstenholme Towne site projected into the James River on the basis only of the submerged geology. The longhouse with byre is a plan of great antiquity and is still relatively common in Ireland. It became a characteristic of West Country yeoman’s architecture in the fifteenth century. Typical of the purely domestic longhouse or rowhouse was the 1612 cottage birthplace of the satirist Samuel Butler at Strensham, near Pershore. The Worcestershire home of a small farming family, the cottage was a post-built structure with a thatched lean-to at the rear. Long since destroyed, “Butler’s Cot” (as the villagers called it) lives on only in a nineteenth-century engraving that shows it to have been as close to the style of early Martin’s Hundred architecture as one is likely to find (Pl. 31).70

70. Gwynne Oakley, Old England: A Pictorial Museum (1845), vol. II, p. 220. 71. Although a stirrup was found in the Fort (Pt. II, Fig. 50, no. 8), a spur at Site B (Pt II, Fig. 80, no. 5), and another spur and two small horseshoes at Site A (Pt. II, Fig. 81, nos. 17–19), there is no documentation to indicate that Martin’s Hundred had horses. That there were horses in the colony by 1619 is indicated in an admittedly promotional letter from John Pory to his “singular good lorde” in which he said, “No lesse are our horses and mares likely to multiply, wch proove of a delicate shape, & of as good spirite & metall” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 221, September 30, 1619). The following year a Declara-

STRUCTURE E The southerly paled enclosure embraced both the byre doors and a single post-built unit, Structure E (Ill. 14), which, having no chimney, is interpreted as a store. However, having large doorway openings at each end, it might have been built as a stable had the settlement sufficient horses to warrant it.71 The building measures 25´ x 15´ with interrupting sills at both ends, but with the door-to-sill relationships reversed at each end. Five intermediate postholes ran along the south side, but only three were found to the north, one of them heavily burned. Two of these

tion of the State . . . in Virginia, printed in London, may have been drawing on Pory’s letter when it stated the following: “The Cattle which we have transported thither, (being now growne neere to five hundred) become much bigger of Body, then the breed from which they came: The horses also more beautifull and fuller of courage” (ibid., p. 309, June 22, 1620). John Smith noted that there had been six mares and a horse in the colony when he left in 1609 (Barbour, vol. II, pp. 232 and 326). No horses are listed at Martin’s Hundred in the 1624/25 muster. Although livestock is included in some of the listings, no horses are cited anywhere else in the colony.

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Plate 30. The excavated Company Compound seen from the south. The post-built store with its doors at either end is to be seen in the foreground. The dark circles in the foreground are believed to have been root disturbances, but the rectangular dark slot in the middle distance is the grave of the male massacre victim. The longhouse, with its back and front foundation-sill slots, is in the center, and to the far right of it the Potter’s Pond. three posts were set as though dividing the structure into three bays, and more or less matched the placement of corresponding posts on the south wall line, posts at east and west (the ends) there matching central intermediate posts. Those at the corners had measured ca. 9˝ in diameter, while the intermediate posts averaged 6˝. The postholes, however, exhibited no uniformity of shape or depth. Few artifacts were found in this area and none gave any clue to the building’s use.

STRUCTURE F A small four-post building measuring 7´6˝ x 4´6˝ was identified only as a shed, and stood between the longhouse’s exterior chimney and the edge of the

72. Structure B, a shed measuring approximately 30´ x 10´.

Potter’s Pond. Like most of the early Martin’s Hundred structures, the postholes were convincingly dug and the 4–6˝ molds were clearly visible.

STRUCTURE G Whereas most of the buildings were different in shape or size and unique in plan or post placement, Structure G seemed to have had a significant parallel at Jackson/Ward’s Site B.72 This long and thin structure, with one side supported only at the corners and the other with a central intermediate post, is believed to have been a drying shed for pottery fired in the easterly enclosure. Its similarity to the shed at Site B, where potter Thomas Ward lived, cannot be a coincidence, and the fact that fragments of a clay-domed

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Plate 31. A mid-nineteenth-century engraving of the cottage at Pershore in Worcestershire where Samuel Butler was born in 1612. The building may well be as a close a parallel for the kinds of dwelling erected during the Virginia Company period in Martin’s Hundred as one can hope to find. dwelling. Whether it was typical of Martin’s Hunkiln were found along with the wasters in the Potter’s dred’s tract housing or was unique unto itself Pond suggests that prior to the massacre Ward made remains anyone’s guess. Measuring 20´ x 15´, it can pottery in the enclosed yard behind the longhouse.73 Logic would suggest that having made a five-post, be considered a standard unit, although in truth it 30´-long drying shed before the massacre (Ward was paralleled only by a better-built two-bay house at arrived in 1621), he would have built another like it Site E. The Domestic Unit differed, too, in that it had adjacent to where he lived in the years after it. a three-post lean-to shed on its village-green side. An oval, driven-post fence (probably of wattle hurdles) enclosed the house at its rear (Pl. 32). The spacing pointed to gate openings at the dwelling’s northeast and southwest corners. The presence of a tree-root The Domestic Unit, system within that enclosure suggested that the fence ca. 1620–1622 had been erected around a shade tree and had been home to small livestock. There was, however, no more convincing proof that tree and fence had coexisted. STRUCTURE H Because the house had a central post at one end and two, 4´ apart, at the other, it is construed that Close to the eroding cliff on the east side of the the latter supported a cantilevered hooded chimney Wolstenholme Towne village green, Structure H was whose boxed shaft supported the ridge-pole at the the settlement’s only surviving freestanding “tenant” building’s landward (east) end. The spacing of the

73. For the kiln fragments, see Pt. II, Fig. 12, nos. 1–13. For wasters (as distinct from seconds), see Pt. II, Figs. 8, no. 5; and 11, no. 6.

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Plate 32. The Wolsteholme Domestic Unit after excavation, its oval fencing holes in the foreground and several of the graves visible beyond the house. More were found when the tree-line between site and cliff edge were removed. View from the northeast. See plan, Ill. 6. was intending to remain in Wolstenholme Towne earth-set posts along the north and south sides sugfor some time, suggesting that rather than being a gested that there had been a partition dividing the husbandman coming solely to engage in agriculbasic cell into two rooms, 13´ x 7´ and 13´ x 12´, the ture, the man of the house was a craftsman such as larger having the fireplace. The placement of the a carpenter, a joiner or a leather-worker who could posts also suggests matching doors at the north and ply his trade under the lean-to roof. south opening into the smaller of the rooms, which One problem facing all those of the middling may be construed as a cross-passage. Opening as it and lesser sort coming to Virginia at this time was does under the shed roof, one may deduce that the the desire of ship owners and leasers to cram the smaller area also served as work space.74 passengers into as small a space as possible in order This house was chosen for exhibition in model to leave room for supplies to be sold for profit in the Colony. This left little room for passengers’ form in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Musebaggage, which, in some cases, was limited to two um (Pl. 24), to which end curator Audrey Noël chests or barrels whose transportation cost was Hume prepared the following furnishing study, included in the charge for passage. Additional based on cottages of this assumed economic level in items would have been carried only at the same rate England: This study assumes that the house was occupied by a family unit with servants who had come to the Hundred prior to March 1622. By constructing the enclosing fence and adding the lean-to, the group

74. Unfortunately, no artifacts were found in the building to suggest its use.

as other cargo, and few of those coming to seek their fortunes in the New World could have afforded the additional cost. Ships sailing to Virginia carried little or nothing in the way of furniture except, perhaps, when their passengers were members of

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the Council or, in rare cases, when the ships were actually owned by the immigrants. The majority of newcomers relied either on furniture made in the colony by the available joiners, or they had to make their own. For that reason, by modern standards, a house such as Structure H would have been very sparsly furnished. One table was a necessity and would most likely have been of the trestle variety. Examination of a number of English inventories of this period indicates that such tables were most often described as square. Chairs were uncommon at this social level, but it is possible that the man and wife of the house would have had their own. Children and servants, however, would have used joint stools or “formes,” multiperson stools or benches. These last were generally planks with two pairs of splayed legs, a type frequently seen in Dutch genre paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several types of sleeping accommodations could reasonably be assumed to be in a house of this size and character. The master and his wife might have had a crude bedstead. In 1610, Sir Thomas Gates ordered the colonists to “set his bedstead wherupon he lieth, that it may stand three foote at least from the ground.”75 To save space a low bed known as a trundle bed could be stored under the main bed. Infants either shared their parents’ bed or were placed in cradles. Writing in 1577, William Harrison noted that servants and the very poor “have laid often upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet . . . and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow.”76 Thirty-five men sent to Virginia in 1618 were each given “a flocke bed and boulster a blankett and Covering.”77 In a single bedroom during a February 1626 weekend party at Martin’s Brandon plantation, Captain William Epes and Mrs. Alice Boyse of Charles City shared a bed, while another reveller, Captain John Huddlestone “layd himselfe downe uppon a chest the stood by the beds side close by ye said Mrs Boise.” Disturbed by “a great buffleing and juggling of the bed,” Huddlestone went and lay beside John Croodicke, mariner, who was sleeping on the floor by the fireside.78 For most of Virginia’s early settlers the chests in which their possessions had traveled were probably their only furniture during the first weeks of life in the Colony. Although as furniture chests were declining in popularity among the more affluent, they remained the basic storage furniture among the poorer classes. Chests came in many shapes and sizes, ranging from the flat-topped blanket chest to iron-bound “pirates’” coffers and simple wooden boxes. Many settlers shipped their goods (especially their weapons) in barrels and these, too, would not

have been out of place in a small house, and are not uncommon in Dutch genre painting wherein they are shown cut down into stools or upturned as tables capped by square boards.79 There being no archaeological evidence for the floor in Structure H, it is best to consider what a similar dwelling in England could have had in the same period. Tiled or stone floors were the rule for the wealthy; wood in the form of wide planks was used by the middle classes, while, for the poor, especially the rural poor, puddled clay was the norm:

75. Audrey Noël Hume’s reference source not found. 76. Harrison, p. 201. 77. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 96, Meeting of a Committee for Smythe’s Hundred, May 18, 1618. 78. McIlwaine, p. 140, court of February 19, 1626/27. 79. E.g., two paintings in the Wallace Collection by David

Teniers the Younger: A Riverside Inn and A Gambling Scene at an Inn; and another, no. 636 in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Phildephia Museum of Art, A Kitchen Interior by Willem Kalf (1619–1693). 80. Audrey Noël Hume attributed this quote to “a sixteenthcentury writer,” but was no more specific.

the floors are commonly of clay strewn with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments of bones, spittle, excrement of dogs and cats, and everything that is nasty.80 Although carpets were routinely imported into England from the East during the late sixteenth century, they were not used on floors but as wall hangings and table covers, except on the rare occasions that royalty and people of high social standing were visiting. It is not impossible, however, that at Structure H Indian mats would have been used both on floors, hanging on interior walls and as room dividers, for there was a ready trade in both mats and baskets with the neighboring tribes. The only lighting appliance to be found in the Martin’s Hundred house would have been a rushlight holder, for at that time candles would have been imported from England and, therefore, too expensive for all but the more affluent colonists. Unlike New England, there is no evidence either documentary or archaeological for the use of oil lamps in this period. Most important among the cooking vessels would have been an iron kettle or cauldron, and most households had one or more. As well as heating most foodstuffs, kettles hung over the fire on a chain heated all the household water. A long-handled frying pan was among the kitchen’s principal tools (Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 1) and so was a gridiron, of which four were represented among finds from the Martin’s Hundred excavations (e.g., Pt. II, Figs. 43, no. 1; and 74, no. 1). Three-legged earthenware pipkins were commonly used in fireplace cooking, and fragments of many have been found in the Hundred, most of them of local manufacture (e.g., Pt. II, Fig. 6, nos. 1–10). Such pots were either stood in the hot ashes or sometimes were raised on an iron frame called a brandreth. Other common kitchen equipment included long-handled flesh hooks, iron ladles and spoons, a pestle and mortar (either stone or bell metal), a cleaver (e.g., Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 4), and a number of treen spoons of

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

various sizes that survived only at the bottoms of moisture- and atmospherically stable wells. Glass bottles were of the square or case variety (e.g., Pt. II, Fig. 36, nos. 1–5) and were common on most Martin’s Hundred sites, but drinking glasses were rare and one would not expect to find them in Structure H. Drinking vessels were most commonly of lead-glazed earthenware and came either as bulbous mugs or as tall tygs (Pt. II, Figs. 17, nos. 2–3; and 30, no. 4). Horn cups also were much used in this period, though none has survived in Martin’s Hundred. Absent, too, were traces of treen trenchers, though they would have been in common use in a house of this modest status. Ceramic plates and dishes in English delftware, Portuguese faience, and north Italian marblized slipwares were imported but would not have been used at the bottom of the social ladder. Water would have been drawn from the nearby Site H spring and carried home in rope-handled wood buckets. At least one tub (another use for cutdown barrels) would have been needed for washing one’s clothes and now and again oneself. Tools of the occupant’s trade would have been kept indoors to protect them both from the elements and from light-fingered Indians. These tools could have included hoes, axes, scythes, spades, and handsaws (Pt. II, Figs. 58, nos. 1–5; 65, nos. 1–8; and 73, nos. 1–3), along with such small items as planes, trowels, bits, files, and sharpening stones (e.g., Pt. II, Fig. 65, no. 10). Documentary evidence for the arms common to most Virginia households in this period is provided in part by the 1624/25 muster, and by listings of equipment sent to several plantations. English inventories are unhelpful because individual households had no expectation of having to defend themselves. At times of national need (e.g., the 1588 Spanish invasion attempt) the able men drew on arms and armor owned by the parish.81 In Virginia, a household living in a cottage of comparable size to Structure H would have possessed muskets, swords, and “armours” that probably comprised a back- and breastplate (cuirass), and a “pot” helmet or cabasset of the type found in 1994 at Jamestown.82 A musket might have been hung on a wall along with the sword; the armor kept in a chest; and the gunpowder stored sealed in an ozierbound budge barrel and most likely kept in the attic sleeping quarter, that being the dryest part of the house. A small supply would be kept to hand in a charge-measuring powder flask (Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 3) or in a leather bag.83

81. One such armor collection survives in the porch chamber of the Church of St. Mary at Mendlesham, Suffolk, and ranges in date from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. The motley nature of the collection demonstrates, as no document can, the assortment of parts that could be assembled to create a half suit. In some cases the arm defenses are German and date back to the late 15th century. Thus there is no cause for surprise when the helmet from the Fort well is found to be put together from elements of different dates. 82. Illustrated in I. Noël Hume, “All Ashore at Jamestown,” p.

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The Barn, ca. 1620–1622 STRUCTURE J The discovery of Structure H gave some shape to Wolstenholme Towne that would not have emerged had only the Fort and Company Compound been found. Finding a large treehole 150´ from the Fort gate prompted archaeologist Klingelhofer to deduce that the tree had been the basis for the settlement’s geometry (Ill. 15). Recalling that several Ulster plantation villages were laid out having their bawn entrances at the end of the center line down the village green, and finding that the distance from the Fort’s southern gate measured 150´ from the survey tree, Dr. Klingelhofer hypothesized that a matching building line should be found on the other side of the green (the northeasterly side) at the 150´ mark. He developed his thesis late in the 1978 season, leaving only enough time to begin to strip the overburden in that northwesterly direction. In doing so he found three large postholes running in the right direction (toward the river) but 164´6˝ from the Fort instead of the hoped-for 150´. This seemed to torpedo the central gate theory—at least it did until the spring of 1979 when the “three post” area was further explored and it was found that the posts marked the center line of the structure and not its green-fronting wall. The building (Structure J; Ill. 9) proved to measure 45´ x 29´, meaning that half its width carried the green-facing wall line 14´6˝ to the southeast and, therefore, to the 150´ mark. That this should be so seems to transcend mere coincidence and gives credence to Eric Klingelhofer’s belief that Wolstenholme Towne was a planned community that owed its shape to new villages in Ulster developed by the English and Scots-Irish in the Plantation Period.84 Unlike the Northern Irish parallels, the Wolstenholme Towne plan was not laid out at right angles to the Fort’s controlling baseline. Instead both sides tapered toward the river at 83˚ angles. The question, of course, was why? An answer (if not the answer) was proffered by the discovery of the head of a silted ravine at the cliff’s edge on approximately the same line as Structure J,

32. 83. Audrey Noël Hume, “The Seventeenth-century Interior Appearance of the Domestic Unit” (1988); slightly edited and amended since her death. 84. The Fort gate and village centerline relationship can be compared to that of the plan for the Anglo-Irish settlement at Macosquin in Ulster’s Co. Londonderry ca. 1610; see I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 238. The plan is in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Tailors in London.

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which by now had been labeled the Barn. The inference, therefore, was that the flat land of the Wolstenholme green tapered toward the river, flanked both upstream and down (the latter the Site H draw) by river-reaching ravines. It made sense, too, that the company barn should have straight access to the river and to the boats carrying away the produce for shipment to England. In an attempt to determine whether the upstream ravine could be traced in the riverbed and to try to locate the ca. 1620 waterfront and the distance since lost to erosion, a team of archaeological divers from the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, led by archaeologist David Hazzard, undertook a threeweek offshore survey in June 1979. The resulting report stated that “Attempts to ascertain the offshore extent of Wolstenholme Towne through analysis of period artifact distributions in the riverbed was frustrated by the absence of datable cultural material”— meaning that nobody found anything. The geological data was somewhat more encouraging in that it showed a spread of fossil shell extending outward from the shore in front of the Wolstenholme green but absent in a broadening area consistent with the lie of the upstream ravine. Geologist Dr. John Zeigler from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, using documented erosion data from up and down the James River, deduced that the annual erosion rate at Carter’s Grove could account for a loss of between 360´ and 430´ since 1620, or about half the village site. Due to the long gestation period needed by the National Geographic editors and their contracts with artists, the information supplied to them for their second article on Martin’s Hundred was assembled while the excavations were still in progress and before the true character of Structure J had been determined. Consequently Richard Schlecht’s fine painting of Wolstenholme Towne before the 1622 attack (Pl. 6) shows the barn as having longitudinal walls rising 5´ or 6´ to the roofline.85 The structure’s remains had been severely damaged by modern plowing and postcolonial ditching that sliced across the building, eradicating several of the barely discernible postmolds. There was posthole and -mold evidence for a 4´6˝ doorway at the landward end, but only the central post at the southwest (river) end, which taken at face value would suggest that there had been no opening facing the river. This seems highly unlikely, and one can only deduce that now-lost framing had accommodated large barn

doors hinging on the central post. The side postmolds or impressions extended an average 1a–2˝ into the subsoil, and when excavated those of both sides were found to angle toward the centerline. This knowledge, coupled with the absence of any corner posts necessary for conventional framing, indicated that the structure was a simple, albeit massive, Aframe whose rafters rested against the ridge-pole and stood in shallow pockets in the ground. In later renderings, artist Schlecht depicted this more accurate interpretation (Pl. 23 and Ill. 7). Inside, the building seems to have been divided longitudinally, there being intermediate (and less deep) postholes on the same line between the main, 6–9˝ ridge-supporting posts. A very shallow and indistinct feature centered 5´ from the center post suggested that a door may have existed there, dividing the north side of the interior from the south. Only one artifact of consequence was found in the area of the barn, namely the pan and cover from a matchlock musket.86 These normally were welded to the gun’s barrel and could be removed only with considerable force. This suggests (a) that a matchlock had been converted to a snaphaunce or flintlock mechanism, or (b) that muskets, too numerous and heavy to carry by fleeing colonists after the massacre, had their pans struck off to prevent them from being of use to the enemy. Unfortunately there are no known references to the Wolstenholme Barn, and although there is now little doubt about its A-frame shape, nothing has been learned about its function. It remains an undeniable fact, however, that some large structure was needed to store the Hundred’s exportable crops temporarily, and this was both large and of a design appropriate to a place of storage but to nothing else. The possibility that the Structure J was the church known to have existed (at least in part) at the time of the massacre 87 was carefully reviewed. Both its absence of side walls and the fact that it was not oriented due east–west rendered such an interpretation extremely unlikely. Just how widely spread were the settlers of Martin’s Hundred at the time of the massacre remains anyone’s guess. It is a fact, nonetheless, that land within a quarter- to half-mile of the core settlement seems to have been occupied from an early date, suggesting that the Fort at Wolstenholme Towne was perceived as a necessary refuge. By extension one may argue that at the outset new arrivals would have lodged in the village itself. If that was so, then more buildings

85. Ivor Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” National Geographic, vol. CLXI, no. 1 (1982), pp. 55 and 72. 86. Pt. II, Fig. 49, no. 11. This is from the barn-crossing ditch and must be considered a disturbed item. One small tobaccopipe fragment and several nails were the only finds from the three large postholes, none of which contributed dating infor-

mation beyond the fact that none were visibly inconsistent with a construction date in the brief Wolstenholme Towne period, ca. 1620–1622. 87. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 41, Richard Frethorne to Mr. Bateman: “and of all theyr houses there is butt 2 lefte and a peece of a Church.”

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

have been lost to river erosion than the surviving remains suggest. In sum, the discovered remains of Martin’s Hundred’s administrative center comprised three struc-

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tures inside the Fort (A, B, and C), four more in the Company Compound (D, E, F, and G), the Domestic Unit (H), and the Barn (J).

Site D STRUCTURE A This small house site lies in a field to the east of Site H (the Boyse Site) and was known to the crew as the “delft site” (Ill. 16). Testing there by supervisor William Kelso in 1971 had unearthed part of a manganese-stippled delftware salt of considerable rarity and part of a polychrome-decorated delftware charger.88 These, and several other finds from the testing, led the team to believe that Site D would be immensely artifact-rich. However, excavation would prove otherwise. The artifacts came from a large trash-and-clay-filled pit south of a six-post structure (Pl. 33) that contained both imported and locally made ceramics attributable to the second quarter of the seventeenth century.89 Of these, the most significant was a bulbous mug of local manufacture containing a considerable concentration of glaze, sealed within which were three beads of lead shot of comparable size to that found in a musket barrel in Wolstenholme Towne’s Company Compound, which was thought to have been a store of lead used by the potter. The presence of this mug suggested that the site might date as early as the premassacre years.90 However, the other artifacts suggested a later date.91 The pit measured 3´5˝ to its heavily silted bottom, the latter suggesting that, having been dug, it was left open for some time and therefore was not created as a reposi-

88. Pt. II, Fig. 17, nos. 12 and 11 respectively. 89. C.G. 3501A–D; P. II, Fig. 17. 90. An upturned-rimmed chafing dish sherd (Pt. II, Fig. 17, no. 6) from the pit almost certainly was made by the Hundred’s potter prior to the massacre.

tory for trash. A gently sloping tail at the pit’s north end was reminiscent of the large cattle pond in the Fort, and it seems probable, therefore, that this pit was created as a watering place for livestock. Site D’s lone building measured 25´ x 15´ and had well-defined postholes and -molds (for 5–6˝ posts) only at its narrow ends. That all six holes were deep enough to have survived plowing made it unlikely that other intermediate posts along the longitudinal sides had been eradicated by the farming. Two irregular holes that were thought to be root holes were found close to the central posts, one inside the structure and another outside it in approximately the same relationship. In spite of these holes having been dismissed as natural intrusions, the possibility exists that one or both had something to do with wattle chimneys. The structure’s northwest corner postmold92 was found to be leaning inward toward the center line at a 40˚ angle, as it would if the building was constructed in the same manner as the Wolstenholme Barn (Pl. 34). Because none of the other corner posts could be seen to be leaning, it is safer to conclude that the northwest corner post fell inward when the building collapsed. This overly simple structure is markedly at variance with the ceramic evidence from the pit, which, although the fragments were few in number, represented types found on the home sites of people of consequence in the Hundred. This dicotomy cannot be explained.

91. Ivor Noël Hume, Early English Delftware from London and Virginia (1977), p. 34, pl. 24, no. 1, and color pl. facing p. 36, puts the delftware salt to ca. 1640. 92. C.G. 3504A and B.

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Illustration 16. Plan of Site D.

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Plate 33. Site D seen from the west. The large Pit A is visible in the center background.

Site E STRUCTURE A First located during the 1970 survey, the principal feature of this site, which lies inland from Wolstenholme Towne and west of the Harwood plantation (Site A), was a simple, two-bay building represented by six clearly defined postholes and -molds. Together

they represented a building measuring 20´ x 15´ (Ill. 17). A report to the National Geographic Society in the spring of 1979 described the location as on the ridge extending westward from the large, ditch-enclosed domestic complex of Site A. Furthermore, both Site E and the easterly Site B [Jackson/Ward] could be seen as flankers, perhaps in

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Plate 34. The sectioned hole and mold for a Site D structure post, the angled mold suggesting a grounded rafter akin to those of the Wolstenholme Barn. Because the rest of the building’s molds were vertical, however, this must be seen as the product of the post falling inward when the building was destroyed. some respects dependent on the large and presumably dominent [sic] occupancy of Site A.

In a 1625 letter Martin’s Hundred settler Robert Addames (or Adams) wrote that William Harwood and his servants “dwell in the mydest [of] Mr. Emmerson and my selfe one ech syde so that Mr. Harwood thoughe your servants under his charge are but few may walke in safety from his house to ye store.”93 It is clear, therefore, that the dwellings and acres of Robert Addames and Ellis Emerson flanked the governor’s plantation. In the light of current archaeological knowledge we have Site E to the west and Site B (Jackson/Ward) to the east. This conclusion is based in part on the discovery of ceramic waste behind the single large dwelling on Site B (Structure A), which is assumed to be the residue of work by “Thomas Ward pottmaker,” and in part on the knowledge that in the 1624/25 muster Robert Adams was listed as having “Houses,

93. Ransome, MS 1491, Robert Addames to Nicholas or John Ferrar, June 16, 1625. 94. Acceptance of this thesis also requires one to accept that five people lived in the 20´ x 15´ house: Emerson; Ann, his wife; a son Thomas, aged 11; and two servants, Thomas Goulding (26) and Martin Slatier (20). This last came from Canada and probably was French (Jester, pp. 45–46). 95. C.G. 4020A. 96. C.G. 4012A; found at the edge of the excavated area 36´ east of the house. The larger sherd (Pt. II, Fig. 17, no. 8) was recovered from Pit A to the south at the opposite corner of the site and 34´ from the house.

2,” whereas Jackson had but one, as did Ellis Emerson. Using this reasoning, it can be suggested that Adams lived in the unexcavated field to the north of Harwood’s plantation, and that Emerson was the 1625 occupier of Site E.94 Although several holes (post/root) were found around the house, the only defined fenceline proved to be oriented to the eighteenth-century Carter’s Grove slave quarter that lies to the north, which has been omitted from the Martin’s Hundred-period archaeological plans. The dwelling’s measurements are paralleled by those of the Domestic Unit in Wolstenholme Towne, but its clearly defined two-bay character visually associates it with three such structures on the adjacent Site A (Structures A, B, and C-1). In the absence of archaeological evidence to the contrary, a building date after rather than before the massacre seems likely. The muster is supportive, listing the Emerson family as having come to Virginia aboard the George in 1623, at the time that the Martin’s Hundred survivors were picking up the pieces. With that said, it must be noted that a single tobacco-pipe bowl was found in the dwelling’s north-central postmold, 95 and in theory got there after the house was destroyed. Current, but not necessarily reliable, wisdom would place this somewhere in the second quarter of the seventeenth century although, by that reasoning, ca. 1625 is acceptable—but so, too, would be 1645. Three pits were found in the vicinity, not together but east, west, and south of the dwelling, suggesting that the holes were created by the removal of trees. A small fragment of a slipware dish akin to the 1631 examples from Site B was found in Pit A and another of similar character came from a small treehole.96 Also from Pit A was a large fragment from a greenglazed earthenware pan of incredibly poor quality that has to be of local manufacture, having been “tinkered,” as Josiah Wedgwood referred to the repairing of seconds. This failed repair, coupled with the discovery of ashes and burnt daub in a second pit,97 could be interpreted as showing that Thomas Ward, the neighboring potter, came over at some time and tried to show Emerson’s servants how to pot. Ashes and small fragments of burnt daub found in two of

97. Tinkered pan: Pt. II, Fig. 18, no. 1.Pit B, C.G. 4010A. Three postholes were associated with this pit, one at each end, their purpose unknown. A third, 1´6˝ in diameter and 2´6˝ deep, was found sealed beneath the otherwise shallow pit’s fill. Several links of mail were found near the top of this feature, in an ashy layer (C.G. 4010E) sealing the most southerly of the postholes. The same layer yielded a rim sherd from a southern English (Surrey?) pipkin in a pale buff ware coated internally with apple green glaze. Sherds of the same sort were found at Site A, further suggesting a relationship between the two homesteads. The Site E rim (Pt. II, Fig. 18, no. 9) is characteristic of the first quarter of the 17th century.

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

Illustration 17. Plan of Site E.

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Plate 35. The Site B dwelling after excavation. The block at the far end represents the remains of the hearth, and beyond it the kneeling figure is working on the infant’s grave. View from the north. the dwelling’s postmolds, however, can point to the building’s destruction by fire. Although artifacts from Site E were scarce (with the exception of the badly made pan), they ran a

gamut comparable to finds from the adjacent Harwood site. On the basis of these and the character of the dwelling itself, one must assign the site’s lifespan to between ca. 1623 and 1640.

Site B

Among the most productive of all the Martin’s Hundred sites yet discovered, Site B revealed only

one building, but it was large—the biggest of all the single domestic structures, measuring 44´ x 22´ (Pl. 35). Its posthole pattern pointed to its having a central ridge pole–supported roof, while the discovery of a heavily burned clay hearth area at the dwelling’s southwest corner indicated the presence of an offcenter chimney.98 The central intermediate posthole and -mold on the building’s east side revealed a second postmold within the same hole. This can be interpreted as two

98. A bed of clay 1a˝ thick had been laid to create the hearth. A tobacco-pipe bowl found in the clay and clearly contempo-

rary with its deposition pointed to a date within the brackets 1620–1640. It is significant that although the hearth is unequiv-

The Jackson/Ward Site, ca. 1623–1640 STRUCTURE A

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Illustration 18. Plan of Site B showing its principal features and omitting insignificant root holes. abutting posts, one perhaps relating to a door or window opening, or alternatively as evidence of rebuilding. As a rule, however, a replacement post would be seated in its own hole.99 Perhaps readable as a fourbay building, only the principal posts (i.e., at the corners and at the center) were deep set and clearly defined, thus dividing the house into two equal elements 18´ in length (Ill. 18). Other clearly defined postholes and -molds were found at the dwelling’s southwest corner, outside its western median post and north of the northwest corner.100 More or less on the building’s internal centerline was another small posthole and -mold101 ca. 7´ north of the south wall’s central post. One would be tempted to dismiss them as unexplained were it not for the possibility that others may find comparable patterns that can benefit from this evidence.

ocally identified and a wall impression of part of the back was found in the clay, no chimneys were encountered to support the stack. Thus it is reasonable to argue (as one must at Site E, for example) that the absence of postholes does not presuppose that there had not been a chimney. 99. A classic example of successive postholes supporting the same building was provided at the Littleton (Pettus) Plantation at modern Kingsmill in James City County, Virginia, where the complex was attributed to the period ca. 1640–1690. See Cary

STRUCTURE B Site B’s second structure stood askew 5´ from the east face of the house, and was almost certainly a work shed akin to the comparable building in Site C’s Company Compound. The latter measured 30´ x 8´6˝ and that at Site B 30´ x 10´. Both were open along one side and supported on the closed side only by a single central post. There is every reason to believe that both structures were used by potter Thomas Ward as drying sheds for newly thrown pottery. A little disconcerting, however, is the curiously asymmetrical placement of the shed in relation to the dwelling. If they coexisted one would have expected them to be at right angles to each other. Nevertheless the overlying stratigraphy suggested that both dwelling and shed were destroyed together.

Carson et al., “Impermanent Architecture in the Southern American Colonies,” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. XVI, nos. 2/3 (1981), p. 157, fig. 9. 100. C.G. 2132C, 2082 K/Y, and 2131 D/E respectively. The first (2132C) was of special interest in that it contained a wellpreserved snaphaunce lock (Pt. II, Fig. 72, no. 15) thrust into the hole on end. 101. C.G. 2079K/M.

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Illustration 19. Plan of Site B showing the ceramic distribution by excavation square and not by individual plotting. Because Site B proved to have survived more or less undisturbed (save for ditches caused by logging), several tests were conducted to try to determine whether artifact and soil content distribution patterns would have anything useful to contribute and whether or not our collecting procedures were adequate for the job. Although artifacts were stored by stratum and by excavation square number, they were not plotted precisely within each square. Because one can do no better than to record what was found in each square, the distribution patterns are stylized approximations. Illustration 19 shows the distribution of ceramics and is thought significant in that very few fragments of anything were found actually within the area of the household. Soil samples were submitted to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute to isolate phosphates, calcium, magnesium, and potash, and to establish the pH factor for the area. The phosphate distribution seems to avoid the dwelling, but a massive area of calcium covered most of the building (Ills. 20 and 21). The shed, on the other hand, was below average in both phosphates and calcium. The soil testing at Site B was the only exercise of its kind attempted on the Martin’s Hundred sites, and although (as stated above) the samples were too few to be definitive, the experiment was worth the effort and the time devoted to it. Whether a 90% increase in the sample size would

102. The samples being few in number, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute very kindly provided the analyses without charge.

have warranted the recording time and the subsequent cost of the analysis is open to speculation.102 Samples from the A layer (the stratum immediately below the topsoil) were taken throughout the site, drawing them from the center of each 10´ grid square. This methodology was established at a very early stage in the Site B excavation, before it was realized that critical differences might exist between one side of a grid square and another. Thus, for example, it soon became apparent that many more artifacts were being found to the east of the north–south ditch than to the west of it (Ill. 19). Clearly, therefore, there was a behavioral difference between activities east and west of the ditch. Consequently it would have been much more informative to take multiple samples on either side of the ditch throughout those squares through which it passed. In spite of these limitations the results of the analyses had something useful to say—even if we did not fully comprehend what it was. The readings were based on the norm or median for agricultural land in the area. They did not distinguish between modern anomalies (such as the growth and decay of acidic trees) and seventeenthcentury rubbish distribution. Nevertheless, as Illustration 20 shows, the phosphate distribution suggests a corridor running in a northeast–southwest direction, which supports the visual assumption that the gar-

WHERE THEY LIVED, WORKED, FENCED, AND SOMETIMES HID

Illustration 20. Plan of Site B showing the phosphate distribution based on samples taken from the center of each square.

Illustration 21. Plan of Site B showing the calcium distribution based on samples taken from the center of each square.

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bage was being transported away from the house to the northeast as well as to a lesser degree westerly toward the adjacent ravine. From this evidence one might deduce that a back door was situated close to the middle of the dwelling’s east wall and that there were two others in the west wall. As noted above, the calcium chart (Ill. 21) shows a massive concentration in the area of the house itself and extending away from the same two openings in the west wall suggested by the phosphate distribution. The potash distribution (not illustrated), on the other hand, placed concentrations over the dwelling’s hearth and over the site’s premier pit feature (A). It can be argued that the ceramic distribution (Ill. 19) can be interpreted so as to arrive at the same conclusions; but that is true only up to a point. Although the presence of locally made earthenwares extended away from the dwelling’s southwest corner, endorsing the premise of the most southerly of the two west wall openings, artifacts were not supportive of that wall’s northerly door (or window) suggested by the soil analyses. Not strictly a structure, but possibly the seating and flue for one, is Site B’s artifact-rich feature, Pit A. Although shaped like a small kiln, the absence of

scorching at the sides or any discrete concentration of wood ash at its bottom prevented any such claim. However, several no less distinctly identified pits found during excavations on the site of a moated house at Wintringham in England’s Huntingdonshire have been identified as corn-drying kilns. 103 These features, however, were much older, dating as they did from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. Nevertheless, the shapes of the pits are evident parallels for the Site B pit. Although the absence of burning of the clay interior was evidence that the pit had been little used, if at all, the presence of ashes in the primary deposit, as well as more mixed in the overlying clay, are evidence of this pit having had some heat-generating function.104 Because we now know that potmaker Thomas Ward lived, and presumably worked, on or near this site, it is tempting to insist that Pit A was in reality the foundation for his pottery kiln105—a feature absent from the waster-rich Potter’s Pond in Wolstenholme Towne. Although test cuts were dug extending away from the core of Site B, they yielded virtually nothing. But that does not mean that there is nothing more to be found in the vicinity of the Site B dwelling.

Site A

The most varied and extensive complex yet found in the Hundred, Site A seems to have begun with a nucleus of three two-bay buildings of identical size, to

wit: 20´ x 18´. The 1624/25 muster cited Harwood as having that number of houses for six people: Harwood himself, and six servants—Hugh Hughs, who had come over with the original Martin’s Hundred settlers aboard the Gift of God in 1619; his wife, Ann, who joined him at the end of 1622, having sailed aboard the ill-fated Abigail; with her came Thomas Doughtie, aged 26, and John Hasley, 22; and two more came in other ships: Samuel Weaver, 20, and, inexplicably, Elizabeth Bygrave, who was only 12 in 1625 and had been previously listed among those living in the Hundred in February 1623.106 Little can be said of the three houses, the six postholes for each giving no hint as to the placement of doors or windows; and only in one was there any indication of a chimney (Ill. 3). Thus Structure B may have differed slightly from the other two in that two small posts in a single hole at its east end may

103. Maurice Beresford, “Excavation of a Moated House at Wintringham in Huntingdonshire,” Archaeological Journal, vol. CXXXIV (1977), pp. 241–245. 104. The primary ash layer V is numbered (C.G. 2115F) and IV as “loam with ash” (2115E) above it. Because the pit was rich in broken tobacco pipes, it was excavated in two parts, all the pipe-stem fragments being separated by stratum (a half at a time) to test the validity of pipe-stem dating. See p. 214.

105. It does not follow, however, that the kiln at the Company Compound had any such subsurface feature. The modern parallel at Uxmal in Mexico lacked any underground flue or fire box. 106. It is possible that others listed in the muster as family or household units were actually residing on Harwood’s acres. Thus the February 1623 list of the living in Martin’s Hundred gives the name of Samuel March immediately following that of

The Har wood Plantation, ca. 1623–1645 Because the site believed to have been the home of Governor William Harwood is thought to have been occupied later than most others, it is here discussed last—although its “A” designation was occasioned by its having been found and excavated first (Pl. 2).

STRUCTURES A, B, AND C

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have been all that was left of a wattle-and-daub chimney. At this structure’s west end there were two holes (without visible postmolds) that might have supported posts carrying a jutting thatched roof over an entrance. Two intermediate postholes were found slightly inward from the wall line, which may have carried the framing for an interior partition 6´ from the west wall line. Narrow though this room would have been, it is not without English parallels, where contemporary plans identify them as butteries and sometimes as a washhouse.107 Conventional architectural wisdom tends to accept the evolutionary premise that as time went by, domestic structures were increasingly well built. But this is not always so,108 and Structure C-1/2 at Site A is the proof of it. There the original, presumably wellbuilt, two-bay dwelling was increased to double its original size by the addition of an abutting earthfast cell (18´ x 20´) and behind it a lean-to shed measuring 7´ x 22´. Pairs of postholes with molds representing doorways109 provided egress through the building from west to east, and were located at the centerline of the addition. The mold for the northwest doorway post was found to contain a fragment of the actual post 1´3a˝ in length, later identified as black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) trunkwood.110 Clues to the quality and character of the Site A dwellings (Pl. 36) were frustratingly elusive. There was no evidence of fire, no scatter of burnt daub or strewn nails, and such hints as were forthcoming were not found in the immediate vicinity of the three houses (Ill. 22). An incomplete clay roofing tile was found in a rubbish pit southeast of the building complex. Made from local clay with greenish-to-orange

lead glaze on its underside (where no glaze should be), this tile had been used in a kiln that had fired the most elaborate object of Virginia manufacture and of so earlier a date (ca. 1630) yet found, namely a distiller’s alembic.111 Both tile and alembic were found close to each other in the pit, and may have been joined by the glaze when thrown away. It is reasonable to deduce, therefore, that Thomas Ward made the tile as well as the alembic.112 It may also be construed that the availability of locally made roofing tiles for potters’ kiln props implied that other such tiles were available to serve their primary function. A second tile fragment, this time of Dutch delftware decorated in cobalt with a male figure and a characteristic oxhead corner, is of a type common in the 1640s.113 Found in the filling of Structure D but lacking any attached mortar, it is impossible to be sure whether this fragment comes from a destroyed building or was discarded as broken when other tiles were being installed. The third clue to architecturally related artifacts was fragments of turned window lead whose recess contained the inscription “Iohn: Byshopp of Exceter Gonner: 1625.”114 Although the date provides a terminus post quem for the abandonment of Structure D, it does not indicate the date at which the window was installed. Instead it provides the name, place of work, and date of casting of the brass wheel used in the vise by means of which the original cast cames were drawn out into turned lead by the glazier (Pl. 37). It seems likely (though unproven) that John Byshopp’s vise remained in England and that preassembled windows were shipped to Virginia (Pl. 38). Bishopp, whose vise identifies him as a “gonner” (i.e., gunmak-

Harwood and before Hughs and his wife, but in the muster he is not shown to have a house among his assets. It is unclear how the list of the living was compiled. Jackson and Ward (of Site B) follow March, and John Stevans (or Stephens), who in the muster is listed as a servant of Jackson’s, follows Ward. Then comes Humphrey Walden, who in the muster is cited as a servant in the household of Robert Adams and Augustine Leak, although Adams was not resident in the Hundred in the 1623 listing. Nor is Leak, although he may be the cited Mr. Lake. Not until Walden was safely on the list did the compiler add Harwood’s servants, Doughtie, Hasley, and Weaver. Equally inexplicable is the absence of Hugh Hughs’s wife Ann from the 1623 list of the living, for she is named in the muster as having come aboard the Abigail, which docked in December 1622. 107. Plan of Boot House, Marden, drawn in 1753, “Wash hous 6 by 14 foot” (Elizabeth Melling, Kentish Sources V: Some Kentish Houses [1965], p. iii). Also plan and elevation of Wichling Court Lodge drawn in 1751, with “small bere butery 8 foot” at one end (ibid., pp. 14–15). In both examples the narrow room has a central exterior entrance. 108. Excavations at Mathews Manor near Denbigh on the Warwick River (a tributary of the James) revealed a brick foundationed frame dwelling, its walls infilled with nogging and trowel rusticated plaster believed to have been built ca. 1625. To the north of this evidently handsome building stood a larger earthfast dwelling, some of whose postholes were packed with rusti-

cated plaster fragments and other debris from the “manor house” and so post-dating it; see Ivor Noël Hume, Historical Archaeology (1969), p. 133, fig. 20, and pp. 228–229, fig. 33a. 109. 2´6˝, 2´3˝, and 2´ respectively from west to east, suggesting that the principal entrance to the dwelling faced west onto a courtyard area south of Structure B. It may, perhaps, be argued that Harwood lived there until the Structure C-2 extension was built. 110. The fragment was identified by Dr. Regis B. Miller, botanist at the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Wood Anatomy Research, who noted the durability of such wood. In section the fragment measured 3a˝ x 2˝ and was found in the northwest corner of the mold (correspondence, Dec. 9, 1976). 111. Tile: Pt. II, Fig. 28, no. 4; alembic: Fig. 28, no. 6. 112. Although the cohabiting John Jackson was identified as a bricklayer, there is no evidence that he was also a brick and tile maker. 113. Pt. II, Fig. 34, no. 11. Dingeman Korf, Dutch Tiles (1964), p. 121, no. 298, puts tiles depicting trades (which this may be) into the second half of the 17th century. There is, however, no evidence that the filling of Structure D was later than ca. 1640. 114. Geoff Egan, Susan D. Hanna, and Barry Knight, “Marks on Milled Window Leads,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. XX (1986), pp. 303–309.

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Plate 36. Site A as it may have looked around the time of census taking in 1624/25. Painting by Richard Schlecht. er), evidently went on to a better location. In January 1631/32 King Charles I appointed John Bisshopp to be the royal “handgunmaker.”115 The presence of the window lead is clear evidence of the use of glazed windows in at least one post-1625 building at Site A. As for the glass itself, the similarity between sherds from square glass bottles (e.g., Pt. II, Fig. 36) and broken window glass is so close as to make them indistinguishable.

STRUCTURE D The most enigmatic of all the Martin’s Hundred buildings, Structure D had been a two-bay unit with smaller, intermediate posts between the larger pairs.

115. Mark C. Fissel, “The Identity of John Biship, Gunner,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol. LXVIII, no. 274 (1990), pp. 138–139.

Structure D measured 18´ x 17´, and its components were not far removed from those of the three dwellings A, B, and C. Furthermore, its east exterior building line was sited on the same traverse as the west face of Structure C-1/2. However, it differed from all others by being (or appearing to be) semisubterranean (Pl. 39). All the posts were seated in holes within the excavated cellar area dug 4´ into the natural clay, with the principal posts carried to a further depth of 1´10˝, a process that removed in excess of 1,360 cubic feet of clay—clay that may have been used in constructing the walls of the three dwellings. The holes for the six posts were the largest series found on any Martin’s Hundred site, being ca. 3´ square, with the molds within them 5–8˝ square.116 The ground into which the cellar was dug sloped to the east toward the ravine separating it from Site

116. This large feature was excavated by the quadrant method, i.e., removing alternate squares to preserve the stratigraphy both north–south and east–west: C.G. 1760, 1764, 1770, and 1771.

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Illustration 22. Diagrammatic treatment of the Site A structures (lettered) showing (a) the interrelationships revealed by the crossmending of ceramic and glass fragments, and (b) the less direct connections provided by the distribution of identically marked tobacco pipes. It can be deduced, for example, that the depression under the addition to the main dwelling (C3) is linked by a WC pipe to another in Pit 10, which by extension is related to the filling of Structure D’s cellar—evidence that building D was destroyed before C3 was built.

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Plate 37. Details of inscriptions found embossed within window lead. At top: “John Byshop[p]”; center: “of Exceter Go[nner]”; bottom: “1625.”

Plate 38. Examples of lead-workers’ and glaziers’ vises used to draw the cast cames into turned lead. These devices date from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and are in the collection of the Snowshill Manor in Gloucestershire. Photos courtesy of Snowshill Manor and the National Trust.

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Plate 39. The excavated cellar hole (Structure D) at Site A. The remains of the entrance steps can be seen in the foreground and the oval oven (?) in the background. View from the north. B, and in consequence drainage from the higher ground to the west inevitably was interrupted by the presence of this building. Equally inevitably, the water cut into the backfill along the west face and caused the hole to expand and the water to seep in. This process continued during the excavation, and over one weekend more than 2´ of silt was washed down into the cellar’s excavated southwest corner (Ill. 23). Unlike the heavily dished west face, the other three sides retained their straight “as dug” edges almost to the surface. The north side (facing the three dwellings) was interrupted by three cellar steps, that at the bottom being represented by a loam-filled slit, while a similar slot seemed to secure the back of the first step up.117 The ground around the cellar feature was carefully scrutinized in search of other related postholes or sill slots that could point to Structure D’s being part of some other, larger building. But no such traces were located. When first found, the feature was thought to be as early as any and to have been a temporary, cavetype dwelling hurriedly built while other, more permanent buildings were under construction. Docu-

mentary precedent existed, albeit from New Amsterdam, where in 1650 Secretary Van Tiennoven wrote to his Dutch masters thusly:

117. This is unusual because cellar steps were usually constructed with square-cut wooden nosing at the fore edge rather than at the back.

118. John B. Linn and William H. Engle, eds., Pennsylvania Archives (1896), 2nd ser., vol. V, pp. 179–186.

Those in new netherland and in New England who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, casae the earth inside all around with timber, which they line with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving inn of the earth, floor this cellar with plank and wainscott it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clar up and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in the houses with their entire families for two, three, or four years, it being understood that partitions are run through theses cellars which are adapted to the size of the family.118

Another reference, this time from Bermuda, where the Earl of Warwick’s agent John Dutton wrote explaining that to keep his Lordship’s tobacco he had

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Illustration 23. Sectional and plan views of the Site A, Structure D cellar.

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hewne a seller, as it weire, in to a feirme rock: 10 foote longe 8 foote wydde & 6 foote deepe, haveinge gotte (which was hard to doe) 1200 of boords sawed with some of which I cloose boarded the said vault, & builte a Cabbin over it, so that I can giver it ayre or keepe it Cloose as I see occation.119

Were it a little larger, John Dutton’s vault could bear a striking resemblance to the Martin’s Hundred structure. Furthermore, a draw knife and a trimming ax were discovered on the silt-covered floor, both tools used by coopers, craftsmen essential for the barrel-shipping of tobacco. Dutton described how he had “close boarded” his cellar, and the placement of the intermediate posts in Structure D had already pointed us in that direction, although shallow slots representing the location of the lateral boards appeared to pass behind the studs and posts on the west side, in front of five studs at the south end, and, at the doorway, one passing behind the west doorpost and the other in front of the east post. Ragged though this system would appear, it nevertheless speaks to a parallel between it and the Bermudian vault. Then, too, Dutton’s cabin roof meant an A-shape that reached tentlike to the ground, and that was how we had interpreted the absence of any exterior roof-supporting posts or sills. It could be argued, too, that if Dutton thought it necessary to go to the trouble and expense to flushboard the inside of his vault to protect his master’s tobacco, then it was reasonable that some such structure would be needed to store the Martin’s Hundred’s Society’s only return for its investment. It was in this guise, therefore, that Structure D was interpreted both in books and in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum. That was before the discovery of the Robert Addames letter of June 16, 1625, whose pertinent passage reads: my wyfe wth much danger gott to Mr. Harwods earnestly intreatinge ther eayd [their aid] but he out of too much feare and neclect would not sture out of the store wher he was armed and garded wth your servants till the Indians were fled nether would he endure her importunyty but forsed her from them into a watch house where she stayed for the present.120

In a later passage Adams noted that owing to his presence and that of Mr. Emerson on either side of 119. Vernon A. Ives, ed., The Rich Papers: Letters From Bermuda, 1615–1646 (1984), p. 203, John Dutton to the Earl of Warwick, 17 October, 1620. Ives observed in a footnote on the same page that “Dutton must have built the first adequate tobacco-curing shed on the island—after eight years of settlement!” 120. We would know nothing of Mrs. Addames were it not for this letter. Robert Addames reached Virginia aboard the Bona Nova, probably the voyage of 1622/23, but he was not in Martin’s Hundred to be numbered among either the living or the dead on February 16, 1622/23, and neither was his wife. Fur-

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Harwood’s land he, Harwood, may “walke in safty from his house to ye store.”121 From this disgraceful behavior on Harwood’s part we know that he had a store and that it was located at some little distance from his dwelling. The distance from the door of Structure C-2 to the cellar hole is ca. 58´, a short distance to be sure, but a disgusted Adams was almost certainly being sarcastic. The question, therefore, is whether or not the cellared structure was the store where Harwood and his servants took refuge, and if so, has it been correctly interpreted as a cabin-roofed building? The answer would seem to be that if the answer to the first question is yes, the second is almost certainly no. An A-shaped, ground-reaching roof over a structure 17´ wide would create a relatively narrow vertical wall, and when pierced by the doorway that archaeology proved to exist, there would be little room left for windows or musket slots. Then, too, the roof reaching the ground along the building’s entire length would mean that those inside it would have no knowledge of what might be afoot to the east and west. Equally important, a thatched or bark roof would be easily set afire, trapping those inside, who would quickly die of smoke inhalation. Thus Structure D, as interpreted, would make a singularly unlikely place of refuge. One might argue that the size and depth into the cellar floor of Structure D’s six posts suggested that they supported something more than a cabin-style roof and were instead sufficiently deep-set to carry a building rising a full story and an attic above what would later be termed an English basement. It is true that the surviving framing pattern does not allow for a door at east or west—and one would expect it to be to the west, opening into the complex courtyard. But it is by no means impossible that a different framing pattern could have existed above the basement-capping sills or plates.122 One more enigmatic feature associated with Structure D must be mentioned, namely a heavily burned kilnlike oval on top of an already eroding southerly exterior, a feature filled with ashes containing an iron fireplace shovel, which lay in a scree of burned daub123 that spewed down into and beyond the line of the cellar’s south wall. The incompleteness or alternatively the over-zealousness of the several 1624/25 muster takers has thermore, she was not among those resident in the Hundred when the muster was taken in February 1624/25. It is curious, therefore, that when writing home in June of the same year, Adams said nothing about the fate or whereabouts of his wife. 121. Ransome, MS 1491, Robert Adams to John or Nicholas Ferrar, 16 June, 1625. 122. For a description of the cellar’s floor and fill, see p. 223–224. 123. C.G. 1814A. For the shovel, see Pt.. II, Fig. 86.

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already been discussed. We now know from the Adams letter that Harwood had a store, and not only that—a place more defensible than his listed three houses. Yet no store is mentioned, nor for that matter are any other structures, although the archaeology located five of them. Unfortunately there is no knowing whether, like the store, they existed in 1625 or were built later. Indeed, from the overlapping of fence lines it is clear that over time Site A underwent several changes.

STRUCTURES H AND J These two buildings were located on approximately the same frontage line as Harwood’s Structure B and were thought to be part of the same complex. However, neither would equate with the governor’s store, which, since the destruction of Wolstenholme Towne, would have been large enough to protect everything that belonged to the Martin’s Hundred Society.124 Structure H, the smaller of the two (15´ x 10´), was a six-post, two-bay unit, and as such can be seen as contemporary with the other larger buildings (A, B, and C-1). Beyond it, building J (16´ x 10´) appeared to have had only four corner posts and the possibility of another off-center along its north wall. Lacking as it did any trace of an intermediate post on its south face, this structure was interpreted as a cattle shed, perhaps even the place to keep the cannon (Pl. 36), whose train would have rendered it ca. 15´ in length. A highly complex system of successive fences began at the west and east corners of these two structures, perhaps closing them off from the three Harwood houses. In trying to determine the fences’ or palisades’ sequence and purpose, we turn again to Robert Adams for help. First he tells us that by June 1625 he had built a new house “and have begune a pale or pallisadoe about my house though we receave lyttel comforth by Mr. Harwods nehborhood.” Referring to the Indian attack in 1623, Adams noted that the neighbors myght have bene pleasured your servants comforted and the fared [feared] never the worse yf Master Harwod would have fensed in grownd to have kept them here to wch since Mr. Emmerson came he hath by him beene often persuaded to that worke and we would all have put to our helping hand by Mr. Carleses neclect of your dyrectyons.

From this letter we learn that Adams had constructed something more than an anti-deer fence 124. The muster listing for Harwood’s household included “Neat Cattell, 10 belonging to the Hundred,” and enough armor to equip 21 men, as well as the Company’s cannon (“Peece of Ordnance, 1 wth all things thereto belonging”), 60 pounds of gunpowder and 300 pounds of shot, also 12 barrels

around his house, that Harwood was slow to put up fences regardless of the fact that his neighbors volunteered to do so—this almost certainly in the aftermath of the Indian attack. The two buildings are small and would have had to accommodate five people if they belonged to Robert Adams, but the fencing separation makes this a possibility. Although they would have been uncomfortably crowded, these buildings just might have been the muster-listed “houses, 2” of the Adams/Leake group.125 That would explain Mrs. Adams’s proximity to Harwood’s store at the time of the Indian attack, although other factors speak against such an interpretation. We know from his letter that Harwood had assigned to Adams the premassacre land and house of Richard Staples, which property was hardly likely to have been situated within 17´ of Harwood’s dwellings. In the absence of any more substantive evidence it seems best to assume that Structures J and H were separated by fences from Harwood’s residential complex because they were home to his and the Hundred’s livestock.

STRUCTURES E–G These three structures lay to the east and north of the Harwood houses, two of them being small, 5´ x 5´ four-post units of the kind often described as corn cribs or chicken coops (Ill. 8 and 13). However, the latter seems improbable as there were no associated traces of fences but five large trash pits flanking them to the north. These small four-post structures are relatively common on early seventeenth-century sites, and are present in Martin’s Hundred within the Fort (Site C, Structure C; 7´ x 6´) and inside the Company Compound, where the proportions are somewhat different (Site C, Structure F; 7´6˝ x 4´6˝). It is, however, the close similarity between the proportions of those at Site A to Structure C in the Fort that suggests a unity of purpose. Addames, in his letter, tells how his wife was forced to seek refuge in a “watch house,” prompting one to ask whether a 5´-square building could be so described. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term can be traced back at least to 1530, but unfortunately none of the cited examples are any more descriptive. It would appear, however, that the term could be applied to a structure as large as a guardhouse accomodating several soldiers down to a night watchman’s shed or a sentry box. At that end of the scale a 5´ x 5´ floor plan could be large enough. of corn and 1,200 fish. 125. One recalls that in 1621 servant Richard Chelsey was to be provided with a “house newe built him 14. foot long, & twelve foote Broad” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 451).

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STRUCTURE K

However, the likelihood of there being two such structures so close together at Site A is remote. Furthermore a watchhouse inside the Fort, where nothing and no one could be watched, makes no sense. The total absence of identifiable privy pits from any of the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites raises interesting cultural questions. Little has been written about the function described as “naturall necessity,” although we know that on Thursday, June 4, 1607, one of the original settlers ventured out of the Fort for that purpose, whereupon the Indians, in a show of poor sportsmanship, “shott him in the head, and through the Clothes in two places but missed the skynne.”126 In view of the fact that Thomas Ward’s 1625 letter makes it clear that the Indian menace continued to a degree that prevented him from venturing out to work on his own, it is reasonable to conclude that widdling in the woods could be dangerous and that building privyhouses was not only a contribution to privacy but also to longevity. The absence of any pits beneath Structures E and F (or below Site C, Structure C for that matter) may be explained by the use of single-hole seats over a tub or halved barrel, which could regularly be emptied and reused. Such removable containers were known in the eighteenth century, usually copper troughs that could be removed through a flap in the building’s rear wall.127 That there were two such buildings close together at Site A is easily explained as “his” and “hers,” but such niceties were not observed in the seventeenth century. There is, however, no assurance that both buildings were of the same age. On the contrary, it is likely that, being of flimsy construction, the first might need to be replaced within a very few years. In summation: Site A’s square buildings are as likely to have been privies as they were henhouses or corn cribs.128 Structure G, its purpose unidentified, was another four-post building—nevertheless a relatively large one, measuring as it did 15´ x 10´—the same size as Site A’s two-bay Structure H. For reasons to be explained when discussing the evolution of fences, Structure G is believed to be of later date than the main domestic complex.

Although in the early seventeenth century something as innocuous as a garden fence could be described as a palisade, it is clear from the 1624/25 muster that in those regions where palisades were listed, they were so recorded as militarily defensible structures. As previously noted, the muster recorder for Martin’s Hundred chose not to include fences or even, perhaps, breast-high defense works. Robert Addames stated that in 1623 he had been sent from Jamestown Island to Martin’s Hundred by Governor Yeardley “the better to strengthen the place and to secure and asosyate [associate with] Mr. Harwod and your other servants whoe then weare returninge thether [thither].” Disenchanted—probably with Harwood’s administration—Adams moved out, 130 only to return in 1624/25, and had “since builte another house and have begune a pale or pallisadoe about my house.”131 As noted earlier Site A was home to more post-andslot-style fences than any other Martin’s Hundred location, there being at least a dozen of them to the north and west of the Harwood dwelling complex. An outer slot skirted north of the houses and ran southward as the cellared Structure D, there turning toward the building’s southwest corner before being lost to later plowing. Identified archaeologically as Slot A, this narrow trench was found to contain the molds left by split logs set vertically, one beside and overlapping another, the interstices between them

126. Gabriel Archer’s “A relayton of the Discovery of our River &c.,” Edward Arber, ed., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith (1910), vol. I, p. liii. 127. Several such privies were reconstructed in Colonial Williamsburg but the documentary justification for them is unknown to this author. The small rectangular building (Structure F) adjacent to the Potter’s Pond at Site C could easily have accommodated a two-hole seating. 128. Although dating from the second half of the 17th century, the site of the Duval plantation (Middle Plantation) in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, revealed three four-post square structures, one of them described as “Hen House or Outbuilding,” and the others as “coolers?” though neither had any below-ground ice pit. The first was located near two pits

described as “latrine pits,” perhaps pointing to a similarity of function, and evolving from hard-to-clean holes to the reusable trough variety; see Carson et al., pp. 164–165. That privy buildings could be and were moved about within a limited area assigned to that function was demonstrated during excavations at the Travis House in Williamsburg, where several successivelate 18th-century pits cut one into another. 129. Graves 7 and 8, C.G. 1747 and 1748. 130. Probably to join Lieutenant Edward Barkley’s people on Hog Island. Addames reported leaving with Henry Barrow and John Stone. John Stone was still on Hog Island when the muster was written in February 1624/25. 131. Ransome, MS 1491, Robert Addames to John or Nicholas Ferrar, 16 June, 1625.

Site A’s remaining structure is even less informative than G, being represented by only two well- and clearly dug postholes suggesting a building having two sides 19´ in length. Cutting through the first easterly arm of Fence Slot D, it clearly belongs to a later phase, and may perhaps be related in some way to the two burials (Hugh and Ann Hughes?) that lie 27´ to the west.129

FENCES AND PALLISADOES

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Plate 40A (left). The outer breastwork slot protecting the dwellings at Site A from the west and north. Plate 40B (right.) A sectional view of the slot after the removal of the split-log molds leaving in situ the clay that was packed around them. and the trench wall being packed with clay (Pl. 40). This was the first time such a barrier had been recognized, but subsequently the technique has been found to have been used at Yorktown in the later seventeenth century and, more significantly, at Jamestown in a context that might date as early as 1615.132 The Site A slot was accompanied by no supporting and reinforcing postholes, without which it is unlikely that the wall could have stood higher than a breastwork. A second slot (B), averaging 7´ within A, followed the same course around the building complex but was interrupted by the west wall of Structure J and clearly was contemporary with it. None of the splitlog molds seen in a short length of Slot A was seen in B. This slot, though interrupted, seemed to return to abut the northwest corner of Structure A, and, if so, tied the whole complex from A to J (and thence to H) together (Ill. 3). A third slot (C) began at the

southeast corner of Structure H and headed south parallel to Slot B until lost west of the northwest corner of the cellared Structure D. As Slot B was traced beyond that building it seems likely that it continued much farther to the south but had been eradicated by plowing. Slots A, B, and C were not the first such fences to be erected at Site A. The southwest corner of Structure J was abutted by a slot heading westward for a distance of 22´6˝ before turning south a distance of 70´6˝ and then returning at a right angle, heading toward the northwest corner of Structure D. This slot (D), which ended its eastward course at a treehole west of the structure, then turned south for a distance of 26´ before again turning east on a line parallel to the south wall of Structure D. Cut through both north and south by Slot A and therefore predating it, this first enclosure seemed to box in the principal buildings, using them as elements in the barrier.

132. Kelso, “Report on Exploratory Excavations,” p. 28, fig. 28. Although when first revealed the molds appeared to be from split logs, like those so clearly visible at Site A, after excavation

those at Jamestown prompted an interpretation as round-sectioned poles, which were carried in the interpretive drawing to a height of ca. 10´.

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The impression left by what remained of Slot D was of a defense work laid out in straight lines, its turns dictated by the presence of trees or buildings. Although cut through by plowing, Slot D seems to have continued south to the cemetery, only to be lost as the result of a 1970 east–west grader-cut trench. It would appear, therefore, that this long wooden wall protected a track running south in the direction of Wolstenholme Towne, thus raising unanswered questions as to whether or not, in its first phase, Site A coexisted with the Fort when, after the massacre, it served as a compound for the Hundred’s ten neat cattle. Unlike the angular Slot D, Slots A, B, and C seemed less purposeful and wandered in their courses as though being eyeballed by someone lacking 2020 vision. Slot A had continued in an eastward direction north of Structure A and overlay a large but irregularly shaped trash pit.133 Although lost within the pit, the slot (E) almost certainly turned south, where it was found stretching for a distance of 11´ before again disappearing. It seems likely, however, that this slot had extended southward (F), passing west of Structure G and continuing a further 37´ before being cut (or stopping at) the edge of another, this time circular, trash-filled pit.134 Another slot (G), paralleling Slot F and running at an average of 10´ west of it, reached the circular pit and passed west of it, heading toward the northeast corner of Structure D. Most importantly it had been cut by the construction of Structure C-2’s shedroofed easterly addition. Although describing the course of these slots is difficult to write and tedious to read, they are in truth the key to sequencing at Site A. Indeed they provide a classic example of the importance of excavating a site in its entirity. In this instance the slight color difference visible where one fence slot cuts another can be crucial to determining a time sequence for buildings many yards distant. On the basis of the slots so far described, we can say that Structures A, B, C, D, H, and J were built at much the same time and represent the Harwood phase of Site A’s existence, and whose first protective slot fencing (D) took in all those buildings. The contents of Pit 4 also belonged to that early phase. Phase II is represented by the replacement of the first slotted fence by Slots A, E, and F, as well as by Slots B and G. Assuming that Structure C-2 and the addition were actually of the same date, it follows that these were not added until the Phase II slotted fences had been abandoned and replaced by postand-pale fencing, probably after the death of Harwood, ca. 1629. Structure G, being outside Slot F, is

likely to have been of later date, as are the possible privies, Structures E and F, which lay outside the outer easterly slot breastwork/palisade to the east. Probably from Site A’s earliest occupation, a track ran east to the ravine separating Sites A and B, almost certainly leading to the dwellings’ water supply. Although traces were found for a distance of only 54´, the track almost certainly headed on a line that passed between two (A and C) of the early trio of dwellings. Running beside it to the south was a post-and-pale fence (1). Before being lost, this line had headed in the general direction of Structure A’s southeast corner. Another similar fence (2) started at the building’s northwest corner and extended a distance of 52´ before being lost. Another short (three-post) piece of fencing (3) ran parallel to the south face of Structure J, while another like it (4) ran from the southwest corner of Structure B to a point lining up with the southeast corner of Structure H, whereupon it turned south following but overlying Slot C. Yet another fence (6) came off the southwest corner of the same building and headed southward toward Site A’s cemetery. A paralleling fence (5), averaging 26´ to the west, followed the course of Slot B and in one instance cut through the edge of it. It would seem, therefore, that the new post-and-pale fences were constructed at the same time that the slot-held log palisades were dismantled. It would also appear that the outer slot line (A) was left standing and allowed to rot—otherwise the triangular impressions of the logs would not have remained. Post-and-pale Fences 5 and 6 continued south, flanking the Slot D palisade line, and ended (or were lost) amid the cemetery graves. Before disappearing, however, another fence (11) turned west off Fence 5, creating a right angle above which lay the row of graves (1–5). It may be reasonable to conclude that those graves were dug after Fences 5 and 11 were up. It therefore follows that they were also dug after Structure C-2 was built, and thus represent post-Harwood deaths. At this point wild guesswork takes the helm. Because they were separate from either the five or the mixed group straddling the road represented by Fences 5 and 6, it is likely that the single grave (6) is that of Harwood, and, as suggested above, Graves 7 and 8 are those of the Hughses. The decision to bury the five, who almost certainly died at about the same time as the result of contagious disease, was based on the notion of putting them at some good distance from the domestic complex. Later, having established that location as a place of burial and with the Fort no longer in a condition to house cattle, the track south from Site A became

133. Pit 4 (C.G. 1749).

134. Pit 9 (C.G. 1773).

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unimportant but a convenient location for a cemetery that continued long enough for Graves 18 and 19 to impact on 17 and 22. Site A owed its importance not only to its range of related buildings, but also to the content of its ten pits. The latter, however, are discussed in the context of all the Martin’s Hundred features of this kind.135 Clearly there is an archaeologically visible evolution to Site A, represented by the abandonment of the slot fences in favor of those of post-and-pales (or, less likely, post-and-rails) as well as by the expansion of Structure C-1 into C-2. The presumed terminal date of ca. 1640–1645 is no more than that. The fragments of slipware dishes similar to that dated 1631 from Site B pushes the occupation to that date and beyond, but how far beyond remains uncertain. Such wares as North Italian marbled slipware are loosely attributed to the second quarter of the century when found in Virginia and so, too, are the double-han-

dled Seville costrels. However, fragments from one one such bottle were recovered from the wreck of the Warwick at Bermuda, a ship sunk there in 1619.136 In Europe, however, both the Italian and the Hispanic wares are given wider dates, 1600–1650.137 If that is so, and in view of the fact that most of the locallymade wares are similar in execution and therefore almost certainly the work of Thomas Ward and/or his helpers, the years of occupation after the death of William Harwood may have been fewer than has hitherto been supposed. Whether this was the same Thomas Ward who was resident in Lower Norfolk County in 1646 and made his will in January 1655138 is unknown, but it is entirely possible that he, and others, moved away from Martin’s Hundred when it no longer survived as a structured entity. Unfortunately, as the 22 graves testify, most of the Martin’s Hundred colonists lived and died leaving only a legacy of potsherds and silence.

135. See Ch. 9. 136. I. Noël Hume, Shipwreck!, p. 41. 137. John Hurst, David S. Neal, and H. J. E. van Beuningen,

Pottery Produced and Traded in North-west Europe, 1350–1650 (1986), pp. 33–35 and 63–64. 138. Jester, pp. 371 and 460.

CHAPTER 4

Arms and Armor in Martin’s Hundred Excavations that began under Park Service aegis at Jamestown in 1934 provided scholars with their first look at armor and weaponry possessed by early Virginia colonists.1 Through the decades that followed more and more seventeenth-century sites have been examined up and down the James River, and in virtually every case the quantity and variety of arms and armor fragments have surprised the excavators. Few, if any, yeomen’s houses of the same period have been excavated in England, and so there is no certainty that comparable quantities would be found there. Indeed the chances are that they would not. Wills and inventories of people whose estates were worth less than £100 rarely included either armor or weapons. 2 This is explained by the fact that most able-bodied men were required to serve in local militias and, when mustered, were issued with both arms and armor from the parish store or from the armory of the lord of the manor. Writing in 1587 (the year before the Armada) William Harrison had this to say about the ownership of arms and armor: The said armour and munition likewise is kept in one several place of every town appointed by the consent of the whole parish, where it is always ready to be had and worn within an hour’s warning . . . . Certes there is almost no village so poor in England (beit never so small) that hath not sufficient furniture in a readiness to set forth three or four soldiers.3

One must remember, too, that in urban and rural England there were no murderous natives hiding in the woods to warrant the possession of protective gear. The dearth of firearms among the lower classes, however, seems more surprising until one remembers that poaching could be a capital offense. In Virginia the threat of Indian attack continued to the mid-seventeenth century (and much later in the further-flung settlements), the homesteads were scattered and relied on family and servants for their preservation, and hunting (when powder wasn’t restricted) played a major role in the colonists’ diet. Thus the 1624/25 muster lists no household that was totally bereft of either arms or armor. Unfortunately, however, the listings are not as consistent or as precise as one would like, the variations in part dependent on the previously noted fact that the inventories were taken by different people with differing criteria, and also by the fact that there was much confusion in terminology relating to firearms. In the 1620s, there were four firing systems: the wheel lock, snaphaunce, dog lock, and matchlock. While on occasion the specific types were mentioned, all too often the citation would ignore the mechanism and list the guns as, for instance, “Peeces.3.” Although wheel locks have been found at Jamestown and Mathews Manor, they were the most expensive, and absent from the archaeological discoveries at Martin’s Hundred. The wheel lock operat-

1. This essay is based on Audrey Noël Hume’s draft paper “Offense and Defense in Martin’s Hundred,” written in February 1978. 2. In 1591 John Leighe of Wonford in Devonshire left an estate valued at £303 18s. 8d. that included “1 corselet furnished with other Armor £3.” Another Devon inventory, that of clerk Henry Welshe, came to £107 7s. 6d. and listed “His armour 20s”; (Margaret Cash, Devon Inventories of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth

Centuries [1966], pp. 9 and 16). Exceptions can be found, however; e.g., Henry Piper, a poldas (sail cloth) weaver of Ipswich, whose entire estate in 1615, valued at £66 9s., included “a musket with bandoliers sword dagger headpiece and rest and ij blacke bills” together valued at the surprisingly low figure of £1 (Michael Reed, ed., The Ipswich Probate Inventories 1583–1631 [1981], p. 82). 3. Harrison, p. 235.

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Illustration 24. Diagrammatic view of a snaphaunce firing mechanism beginning with the stripped plate. ed by means of a coiled spring that rotated when wound and released, scraping a piece of iron pyrite and giving off a spark, which ignited the powder in the priming pan. The snaphaunce operated differently and was, by and large, more reliable. Like the flintlock that succeeded it, the priming powder was contained in a covered pan that, when the trigger was pulled, was uncovered as a flint-holding cock slammed forward to strike a battery, pouring sparks into the simultaneously opened pan (Ill. 24). Later the pan cover and striker (frizzen) would be combined to complete the flintlock mechanism, which was to continue in use through the Revolutionary War and on to the American Civil War.

The matchlock mechanism was much simpler, its mechanism requiring only that it move a fuse-gripping arm called a serpentine to press the burning tip into the pan that contained the priming powder, after the operator first manually opened its cover. The matchlock mechanism came in two varieties, the earliest having a lever that, when pulled down, pushed the serpentine gripping the match down into the priming powder. For these the interior spring was located above the connecting arm (sear). On later mechanisms that used a “tricker” (trigger) to move the serpentine, the spring is located under the sear. To accommodate these methods, lever-operated sears have a hole at their rear end into which the

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Illustration 25. The components of two matchlock firing mechanisms, one operated by a lever and the other by a trigger. lever fits, whereas the triggered sears end in a rightangled rod that fitted through a hole in the trigger (Ill. 25).4 Though simple and cheap to manufacture, the matchlock mechanisms relied on the musketeer having his saltpeter-soaked fuse (match) constantly alight—which could be difficult in bad weather, and whose glow made him a target at night. Then, too, he had to manually swing the lid clear of the pan before firing. The muskets were heavy, and to aim with any

accuracy, musketeers needed to cradle their barrels in a rest—which meant carrying a pole as well as the gun. Loading was slow, and as noted earlier, a nimble Indian could loose half a dozen arrows while a colonist was trying to send him a second lead ball.5 The popular notion that in this early period the Indians used bows while the colonists relied solely on firearms is not supported by the documents. Probably because the Indian men were experienced from

4. Those matchlocks from the Fort that retain their sears and/or springs (Pt. II, Fig. 49, nos. 1–3) were all lever operated. 5. Sir John Smythe, in his polemic against the adoption of musketry over the traditional longbow, declared that “no man of

any experience in the aforenamed weapons that will deny but that archers are able to discharge four or five arrows apiece before the harquebuiers shall be ready to discharge one bullet” (Smythe, p. 71).

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childhood as hunters with the bow, they had developed an “aiming eye” that made them equally good shots with muskets—better than many of the exurban settlers who may never have fired a gun before coming to Virginia. Furthermore, when the colonists arrived, gunpowder was in such short supply that from time to time there was none to spare for training marksmen. In April 1623 the newly arrived and by then reluctant Martin’s Hundred colonist Richard Frethorne wrote: now the Rogues growe verie bold, and can use peeces, some of them, as well or better then an Englishman, ffor an Indian did shoote with M r. Charles my M rs Kindsman at a marke of white paper, and hee hit it at the first, but Mr Charles Could not hit it.6

It does not follow, of course, that Indian marksmen, however skilled, could load as fast as they could notch or release arrows. To load a musket, no matter what its mechanism, required the insertion of a charge of gunpowder, usually from a flask (one of a dozen or 13 suspended from a bandolier),7 followed by a small wad, then the lead ball, and finally another wad. Each inserted wad needed to be pressed home by means of a scouring stick (ramrod). All of this took time and a steady hand. In battle the second wad was often omitted, leaving what was termed a rolling ball loose in the barrel. By reducing the tightness of the fit velocity and range were also reduced and, if one was firing down on the enemy (as one would have from the Fort), the ball was liable to roll out before the gun was discharged. A further hazard was provided by the danger that hot powder or wadding residue might remain in the barrel to prematurely ignite the next charge poured down it. Consequently between firing and loading the cautious

6. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 61, Richard Frethorne to his father, April 3, 1623. The identity of William Harwood’s “kindsman” Mr. Charles remains a mystery. No such name appears in any of the lists or letters relating to Martin’s Hundred. 7. The lead-alloy covers for bandolier charges are common on most sites of the first half of the 17th century, those that are flat-topped being lids for the charges and those with tubular nozzles being used to pour the finer priming powder into the pans: Pt. II, Figs. 49, nos. 19–22; 57, no. 8; and 63, nos. 22–24. Fragmentary tinned sheet-iron tubes found in excavations at Jamestown and attributed to the first decades of the 17th century are thought to be bandolier charge-boxes. However, iron in associaion with powder could be dangerous. A lead-alloy cover recovered from the Bermuda wreck of the Warwick (1619) contains vertically grained wood, leaving no doubt that that set was of wood. A bandolier and two of its charge-boxes are well-depicted in Gerrit Dou’s (1613–1675) painting of an officer of the Leiden civic guard (Miklós Mojzer, Dutch Genre Paintings [1967], no. 28). The picure is undated, but clearly shows the white-metal caps over black (probably leather-covered) boxes. 8. The head of the scouring stick was usually made from three semicircular-ended iron tangs, two bent laterally to follow the

musketeer cleaned out the barrel with his scouring stick.8 In the Tudor and early Stuart eras, gun terminology was as loose as a rolling ball, and while one writer might call any long-barreled firearm a musket, another might call it an arquebus (or harquebus). As a rule, however, the arquebus was lighter and shorterbarreled than a musket, although sometimes the term was used to identify a wheellock–operated weapon as opposed to a matchlock.9 In the Fort, the heavily trampled area around the abandoned well had become a repository for all manner of trash, including five incomplete matchlock firing mechanisms, as many trigger levers, three snaphaunce fragments, and the plate for a lock of unidentified design.10 Whereas most matchlock plates fitted into the stock below the barrel-welded priming pan, this plate is much taller and was cut out to fit around the pan, or alternatively to have a pan attached to it (as in a snaphaunce).11 One incomplete gun barrel was found in the Fort and two more in the Company Compound, one of the latter filled with small lead shot and apparently used by the potter.12 This large fragment includes the breech and possesses a copper-lined touchhole (Pl. 41). Its pan, however, had been knocked off. Two separated pans were found in the same area.13 It is important to understand that pans were usually tongued and welded into the sides of the barrel breeches and could not be dismantled like other firearm furniture. They could only be removed by striking them hard with a hammer, and once off and with their tongues broken, the barrels could no longer be operated. It has been this author’s argument that too many separated pans have been found (four in Wolstenholme Towne) for them to be the product of accidents. Instead it can be argued that

diameter of the bore and the third, between them, projecting to provide a cutting edge to scrape the back of the chamber. An example recently found in the fortified area at Jamestown had a hollow shank that was permanently attached to the wooden rod. An example found at the Boyse site (Site H), however, had a solid shank and a threaded end, and so could be interchangeable with the flat button or tapering solid terminal of a standard ramrod Pt. II, Fig. 63, no. 18). Almost exact parallels for Site H’s screw-in head are to be found in the Landeszeughaus at Graz—800 of them (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 66). 9. In 1630 an arquebus had a barrel 30˝ in length, whereas the musket’s was generally 42–44˝ long. The carbine, which in the early 17th century was replacing the arquebus, had a barrel of the same length, was fired by the wheel-lock method, and was commonly supplied to cavalry units. However, the term could also apply to a long-barreled cavalry pistol. 10. Pt. II, Fig. 49, nos.1–17. 11. Pt. II, Fig. 49, no. 13. 12. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 1. 13. Pt. II, Fig. 57, nos. 4–5.

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Plate 41. A matchlock musket (stock replaced?) in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection shown in tandem with lock, pan, barrel, and tricker from Wolstenholme Towne excavations. they represent matchlock muskets deliberately rendered useless in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre to prevent their being used by Indians after the survivors abandoned the plantation. If that is so then the use by the potter of a panless barrel (which also lacks its threaded breech block) might be evidence of his continuing to work within the destroyed village in the postmassacre period.14 Most military muskets were open-sighted, i.e., had a V-notched bar at the breech and a bead at the muzzle.15 However, a tubular rear sight was found at Site B, the sheet iron elaborately cordoned and suggestive of a superior weapon, 16 probably one having a snaphaunce or wheel-lock mechanism. This was one of Martin’s Hundred’s most evocative artifacts, and prompts museum viewers to wonder whose eye had been pressed to it and whether a deer or an Indian had last been sighted through it. Although musket rests were found at Jamestown in the 1994–1996 excavations, these essential pieces of the heavy musketeer’s equipment are absent from most seventeenth-century sites, and the same is true of Martin’s Hundred. A possible explanation may be that soldiers firing over breastworks or through ports in palisades would not have needed rests. Then again the dearth of them might be indicative of the fact that most “peeces” listed in the 1624/25 muster may have been of light caliver calibre. Since no shipping records survive to tell us the nature and scope of military supplies dispatched from London or Bristol to Martin’s Hundred, it is reasonable to call on the records for other plantations in the same time frame. Thus, for example, in 1619 the ship Margaret sailed from Bristol with goods (mostly purchased in London) bound for Berkeley

Hundred, among them “24 muskets, on qter of a hundred of match” and a “caske for the matche.” Also shipped were “16 bandeleres” (Ill. 26) and 300 pounds of gunpowder in three barrels.17 So much powder would have gone a very long way if shared by only two dozen muskets, and it may well be that this was also to be used in artillery pieces. One might also deduce that because 25 units of match were ordered along with the 24 muskets, that all the firearms were of matchlock type. While that may in fact be so, the next year’s purchases included the same amount of match and nine muskets “whereof. 6. are w th snaphanses,” which, of course, did not use match. The muskets were priced at £9, averaging a pound apiece. However, the next entry was “6.Callivers,” together valued at only 30s.—which seems a very low

14. For an amplification of this reasoning and its implications, see Pt. II, Fig. 57, n. 408. 15. Pt. II, Fig. 49, no. 17.

16. Pt. II, Fig. 72, no. 16. 17. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 178, “The Cost of Furnishing the ‘Margaret’,” July–September 1619.

Illustration 26. Engraving of the accouterments typical of a musketeer in the early seventeenth century.

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Plate 42. An early-seventeenth-century powder flask with measured charge nozzle and side hook for belt attachments. Beside it is the nozzle of a comparable flask from the Potter’s Pond in Wolstenholme Towne’s Company Compound. figure. The 1620 shipment included 160 pounds of gunpowder, 200 pounds of lead shot, and six lead bars weighing 113 pounds.18 This last was almost certainly intended, at least in part, for the pouring of shot of various sizes in pincer-type iron molds—several of which have been found on the Martin’s Hundred sites. The number of musket balls recovered was surprisingly small, but small shot of various diameters was liberally scattered, notably at Site H. A hole close to the firing step of the Fort’s wall contained a cluster of 57 pieces of bird shot,19 suggesting that (in modern terms) when trying to bring down an Indian a shotgun was more effective than an inaccurate rifle. In addition to firearms parts, the Wolstenholme Towne excavations yielded the spout from a powder flask,20 which substituted for a bandolier’s individual charges (Pl. 42). The flask’s tubular spout possessed a cut-off device at its base so that, when inverted, enough powder for a single charge was measured and secured. Other military accoutrements included numerous buckles and hooks from sword belts and hangers,21 most but not all of munition quality.22 That broad class of arms loosely called “edged weapons” is well represented among the Martin’s Hundred artifacts, and here again one wonders why 18. Ibid., pp. 385–390, “The Account of A.B. for Furnishing the Ship ‘Supply’,” September 1620. Trying to gauge the value and/or quality of weaponry on the basis of prices is an inexact enterprise. Another entry in this shipment lists “ffor a musket” valued not at £1, as suggested above, but at 30s. 19. Ibid., vol. IV, p. 278, “Invoice of Goods Sent to Virginia by John Harrison in the ‘Marmaduke’,” September 16, 1623: “One small firkin of haile shot.” 20. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 3. 21. The term hanger is here used to mean the usually multibuckled sleeve attached to the sword belt by bifurcated metal clasps (e.g. Pt. II, Fig. 63, nos. 1–9), in which the sword and its scabbard rested. In another context hanger is the term used

Plate 43. The hilt of a rapier in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection whose swept guard parallels another from Site A (Pt II, Fig. 81, no. 7). so many substantial objects should get broken or be taken apart. Three sword types were used in early Virginia: the thin-bladed rapier, which was more suited to fencing and dueling than to military combat; the double-edged broadsword, usually carried by the gentry; and the commonality’s single-edged slashing weapon, the backsword. The rapier was a light and flexible weapon, and generally had a swept hilt that provided relatively little protection to the hand’s lesser fingers (Pl. 43).23 The broadsword was also coupled with swept hilts, many of them much like the

to identify a light sword with a curving blade akin to a cutlass, used in hunting and as a weapon employed in man-to-man naval combat. 22. Pt. II, Figs. 50, nos. 5–7; 63, nos. 1–3; 72, nos. 18–26; 80, no. 4; 81, nos. 8–11; and one gold-ornamented hanger, Fig. 60, no. 9. 23. Some were fitted with cup-shaped guards that gave the hand greater protection, but I know of no examples being found in Virginia. The late Harold Peterson, in his Arms and Armor in Colonial America, 1526–1783 ([1956], p. 79, pl. 84A and B) illustrated the rapier owned by Miles Standish, which has an open cup hilt.

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Plate 44. A basket-hilted broadsword in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection. Beside it are a comparable guard and pommel from Site B (Pt. II, Fig. 72, nos. 8–9), where several fragments from a backsword blade were found and which may have been associated with the illustrated hilt elements. example from the Harwood site (Site A). 24 The backsword, with its V-sectioned blade and double fullering,25 was the most common weapon in early seventeenth-century Virginia, and is represented in excavations more often by its basket (Irish) guard than by blade fragments (Pl. 44). The earliest recorded example of such a guard comes from the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose and there is another fine spec-

24. Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 7. The pommel shown on the same page (no. 6) may well be from a broadsword, while no. 5 is more likely to have come from a backsword. In reality, pommels were interchangeable and may have been changed or chosen to suit the swordsman’s taste. 25. The term fullering is used both for grooves in sword blades and slots for the countersinking of nails in horseshoes. In swords these grooves usually run from the ricasso to within 7˝ of the tip of a 35˝ blade, and are sometimes described as blood channels. In reality they served to decrease the weight of the blade and also as decoration. 26. The Mary Rose (1545) broadsword is the earliest closely datable example of the wire-rod basket hilt and is a hybrid

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Illustration 27. The basket hilt of a broadsword from the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose, the earliest recorded version of a guard type common in the seventeenth century. Courtesy of the Mary Rose Trust. imen from the Sea Venture, lost off Bermuda in 1609 (Ills. 27 and 28).26 The tightness of the basketry and particularly the sizes of the solid iron panels from which the round-sectioned bars project vary considerably. There is much variation, too, in the terminating disks that protected the wielder’s forefinger and thumb from an opponent’s thrust. Some are distinctly button-shaped, while others are mere projecting tangs. Both types are represented at Martin’s Hundred sites.27 Excavations on ground immediately upstream from Jamestown Island known as the Governor’s Land (where Martin’s Hundred’s first arrivals were

between the full basket and the swept guard that coexisted among munition-quality edged weapons in the first half of the 17th century. The Mary Rose guard is coupled with the buttonended quillons (or cross-guard) of weapons of the parry-andthrust variety, a feature not needed on heavier slashing (usually cavalry) broadswords and backswords. At the time of writing (Dec. 16, 1996) the Mary Rose sword is unpublished. Colonial Williamsburg is indebted to Dr. Margaret Rule and the Mary Rose Trust for the provision of the drawing; see also Allan J. Wingood, “Sea Venture Second Interim Report—Part 2: The Artefacts,” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, vol. XX (1986), p. 151, fig. 3. 27. Pt. II, Figs. 72, no. 8; and 50, no. 3.

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billeted for the best part of a year) have yielded a guard almost identical to the specimen from Site B and, more importantly, an almost complete backsword28 with a similar guard and a pommel akin to one from the Company Compound.29 Another sword type was a shorter form of the backsword, the landsman’s version of the naval cutlass. A fine example has been found at Jamestown and possesses a large pommel and a thin knucklebow and quillon.30 Captain John Smith wrote that he carried a rather similar weapon, but with a more curving blade, somewhat resembling the Turkish scimitar.

This was called a falchion31 and, although known to have been here, no example has yet been identified.32 Sword pommels were surprisingly plentiful33—surprising because, when new, they generally were trapped at the apex of the tang by its being burred over the crown or button, and so not easily parted. The size and weight of the pommel often related to the length or weight of the blade, serving as it did to create balance between hilt and blade tip.34 A sword too lightly pommeled would be heavy at the tip and less accurately wielded. Scabbards were generally made of wood covered with leather, capped at the mouth with a metal collar and at the point with a chape. An example of the latter, likely to be from a broadsword’s scabbard, was found in the Fort, and another, probably for a backsword, came from Site H.35 Rapiers and broadswords usually came en suite with a dagger, the latter worn on the back of the right thigh and the sword on the left. By crossing one’s hands both could be drawn at the same time, and their simultaneous use was taught by most European fencing masters in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Curiously, however, few daggers are listed in early Virginia inventories and only one in the 1624/25 muster listing.36 A well-preserved blade for one such main gauche (left-hand dagger) was found in the Fort,37 but snapped above its junction with the now missing guard and grip (Pl. 45). One would have expected this broad end of the tang to have been more resistant than it proved. Unquestionably the most unexpected of military finds—also at the time the most difficult to identify— was the broken blade from a brandistock found on the Harwood site.38 Also known as an officer’s walking staff, in its retracted state the weapon appears to comprise a miniature poleaxe (spike fore and hammer aft) with a narrow blade projecting ca. 6˝ above it. This last can in reality be as much as 2´6˝ in length, the 2´ length concealed within a leather-covered iron tube that forms the upper part of the otherwise wooden staff. A rectangular hole in the side of the poleaxe socket is paired with a spring-secured block attached to the butt end of the blade. Thus when the staff is given a sharp forward thrust the blade slides forward until the spring-held block engages in the socket and locks, creating a formida-

28. Alain Outlaw, “An Interim Report, Governor’s Land Archaeological District Excavations: The 1976 Season” (1978), p. 201, figs. 188–189. 29. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 9. 30. John L. Cotter and J. Paul Hudson, New Discoveries at Jamestown: Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America (1959), p. 178, lower plate. 31. I. Noël Hume, The Virginia Adventure, p. 229. 32. Early 17th-century Dutch engravings show the falchion as a standard infantryman’s weapon, whereas comparable English

illustrations do not. 33. Pt. II, Figs. 50, no. 2; 57, no. 9; 63, no. 14; 72, no. 7; and 81, nos. 5–6. 34. See n. 24. 35. Pt. II, Figs. 50, no. 4; and 63, no. 16, respectively. 36. Jester, p. 10, the muster of John Price of Charles City, reading “sword & dager, 2.” 37. Pt. II, Fig. 50, no. 1. 38. Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 4.

Illustration 28. The basket hilt of a broadsword from the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture, drawn while in the Colonial Williamsburg archaeological laboratory.

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Plate 45. A maingauche (left-hand dagger) in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection shown beside a comparable blade from the Wolstenholme Fort. ble spear. Such weapons are extremely rare and generally were of Italian or German manufacture in the late sixteenth century. The foregoing description relates to an example acquired for the museum at Martin’s Hundred, whose cruciform blade exactly matches the Site A specimen (Pl. 46). Other surviving examples hide their blades in different sheaths. The Wallace Collec-

39. James Mann, European Arms and Armour (1962), vol. I, p. 476, no. A1031, and p. 620, no. A1330, the former attributed to the late 16th century and the latter to ca. 1600. 40. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 10. 41. Barbour, vol. I, p. 273, pikes listed as being in the colony at the time of Smith’s departure; vol. II, p. 200, turncoat Dutchmen stole from the store and gave to the Indians “fifty swords,

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tion in London has two: one resembling a sword in its scabbard with a blade that can be advanced through its chape, and the other a musket rest whose blade is completely hidden behind the iron U of the rest.39 That these secret devices were quality “toys” is indicated by the presence of damascening in gold scrollwork or, in the case of the sneaky sword, a convincing degree of hilt elaboration. The discovery of the Site A brandistock blade, coupled with finding an aiglet or point made from woven gold (see Pl. 76) along with the saker-bore cannonball, pointed to the farmstead being the home of the settlement’s leader, William Harwood. The brandistock’s blade had been deliberately broken, being markedly bent at its mid-section, a process requiring considerable leverage. The same deliberation was evident in the leaf-shaped head from a pike, whose tip had been cut off a third of the way down its length. Gone, too, was part of the shank as well as both langets—the metal strips that extended down the weapon’s wooden shaft to prevent attackers from hacking off its head. The ferule from a pike was found at the Company Compound40 and was identified as such by its diameter being greater than was usual for, say, musket rests. Although no pikes are listed in the catalog of weapons in the 1624/25 muster, we do know that they were imported.41 Those used in European wars measured ca. 18´ in length and were designed to protect musketeers from charging cavalry. On shipboard and in hand-to-hand fighting in trenches “short pikes” were only ca. 8´ long, and it is almost certain that these were imported into Virginia—in the absence of an invading Spanish land force there being no mounted enemy. A broken halberd blade from Site B is Martin’s Hundred’s sole representative for a major class of weapon known to have been in use in early Virginia, but that, like pikes, are absent from the 1624/25 muster. William Strachey reported in 1610 that on Sundays the governor, Lord De La Warr, paraded from his dwelling to the church “with a guard of halberdiers in his Lordship’s livery, fair red cloaks, to the number of fifty.”42 At least one halberd has been found at Jamestown, as also have two military bills,43 though here again no bills are mentioned in the muster listings. This weapon was developed from the wide-bladed agricultural bill used primarily for lopping trees, an example of which was found in the Company Compound.44 The military varient, com-

eight peeces, and eight pikes.” 42. William Strachey, A Voyage to Virginia, 1609 (1973), pp. 80–81, being a modernized edition of True Reportery. 43. Cotter and Hudson, p. 177, pl. 75, lower; also Peterson, Arms and Armor, p. 96, pl. 106. 44. Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 7.

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Plate 46. A brandistock in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection shown in open and retracted modes. This weapon (also known as an officer’s walking staff) is paralleled by a blade fragment from Site A (Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 4). monly carried by infantry in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, differed in that it had a spike projecting from the back of the single-edged blade, while the fore-end of the blade was bifurcated into a short spike and an outcurving hook to the cutting edge. The military needs of the colonists were well known, based on experience derived from shipping arms to Ireland in the waning years of Elizabeth’s reign. Sir Walter Ralegh had created a specimen kit for single settlers, and John Smith did likewise: Armes for a man, but if halfe your men be armed it is well, so all have swords and peeces. 1 Armor compleat, light. 17s. 1 long peece five foor and a halfe, neere Musket bore. 1l.2s. 1 Sword. 5s. 1 Belt. 1s. 1 Bandilier. 1s.6d. 20 pound of powder. 18s. 60 pound of shot or Lead, Pistoll and Goose shot. 5s. 3l. 9s. 6d.45

In relation to John Smith’s inventory the 1624/25 muster showed, for example, that soon after the massacre Martin’s Hundred was relatively well supplied with firearms, usually referred to as “peeces fixt,” meaning in operating condition. In Governor Harwood’s possession were ten of them, plus 25 “Matchcocks.” One assumes that these were replacement matchlock firing mechanisms and not a distinction between matchlocks and more sophisticated firearms.46 Harwood also had 60 pounds of powder, ten of match (which weighs very light), and 300 pounds of shot. The muster listing does not distinguish between lead shot for muskets and pistols, and iron balls for firing in his single “Peece of Ordnance . . . wth all things thereto belonging.”47 At the time of the muster Harwood’s male household consisted of himself and four servants, meaning that he was well supplied with firearms. He also had 20 swords and armor for eight, along with ten coats of mail and four jackcoats, these last described as “Coats of Steele.” The absence of any reference to helmets can be taken to mean that the coats of mail and steel came without head protection, but that the

45. Barbour, vol. II, p. 322, “A Particular of such necessaries as either private families, or single persons, shall have cause to provide to goe to Virginia, whereby greater numbers may in part conceive the better how to provide for themselves.” Smith’s list was derived from a broadsheet published in London two years earlier. 46. Among artifacts recovered from the Cattle Pond within the

Fort at Wolstenholme Towne was a matchlock firing mechanism with its two stock-securing bolts in position (Pt. II, Fig. 49, no. 1), suggesting that this was a spare “matchcock” kit were it not for the fact that the sear is missing. 47. A single iron ball found at the Harwood site is 3c˝ in diameter (9.53 cm) and made to fit artillery of saker bore (Ptl. II, Fig. 81, no. 16).

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Illustrations 29A and B. The front and back of a half suit of armor showing (stippled) those parts found in the Martin’s Hundred excavations. suits of armor were so supplied. With one close helmet found in the well shaft within the Fort, one might have expected one of the suits of armor to be missing its head piece, but there is no such indication in the document. The Emerson family, who arrived in 1623 (more than a year after the massacre) and whose males comprised Ellis Emerson and two servants, were well equipped: an armor for Emerson himself and four “headps.,” two coats of mail, and another of steel. However, he had but one “peece fixt,” 12 pounds of powder and 30 of shot, and a couple of swords. The Adams/Leake partnership aspired to but one servant, had too little armor but no fewer than six “Peeces fixt,” but only six pounds of powder and five of shot. They had one armor and one “Coat of plate” between the three of them, and only two swords. Jackson and Ward had a single servant but four “peeces fixt,” three armors, a coat of mail, and three swords. Another Martin’s Hundred resident, Samuel March, and his partner Samuell Culley had only one armor between them, plus two swords and three muskets. Their ammunition was in short supply, however;

they had a single pound of powder and 20 pounds of shot. Less ready for battle were Messrs. Barker and Walden, Martin’s Hundred’s only other listed residents: they had no armor, but two swords, two “peeces fixt,” more powder than their neighbors— three pounds of it—and five of shot. This then was the total military tally for Martin’s Hundred in the winter of 1624–1625.48 Nevertheless, viewed colonywide, the 21 men of the Hundred were well enough equipped—with the possible exception of gunpowder, a shortage that prompted Ellis Emerson to apply to Harwood urging him to “lend” 50 of his 60 pounds of powder. But the request was rejected, Harwood claiming that he had already expended too much on “false alarums.”49 The muster’s references to armor in its various forms needs clarification (Ills. 29a–b). It is reasonable to conclude that “armors” meant suits, comprising at least back- and breastplates (cuirass) with thigh-protecting tassets and a helmet (Ill. 30).50 In a pinch these could be worn over a coat of mail, which would protect the wearer’s arms. It is likely, however, that most armors included articulated-plate arm

48. Jester (1987 ed.), pp. 45–46. 49. Ransome, MS 1491, Robert Adams to John or Nicholas Ferrar, June 16, 1625.

50. As a rule, the combination of breast- and backplates was termed a cuirass, this being the plural of a single breast- or backplate, each of which was called a curate or curat.

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Illustration 30. Diagram identifying the principal parts of a full suit of armor. defenses comprising cannons (tubular plates above and below elbow sleeve elements: rerebraces and vambraces), couters (also known as elbow cops), and small plates (lames) that provided movement below the shoulder. Large shoulder plates called pauldrons overlapped the upper arms and also covered a collar unit, known as the gorget, that went behind the breastplate. It is highly unlikely that leg-protecting armor was part of the suits owned and worn in the colony, for by the end of the sixteenth century full armor was rarely worn on any but ceremonial or jousting occasions. Even armor extending to cover the knees, though worn by English cavalry (cuirassiers) as late as

51. With one exception, the listing of armors recorded in the 1624/25 muster said imprecisely that: armors. The inference, therefore, is that these were complete, meaning cuirass, arm defenses, tassets, and headpiece. In the listing for the College Lands, however, there are entries for “Armour Complett” as well as “Armour, 1.” Thus in the latter instance the compiler was evidently drawing a distinction between those armors that were complete and the one that wasn’t. Nowhere in the muster listings is there a reference to a separate curate, i.e. breast- or backplate. There is, however, a single listing of a “Corslett.” Sir James Mann, in his glossary of terms in the forward to his European Arms and Armour (vol. I, p. xxxvii), defined a corselet thusly: “A half-armour, consisting in the XVIth century of helmet, gorget, breast and back, tassets, full arms and gauntlets. As armour fell into disuse the word came to be limited to the cuirass only.” On the same page he defined cuirass: “The breast and backplate combined.” The 1671 edition of E. Phillips’s The New World of Words defines a corslet as “the same as Cuirasse in French, Armour for the back and brest.”

the English Civil War, is unlikely to have been needed in Virginia, where both moving and fighting was done on foot. Nevertheless the thigh- and shin-protecting tassets were characteristic of the half suit and are well represented from archaeological sites.51 In the Elizabethan era pairs of tassets were skillfuly curved to fit the wearer, each constructed from six or more overlapping strips (lames; a term also used generically to mean armor plates) held together by riveted leather straps. These multiple-lamed tassets were invariably indirectly attached to the breastplate by one or more separately riveted plates (fauld or waistplates), to which were attached three straps. These in turn were threaded through a trio of equally spaced buckles riveted to the top tasset lame. In the seventeenth century, however, cheaper tassets, particularly those worn by pikemen, were made in single hammered sheets with lateral ridges52 to simulate the old, separately lamed upper-leg defenses. At the same time the number of attaching straps were reduced to two a side, sometimes directly riveted to the flaring lower extremity of the breastplate. Unhappily the more one sees of armor excavated from sites of the first half of the seventeenth century, the more one realizes that evolutionary criteria based on museum-quality suits (and parts thereof) do not hold up, or—to put it another way—there are sufficient anomalies to disprove the rule. Thus two tassets from the Governor’s Land site discarded in the first quarter of the century are of the late, simulated-lame pikeman’s variety, and yet both were attached to the upper-body defense with three and not two straps. Although both had five simulated lames and in most respects were similar, they are of different sizes.53 Among the finds from Martin’s Hundred Boyse site (Site H) is a single-element tasset comprising three simulated lames in the seventeenth-century manner but having the riveted traces of three rather than the later two buckles.54 Normally one finds the late, single-sheet tassets having rolled edges on all sides but the top. In this instance, however, the side

The muster listing for the “Governors Men at Pasbehaighs” provided one of only two citations for a “Corslett,” and did so in a tabulation that also listed “Armour, 4; Jack-Coat, 1; Coats of Male, 2; Steele Coat, 1; [and] 2 head peeces.” In this instance, at least, the tabulator saw a distinction between an armour and a mere breast- and backplate. But he also drew a distinction between a “Jack-Coat” and a “Steele Coat.” One may argue, therefore, that the latter was really a brigandine, for there is no reference to this kind of armor anywhere in the muster. By extension, therefore, when, as in Martin’s Hundred, one household’s listing has a “Coate of Steel” and another a “Coat of plate”—while nobody has a jack coat—it is fairly safe to conclude that the coat of steel means a brigandine and the coat of plate a jack. 52. The author refers to them as “tin-tray tassets.” 53. Outlaw, p. 193, fig. 33, nos. 142–143. 54. Pt. II, Fig. 62, no. 3.

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Plate 47. A tasset dated 1636 in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection. This differs from the example from Site H in that it has a rolled edge at its lower extremity and two rather than three anchoring hooks.

Illustration 31. The Site H tasset (Pt. II, Fig. 62, no. 3) reconstructed as a simulated six-lame guard hinged in the middle. edges are rolled but the lower, horizontal edge is not. Instead it is pierced by holes for two out of three rivets. These could have secured the lining, but there is reason to argue that they held straps securing a second three-simulated-lame plate, thus giving the defense the dimensions of an older six-lame tasset (Ill. 31). There is in the Colonial Williamsburg collection an antique simulated-lame tasset bearing the date 1636 (Pl. 47) that is scarcely deeper than the Site H specimen. The principal difference, however, is its rolled lower edge and two buckle attachments. With the Site H specimen and one other as the lone anomalies, lames from multiple-element tassets seem to have been the norm in Martin’s Hundred at the time of the massacre.55 From this we can assume that suits (or rather half suits) worn in Martin’s Hundred were old but of relatively good quality. In February 1624/25 there were 21 adult males in Martin’s Hundred and 17 suits of armor, as well as five “coats of steel,” one “plate coat,” and 13 coats of mail. The coats of mail may or may not be represent-

55. Pt. II, Figs. 51, nos. 14–15; and 62, nos. 1–2 and 4. 56. Pt. II, Figs. 51, nos. 8–9; 72, nos. 4–5; also, from the small, supposedly tenant’s or yeoman’s dwelling at Site E, Fig. 18, no. 13. Mail is commonly referred to as chain mail, but this is a redundancy as the word mail is derived, according to the O.E.D., from the Latin macula, meaning a spot or the mesh of a net. In armor terminology mail was made only from linked (chain) rings. 57. One of several pairs of sleeves in the Wallace Collection is

ed by fragments found in the Fort and at Site B.56 Mail was also used to provide skirts substituting for tassets, for collars called “standards” substituting for gorgets, as well as for coats (long) and shirts (short). Consequently finding a few links gives little or no clue to their source. The few from the Fort, however, include copper-alloy (brass?) links, and these were commonly used to edge the cuffs of mail sleeves.57 As discussed in note 51, we can reasonably deduce that there was a difference between coats of steel and of plate, as the inventory was likely to have been taken by a single individual.58 The coat of steel is thought to refer to the riveted jackets called brigandines, and the coat of plate to jack coats, the remains of both of which have been found in Martin’s Hundred excavations.59 Jack coats were doublets within whose lining small, overlapping ferrous plates were sewn (Ill. 32). Harrison described them thusly: “jacks quilted and covered over with leather, fustian, or canvas, over thick plates of iron that are sewed in the same.”60 Brigandines, on the other hand, were also doublets, but the plates were riveted to the canvas or leather base, the rivets having first passed through an outer layer of velvet, fustian, or leather, their steel or brass heads making decorative lateral patterns. Such vests usually

described as being “decorated at the wrists with eleven rows of brass rings, alternately riveted (5) and whole punched rings (6), matching the size of the iron links of the remainder.” These sleeves are attributed to the 16th century, but no place of origin is given (Mann, p. 4, nos. A12 and 13). 58. For reasoning, see n. 51. 59. Pt. II, Figs. 51, 57, and 64. 60. Harrison, p. 235.

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Illustration 32. A jack reconstructed and in detail to show how plates from Site H had been used; see Pt. II, Fig. 64. were made in front and back sections, tied or buckled at the shoulders and down the sides. There is, therefore, a clear visual difference between sewn jacks and rivetted brigandies.61 In the mid-sixteenth century some jack coats were made using patches of mail, which rendered them more flexible than the sewn iron scales, many of which were cut down from old plate armor.62 Writing in 1590 Sir Thomas Smythe declared that mounted archers should be equipped with “either jacks of mail, according to the ancient manner, when they were called loricati sagittarii, or else light and easy brigandines, or at least eyelet-holed doublets very easy and well fitted to their bodies, their sleeves chained with mail.” 63 Twenty-eight years later the Tower of London had only one “Jacke of Maile” remaining in its armory, and that included “parcelles of Armor altogether unserviceable or fitte for nothing but old Iron.”64 Immediately, therefore, one asks whether the rest had been sent to Virginia in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre.

61. The novice may be confused by Sir James Mann’s glossary citation (see n. 51 above), wherein he defined a jack as “A jacket or doublet of defence, similar in nature to the brigandine, which it succeeded in the XVIth century” (Mann, p. xlii). In truth jacks were in use in England by ca. 1380 (Ian Eaves, “On the Remains of a Jack of Plate Excavated from Beeston Castle in Cheshire,” Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, vol. XIII [1989], pp. 137–138, n. 32) and references to them became increasingly common through the 15th century. 62. For examples from Site H retaining rivets from their previous use, perhaps as lames, see Pt. II, Fig. 64, nos. 20–21. 63. Smythe, p. 113. 64. Eaves, p. 143, n. 45, citing Public Record Office, State Papers Domestic, Charles I, 139/94.

The gift from King James shipped out aboard the sickness-wracked Abigail included “Iacks of Male, 40,” as well as a similar number of “Plate Coats” that, on the basis of the foregoing argument, are thought to be standard plate-sewn jacks. The lists included 115 brigandines and 400 “Ierkins or Shirts of Male” (Pl. 48a and b). Like the single mail-reinforced jack left in the Tower, this shipment was described as “not only old and much decayed but with their age growne also altogether unfit and of no use for moderne service.”65 There is no certainty that the recovered jack plates came from the same garment, though all were found on the Boyse site, albeit scattered in different features, 28 of them in the same pit as the anomalous tasset.66 However, brigandine plates were also found in these deposits. Brigandines (Pl. 49) undeniably were old-fashioned by the 1620s and, according to some authorities, were replaced by the jack. In Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabetical of 1604,67 however, the word brigandine is included but jack is not. Seventy-odd years later Ephraim Phillips’s New World of Words (1671) recalled jack only as “an herb growing by the hedge sides,” but still recognized brigandine as a worthwhile word: “an ancient kind of Armour, with many plates and joynts, like a Coat of Male (whence Brigand, a foot Soldier so armed, or a high-way Robber).” Be that as it was, light vests “stuffed” with mail or plates, either sewn or riveted, were better suited to Indian fighting than was plate armor. Nevertheless the Martin’s Hundred sites, as well as others elsewhere along the James River, have yielded a surprising quantity of plate armor fragments. This, of course, immediately voices the ever-present but rarely answered question: how did it come to be fragmentary and what became of the rest of it?68 In the Potter’s Pond within the Company Compound a fragmented backplate lay in close proximity to a close helmet, a juxtaposition akin to that discovered in the Fort well. 69 The latter backplate had almost certainly been intact when thrown down the shaft; although one side is now missing, the loss is

65. Sackville, pp. 503–505; also Kingsbury, vol. II, p. 96, Minutes of the Court of the Virginia Company of London, July 17, 1622. 66. Pit 3; C.G. 4065E. As many as 1,164 could be needed to complete a single jackcoat. In 1575 the master of the Tower armories was ordered to cut up enough old plate armor to make 1,500 jacks for use at sea (Arthur R. Dufty, European Armour in the Tower of London [1968], p. 8). 67. Robert A. Peters, ed. (1966). 68. The same question can be applied to the gun and edgedweapon parts, broken and abandoned examples of which were found on most Martin’s Hundred sites. 69. See Pt. II, Figs. 52 and 56.

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Plate 48A and B. A coat of mail of uncertain origin and date and examples of mail fragments (below) from Martin’s Hundred.

Plate 49. The back of a brigandine in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection, its iron plates covered with green velvet. Purchased from the collection of the late Harold L. Peterson, who had sold the front to the National Park Service for exhibition at Jamestown, Virginia.

attributed to disintegration in the well’s silt. The Company Compound backplate, on the other hand, had been broken into pieces before being discarded, some fragments being scattered in the pit and some absent altogether. There was no sign of cutting with a metal tool70 but some evidence of bending—though it seems hardly likely that the ferrous sheet could have been torn to pieces by brute strength. A third fragmentary backplate was found at the Harwood

site71 and proved to be of the same general type as those unearthed in Wolstenholme Towne. All three backplates are unusual in that their shoulder straps are secured by ferrous rivets hammered through brass diamond-shaped washers; although the example from the Fort well differs in that its strap rivets are located much closer to the upper edges. The surviving strap fragments attached to this specimen at the front shoulders were not sufficiently preserved to tell whether they had been protected by small riveted plates akin to Roman phalerae, although one such scale was found in the Company Compound.72 The Fort well’s backplate was by far the best preserved. It retained a pair of rump-protecting lames (garde-rein), suggesting that this had been part of a horseman’s cuirass, perhaps akin to one shown in Gerard Terborch’s Cavalier in the Saddle (Pl. 50). In addition to a miscellany of lames (mostly from tassets), body armor from Martin’s Hundred included

70. The collar section from a similar backplate found in excavations further down the James at Mathew’s Manor (unpublished) had clearly been cut to obtain the flat iron plate unencumbered by rolled edges.

71. Pt. II, Fig. 81, no.1. 72. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 19.

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Plate 51. A gorget in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection, which differs from the fragments found at Martin’s Hundred in that the lining is secured with brass rivets and was intended to be worn over a buff coat rather than as part of a cuirass (see also Ill. 34).

plates from the lower collar articulation of a close helmet73 akin to that from the Fort’s well. Such crescent-shaped plates are usually described as gorgets (Pl. 51), but the term is best reserved for separate plates at the upper chest and throat that were worn either under the breastplate or separately over a brigandine, jack, or buffcoat. 74 The Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond yielded a gorget of this type.75 The chest-protecting gorget was coupled with a neck and shoulder defense with small buckles attached at left and right, to which were strapped the upper arm elements of a half or full suit. The two gorget pieces usually pivoted (hinged) on a tall rivet

at the left shoulder and were secured at the right with a slot and stud. A fragment of a rear gorget plate was found at Site B, and in Illustration 33 is shown in its correct position behind the Potter’s Pond’s frontal gorget. To illustrate the closure method as well as other details, Colonial Williamsburg purchased the brass-riveted specimen shown in Plate 49. Rarely is armor found with enough of its lining surviving for it to be correctly interpreted. This, however, is such a piece. The drawing (Ill. 34) shows first the red velvet piccadills whose scalloped edges were both decorative and practical, in that they discouraged the gorget from scratching against the breastplate. Riveted through the velvet is a roll of leather that wraps around the sewn fabric lining. The large, washersecured rivets at the junction of front and back are, at left, the pivot and, at right, the securing stud. That body armor in Martin’s Hundred was not limited to chest, thigh, and back defenses is proven by

73. Pt. II, Fig. 51, nos. 1–3. 74. Buffcoats were of leather heavy enough to withstand a sword blow but not a bullet. Reaching from neck to knee, they were usually closed down the front with large hooks and eyes, iron-wire examples of which were found in the Fort: Pt. II, Fig. 45, nos. 5–6. Somewhat lighter hooks and eyes, fashioned from bound brass wire and tinned to resemble silver, were found at the Harwood site: Pt. II, Fig. 89, nos. 41–43. The 1624/25 muster lists only one buff coat, this at Burrows Hill plantation in the district of James City where two men (Richards and Dolphinbe), who had no servants, owned “Powder 2 lb; Shott 12 lb; Peeces, 4; Armour 1; Buffe Coat, 1.” 75. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 15. As a rule gorgets worn behind

breastplates were flat-edged, whereas those worn over protective jackets (jacks, brigandines, buff coats) had their lower edges rolled, as does the cited specimen. A close parallel for the Martin’s Hundred gorget was found on the Governor’s Land site and there attributable to the first quarter of the 17th century (Outlaw, pp. 191–192, fig. 32, no. 139). For soldiers wearing exposed gorgets of this type see, e.g., Dou’s An Officer of the Leiden Civic Guard (n. 7 above) and Rembrandt’s famous Night Watch and its portrait of Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (1642); collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. As the use of armor declined, the gorget was made large enough to substitute for the breastplate, eventually becoming a semidecorative, chain-suspended, crescent-shaped plate.

Plate 50. Cavalier in the Saddle by Gerard Terboch (1617–1687), the horseman wearing a back plate and garde rein similar to those found in the Fort well (Pt. II, Fig. 52). Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Julian Cheney Edwards Collection.

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Illustration 33. Gorget fragments from Wolstenholme Towne (Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 15). The square buckle frame would have received a strap whose buckle was attached to the shoulder-protecting pauldron.

Illustration 34. The gorget illustrated in Pl. 51 drawn to show how the picaddills and other lining elements were secured. the discovery of a well-preserved couter (elbow cop) at Site B (Pl. 52).76 Found in the filling of the pit that could have been dug for a pottery kiln, the couter’s cord decoration at top, centerline, and bottom suggested that it came from an armor of quality, as did the fact that it retained (prior to conservation) much of its original blueing. No less pertinent was the dis-

76. Pl. 52; also Pt. II, Fig. 72, no. 1. 77. Pt. II, Fig. 51, no. 12. 78. Pt. II, Figs. 53 and 54 (Fort); and 55 (Company Compound). 79. The parish armor preserved in the Church of St. Mary at Mendlesham, Suffolk, is the classic (indeed the only surviving) example of such mix-and-match armor of the first half of the 17th century; see Ch. 3, n. 81.

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Plate 52. The couter or elbow cop from Site B seen after conservation using the hot wax treatment. When found the smooth areas retained their original blueing. covery in the Fort of a rerebrace fragment,77 i.e., one of the multiple lames that made up the upper arm defense. By far the most important of the armor recovered from Wolstenholme Towne, indeed from anywhere in British America, are the two close helmets78—a type hopelessly unsuited for warfare (or even for wearing) in the Virginia summer. The example from the Fort well retained its shape surprisingly successfully, but its structure was reduced to little more than flaking rust (Pls. 53–56). The latter also was true of the second helmet, which in addition had become squashed and seriously distorted by overlying earth pressure (Pl. 57). The Fort’s example was of by far the better quality, although its skull appeared to have belonged to one helmet and the visor and beavor (chin defense) to another. This, however, was by no means an unusual practice when assembling munition-quality armor.79 The helmet’s outer/lower gorget plate is secured with brass rivets, a detail that generated surprise and disbelief on the part of armor specialists in England, who contended that, at best, the rivets could be iron brass-capped. X-rays, however, left no doubt that the rivets were indeed entirely of a yellow copper alloy.80 Later one of the doubters, Alexander Norman, then Master of the Tower Armouries, came upon a 1621 reference from the Shuttleworth Accounts showing

80. The discovery of brass-riveted armor plates was not limited to Martin’s Hundred. Several examples, including those on a complete cabasset, a pauldron fragment, and at least seven lames, were found at the Governor’s Land Site and dated to the Martin’s Hundred period (Outlaw, pp. 191–196 and figs. 32, nos. 136 and 137; 33, nos. 141, 144–147; and 34, nos. 148–150).

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Plate 53. The Fort close helmet in situ. Plate 55. The Fort helmet in the laboratory after having its steel box inverted and the underside of the helmet excavated. The latter is here seen being prepared to receive its coating of RTV.88 and plaster to create the second side of the two-piece mold.

Plate 54. The Fort helmet, pedestaled and enclosed with its steel box, being coated with RTV.88 molding compound prior to being covered with 4˝ of plaster of Paris. With that done a steel sheet was inserted beneath the box and secured to it to complete the lifting container.

81. Shuttleworth Accounts (1621), vol. XLI, p. 249–250, purchased in July 1621: to Jo: Harmer, armo’rer, for fyve muskettes with restes and mouldes (at xiiijs with the rest and mouldes) iijli xs; one other rest and mould, xii d; 2 French pistolls furnished, xxxs;;; one long elbowe gantlett, vjs vjd; six head peeces (at 3s) xviij; one sworde with belt vijs; fyve suites of brasse buckells xvs; one pike head vjd; fyve C. of brasse riv-

payments to armorer John Harmer that included the purchase of 500 “brasse rivettes” at a cost of 18 pence.81 A principal distinction between quality helmets and those that were cheaper was whether or not the bowl or skull was hammered hot from a single sheet of metal or whether it was fashioned in two parts luted fore and aft along the folded line of the crest. Although their condition prevents certain recognition of this important detail, it is thought that the Fort’s example, with its reused skull, is of one-piece manufacture and that the second—that from the Company Compound (Pl. 57)—is not. In the former, the visor is of heavy construction and employed a prop to hold it open, whereas the second helmet was lighter and had a visor that could be pushed right up over the shallow crest and held there—one presumes—by friction. By the 1620s close helmets were being recognized as impractical and dangerously curtailing the wearer’s peripheral vision. In consequence they became lighter. In place of narrow lateral sights (vision slots) and arrangements of small holes in the forward cheeks (breaths), the new-model visors had vertical slots that stretched from brow to chin, providing wider vision and easier breathing.82

ettes, xviijd; for canvis to lappe thinges in for cariage xxd; This is a very useful citation, not only for its reference to brass rivets but also because it gives a good idea of the value of armor and weapons in the 1620s. 82. Many of these later helmets were really close burgonets, in that they had wide bills and a detachable bevor, then called a buffe (Dufty, pls. CVI and CVII).

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Plate 56. The Fort helmet after conservation and fiberglass reinforcement, shown in tandem with its reproduction. The shipment of these old-style helmets to Virginia as late as 1619 is surprising, but perhaps only because so little is known about the armor worn by the English in the early years of the seventeenth century, before the evolution into lighter helmets and contrastingly heavier, bullet-deflecting body armor worn

by cavalry officers in the English Civil War. Although no exact parallels for either Wolstenholme helmet has been found, the closest are housed in the vast collection preserved in the Styrian Landeszeughaus at Graz, Austria. Unlike collections of armor in the world’s great museums, where curators have been

Plate 57. The Company Compound close helmet after conservation, shown in tandem with its reproduction.

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beguiled by beauty rather than by representativeness, the Graz arsenal contains supplies of arms and armor called in from Christian armies disbanded in the seventeenth century, when the last Ottoman Turk invader abandoned his attempt to seize and hold Eastern Europe for Islam. In short, the Graz armory today looks pretty much as the Tower of London’s arsenal must have early in the seventeenth century. Six years after the massacre in Virginia what then passed for complete armor was being shipped to the New England colony from the workshop of Thomas Stevens in London’s Buttolph Lane. The order read like this: for 20 arms, viz, coslett, brest, back, culet, gorgett, tases, & hed peece to ech, varnished all black, wth lethers & buckles, at 17s ech armour, excepting 4, w ch are to bee w th close head peeces, & theis 4 armours at 24, a peece, to be dd [delivered] all by the 20th of this monthe;83

From this account we can deduce that the 16 suits of armor at 17s. had burgonets or some other openfaced headpiece. It so happens that the same Thomas Stevens had sent armor to Virginia in 1619 for the use of Smith’s Hundred. It is reasonable to assume that, as both Smith’s Hundred and Martin’s Hundred were under the control of the Ferrar brothers, Wolstenholme Towne’s armory contained armor provided by Stevens. That sent to Smith’s Hundred comprised “23 Armors att 17s p[er] peece,” a total of £19 11s., plus “2 Armors better then ordinary for Mr Middleton & his Sone at 25s p[er] peece.” They were to be shipped in barrels (dry fats) along with 40 swords priced at 5s. each.84 From the Stevens’ accounts we discover—somewhat to our surprise, knowing the prices that run-ofthe-mill antique armor fetches today—that a suit complete with close helmet cost only 25s. In the course of a decade an open-faced armor remained constant at 17s., while those with close helmets had come down a shilling. More pertinent is the fact that 25s. went much further in 1622. To glean some notion of contemporary comparative values, the probate inventory of yeoman Nicholas Spicer included a

83. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England (1853–1854), vol. 1, p. 31. 84. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 262, James Berblocke. An Order to Mr. Ferrar, February 25, 1619/1620. Here the price of swords is the same as that cited in the London broadside of 1622 (see n. 45), republished by Smith two years later.

tinned-iron chamberpot, four wire candlesticks, three earthenware cups, and a salt, together valued at 18s.85 Very little has been written about the Indians’ attitude toward seeing armored invaders for the first time. Here, however, is how the inhabitants of Buka in the Solomon Islands recalled their ancestors’ first encounter with a European (probably Spanish) ship: One day a wind blew, and it came from out of the south, and fiercer it blew and fiercer . . . . And out of the rack of the storm a huge bird appeared high in the air, and it had many wings, which were white, and it settled upon the water of Naru and then floated, and from out of the belly of the bird appeared a boat, and men appeared . . . . The bird stopped many days, and into its belly took much water from the River of Nessa—which river still runs, which shows that this is no lie . . . . The skin of these strange men was as turtle shell, and the skin on their belly and the skin on their back would come off. Their heads too they took off and laid on the sands. And once a warrior, more frightened than most, threw a spear at a man whom he saw taking his head off, and the spear struck the man in the belly with force sufficient to drive it inches into a coco nut tree, but it was swept aside and the man laughed.86

Richard Frethorne of Martin’s Hundred did not laugh when the tables were turned and the Indians were expected to be wearing armor. Writing home about the loss of Captain Spillman’s expedition, he told how the Indians “have gotten peeces [muskets], Armour, swords, all thinges fitt for Warre, so that they may now steale upon us and wee Cannot know them from English, till it is too late . . . and then ther is no mercie.”87 In the final analysis it was not the Englishmen’s armor or even their fire power that spelled the end of Virginia’s prehistoric millenia, but a combination of disease, fences, a never-ending flow of replacement colonists, and an Anglo-Christian disregard of every rule of human conduct when dealing with the “salvages.”

85. Cash, p. 31–32, no. 55, Inventory of Nicholas Spicer of Heavitree, 20 May 1623. 86. Connoisseur, vol. LXXIX, no. 314 (1927), pp. 99–100, quoting Major Ogilvy, The Rebaul Record, vol. ii, no. 2 (February 1917). 87. Kingsbury, vol. IV, p. 61., Richard Frethorne to his father, April 2, 1623.

CHAPTER 5

Of Pots and Pertinence To most archaeologists, no matter where they work, potsherds are the principal products of their work. Hours are spent washing and drying them, and weeks, even months, are taken up reconstructing and drawing them (Pl. 58). Until the middle years of the present century the purpose was to restore or repair broken pottery, not so much to learn from so doing but to provide complete vessels that could be photographed and exhibited. Such restored pots were admired for their artistic attributes, for their grace of line or quality of decoration. Thus the commonplace or the culturally offensive were often discarded as being of no interest, and as a result museums gave a very warped perspective of the role of pottery in the life of its time. In England archaeologists digging on Roman sites, often faced with processing and housing vast numbers of sherds, adopted a policy of retaining only tops and bottoms and so threw away all those uninteresting pieces that went between. In Williamsburg in the 1950s the storage problem was solved by retaining only three fish-boxes of artifacts from any one site, the rest being thrown back into the trenches whence they came. In contrast Park Service archaeologists excavating seventeenth-century Jamestown kept everything and measured the placement of each sherd both horizontally and vertically. Meticulously kept records made it possible to return to the very spot where a fragment had been found and to know that it had lain maybe 6˝ down. But down in what, they failed to say. The mid-1950s saw a change in thinking as American archaeologists recognized that the placement of the sherds in relation to the stratigraphy, the layering

of the ground, was a means to sequence and date the evolution of a site. The presence in a layer of sherds of a type known from documentary sources not to have reached Virginia until 1769 meant that the stratum had been laid down or had been disturbed at some time after that date. This simple reasoning was coupled with another belated recognition, namely that, when carefully recorded, the lateral distribution of the sherds from any one vessel could show, for example, that when pot A was broken and its fragments scattered, a well shaft was already abandoned and being filled with trash, a nearby ditch was open and beginning to silt up, and that a house, under whose foundation a sherd was found, had not been built. Thus it followed that the well had not belonged to the house. That kind of information became retrievable as the result of a process known as crossmending. Each sherd having been marked with the layer number from which it came, all the potsherds of every type found on the site would be sorted by ware, type, color, and individualistic details like localized burning or surface damage. Thus when all the ceramics had been sorted, resorted, and sorted again, down to what appeared to be the assembled pieces from each vessel, the laboratory staff would then glue them together, keeping careful note of the now-grouping numbers: e.g., C. G.1 2134C for the third layer down in the well, 2786K for the ditch’s primary silting, and 3104J for the layer immediately under our hypothetical house foundation.2 More than any other artifact, a site’s broken pottery is the archaeologist’s signpost to the past, telling them where they are in time as they dig ever deeper.

1. Abbreviation for Excavation Register. For Martin’s Hundred the full prefix reads “C.G.E.R.,” meaning “Carter’s Grove Excavation Register.” In the interests of brevity, however, entries in the catalog omit the “E.R.” 2. At Carter’s Grove all significant archaeological strata would be given a lettered suffix (e.g., C.G. 3402A), while the always disturbed and stratigraphically useless artifacts from the topsoil would be identified only by the number (C.G. 3402). That

number (along with its suffixes) identified a specific 10´ x 10´ square of the archaeological grid, which was set up (at least on paper) over the entire site before work began. Although fragments from the topsoil make no contribution to a site’s stratigraphic sequencing, they are not discarded, it being highly likely that they may provide otherwise missing pieces when a pot is being reassembled.

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Plate 58. Artifact artist Patricia Kidd drawing a pipkin from Site B.

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As previously explained, at Carter’s Grove plowing had been so extensive and so persistent (save at Site B) that whatever stratigraphy may have overlain the clay subsoil, it had all been churned into a single layer of topsoil. Only when that had been removed and the bottoms of ditches, postholes, and suchlike features were exposed, extending deeper into the undisturbed subsoil, could meaningful archaeology begin. Unfortunately, the Martin’s Hundred sites yielded only one well (that in the Fort [Site C]), one cellar hole (at the Harwood site [Site A]), and one large and deep pit (the Potter’s Pond [Site C, Company Compound]); all the rest of the features were shallow pits left by the falling and felling of trees, silted ditches, and structural postholes. Even so the number of ceramic fragments recovered runs into the hundreds of thousands—most of them from vessels of local (indeed, on-site) manufacture. But before discussing these it is important to understand what had been available, ceramically speaking, before the first Martin’s Hundred colonists set out from England. Britain had been slow to escape its medieval roots—or at least slower than its European neighbors. Although various forms of tin-in-lead glazed wares had been common in Europe since the fifteenth century—wares that we variously describe as maiolica, faience, or delftware—it was not until 1567 that emigrant potters from Antwerp built their first kilns in Norwich to reproduce the kinds of whiteglazed wares their families had been making in the Netherlands since 1510. Later the Norwich potters moved to the outskirts of London at Aldgate, and later still settled across the Thames in the parish (later the borough) of Bermondsey. Needless to say the Antwerp-trained potters continued to make, in Norwich and then London, the same shapes and designs, both in pots and tiles, that they had made in the Netherlands.3 Thus, for example, a blue-decorated skirting or fireplace tile found at Site A4 may be of Netherlandish or English origin, for the same designs of standing figures in a wide variety of poses were made in what is now Holland. Although not yet discovered (at least to my knowledge) on English kiln sites, the fact that virtually every other Netherlandish product is paralleled makes it unlikely that these tiles were an exception.

By the end of the sixteenth century tin-glazed wares were being widely made across Europe to the Middle East, where the process had originated in the middle of the ninth century. The English market, however, attracted relatively few of the more exotic wares, such as the elaborately colored wares of Montelupo, Italy, or the lustrous Hispano-Moresque products of Southern Spain. Portuguese maiolica on the other hand, though relatively modest in its use of color or design elaboration, did reach England in some quantites—as it did Virginia. The presence of three such plates on Site A5 but on none of the premassacre sites suggests that Portuguese faience imports began to appear in the second quarter of the seventeenth century.6 Setting aside the warning in Note 6, it does appear that a wider range of ceramic wares reached Jamestown in its earliest days than would be found there later. This is a reasonably safe conclusion, due to the fact that virtually everything that the first colonists possessed came with them. Not until they settled into their new environment did they begin to pot for themselves. It would, however, take them a century to learn the art and mystery of saltglazed stoneware manufacture, a fabric that had been developing in the German Rhineland since the fifteenth century. Factories at Cologne, Siegburg, Raeren, Hohr, and Frechen employed vast numbers of craftsmen decorating many of their products specifically for foreign markets. Stoneware bottles impervious to heat or acids were in production by the 1540s, and remained an important export line until the end of the eighteenth century. They are represented in Martin’s Hundred by several shattered examples from the Boyse site (Site H), from the Fort, and from Site A (Pl. 59).7 These bottles retained a virtual monopoly on the sealed container market until the introduction of the thickwalled, green glass wine bottle in the mid- to late 1640s. The stoneware bottles have long been called Bellarmines after Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, who was opposed to liquor and all such vices, and was so hated by Protestant potters of the Rhineland that they applied a grotesque interpretation of his bearded face to the neck of each bottle. Though an intriguing story, it is untrue, for the bearded bottles were in production before Bellarmino was born.

3. To further muddy the waters, white-firing English clays from Cornwall were exported to the Netherlands for the use of the maiolica potters, making it even more difficult to distinguish between the early English-made wares and those from Holland. To be on the safe side, therefore, the polychrome delftwares found on early 17th-century American sites are classified as Anglo-Netherlandish. 4. Pt. II, Fig. 34, no. 11. 5. Ptl. II, Fig. 34, nos. 8–10. 6. Archaeologists are always trying to draw conclusions that will stick and be of value to students elsewhere. Thus to be able to

say that Portuguese maiolica will not be found on sites or in strata dating prior to 1625 would be a very useful guideline—if it, in fact, is true. In reality, of course, three plates do not make a trade. The examples from Site A may not have been in general trade with Virginia or England, but were bought or bartered in the West Indies. Until 1993, when work began on fortified Jamestown, no really early colonial site had been fully excavated in Virginia. Consequently, it is too soon to assess the availability of imported wares prior to 1622. 7. Pt. II, Figs. 3, nos. 8–9; 13, nos. 8–9; 16, nos. 6–11; 17, nos. 14–15; and 34, no. 2.

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Plate 59. A Bartmann bottle (hithero known as a Bellarmine) whose shields of arms parallel an example from the John Boyse homestead. The illustrated bottle is in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection and comes from the White Lion, a Dutch ship whose 1613 wreck lies off the coast of St. Helena in the South Atlantic (see also Pt. II, Fig. 16, no. 6). Their English terminology has been debated at length, but it is certain that toward the end of the eighteenth century (when their manufacture was almost over) the English called the bottles “greybeards.” In Germany, where Dr. David Gaimster of the British Museum has been extensively studying their dating and distribution, they are called Bartmannkrugs, and so he has chosen to call them Bartmann bottles. Most archaeologists (if not collectors) will follow Gaimster’s lead until a better term is devised.8 The principal centers of manufacture for the runof-the-mill Rhenish stonewares were first at Siegburg near Bonn and in the vicinity of Cologne. Indeed all these Rhineland stonewares (whether made in Flanders or in the German Duchies) were known to the seventeenth-century English as “Cologne ware.” This, too, is an oversimplification. The role of Cologne in the manufacture of Bartmann bottles is uncertain,

8. David Gaimster, German Stoneware 1200–1900, p. 24ff. For a further discussion, see Pt. II, Figs. 3, n. 25; and 16, n. 111. 9. In the early 17th century the word “Dutch” served as an Anglization of the German Deutch.

and it may have gained that reputation through being the marketing center for the nearby Frechen industry, based near Aix-la-Chapelle. The village of Raeren (again near Aix-la-Chapelle) was also in the brown stoneware business: not in Bartmann production but in the making of ornamental jugs, first made brown by iron-oxide slips but the body later left gray and its ornament highlighted in cobalt blue. Due to foreign invasions by Spaniards in 1587, the Elector of Brandenburg in 1615, and the Swedes in 1632, many of the best potters moved south to the vicinity of Coblenz, in the villages of Höhr and Grenzhausen. Some authorities of years past have seen the potters of Höhr as continuing in the older Siegburg tradition, producing only welldecorated wares devoid of iron-oxide or cobalt ornamentation, while the far more common blue-on-gray wares were attributed to Grenzhausen. There seem to be no documented grounds for these conclusions, however, and in the absence of defining excavations most modern scholars play it safe and attribute both plain and colored versions to the Westerwald wherein both villages are located. It is safe to say, nonetheless, that the potters working there established a vast industry that provided virtually every English and Anglo-American household with jugs, chamberpots, and storage jars through the eighteenth century until ca. 1770. Then, and indeed earlier, their wares were known as “Dutch ware,” probably because it was exported through Holland ports.9 In 1676 the antiquary Robert Plot wrote in his Natural History of Oxfordshire that the stonewares were hitherto “made only in Germany, and by the Dutch brought over into England in great quantities.”10 The problem of nomenclature as it related to transportation and distribution became relevant to the interpretation of Martin’s Hundred when the neck and handle (the latter stamped WM) of a small and elaborately decorated jug or pitcher were found in the well within the Fort.11 By itself the neck would have told us little. But it was not alone. In earlier excavations at Site A the bottom and side of a very similar jug had been found.12 So similar was it that even the interior firing coloration was the same, and so, too, were the decorative details (Pl. 60). How, we wondered, could a jug broken in the pre-1622 Fort have had its bottom carried a quarter of a mile away to be thrown into a pit at Site A? The only rational hypothesis must be that Harwood had bought more than one jug from a London dealer, who, in turn, had bought a batch from his Amsterdam supplier, probably shipped down the Rhine in a crate into which they had been packed by the potter. The pot-

10. Ivor Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America (1970), p. 283. 11. Pt. II, Fig. 4, no. 2. 12. Pt. II, Fig. 34, no. 4.

OF POTS AND PERTINENCE

Plate 60. Fragments of two identical Westerwald jugs of ca. 1600, the base from the Harwood site and the neck, whose handle is stamped WM, from the Fort well.

163

Plate 61. The restored but largely complete Westerwald jug of ca. 1600–1620 from Site B.

ter in his turn had gone to his store of finished products and taken the jugs from a shelf where they had been set after being removed from the kiln. In this way the Fort jug would have remained with its fellow from the same sector of the kiln until it reached Martin’s Hundred. The jug’s mark (WM) has not been found on any other American archaeological site, and is thought to be that of a member of the famed Menneken family of potters.13 Unquestionably, the most impressive ceramic object from all of the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites was the blue-on-gray Westerwald jug (Pl. 61) from the Jackson/Ward site (Site B). Most of it was found in the pit that may have been intended as a kiln ash-and-air duct. It lay in a stratum overlying a slipware dish dated 1631, and so was in use at least until that date. It is conceivable, however, that the jug could have been made as early as 1590. Mitigating against such an early date is the fact that two such jugs were used at Site B, while there are fragments of a third from the Fort.14 It is true that these large jugs varied in minor details (particularly in the neck friezes), but the fragments from Martin’s Hundred,

as far they go, point to three identical vessels. So why, one asks oneself, would one be in the Fort and the others on Site B, the home of Messrs. Jackson and Ward, who, as far as we know, were never resident in the Fort? Is it possible, one then asks, that the large building within the Fort, assumed to have been Governor Harwood’s residence before the massacre, was in reality the company store and that Harwood always lived at Site A? Beguiling though that explanation may be, the presence of evidently domestic trash, meat bones, oyster shells, et cetera in the cattle wallow around the abandoned well point to the site’s residential use. If the Site B jugs pass for the sublime in Martin’s Hundred, Rhenish stoneware forms take us close to the ridiculous. Found on Site A, this is a plain gray stoneware chamberpot, neatly flat at the rim but without any form of decoration, which seems to have been a product intended for European domestic use rather than for export. By the mid-seventeenth century the blue-on-gray products of the Westerwald included well-made chamberpots decorated with

13. See Pt. II, Fig. 4, n. 31.

14. Pt. II, Figs. 26; and 4, no. 1.

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Plate 62. One of two Seville flasks or costrels from Site A. Both are coated to the waist with a thin tin-lead glaze and marked with a star in cobalt blue. The earliest example so far recorded comes from the 1619 wreck of the Warwick in Castle Harbor, Bermuda. rosettes and crowned lions, a decorative combination that persisted through most of the eighteenth century and was to be found in virtually every home or colonial dwelling. Although no plain specimens are recorded from excavations in England, several have been found in wells and cesspits in Duisburg, Germany.15 Spain is represented on the Martin’s Hundred sites not by elaborately painted maiolica dishes or Italianate drug jars, but by the coarsest earthenware bot-

15. David R. M. Gaimster, “Pottery Supply and Demand in the Lower Rhineland c. 1400–1800: An Archaeological Study of Ceramic Production, Distribution and Use in the City of Duisburg and its Hinterland” (1991), figs. 26 and 31. So ordinaryappearing would be body sherds of these plain Rhenish chamberpots that they could easily pass for English in the latter part of the 18th century and, if so, would be unlikely to be mentioned in published reports. 16. Pt. II, Fig. 33, nos. 1–3. 17. Fragments with blue stars have been recovered from the wreck of the Warwick at Bermuda, lost in a hurricane in 1619

tles, pale yellow in color and coated on their upper bodies and shoulders with a thin, tin-enriched lead glaze that has, in most instances, flaked off (Pl. 62). These bottles are easily recognized by their two earlike handles and decoration on the shoulders with blue, red, or occasionally yellow eight-pointed stars formed from four brush strokes. Believed to be products of kilns at Seville, no one has yet determined the meaning of the blue, red, and yellow stars. Three of these bottles (often referred to as costrels) have been found at Site A 16 but at none of the premassacre sites.17 Also from Spain came large quantities of botijuelas—globular, pear-shaped, or amphora-shaped storage jars with thick, collared mouths made in a ware whose sandy surface varies from a yellowish buff to a pale pink or orange over a body whose color can be equally variable. Some of these jars are thinly green glazed on the inside. Several attempts have been made to determine an evolutionary sequence, both in the body shapes and the rim forms,18 but it would seem that all the shapes coexisted from the sixteenth century until the early nineteenth century. Recent excavations at the site of Spanish Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, a site occupied between 1566 and 1587, have yielded at least five different rim forms (Ill. 35),19 while the wreck of the Spanish ship Vega at Bermuda in 1639 contained a “globe-and-carrot” variety of a type found aboard the wreck of the ship Elizabeth lost off the Australian coast in 1817.20 These widely exported vessels (originally made to contain either olives or olive oil) are represented by only two necks in Martin’s Hundred, one from the Fort and the other from Site A.21 Perhaps indicative either of time or social level is the fact that only Site A yielded any range of betterthan-average quality European wares. Slip-decorated redware dishes, plates, and costrels from Northern Italy reached Virginia in considerable numbers in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Swirled patterns of white slip underlie the orangebrown-appearing lead glaze, as do splashes of copper green. Intended to resemble marble, these wares are classified as marbleized slipware and contrast with wares that achieve a comparable marblelike effect by mixing white- and red-firing clays together before the vessel is thrown. Like rock candy, the pattern goes right through, causing the end product to be known

(I. Noël Hume, Shipwreck!, p. 41). 18. John Goggin, “The Spanish Olive Jar,” Indian and Spanish Selected Writings (1964), pp. 253–298. 19. Colonial Williamsburg is indebted to Dr. Stanley South and the University of South Carolina’s Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology for this information and for the provision of the drawings. 20. I. Noël Hume, Shipwreck!, p. 56. 21. Pt. II, Figs. 3, no. 7; and 33, no. 4.

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Illustration 35. Examples of Iberian-style jars from a kiln site at Spanish Santa Elena (1566–1587) whose rim shape B is comparable to a fragment from the Fort. Courtesy of Stanley South and the University of South Carolina.

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as agate ware. North Italian marbleized slipware is represented at Site A by a small, wide-rimmed bowl and by a shallow dish of uncertain form.22 Site A also yielded rim and wall fragments from a small redware bowl coated on the inside with a white slip (appearing pale yellow when lead-glazed) scored through in concentric circles and with other unidentifiable motifs in the sgraffito technique. 23 Like the marbleized slipwares this, too, is attributable to Northern Italy, and like them it is splashed with copper oxide. By far the best-quality Italian exports are the tin-inlead glazed and polychrome-decorated wares from Montelupo in Tuscani, products whose decoration is frequently rich in yellow and orange.24 No fragments have been found on the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites, but at Site J further inland a sherd was found during surface collecting over an area, many of whose archaeological features date to the mid-seventeenth century.25 It seems likely, therefore, that these wares, which had been in production since the fifteenth century, did not reach Virginia until the 1640s. Also absent from the Martin’s Hundred sites are France’s contribution to the decorative ceramic export trade, namely the wares of Saintonge that lies to the north of the River Charente not far from Bordeaux. Although potters had been working there as early as the thirteenth century, it is the later and more sophisticated wares that would have been likely to reach Martin’s Hundred, notably chafing dishes with applied faces and figures colored in orange and green over an off-white body. Best known of the Saintonge potters was Bernard Palissy, who coupled his polychrome glazes with applied molded human figures, fish, and snakes in high relief. Although he was working in the mid-sixteenth century, other Saintonge craftsmen continued less successfully in the same style until ca. 1625. At least one Saintonge polychrome bowl has been found during the 1993 excavations at Jamestown, and it is just possible that a plain but notched-rimmed bowl fragment from Site A26 might be a lesser Saintonge export. Although too small to be illustrated in the catalog, Site A yielded fragments from globular flasks in a reddish gray fabric that were made in Normandy and usually attributed to Martincamp. 27 These bottles were originally wicker or straw wrapped, in the manner of modern Chianti bottles. They had a long life

and a three-stage evolution: 1) a creamy buff ware, dated ca. 1475–1550; 2) a gray to pale brown fabric produced through most of the sixteenth century; and 3) a hard red stoneware, dated ca. 1600–1680. 28 There evidently was considerable overlap in this chronology, and in the absence of more extensive excavations on Normandy kiln sites, it seems safer to associate these bottles with the region rather than with Martincamp alone. In archaeology it takes but a single sherd the size of a little finger nail to be able to say that a vessel of that type had been used and broken on the site. This is true of a small shoulder fragment from a slip-decorated, thin-walled redware pipkin found at Site A.29 The lead-glazed surface, both inside and out, is a high-gloss ginger brown and is attributable to the northern Netherlands. From further south, possibly even from Flanders, came a white ware pipkin in a medieval cauldron shape, deeply ridged externally above the sharply angled girth and standing on three unglazed feet (Pl. 63).30 This attractive vessel has a single handle that, at its junction with the rim, is sharply pinched between finger and thumb, a detail

22. Pt. II, Fig. 33, nos. 8–9. See Hurst et al., pp. 33–37; Hurst makes a strong case for these marbleized slipwares being made at Pisa, but he stops short of dubbing them Pisa marbleized slipwares. 23. Pt. II, Fig. 33, no. 11. 24. The Montelupo wares of the 17th century are not to everyone’s taste, and Hurst (ibid., p. 12) describes them as garish. Nevertheless they are frequently pictorially painted and striking in the richness of their palettes. 25. Site J lies under and immediately north of the Carter’s

Grove Reception Center’s parking lot, and has been excavated only sufficiently to allow road access. In the process, however, several rich refuse pits were found, along with ditches, fencelines, two graves, and two two-bay, post-built buildings. 26. Pt. II, Fig. 33, no. 7. 27. Found in 1970 during preliminary trenching at Site A, from unstratified plow zone. 28. Ibid., pp. 102–104. 29. Pt. II, Fig. 33, no. 10. 30. Pt. II, Fig. 33, no.6.

Plate 63. A tri-footed Dutch pipkin with a characteristic pinched handle and heavily ribbed wall above the girth. The ware is almost white, green-glazed externally and yellow (i.e., uncolored) inside. Found in the cellar fill of Structure D at Site A, ca. 1625–1640.

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Plate 64. Detail from The Poultry Yard by Jan Steen (1660) showing a similarly colored vessel to the example from the Site A cellar (Pl. 63) after the earlier metallic shape had significantly deteriorated. Courtesy of the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Plate 65. A redware version of the green-glazed Dutch pipkin, found on a Seneca Iroquois village site in Monroe County, New York, context 1655–1670. Courtesy of the Rochester Museum and Science Center. characteristic of these pipkins—as is the yellowappearing interior lead glaze and the apple green exterior. A later and debased version of the type is to 31. The term gravel-tempered does not relate to the ware’s irascible disposition but to the mixing of coarse sand into the clay to increase the vessels’ durability. 32. Fragments of green-glazed North Devon Plain ware have been found at the Ralegh expedition site on Roanoke Island,

be seen in Jan Steen’s 1660 painting called The Poultry Yard in London’s National Gallery (Pl. 64). The Site A example, however, is likely to be at least 20 years earlier, having been found in the filling of the subterranean store building. The early shape was also made in red lead-glazed earthenware, exhibiting both the pinched handle and the heavy ribbing above the girth. An example has been found in an Iroquois grave in upstate New York and is now in the collection of the Rochester Museum (Pl. 65). Of the lesser English wares—by those I mean wares other than tin-in-lead glazed delftware—the products of Devonshire are best represented. All are from a short stretch of the county’s northern coast between Bideford and Barnstaple, and range from bright yellow sgraffito-decorated dishes to glumly unattractive gravel-tempered pipkins.31 Between these extremes are tall jars that served as butter pots, whose bodies are without the characteristic gravel mix and consequently known as North Devon Plain.32 The red-bodied and white-slipped sgraffito wares were first recognized at Jamestown, where they were North Carolina, and so date to 1585–1586. A large number of the jars were recovered from the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture on the Bermuda reef (I. Noël Hume, Shipwreck!, pp. 16–17). For Martin’s Hundred examples, see Pt. II, Figs. 3, no. 1; and 13, nos. 1–5.

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found in mid-seventeenth-century contexts.33 Along with dishes (the staple product), this ware was made in shapes that included jugs, cups, and chamberpots. The sgraffito slipware industry continued through the nineteenth century, focusing mainly on elaborately ornamented harvest jugs. Only one small fragment has been found in Williamsburg, clear indication that in Virginia the trade in, and taste for, the large and clunky dishes and the crudely reeded necked jugs did not outlast the seventeenth century. Malcolm Watkins, in his seminal study of the North Devon wares, deduced that “the principal evidence of early manufacture falls into the second half of the 17th century.”34 It is important to realize, however, that Watkins was writing in the late 1950s, when the early fortified Jamestown had not been found and no comparably early seventeenth-century sites had been excavated elsewhere. We now know that the sgraffito wares were reaching Martin’s Hundred prior to 1622—albeit represented by a single dish found in the Fort.35 The ware is absent from the earliest of the Martin’s Hundred settlements, that of the Boyse homestead, as it also is from Site A. The principal source, however, is the Jackson/Ward site, which, as far as we can tell, was occupied ca. 1623–1640. From this site came at least eight North Devon sgraffito dishes, at least two of them with central bird decoration. 36 All but one are deeply incised around the marly with an interlocking-S device, a feature absent from any of the eight Jamestown examples illustrated by Watkins. So, too, are the birds. Instead those are decorated with more sophisticated geometric or floral patterns—a possible indication of their later date. The odd man out at Site B37 is much more sloppily decorated, with slashes at the marly while the rim is abruptly upturned and squared, unlike the others whose rim profiles are more gently contoured. The fact that no two are the same suggests that at this early date there was no uniformity of rim and that a large number of bat molds were in use to create the interior shapes. Why, one wonders, should so many of these distinctive dishes be found at a site where one of its residents was a potter? Does it suggest that Thomas Ward was a Devon man? Other evidence would suggest that he was not. Besides it seems unlikely that a single

man would include in his baggage allowance eight or more heavy ceramic dishes simply for his household use. Is it possible, on the other hand, that he brought them over as design resources for his own work? That both his Virginia-made slip and sgraffito wares38 portray birds certainly can be used to support such a thesis. Then, too, there are other details such as wiggly edged “holly” leaves that occur both on the North Devon dishes and on the locally made sgraffito wares found both at Sites B and A.39 North Devon’s gravel-tempered wares are represented in the Fort, 40 and here again Malcom Watkins’s beginning dates are too late. Limited largely to heavy kitchen vessels, the gravel-tempered wares continued to be imported through most, if not all, of the eighteenth century. However, they are not well represented on the 1619–1645 Martin’s Hundred sites. One more English import needs to be mentioned for it, too, is now proven to have reached America earlier than had hitherto been supposed. Just as Surrey white wares are now called Border ware and Bellarmines have become Bartmanns, so tall, cylindrical vessels in purple stoneware that used to be called Staffordshire butter pots are now termed Midlands purple.41 Not all were fired to hard-stoneware temperatures. Some are no more than a hard earthenware, but these are likely to be vessels that were fired in the coolest corners of the kiln. The walls of these jars are generally ribbed and thickened to an everted rim that is dished internally to receive a lid.42 The interior base is invariably heavily coated with a manganese purple-to-black lead glaze. Stamped numbers within circles are sometimes found on the sides of these jars, but none are present on the fragmentary examples from the Martin’s Hundred sites.43 That they occur on all but one of the excavated areas, from the earliest to the latest, is testimony to their widespread use in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, use that extended at least as late as 1740. It is uncertain, however, whether use and manufacture dates coincide, for these hard-walled vessels could have enjoyed a life much longer than their production source. There remain among the Martin’s Hundred ceramics several vessels and fragments thereof whose

33. Malcolm C. Watkins, “North Devon Pottery and its Export to America in the 17th Century”, United States National Museum Bulletin 225 (1960). 34. Ibid., p. 29. Elsewhere in his study (p. 53) Watkins puts the arrival of North Devon wares in America as early as 1635. 35. Pt. II, Fig. 3, no. 4. Another rim fragment (Fig. 17, no. 13) was found at the enigmatic Site D, whose occupancy cannot be determined to pre- or postdate the 1622 massacre. 36. Pt. II, Figs. 23–24. 37. Pt. II, Fig. 24, no. 5. 38. Pt. II, Fig. 22, nos. 1–2 (slipware) and nos. 10–13 (sgraffito).

39. Pt. II, Figs. 24, no. 2 (North Devon); 22, nos. 14–16; and 30, no. 6 (local sgraffito). 40. Pt. II, Fig. 3, nos. 2a–b. 41. Pt. II, Figs. 3, no. 6; 13, no. 6; 15, nos. 3–6; 17, no. 16; and 32, no. 1. 42. To this author’s knowledge no matching lids have been found in Virginia excavations. 43. Two examples have been found on the site upriver from Jamestown known as The Governor’s Land, which was inhabited by Martin’s Hundred settlers in 1619 (Outlaw, p. 159, fig. 22, nos. 7 and 11).

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origins are uncertain,44 and which are likely to be European imports—first to Britain and thence to Virginia. Although many hundreds of pottery vessels have been published from seventeenth-century period excavations, no drawing can unequivocally demonstrate that something that looks like a given vessel is indeed the same. One can only hope that some future spectrographic study will identify the source of the clay with which these troublesome vessels were made. The spectrographic study of sherds from Martin’s Hundred, conducted by Dr. Stephen Clement of the College of William and Mary, has done much to establish which vessels are of local manufacture and which are not. To that end a trial series of samples was submitted to Dr. Clements, these comprising seven sherds believed to be of local manufacture, two from a late seventeenth-century kiln site (Challis) in James City County, one from Yorktown and characteristic of the ware produced there in the eighteenth century, one unfired clay sample taken from a depth of two feet on Site A, three earthenware fragments found in the River Thames at London, and finally a single sherd found in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. The selection was made in the hope that a common factor could be found linking the known Virginian kiln material (and the clay sample) to the seven Martin’s Hundred sherds, a factor that, it was hoped, might not be present in the Thames or Dutch examples. It is important to recognize that the dates of the samples are of no significance, the readings being taken on the bared clay and not on or through glazes affected by technological advances. The spectrographic analysis revealed only one denominator common to all the allegedly Virginian fragments while differing from the few European samples, namely the alkali-to-titanium ratios. All the indisputably Virginian sherds (and all but one of those believed to be Virginian) provided a ratio below one percentage point (0.46–0.82) while those from England and Holland ranged between 1.43 and 2.62. The unfired clay sample from Site A provided a ratio of 0.38, slightly lower than the range of the fired samples. Others later taken from Site B fitted well within the lower bracket for the Virginian samples, to wit: 0.40–0.58 and 0.39–0.48. Encouraging though these first tests were, the samples were too few to be convincing. Consequently three more series were run using many more samples drawn from a variety of European sites as well as from different parts of England. It is irrelevant to tabulate those ancillary findings here. Suffice it to say that the spectrographic isolation of potassium-to-titanium ratios has something significant to contribute

to archaeologists, curators, and collectors seeking to determine the geological regions from which their wares come. Dr. Clements’s information, coupled with the indisputable evidence of wasters and kiln debris from Potter’s Pond, has established that one or more potters working in the Hundred both before and after the 1622 massacre had provided shapes and sizes to service all the household needs of the plantation (Pl. 66). The discovery that Thomas Ward, potmaker, was there in both periods leaves little doubt that he was the master (if not the crew) of the Martin’s Hundred pottery factory. Finding wasters, kiln parts, and kiln furniture in the Potter’s Pond leaves no doubt that Ward began his Virginian career in the Company Compound. Then again, the presence of fragments of three bird-decorated slipware dishes is firm evidence that they were made nearby. The same is true of the Hundred’s most magnificent creation, namely the alembic from Site A, whose scarred rim matched a tile fragment from the same kiln area (Pl. 67).45 It is the bird-decorated slipware dishes that have the most to say. They are not present in either the Fort or the Company Compound, but many small sherds have been recovered from Site H, where we have no physical evidence of postmassacre reoccupation. Accepting that as fact, it follows that the same kinds of wares were produced over a long period of time—specifically from 1619 to at least 1631, the date on the best preserved dish (Pl. 68). When the dated dish was first studied, Dr. Clement’s spectrographic reading did not fit the local clay used as controls, nor did it match the fabric of the undeniable wasters from the Potter’s Pond. Closer examination explained why. The surface of the dish was of a smoother texture than that of the underlying body. When the surface was abraded through to the body, the readings tallied with the rest of the local wares. The explanation was this: when the potter finished shaping the dish he wiped it over with a slurry from his nearby water bucket, where the tell-tale heavier particles of clay had separated out and sank to the bottom, thus changing the alkali-to-titanium ratios on which the readings depended. There is an old potter’s adage that a craftsman can be identified by his rims and handles. The rims of the 1631-style dishes all turn up, and are externally vertical and flat. The same shaping occurs on spoiled wares from the Potter’s Pond, as well as from Sites A, D, and H, among them bowls, chafing dishes, and pans.46 This rim form is also characteristic of northern Holland and occurs on a slipware dish that also possesses Site B’s ladderlike marly decoration. Archaeologist John Hurst described the rim as

44. Pt. II, Fig. 15, nos. 1–2. 45. Pt. II, Fig. 28, nos. 6 and 4.

46. Pt. II, Figs. 7, nos. 8 and 10–11; 17, no. 6; 20, no. 2; and 30, nos. 5–6.

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Plate 66. A group of vessel shapes from the Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond, discarded before March 22, 1622.

Plate 67. The alembic from Site A, a product of the local kiln. The orange-to-green glaze covering the interior was also applied to the crown of the finial. This is unquestionably the finest example of early American potting so far discovered.

Plate 68. The locally made slipware dish from Pit A at Site B. Dated 1631, it is the earliest example of American slipware potting yet known as well as being among the earliest examples of dated English slipware.

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flanged and hammer-headed, terminology that can well fit the Site B dish. The Dutch specimen also has circles of slip dots around a single central drop and is attributed to 1575–1625.47 Many of the coarse wares—the pipkins, pans, chamberpots, et cetera—possess characteristics quite different from the slip and sgraffito wares, and yet at the same time may have had their stylistic origins in the Low Countries. I refer particularly to double-handled and tripod-footed cauldrons, frequently with thumb-impressed reinforcements in a collar below the rims.48 But as I have noted earlier, groping— reaching for connective conclusions—can soon get one into the realm of fantasy. A quick canter through the catalog’s drawings will show that the majority of the shapes differ significantly from their Low Countries counterparts and even from one another. With that said, it is not impossible that one Martin’s Hundred potter had been apprenticed to a Netherlandish emigrant, and that another had not. No kiln site, with its traditional subsurface fire box and flues, was found anywhere on the Martin’s Hundred sites, but the pond within the Company Compound contained both wasters and fragments of burned clay (bricketage) from the dome of a kiln.49 It seems, therefore, that the Martin’s Hundred kilns— for there had to have been more than one—were built at ground level and were dismantled after each firing. There is a rather dismaying alternative possibility, however; namely that when he first arrived at Wolstenholme Towne, Thomas Ward built a temporary kiln, firing it and destroying it prior to the massacre, and that somewhere in the woods adjacent to his home site (B) there lies the later, permanent kiln,50 wherein he fired such fine objects as the Site A alembic and the Site B slipwares. Josiah Wedgwood developed a technique that he called “tinkering” for wares that split or lost detail while being sun dried or in the first firing. Tinkering enabled him to patch up these flawed wares, which he earmarked for the continental American colonies, contending that these customers were less discerning than those in the more prosperous plantations of the West Indies. Clear evidence of such tinkering was

found in the Potter’s Pond at Wolstenholme Towne, where a somewhat overfired cream pan51 evidently had split as it air dried (Pl. 66). Rather than discard it, the potter smeared the cracks with wet clay before applying the glaze. The repairs failed and the cracks widened during the firing, causing the pan to be thrown into the pond. This sequence can be construed as evidence that when working in the Company Compound the potter was not firing on a regular schedule and that he thought that every vessel thrown needed to be saved. The Wolstenholme Towne pan is not the only example of tinkering, for there is another pan from Site E that exhibits comparable repairs.52 Here they have been more (but not entirely) successful and the pan must be classed as a sold “second,” for there is no evidence of potting at this small domestic site. The problem, however, is that although the pan is made from Virginia clay, it bears no resemblance to anything made in the Hundred either before or after the massacre.53 A possible explanation might be that the anomalous vessels were obtained from a potter at Jamestown during the Gift of God’s passengers’ reluctant sojourn at the Governor’s Land site in 1619. Because the 1624/25 muster lists potter Thomas Ward as having arrived on the Warwick (1620),54 it meant that the first colonists had to obtain their pottery from some other source. The likelihood that a long, post-in-ground structure in the Company Compound may have served as the potter’s drying shed has been discussed, as has its parallel at Site B (Ch. 3, pp. 123–126). Nevertheless, each is important in that they point to a duplication of effort both before and after the Indian’s 1622 assault. The events associated with the massacre are thinly recorded. Consequently the who did what, when, and with which, remains open to dangerous speculation. We have no way of knowing whether evacuating colonists disposed of their tools and armor into the Potter’s Pond and down the Fort well to prevent them falling into Indian hands. It is equally possible that the looting Indians who overran Wolstenholme Towne amused themselves throwing into the water

47. Hurst et al., p. 159 and pl. 26. In spite of the similarities, this example differs from the Site B dish in that it is larger (13a˝ [34.29 cm]) and has three broad, semioval feet. This drawing down of the basal clay into shallow feet is common on a wide variety of bowls and dishes, but is not present among the local wares from Martin’s Hundred. 48. Compare, e.g., Pt. II, Figs. 1, no. 7 (Fort); 10, nos. 4–5; and 11, no. 1 (Company Compound) with a Low Countries example from the period 1525–1575, illustrated ibid., p. 131, fig. 59, no. 183, with text on p. 132. 49. Pt. II, Fig. 12. Among the fragments is part of an arched doorway, no. 10. For a further discussion, see Pt. II, text for Fig. 12. 50. The excavations at Site B were limited to the area first located in 1970 by William Kelso. Although trenches were extended

down the side of the ravine to the west in search of artifact dumpage in that direction, no excavations were pursued north and east after the central artifact spread ran out. It is entirely possible, even likely, that for ten years Thomas Ward’s potting operation was carried out on a site perhaps only yards from where the 1978 excavations halted. 51. Pt. II, Fig. 8, no. 5. 52. Pt. II, Fig. 18, no. 1. 53. Several other Virginia-made vessels fall into the same group, being visually different from the Martin’s Hundred wares, e.g., the complete casserole from the Fort well (Ptl. II, Fig. 1, no. 8). 54. The muster does not specifically say that Ward came in 1620, but only that he did so aboard the Warwick, which in other muster entries is coupled with that date.

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Plate 69. The breach of the musket barrel from the Potter’s Pond shown with some of the small lead shot found stored within it. These may have given the barrel the weight necessary for grinding glaze. any objects for which they had no use. The latter might explain the presence in the Potter’s Pond of a broken musket barrel packed with small lead shot (Pl. 69).55 That the shot was intended to be used in the glazing process was given additional credence when a locally made mug found at Site D contained similar beads of lead imbedded in glaze pooled at its bottom. Proving beyond reasonable doubt that the lead belonged to the potter and was intended for use in glazing is one thing, but to explain its presence in the gun barrel is another. One might speculate that he hid it there to conceal it from the Hundred’s authorities, who might have seized it for remelting into musket shot. Then again, the potter may have used the weighted gun barrel as a tool to beat the raw clay into a usable mix. Why, then, would he have

thrown the barrel away? The same question must be asked of the perforated iron tool of unusual form, having a long iron handle socket and a perforated, spatula-shaped blade (Pl. 70).56 Its presence amid ceramic wasters prompts one to identify the tool as a blunger, used to stir the clay batch in what is termed a blunging pit. It is true that tools like this were used for that purpose, the edge of the blade serving to chop the water-submerged clay while the perforations reduced water resistance when the tool was used as a stirrer. Elsewhere, however, the tool could be seen as a kitchen fish slice, although these usually have solid rather than socketed handles.57 That no kiln was found either in Wolstenholme Towne or at Thomas Ward’s Site B leaves the story of this early ceramic-producing enterprise incomplete. Nevertheless the discovery of the tools, the wasters,

55. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 1. 56. Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 6. 57. J. Seymore Lindsay, Iron and Brass Instruments of the English and American House (1964), fig. 167. Another tool having a blade or spatula of the same perforated shape is illustrated in Herbert Schiffer, Peter Schiffer, and Nancy Schiffer, Antique

Iron: Survey of American and English Forms, Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries (1979), p. 242, pl. B. The tool has a two-tined kitchen fork at one end and the spatula at the other. The caption gives its combined length as 15a” and attributes it to Pennsylvania Farm Museum of Landis Valley, but offers no date.

OF POTS AND PERTINENCE

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and the products together entitle Martin’s Hundred to be considered among the first pages in the history of American industry. We see in it Tom Ward’s attempt to duplicate the ceramics that he had learned to make in England, and which his first-generation Martin’s Hundred customers wanted and expected. That he lacked the apprentices he would have had in England and, more importantly, the quality, white-firing clay that he needed for his slipware meant that he could never meet his customers’ expectations. It would be wrong, therefore, to look at his wares as the beginning of the Americanization of Old World ceramics. Had Ward continued for a decade or two longer— he was 47 when he came over in 1620—he would almost certainly have modified his wares to meet the less-demanding standards of a population beginning to lose its propensity to look at everything in the context of its fading memory of the way things were back in England. Realizing that he could get away with making good utilitarian shapes while abandoning attempts to copy English and European slip and sgraffito wares, the mid-century potter became willing to forego first-generation standards. At the same time the second-generation customer, no longer emotionally hampered by the knowledge and memory of “the way things were,” was equally ready to settle for what she knew. Only after this cultural and artistic dip had been straddled could a genuine American ceramic tradition begin to emerge. Plate 70. A long-handled, perforated iron spatula with a sharpened fore edge. Its context, amid wasters in the Potter’s Pond, strongly suggests that this was a blunger used to cut and stir the potter’s clay, and that by extension the pond had begun life as a blunging pit.

CHAPTER 6

The Small Finds The above heading is the conventional archaeological term for all those odds and ends that do not fit under any other category or are so few in number as not to merit a heading of their own. It by no means follows, however, that their smallness is also the mirror of their importance. On the contrary, the most diminutive of objects can be of the greatest significance. Thus, for example, finding a Harrington Type I tinned copper coin in a construction trench of the Fort (Site C)1 indicated that these token coins, which are known to have been recalled as being under weight, were not melted down but were shipped to Virginia to provide the colonists with much-needed small change. Then and throughout the colonial years foreign silver coins (usually Spanish) were cut into smaller pieces—hence pieces-of-eight—and circulated at whatever the price of silver was at time. Three such fragmentary coins were found in Wolstenholme Towne (Site C) and at the Harwood site (Site A), but they tell us virtually nothing.2 The same is true of the four jettons from the Fort,3 although it might be conjectured on the basis of their presence that supply record keeping was performed there. The same reasoning had previously been applied to the adjacent paled area, which thereupon became known as the Company Compound (Site C), this in the belief that, along with other supplies, bolts of fabric were stored there. From the Potter’s Pond inside the northerly enclosure came five fustian lead seals, bearing on one side the “A” of Augsburg and on the other its pineapple emblem (Pl. 71).4 That so many of the same seal and no others should be found pointed to the cloth being stored there and dis-

pensed or sold when needed, the seals then being removed and thrown away. However, a modicum of puzzlement developed when four more of the same Augsburg seals were found on the Boyse site (Site H).5 Was it possible, we asked, that Boyse had taken the supply of fabric down to the Hundred while the majority of his fellow Gift of God passengers were still diverted to toil on the Governor’s Land near Jamestown, and that only after Wolstenholme Towne was erected in 1620 were the remainder shifted into the Company Compound? There was, however, another, far less historically advancing explanation:

1. Pt. II, Fig. 47, no. 1. 2. They are not the earliest such coins to be found in Virginia, for three examples were found in 1995 while digging on the early-era site at Jamestown. To date, the earliest English coin found in Virgainia is a groat of Henry VIII minted between 1526–1544 (“Freshest Advises,” Colonial Williamsburg, vol. XIX, no. 3, pp. 9–11).

3. Pt. II, Fig. 48. 4. Pt. II, Fig. 61, nos. 1–5. Fustian is a fabric combining the weft of cotton and the warp of linen. In his treatise Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum ([1994], p. 106, nos. 308–310), Geoff Egan notes that Augsburg seals are the most common European versions found in Britain. 5. Pt. II, Fig. 61, nos. 6–8.

Plate 71. Seals from bales of Augsburg fustian, the pineapple emblem of the city on one side and its Gothic “A” initial on the other. Found in the Potter’s Pond, these seals may have come directly from shipped supplies or have been imported only as usable lead.

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Plate 72. The lid, bottom, back, and latch post from a Dutch tinderbox found in Pit A at Site B. the seals came from England in a supply of old lead to be made into bird shot or musket balls. Next in importance among the Martin’s Hundred small finds was a small copper-alloy (brass?) box (Pl. 72) found in Pit A at the Jackson/Ward site (Site B).6 This is the feature that contained both the fine Westerwald jug and the all-important 1631-dated slipware dish, the latter providing irrefutable post quem dating for the filling. The brass box is made from very thin sheets lightly braised together, the bottom and sides lined with lead.7 A small brass tongue is seated in a hole in a projection at both base and top, the upper end having a small hole through which a hooked latch, pivoting on the lid, is thrust to keep the box shut. Rather than having the lid hinged at the back and so open-

Illustration 36. The tops and bottoms of two tinderboxes identical to the Site B specimen, recovered from the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia. Courtesy of the Western Australia Museum, Perth.

Plate 73. A Dutch tinderbox from a Seneca Iroquois village site in Livingstone County, New York, context 1640–1655, shown both closed and open and containing a strike-a-light flint. Courtesy of the Rochester Museum and Science Center.

ing up the whole of the interior, a narrow, top-spanning strip covers the back and reduces the width of the lid. This last is decorated with a stamped ornament of alternating stripes of rosettes and pairs of parallel dotted lines. The second rosette row down from the left exhibits only three flowers, the fourth being replaced by a stamp representing a hand with a pointing first finger. This is thought to be the emblem of the city of Antwerp. Close dating for these boxes is provided by two similarly stamped specimens from the wreck of the Dutchman named the Batavia, lost off the coast of Western Australia in 1629 (Ill. 36).8 One of them contained several small squares of linen, which the finders assumed to be used for loading rifles. However, another box of similar size and decoration has been found in an Iroquois grave in upstate New York, and in it was a strike-a-light flint (Pl. 73). Yet another of small size has been found in the River Thames at London (Pl. 74). The inference,

6. Pt. II, Fig. 80, no. 1. 7. The sides and back of the Site B box are missing. The presumption of the lead lining extending up the sides is based on the evidence of other surviving examples: from the 1629 wreck of the Batavia, an example from the Thames, and another

from upstate New York (Pls. 73 and 74). 8. Myra Stanbury, “The Wreck of the Batavia” (n.d.), p. 23, figs. 3103 and 3131. The latter specimen is smaller than either 3103 or the Martin’s Hundred example.

THE SMALL FINDS

Plate 74. A well-preserved tinderbox bearing the same pointing hand as the others, found in the Thames mud at London. Courtesy of the Museum of London. therefore, is that these are tinderboxes. Groping for an explanation for the “patches” found in the Batavia box, one might suggest that the pieces of fabric were impregnated with some combustible material and that these, therefore, were a form of tinder. This explanation is supported by the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines tinder as “Any dry imflammable substance that readily takes fire from a spark and burns or smoulders; esp., that prepared from partially charred linen.” The Site B box’s significance rests on the fact that, thanks to the Batavia’s evidence, we have an approximated date of 1629 for these distinctive boxes—only two years before the date on the slipware dish. Site B yielded many another small find that seemed somewhat out of place on a site occupied by two men of low estate: Thomas Ward, potmaker, and John Jackson, bricklayer.9 Of particular interest were two table knives whose bolsters10 are encrusted with silver in almost identical patterns, one knife’s bolster being more robust than the other—suggesting that these were “his and hers” marriage knives. It is tempting, therefore, to conclude that the knives had been a wedding gift to John Jackson and his wife, Ann. But if so, how did one knife come to be broken at the shank and the other at the blade, and why had both lost their bone handles? It is curious, too, that Site B surrendered more table knives than any other, so many that one could have thought that the resident

9. Ransome, MS 1543. 10. The bolster is the thickened stretch of iron or steel that separates the blade from the bone (?) handle. See Pt. II, Fig. 75, nos. 1–2. 11. Pt. II, Fig. 78, nos. 1–3. 12. Pt. II, Fig. 88, no. 8. 13. Ann Hughes and Elizabeth Bygraves (aged 12) at Site A;

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craftsman was a cutler and not a potter. The site was also remarkably well equipped with scissors—at least four pairs of them. In addition to iron or steel cutlery, Site B produced fragments of two very crudely shaped pewter spoons,11 one of them stamped with a rosette on its slipped stem. The bowl of this example has been cut away, leaving only the upper part—which had been twisted propellor-wise, perhaps to create some kind of child’s swizzlestick. The second stem is similar to the first and suggests that both are from the same source. Although artifact expert Geoff Egan asserts that copper-alloy spoons were cast in ceramic molds while pewter spoons were made in stone or bronze molds, one cannot escape the potential significance of finding a local clay spoon mold at the adjacent Site A.12 Unfortunately the fragments come from the bowl and not from the more character-revealing handle. By and large the small objects from Martin’s Hundred are pretty much what one would expect to find (and does find) on most seventeenth-century archaeological sites. Needless to say archaeologists always try to read into them more than is justifiable, and at Martin’s Hundred we diligently sought evidence of a distaff presence, safe in the knowledge that at least six women were there in 1624/25.13 There were, for example, at least four thimbles and one pair of scissors in the Fort.14 But there is no documentation to suggest that a woman lived there. Then, too, there can be no denying that men repaired their clothes when no woman was there to do it for them, and they, too, would have used thimbles and scissors. One could better claim the presence of a male cobbler than a woman, because in addition to the thimbles, which cobblers used, there was a skinner’s knife and a tool that may have been a cobbler’s awl.15 The Fort almost certainly was a place wherein people ate, there being the remains of eight table knives. One of these had a handle made from two bone plates attached to either side of a flattened tang and secured with three brass rivets.16 This is a style that would not become popular until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is no doubt, however, that this specimen is a genuine relic of the 1620–1622 era. Clothing fastenings might be seen as evidence of women’s presence, and an iron hook and eye came from the Fort.17 However, these are of a size that suggests that they came from a man’s heavy buff coat.

Ann Jackson at Site B; and elsewhere Ann Emerson, Winifred Leak, and Collice March. 14. Pt. II, Figs. 45, nos. 1–4; and 44, no. 11. 15. Pt. II, Fig. 44, nos. 10 and 14. 16. Pt. II, Fig. 44, no. 5. 17. Pt. II, Fig. 45, nos. 5–6.

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Plate 75. Tinned brass hooks and an eye of a size and type used to secure male breeches to a doublet. The married hook and eye were found as shown at Site A and presumably were spares. One-inch pin provides scale.

Plate 76. A woven gold point compacted and glued to fit inside a metal aiglet, and beside it fragments of twisted silver wire used to ornament costly clothing. For actual size, see Pt II, Fig. 89, no. 40.

The Harwood home farm provided three clothing hooks of similar proportions,18 but those are of copper alloy (brass?) and tin plated. One of the three was found with its matching eye still hooked, suggesting that these were stock, shipped in linked pairs and never used (Pl. 75). Buttons were not plentiful in Martin’s Hundred, those recovered coming predominantly from the Boyse site, from a single garment.19 Dutch archaeologist Jan Baart has pointed to a close parallel on a surviving jerkin now in the collection at the Boymann’s Museum in Rotterdam. The jerkin had been worn by the famed Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius when he escaped from imprisonment in the castle at Gorkham on March 22, 1621—exactly a year before the Indians struck at Martin’s Hundred.20 The Boyse buttons were made from an iron-nickel alloy, solid, with brass wire eyes, the two ends of which were thrust into the still-hot metal while the button remained in its mold. The crown of each button is decorated with a central rosette surrounded by four tridents. Of the only other buttons from the Martin’s Hundred sites, three were of the thin, hollow-cast ball variety of a type that had not changed since the later medieval years, one from the Fort and two from Site B.21 From the latter site there also came a small doublet-style button in black glass, which retains traces of an iron wire shank. 22 Such buttons were made in Venice and sometimes adorned with trailed glass of another color. A close parallel for the Mar-

tin’s Hundred glass button was found on the Governor’s Land site23—a reminder, perhaps, that the bulk of the Gift of God’s Martin’s Hundred’s settlers were first quartered on Governor Argall’s land adjacent to Jamestown. Although male clothing was commonly secured with buttons, female dress closures relied more on lacing, whose ends, be they of fabric, cord, or leather, were usually protected from splitting by tubular coverings made from copper alloys (brass), silver, or gold. These metal tubes are known as aiglets and examples, one with the remains of woven gold ribbons still inside it, were well represented at the Harwood site.24 Finding such lace ends does not necessarily prove the presence of women, for, among several uses, they were employed by men to lace the sides of jacks and brigandines as well as the fronts of light leather jerkins. There was, however, another male use, and it was this that first suggested that Site A was home to someone of importance in the Hundred and, indeed, in the colony. Through the first 30 years of the seventeenth century mens’ breeches were held in place atop their stockings with fancy ribboned garters, from which dangled large numbers of small fabric tails called points, terminating in an aiglet. From Site A came one such point, made from tiny ribbons of beaten gold rolled over threads and then woven, the ends twisted and hardened so that they could be encased within an aiglet, most of which had one and sometimes two small holes close to the top so that they could be sewn together. This example had lost its aiglet but still retained the glued terminal (Pl. 76).25

18. Pt. II, Fig. 89, no. 41–43. 19. Pt. II, Figs. 70 and 80, nos. 6–7. 20. I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery”, p. 76. 21. Pt. II, Figs. 45, no. 7 (Fort); 80, nos. 6–7 (Site B).

22. Pt. II, Fig. 80, no. 8. 23. Outlaw, p. 206, fig. 38, no. 214. 24. Pt. II, Fig. 89, nos. 33–39. 25. Pt. II, Fig. 89, no. 40 and 40A.

THE SMALL FINDS

Plate 77. Portrait of a Woman, dated 1646, in the style of Frans Hals. The woman wears a head wire to keep her cap in place. Noël Hume Collection. The social structure of the seventeenth century was made manifest through the splendor of a person’s apparel, although it was as true then as it is now that criminals often dressed more flamboyantly than did the more conservative people of property. The English sumptury laws governing who should wear what had been repealed early in the reign of James I, but in Virginia establishing and sustaining a hierarchy among colonists eager to better themselves was a real problem. From London the Virginia Company sent instructions to the governor to “Suppress drunkenness gameing & excess in cloaths [and] not to permit any but ye Council & heads of hundreds to wear gold in their cloths.”26 Besides their physical remains, the Martin’s Hundred sites did yield two artifacts that can unequivocally be associated with women, namely hair bands or wires. These were sometimes called “head irons” and were used to hold lace, lawn, or linen caps in place (Pl. 77), resembling the kind of grips that secure the headphones for portable tape players. 27 A spring

26. Lyon G. Tyler, ed., Virginia Magazine of History and Biography vol. IV (1908), p. 31. 27. Documentary evidence exists to indicate that hair wires were going out of fashion toward the end of the 17th century’s first quarter. Thus, for example, Lady Anne Clifford, wife of Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset, noted in her diary for May 12, 1617, that “I began to dress my head with a roll without wire” (Ann Clifford Herbert, The Diary of Lady Ann Clifford [1923], p. 67). There is, however, a signjficant difference between hair wires and head bands, although the terms wire and band are interchangeable and simply describe the metalspring. Hair wires were used within (and over) fabric rolls, over

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band of that type was found in situ around the head of the woman from Site H who came to be known as Granny (Pl. 17).28 As previously noted (Ch. 2, pp. 79–81), the flat iron band terminated at one end in a pewter knob and was incomplete at the other, suggesting that because Granny’s head was small, the band had been cut down to fit it, removing the left pewter terminal in the process. A brass wire with pewter terminals at both ends is in the collection of the Museum of London. A length of brass wire found in the Fort was at first cataloged simply as being 1´ long and “Round-sectioned, pointed at one end and split at the other,” with no hint as to its purpose. I had speculated that the wire was used to clean out the touchholes of muskets, but Museum of London archaeologist Geoff Egan has written that “the copper-wire object is, I feel increasingly more certain, an accessory in its own right, probably from a headdress. Another with identical pointed and split end from the Thomas Street site (Southwark) strengthens this conviction.”29 Forever searching for distaff-related artifacts, the discovery of a light Dutch hoe at the Boyse site30 was an occasion for some satisfaction. Such hoes were used for light weeding and bed edging, and certainly were much easier to wield than the solid-bladed hoes of broad and narrow types used in heavy agricultural field work. The author’s assumption, that exhibiting the Dutch hoe and labeling it as likely to be evidence of woman’s work would earn us points with feminists, proved to be wrong. Instead the label was perceived as claiming that pioneer women were incapable of hard work. Although this attempt at political correctness backfired, it remains reasonable to suggest that the hoe’s purpose was as an aid to visual neatness rather than as a heavy betwixt-the-rows weeder. Still defying reliable descriptions after five years of search are two torpedo-shaped iron objects, one from Site A and the other from the Fort. They were identified first as “poking sticks,” precursors for the later and familiar gophering irons.31 The latter comprised an iron stand atop which was a stout brass cylinder into whose open end was inserted a preheated iron core attached to a long handle. The heated core in turn heated the outer casing, whose exterior remained clean to have the fabric of starched ruffs and cuffs crimped around them. The iron insertion

which the hair was drawn to make it stand high above the head. Head bands, on the other hand, were used to secure caps as described in the text above. While piling one’s hair over rolls went out early in the 17th century, the need to secure light fabric caps continued at all levels of society. 28. Pt. II, Fig. 68C. 29. Geoff Egan to INH, pers. comm., Oct. 24, 1996. 30. Pt. II, Fig. 65, no. 5. 31. For additional data regarding poking-stick terminology, see Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 6, n. 315.

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served gophering irons in the same way that rectangular iron slugs heated box irons. Poking sticks came in two tapering diameters, a˝ and 1˝—as do those from the Fort and the Company Compound respectively.32 Both are made from sheet iron, rolled and braised at the junction line, and containing within an iron rod, which is an extension of a tang that protrudes through an iron plug at the tubes’ broad ends. One assumes that the tangs, when complete, secured wooden handles to each of these as-yet unparalleled tools. X-rays of the smaller of the two show the iron tang continuing almost to the length of the sealed tube, but X-ray photographs of the larger example from the Fort show the tang broken and loose inside, as depicted in the drawing. How this breakage came about remains one of Martin’s Hundred small abiding mysteries, for there is no evidence that the sealing iron plug was removable. A third torpedo-shaped iron tube was found at Site A,33 but it is narrower, the walls are much thicker, and neither plug nor tang is present. Nevertheless, for want of evidence to the contrary, this specimen is tentatively identified as a poking stick. Besides Granny, Site H yielded the remains of a second woman, whose legs alone survived and by themselves would have provided no certainty of gender. But at one side and between the legs lay a small iron key and a brass thimble (Pl. 15). Both artifacts can be considered the quintessential attributes of a seventeenth-century housewife: representing both control of the household spices and a maker and repairer of clothing or ornamental sewing work. It is likely that the woman had the key strung from a belt or girdle, and that the thimble was in a cloth bag similarly suspended, in what was then called a pocket.34 Conceivably, however, both objects were in a pouch spanning the front of the woman’s apron. Either way the presence of the key and thimble indicate that she was buried in haste and with her clothing intact. From the same site came the previously discussed multiple burial, one of whose occupants retained a single shoe that at first showed only as a dark stain in the clay (Pl. 14). When that clay was X-rayed it revealed an array of small hobnails indicative of a workman’s boot.35 Equestrian artifacts were few and far between—an absence to be expected when so few Virginians had horses. That did not mean, however, that the early

settlers did not expect to acquire them, and so they would have brought such riding paraphernalia as they possessed before setting forth. There is, for example, a better-than-ordinary stirrup from the Fort, while from its successor (Site A) came two small horse shoes, a light spur, and a saddle tree reinforcement.36 The most expensive of the equestrian artifacts came from one of the least opulent of sites—or so it seemed at the time—namely Site B, the homestead of potter Ward and bricklayer Jackson. A rowelretaining fragment from a copper-alloy spur37 proved to be elaborately decorated with both gilding and silvering, and would have been a handsome item when new. When considering the significance of these artifacts we have to remember that the 1624/25 muster lists not a single horse in Martin’s Hundred. Agricultural tools are among the most commonly found artifacts on all rural colonial sites, and Martin’s Hundred is no exception. The presence of more felling axes than broad and grubbing hoes overall may be read as evidence of the pioneers’ need to clear before they could plant. The number of wedges found at Site A38 might be seen as the price of building an outer breastwork palisade of split (riven) logs rather than fencing with posts and rails, as would later be done (Pl. 40). In short the more slender the evidence the more tempting it is to put the wrong two-and-two together. The truth of that caveat was demonstrated when a side axe and draw knife39 were found in the floor of the building we thought to be Harwood’s tobacco store. As such tools were used by coopers, it had to follow—so we thought—that here was evidence of a cooper at work, making barrels in which to ship the tobacco. But when the Robert Addames letter turned up in the Ferrar Papers and spoke of the store at Harwood’s plantation, at whose door he refused sanctuary to Mrs. Addames, the tobacco store theory was dealt a significant blow. It does not necessarily follow that because a specialized tool is found on a site that the purpose it served was practiced there. Finding, for example, a well-preserved bill in the Company Compound at Wolstenholme Towne (Pl. 78)40 might lead one to conclude that, as such tools were used for pruning and lopping trees, orchards had been started in or near the settlement. Coincidentally a clear pattern for orchard planting (on 28´ centers) was found to have cut through and postdated the Fort (by how

32. Pt. II, Figs. 43, no. 6; and 59, no. 5. 33. Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 4. 34. Thimble: Pt. II, Fig. 69, no. 10. This thimble’s peaked crown and decorative collar suggests that it is of Nuremberg manufacture ca. 1550–1620 (Holmes, “Sewing Thimbles” and “Datasheet 9,” Tools and Trades, vol. IV [1987], p. 3, fig. 5b). Key: Pt. II, Fig. 67, no. 1. 35. Pt. II, Fig. 68B, nos. 1–27. Although I have seen numerous shoes from 17th- and 18th-century contexts, I had never before encountered an example having nail studs in its sole. In

Britain, however, they are often found in the soles of light Roman boots (caligulae). 36. Fort stirrup, Pt. II, Fig. 50, no. 8; Site A horseshoes, Pt. II, Fig. 81, nos. 18–19; spur, no. 17; and saddle tree, no. 20. 37. Pt. II, Fig. 80, no. 5. 38. Pt. II, Fig. 83, nos. 1–3. 39. Pt. II, Fig. 83, nos. 5 and 7. 40. Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 7.

THE SMALL FINDS

Plate 78. An agricultural bill from the Potter’s Pond in the Company Compound. long we do not know); but the excavated bill played no part in its maintenance. It was found in the Potter’s Pond, and instead may have been used for cutting brushwood faggots to fire the kiln. The manner in which artifacts get scattered is always food for speculation, no more so than the case of the broken axe from Site H,41 the blade of which was found in the fill of the pit wherein Granny lay, while the poll was in a rubbish pit to the north of the palisaded enclosure (Pl. 79). How, one asks, did the pieces become separated by some 60´—and why? Alas, no rational explanation comes to mind. Although nails of all sizes were imported by the thousands, there is evidence from Site A that they also were made on the plantations, for the finds included a nail-maker’s anvil.42 This is a bar of iron with raised crowns at either end, through which a square hole has been made during the forging process, these holes being for rods of two sizes. Iron

Plate 79. The poll and blade of an ax from Site H, stamped with the maker’s mark PP. Its poll was found in Pit II and the blade in Pit V.

41. Pt. II, Fig. 65, no. 8. 42. Pt. II, Fig. 83, no. 9. 43. Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 7. 44. Pt. II, Figs. 43, no. 1; and 74, no. 1.

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Plate 80. Half a pair of fire tongs embellished with a balustroidal collar at the haft and with hammered decoration on the blade; from Pit 3, Site A (Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 3). rods were cut into appropriate lengths, thrust through the fitting hole in the anvil, and extended down into a hollowed log (or gripped by an assistant using tongs). The short length of the rod protruding above the anvil’s crown was then hammered cold to create the head. A second, cruder bar with the holes at each end but lacking the raised crowns was found in the Fort43—once again providing paralleling linkage to the postmassacre Harwood site. Kitchen equipment, like the agricultural tools, ran pretty much the expected gamut, from a frying pan in the Company Compound to a cleaver in the Fort. What was surprising, however, was the presence of so many gridirons (or square trivets), one in the Fort and a fragment of another from Site B.44 More importantly, a third from the Harwood site45 had a balustroidal handle very similar to the one from the Fort. Site A also yielded part of a pair of good quality fireplace tongs, one arm of which is adorned with a brass sleeve resembling an andiron or clock finial, an evidently superior possession in keeping with a James I fireback from the Fort,46 which we believe to have been Harwood’s first residence. The tongs serve as a reminder that prior to the Industrial Revolution workers in iron took sufficient pride in their creative abilities to include unnecessary decoration on even the most ordinary of tools. Thus the blade or spatula end of the tongs is decorated with punching, which creates a chevron design that is unlikely to have been of concern to the user (Pl. 80). The fireback mentioned above (Pl. 81) was represented by only a few small fragments, but they were enough to establish that it bore the arms of James I and not of his successor, thus providing important dating evidence.47 Unfortunately, being of cast rather than wrought iron, the fragments were extremely unstable and in spite of what was thought to be a successful extraction of salts and a sufficient drying process, the crucial details soon began to sweat and

45. Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 1. 46. Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 3. 47. For a detailed discussion of the fireback’s interpretive significance, see Pt. II, Fig. 42.

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Plate 82A. Pewter porringer once thought to be Roman and now attributed to the early seventeenth century, its bowl comparable to the example from the Fort well. Courtesy of the Museum of London. Plate 81. A reproduction cast-iron fireback bearing the arms of James I and dated ??21, here being compared with matching fragments from the Fort by the author and conservator Gary McQuillan. The reproduction’s mold had been taken from a damaged original, hence the absence of the date’s first two digits (16 . . . ). flake. Consequently the fireback’s testimony survives only in casts made when the pieces were first recovered. Among the smaller metal objects is a spring-operated set of miniature tongs called a smoker’s companion.48 Found at Site A, it has a pair of grips at one end for removing and clutching an ember from a small ceramic or metal brazier to light one’s pipe, while at the other end is a flat disc for tamping tobacco in the pipe bowl and a spatula for reaming the ashes from its interior. Immensely fragile though these tools are, it seems that they were in widespread use in the first half of the seventeenth century. Delicate, too, but as the result of decay, is the only pewter vessel from any of the Martin’s Hundred sites, this being a pewter porringer that was found in the Fort pond that encompassed the old well shaft.49 A very similarly shaped porringer had long been in the collection of the Museum of London, and was thought to be Roman until another was found in diving salvage at Port Royal, Jamaica, the town that settled into Kingston Harbor in the great earthquake of 1692. 50 That porringer differed from the London specimen in that whereas the “Roman” specimen had a ring (circular loop) handle, the Port Royal porringer had an ear handle shaped like a scallop shell 48. Pt. II, Fig. 88, no. 10. 49. Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 8. 50. Robert F. Marx, Silver and Pewter Recovered from the Sunken City of Port Royal, Jamaica (1971), n.p., no. 93. The author dated

Plate 82B. Pewter porringer with a bowl similar to the above but with a shell-shaped handle. Found in the ruins of Port Royal, Jamaica, submerged in the earthquake of 1692. Courtesy of the Institute of Jamaica. (Pls. 82a and b). The Fort porringer had lost its handle, and in the drawing is shown with the suggestion of the scallop-shell style, which is likely to be a later development. Consequently, when a reproduction was made for exhibition in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum at Carter’s Grove, the ring handle was copied (Pl. 83). That the ring is, indeed, an earlier style is suggested by the existence of a mazer bowl with two ring handles dated to 1585.51 Among the pleasures of archaeology is the recognition that one discovery leads to another, sending the researcher off into avenues hitherto undreamed of. this porringer to ca. 1620 but did not cite his source. 51. Andre L. Simon, Wine Trade Loan Exhibition of Drinking Vessels (1933), pl. XXXI, no. 78.

THE SMALL FINDS

Plate 83. Reproduction of the Fort porringer using the Museum of London’s precedent for the handle. The discovery at Site H of a copper-alloy handle in the shape of a heart was one such object. It came from a brazier or chafing dish of a type previously recorded in England, but there thought to date to the fifteenth rather than to the seventeenth century (Ill. 37). One might have concluded that the handle had been reused as a lifter or carrier for some other vessel were it not for the fact that a fragment from the base of the same brazier type was also found at

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Site H. The question of why so substantial an object should be found broken into small pieces may never be answered.52 The way in which ceramic or glass objects get broken is easy enough to envisage, but logical explanations for the manner wherein metal objects were broken are much harder to come by. Just as there is no easy answer to why the copper-alloy brazier was broken and why most of the pieces are missing, so there is no ready scenario to explain why a copper-alloy cooking pot from the Potter’s Pond was separated from its once firmly riveted iron handle and legs (Pl. 84).53 It seems that the pot originally had three iron legs with a long handle crudely riveted over one of them, thus making it into a skillet in shape and purpose, not unlike the cast bronze or bell-metal types so common through the later seventeenth century and beyond. The Potter’s Pond skillet’s side handles had been secured with two rivets and were broken off at that juncture, whereas the handle leg had been removed above the lower of its rivets, pulling out the rivet in the process. The handle’s terminal and its securing rivets remain, while the rest of it has been broken off at the elbow. One might deduce that the iron was more desirable than the copper. On the

Illustration 37. The handle and base fragment from a copper-alloy chafing dish or brazier reconstructed on the basis of examples in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg and the National Museum of Wales.

52. For further details regarding parallels for this vessel type, see Pt. II, Fig. 69, nos. 8–9 and n. 508. 53. Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 3. The skillet was in poor condition and

has been reinforced in the conservation laboratory with fiberglass, thus explaining the fabric impressions on the interior that are visible in the photograph.

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other hand, it is possible that the bowl was needed for some purpose other than as a skillet and that the iron parts were carefully removed. Nevertheless removing the legs and handle without smashing the thin-walled pot was no easy accomplishment. Space does not allow for a discussion of every object from the Martin’s Hundred excavations. Indeed it is hoped that the extensive footnoting in Part II will provide sufficient basic and secondary information to satisfy most users of this collection. It may, however, be useful here to consider the range of household equipment likely to be brought to a Virginia plantation in the early years of the seventeenth century and to see how closely the excavated artifacts match such a list. The following tabulation was included in a letter written from Bermuda to the Virginia Company by the Reverend Lewis Hughes in 1615.54 An asterisk (*) identifies the items paralleled among the excavated artifacts: oyle vinegar aquavite barrel butter *pottes *kettles *frying-pannes *trivets *boules tanckards *pottes to drinke in *pailes to fetch water in *little barrels or jars *tongs *fire shovels bellows *tinder boxes brimstone *flint stones and steels *spits dripping pans candlesticks lamps *locks *spades shovels *pickaxes *hatchets whetstones *sawes hammers *pearcers pincers *nailes of all sortes castle soap *pins *points *shoe nails lases needles threed *thimbles sheeres *scissors *[fish]hooks, the biggest and as divers as they can

Notably absent from the Bermudian list is any tabulation of armor or weapons, perhaps because the

54. J. H. Lefroy, comp., Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, vol. II: 1650–1687 (1981), pp. 579–580.

Plate 84. A sheet-copper-alloy skillet originally with three iron feet, one of which was attached to an iron handle. All were missing when the bowl was found in the Potter’s Pond. The mesh visible in the interior is part of the fiberglass reinforcement needed to hold this fragile object together. The rim is everted over an iron wire. Rev. Hughes thought his flock would be better off without them or, more probably, because there was no aboriginal population to be shot at. Nevertheless, setting aside those items that would either have been expended or that would not survive in the ground, the asterisked items from Martin’s Hundred match the list remarkably well. Curiously absent from the Hughes list are hoes, for these were among the most important agricultural tools a husbandman could possess. The Martin’s Hundred finds include many more metal items than the Bermudian list calls for: e.g., cleavers, horse furniture (saddles, bridle parts, stirrups, spurs), billhooks, table knives, spoons, trowels, traps, files, bits, compasses, staples, tenterhooks, wedges, draw knives, hinges, handles, buttons, clothing hooks, poking sticks—and an elaborate scrolled iron object that nobody has been able to identify.55

55. Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 2.

CHAPTER 7

The Glass It may at first seem ironic that, although glass making was Britain’s first industrial effort in the New World, so little glass is recovered from sites of the first years of the seventeenth century. In reality, of course, there is no connection or correlation between the two. The Jamestown glassmaking venture was the product of two men’s successive monopoly of the English glass industry. Centuries of glassmaking in the Weald of southeast England had caused a serious diminution of the forests, whose timber was needed more for shipbuilding than as fuel for the glassmen’s furnaces. It was logical, therefore, that the monopoly holders should look to Virginia for new manufacturing sites where fuel wood was abundant. The men behind the English glass industry were first Sir Edward (later Lord) Zouche and subsequently Sir Robert Mansell, both shareholders in the Virginia Company. Even if either of the Virginian glass-making efforts had been successful, the products were destined for export to England and not to supply the needs of the colonists. The principal deterrent to the widespread use of drinking glasses in early colonial Virginia was the difficulty of packing and shipping such fragile objects. Early-seventeenth-century glasses were all of soda metal, which was blown much thinner and was far less robust than would be the lead crystal glasses that were coming into general use by the time its developer, George Ravenscroft, died in 1681. Although the Virginian glassmakers were instructed to make beads to trade to the Indians, there is no evidence that these were ever produced. Instead beads continued to be imported in large numbers from workshops in both Venice and Amsterdam. Thus as early as 1608 John Smith wrote that he had

traded two or three hundred bushels of corn “for a pound or two of blew beades.”1 Unfortunately beads of any kind were rare on Martin’s Hundred sites, the only one of consequence being a white (clear), multifaceted crystal specimen2. Found in Pit A (ca. 1631) at the Jackson/Ward site (Site B), one may speculate that it had belonged to John Jackson’s wife, Ann. Among the more enigmatic finds from Wolstenholme Towne (Site C) was a glass lens, convex on both sides and very roughly chipped into a circle at its edges. The glass was originally clear, but has become clouded through burial. The lens may come from a telescope, but more probably is a burning glass, part of a tinderbox kit akin to the box from Site B.3 Although most of the books on English glass that deal with examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries focus almost exclusively on drinking glasses, in reality the bottle-making segment of the industry must have represented a major part of its output.4 Bottles occur in English probate inventories throughout the sixteenth century, but it is not known when the standard square-sectioned and straightsided glass bottles became common, because very few sites of the late sixteenth century have been explored. The globular, so-called shaft-and-globe, form seems to have appeared ca. 1645 (the earliest dated seal is 1651), up to which time case or cellared bottles (fitting into partitioned boxes) vied with stoneware Bartmann bottles for the bottled liquor trade. As a rule it would seem that in the early seventeenth century beer was stored and matured in the stronger stoneware bottles, while spirits (aquavitae) and usquebaugh were kept in glass bottles. By the end of the century, however, ale and beer were shipped

1. Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1966), vol. II, p. 156. 2. Pt. II, Fig. 38, no. 3. 3. Pt. II, Fig. 38, no. 6. The Site B box is illustrated in Pt. II,

Fig. 80, no. 1. The telescope was invented in 1608. 4. Ivor Noël Hume, “A Century of London Glass Bottles, 1580–1680,” Connoisseur Year Book, 1956 (1956), pp. 98–103.

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Plate 86. A case bottle from the Structure D cellar at Site A. Plate 85. A Young Man Drinking, in the style of Bartolomé Estéban Murillo (1617–1682). He holds a squaresectioned glass case bottle closed with a pewter cap, a bottle similar to, though larger than, the Martin’s Hundred example illustrated in Pt. II, Fig. 36, no. 5. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London. in squat (onion) glass bottles, whose rounded shape and thick sides could handle the fermentation. That not a single fragment of a shaft-and-globe bottle has been recovered from any of the excavated sites is strong evidence that there was no occupation there after 1650.5 Case bottles fall into two groups (as well as several sizes), one having very short and stubby necks designed to be fitted with screw-threaded pewter collars and caps (Pl. 85),6 and the other with everted lips, intended to be corked and secured with packthread below the flaring lips. Later, with the arrival of the shaft-and-globe bottle, came a collar or stringrim, under which the thread and later the brass wires were secured (Pl. 86). The corked variety was by far the most common type from Martin’s Hundred, with in excess of 100 of them from the Harwood site (Site A) alone. Whether all these bottles were made in England remains much in doubt, for the same types were being manufactured in the Netherlands, and

5. This statement does not include Site J, where two small postbuilt houses were found in association with artifacts of the last years of the 17th century, and where fragments of bottles of a type common ca. 1680 were found.

after the English industry shifted to the standard wine bottles of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the case bottle became the standard “Dutch gin bottle” that persisted well into the nineteenth century. Unfortunately the clear evolution of the English wine bottle through the second half of the seventeenth century was not paralleled by maturing shapes for case bottles in its first half. No stylistic changes have been noted, though it can be said that the Dutch bottles of the eighteenth century onwards become increasingly broad at the shoulder and small at the base, and tend to exhibit mold marks in their bases in the shape of letters and occasionally anchors. No such marks have been found on the dipmolded bases of the early English case bottles. It is reasonable to contend that because of their fragility and scarcity drinking glasses are most likely to be found on the home sites of people of consequence. This certainly was true at Martin’s Hundred, where the only drinking glass fragments were found at the Harwood site. One basal stem fragment and another fragment comprising a merese and the interior nipple of what was almost certainly a round funnel bowl may be from a single glass with a so-called cigar stem of the kind mass-produced during the Zouche-Mansell monopolies (1615–1656).7

6. Pt. II, Fig. 36, no. 5. 7. For a close parallel, see W. A. Thorpe, English Glass (1949), p. 131, fig. 5c.

THE GLASS

By far the most important drinking glass from Martin’s Hundred, and indeed from any American site of the early seventeenth century, is a tazza that has a wrythen-molded stem of generally cigar type.8 The several related fragments (which fortunately allow reconstruction from rim to folded footring) are pale straw in color except at the eroding edges, which have changed to a sugary pink, a condition very common on French soda glass of the eighteenth century.

8. Pt. II, Fig. 37.

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There is, however, no other available evidence to suggest that this almost unique glass is French, and lacking that one must class it as en façon de Venise but probably of Netherlandish manufacture. Whatever its source, this incredibly thin and fragile vessel has much to say about the aspirations and pretensions of heads of hundreds in the teething years of British colonial America.

CHAPTER 8

The Tobacco Pipes Although tobacco-pipe fragments were found on all the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites, only the four largest and most historically revealing have anything to contribute in terms of pipe-related information.1 These are Site H (the Boyse site, the first to be occupied), Site C Wolstenholme Towne (its Fort and Company Compound), Site B (Jackson/Ward), and Site A (Harwood and thereafter). In chronological order the approximate dating brackets for each of these sites are as follows: Site H Site C Site B Site A Site D

1619–1622 1620–1622 1623–1640 1623–1645 1620–1640 (?)

It will be immediately evident that these dates place the first two sites prior to the March 1622 (1621 O.S.) massacre and the others after it. Great care was taken in an effort to detect evidence of rebuilding on any of the sites, but with the exception of the main structure on Site A, which was doubled in size, no conclusive evidence was found. However, as noted earlier, there is an indication that the Fort continued in use as a cattle compound for some time after the massacre. Although disturbed by bovine trample, there is no evidence that artifacts found in the cattle wallow around the Fort’s old well had been deposited during a later period, and that instead they were deposited during the clearing-up of domestic

1. This essay is based on a paper by the late Audrey Noël Hume titled “Clay Tobacco Pipes Excavated at Martin’s Hundred, Virginia, 1976–1978,” The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe, II: The United States of America (1979), pp. 3–36. Her paper dealt only with the pipes from three sites (A, B, and C); a fourth, crucially important site (the Boyse site, Site H), which proved to be the earliest in the Hundred, had not then been excavated. 2. It is likely that the Warwick reached Jamestown no later than November 1621, allowing Ward ample time to fire several kilns before the March attack. However, although the waste products found in the Potter’s Pond included an underfired and evident

materials when the burned interior was abandoned to the cattle. With that said, however, it can be countered that because tobacco pipes may have been smoked, broken, and thrown away by herdsmen in the immediate postmassacre years, one cannot be certain that some are not later than the above-cited time brackets. There remains one more caveat: the presence at Site H of fragments of local slipware akin to Site B’s 1631 dish should, on face value, point to domestic reoccupation of the Boyse site after the destruction of its house and the slaughter of its people in 1622. Knowing, however, that potter Thomas Ward came to Virginia aboard the Warwick (a ship whose only known arrivals prior to 1625 were in 1620, 1621, and 1622), and as all but two of the recorded passengers left England in August 1621, it is likely that Ward was the potter whose kiln waste was found in the Company Compound’s massacre-period pond.2 The initial rarity and price of tobacco ensured that it was smoked only in small quantities, in pipes with bowls of proportionate size. But as tobacco imports into England increased (in some years to glut proportions), pipe bowls were made ever larger, departing from their original shape—described in 1588 as “a little ladel”—first to more bulbous forms and later becoming elongated. Prior to the Martin’s Hundred excavations it seemed reasonable to teach that pipes began small and got bigger as tobacco cheapened.3 While that is essentially true, a massacre victim’s

waster dish of similar shape to the 1631 slipware example from Site B (see Pt. II, Fig. 7, nos. 8–9), no slip-decorated sherds were recovered from the pond. 3. Dutch genre paintings of the mid-17th century contain several renderings of people smoking, but comparable illustrations from England are rare. Ill. 38 shows a print-seller’s advertisement for Middleton and Decker’s play The Roaring Girle that shows her smoking a pipe. The picture of 1611 is one of the earliest to show a person smoking. The pipe, with its very angular bowl, would appear to be ca. 9˝ in stem length.

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grave contained a pipe bowl4 smaller than any other found on these 1620–1622 sites. Two more very small pipes were found at Site H,5 in the same pit as the woman we called Granny, so these, too, were in use as recently as 1619–1622. The suggestion has been made that these very small pipes were smoked by children or by women, but no documentation has been found to support that proposition. The stems of the first English pipes were short,6 no more than ca. 4˝, but by ca. 1620 most were ca. 9˝ in length (Ill. 38); as pipes became more robust the stems were made longer and by the end of the seventeenth century averaged ca. 11˝. A century later, with the introduction of so-called churchwarden pipes, stems could be anywhere from 18˝ to 2´ in length. As the stems lengthened so the wire-created holes through them became smaller—lest the wires should thrust outward through the stems while they remained in their two-piece molds. That all these features (bowl shape and size, stem hole diameter, and stem length) were evolutionarily related was discovered by National Park Service archeologist Jean C. Harrington ca. 1955, the year in which he published his seminal paper on the dating of tobacco pipes. Harrington’s graphic scale measured the bores of pipes in 64ths of an inch and in broad historical brackets, to wit: 1620–1650, 1650–1680, 1680–1710, 1710–1750, and 1750–1800, the wire diameters decreasing from y˝ to t˝. 7 Harrington was adamant that any attempt to narrow the brackets beyond a 30-year span was impractical. There was, he said, nothing that indicated that in 1680 all makers should change their molds and wires to fit within the 1680–1710 brackets. Instead it was a slow evolution, with many a hold-out and many a gross of old pipes that remained in the warehouses to be sold to the best bidder in a later time bracket. Regardless of Harrington’s warning, archaeological mathematician Louis Binford created a theoretical formula that demonstrated that in the year 1931.85 the ever-narrowing wires used to make the holes would disappear altogether.8 Backtracking from that vanishing point, Binford deduced that between each q˝ decrease, 38.26 years would elapse. By taking an associated group of pipe-stem fragments, the archaeologist would count the number of fragments and measure their stem-hole diameters in 64ths of an inch, then multiply each 64th-inch grouping by the total number of fragments of that same diameter, next adding together the total fragments of all sizes. With that done, one added together all the products, divided products into fragment numbers, and carried

Illustration 38. The title page from Middleton and Deckar’s The Roaring Girle of 1611, the woodcut providing one of the earliest portrayals of an English person holding a tobacco pipe. the answer to three decimal places. Thus the formula reads like this: Y = 1931.85 – 38.26X. Y represents the sought-after mean date for the group, 1931.85 is the theoretical disappearing date, 38.26 the years between each 64th-inch grouping, and X being the mean hole diameter for each group. This purely mathematical approach to the dating of tobacco pipes provided a well-received crutch for archaeologists who had no knowledge of the likely date based on bowl shape alone. Unfortunately, like most crutches, the Binford formula would prove to be a dangerous means of support, as Audrey Noël Hume had demonstrated as long ago as 1963.9 She then showed that when using the Binford formula on a single group of ca. 12,000

4. Pt. II, Fig. 91, no. 3. 5. Pt. II, Fig. 95, nos. 6–7. 6. Pt. II, Fig. 95, nos. 1–2 for a possible anomaly. 7. Jean C. Harrington, “Dating Stem Fragments of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Clay Tobacco Pipes,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. IX, no. 1 (1954), n.p.

8. Lewis R. Binford, “A New Method of Calculating Dates from Kaolin Pipe Stem Fragments,” Southeastern Archeological Conference Newsletter, vol. IX, no. 1 (1962), pp. 19–21. 9. Audrey Noël Hume, “Clay Tobacco Pipe Dating in the Light of Recent Excavations,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. XVIII, no. 2 (1963), pp. 22–25.

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stem fragments, which on peripheral evidence were thought to have been thrown away ca. 1740, it failed to consistently arrive at the 1740 date without samples in excess of 591 fragments. Any fewer (sample sizes ranging from 19 to 382 gave dates from 1726.38 to 1737.74 respectively) missed 1740 by several years. Even a sampling of 4,746 (a quantity rarely encountered) missed by a year. Continuous testing had shown that between 1680 and 1750 the Binford formular worked reasonably well, but became increasingly erratic as one went both earlier and later than those brackets. The Martin’s Hundred pipes were to provide undeniable proof of the unreliability of the former conclusion. The small pipe from the Company Compound’s massacre-victim grave should, if it really was as old as it looked, have a stem-hole diameter at or close to y˝; instead it measured only v˝, which on Harrington’s scale would put it after 1650. It is important to recognize that the Binford formula provides a mathematically reached median date for a given group of pipes, but that median dates are of little use to archaeologists. If, for example, a site is occupied from ca. 1680–1720, abandoned until 1760, and reoccupied until 1776, the pipe-derived median date of ca. 1740 is a time when the site was unoccupied. Although Harrington is rightly credited with discovering a progressive stem-hole diameter reduction, it was England’s Adrian Oswald, keeper of the City of London’s Guildhall Museum, who in 1951 put together the first chronology of pipe-bowl shapes.10 It was Oswald, too, who pioneered the study of tobaccopipe makers and their marks, which occur astride spurs and on heels, stems, bowl backs, and sides.11 The Martin’s Hundred pipes include the following easily readable marks: IB, RB, BC, WC, HF, RG, TG, IH, EL, and AN. Other marks range from a crowned rosette to an impressed miniature armored glove (the rebus of the Gauntlet family of pipe makers) and several more that are not easily described.12 Unquestionably the most remarkable pipe from any of the Martin’s Hundred sites has a central stem and bowl to which were grafted four more bowls, making five in all. 13 A quasi parallel having three bowls was found at the Governor’s Land site, where in 1619 the earliest Martin’s Hundred settlers were first situated during the administration of Governor

Argall. When found, there were no known parallels for the triple-bowled pipe, and when publishing it, archaeologist Alain Outlaw noted that the maker’s mark—EO, stamped several times around a binding clay collar—is unrecorded in England. The doyen of English pipe research, Adrian Oswald, did not think the pipe was either English or Dutch; but the late Iain Walker, a pipe specialist resident in Canada, suggested that it could be Dutch. The discovery of the Martin’s Hundred multiple-bowl fragments suggests to this author that Walker may have been right.14 This view is shared by Dutch pipe historian Don Duco, who knows of an eight-bowled example of the same period, which he considers to be a young pipe maker’s masterpiece—an interpretation difficult to project to the Virginian examples. It is an unacceptable coincidence that two such pipes should be found on sites occupied by Martin’s Hundred colonists and nowhere else. The inference might therefore be that both multiple-bowl pipes reached Virginia before the Governor’s Land people, who had arrived aboard the Gift of God, moved down to Martin’s Hundred. But the pipe found there comes from Site B, the home of Messrs. Jackson and Ward, both of whom came on the Warwick and not on the Gift. There is some evidence, however, that later Martin’s Hundred residents were first housed in the vicinity of the tract referred to both as the Governor’s Land and as the Maine. Thus, for example, the group referred to in the 1624/25 muster as “Robert Scotchmore and his Company now planted heare” had previously dwelt on the Maine, although they had not come over until after the massacre, aboard the George early in 1623. All one can say, therefore, is that the two multiple-bowled pipes provide a link between the two settlements. As far as pipe history is concerned, the Martin’s Hundred fragments, whose stem holes were undeniably of the same date, range from w˝ to v˝ and u˝, proof (if more be needed) that wires of different diameters were in use at the same time. The suggestion has been made that the multiplebowled pipes may be apprentice or journeyman’s pipe makers’ masterpieces or perhaps a form of advertising—in the same way that other tradesmen, particularly in the nineteenth century, put oversized versions of their products in their windows or hung them outside as signs. The recovery from the Thames

10. Adrian Oswald, “English Clay Tobacco Pipes,” Archaeological News Letter, vol. III, no. 10 (1951), pp. 153–159. 11. It should be noted that through both the 17th and 18th centuries pipes were simultaneously produced whose bowl shapes were consistent but whose bases could either be round and flat (heels) or sloping to a blunt point (spur). The basic bowl evolution split into two parallel forms in the mid-17th century, being either bulbous or cylindrical, both forms becoming longer by the century’s end.

12. E.g., Pt. II, Figs. 97, nos. 1 and 4; and 103, no. 8. 13. Pt. II, Fig. 100, nos. 1–5. Included is a drawing of a somewhat similar abberation, a pipe that has three bowls, which was found at the Governor’s Land site above Jamestown; see Outlaw, pp. 221–222, fig. 43. 14. Pipe authority David Higgins is of the opinion that the multiple-bowled pipes may be English. See Pt. II, notes for Fig. 100.

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at London of yet another multi-bowled pipe makes this an unlikely explanation. 15 Although only two bowls of the four-bowler survive, their shape puts the pipe into the same ca. 1620–1630 date range as the Martin’s Hundred specimen. The similarity goes a step further in that the junction with the stem is impressed with multiple small, rosettelike stamps. Unlike the Governor’s Land example, however, neither the London pipe nor the Site B specimen exhibit maker’s marks. The quest for similarities and thus for connections is at the heart of all archaeological research. At Martin’s Hundred, therefore, along with the previously discussed ceramic crossmending,16 the distribution of identical makers’ stamps on pipes pointed to time relationships between features (e.g., pits, wells, and ditches) and even between sites. Pipes were extremely fragile and their long stems were vulnerable to the slightest stress. Indeed it calls for no great leap of imagination to see pipes as expendable as cigarette butts. Knowing this to be so, however, they were likely to have been imported or purchased in considerable numbers, and if one person’s stock was large it might have lasted for several years. In one instance a colonist who died on the way over had been bringing with him, among a relatively modest inventory of goods, several gross of tobacco pipes. With that caveat in mind, it can be rewarding to find the same marks in different locations. Thus, for example, a curious stamp, which in some cases resembled a pair of Cs separated by a vertical merchant’s mark, was discovered in the Wolstenholme Towne cattle pond (within the Fort) and at the Boyse site, as well as in Pit 7 at Site A,17 suggesting a pipe linkage between the pre- and postmassacre settlements of Martin’s Hundred. But what does this tell us? Is it saying that the Boyse and Fort sites continued in use after the massacre, or is it the proof that Pit 7 at Site A was dug and filled before March 1622? If the latter is true,

and if Governor Harwood was living in the Fort before the attack, who was living at Site A? If Pit 7 at Site A was unrelated to any others on the site, it might be said to predate all else; but it does not, as another pipe stamp demonstrates. The mark RG was found not only in that pit but also in Pits 1 and 5.18 But that is not the end of it. Site A’s Pit 1 is linked to Pit 9 by RC marks, which in turn is tied to Pit 10 by the presence of EL-marked pipe bowls.19 The chain goes further, for pipes with a fleur-de-lis mark come from Pit 10 at Site A and also from Site B’s Pit A,20 at whose bottom lay the 1631 slipware dish. It seems fair to deduce, therefore, that Pit 10 was filled at some time close to 1631. The same may be said of Site A’s Pit 2, which like Site B’s Pit A, yielded a pipe with a gauntlet mark.21 The pipes discussed above are all (with the multiple-bowl example a possible exception) considered to be English. Others are in doubt, notably agatestyle (i.e., blended strips of red- and white-firing clays) stem fragments22 and stems that are pinched and resemble pie crust,23 the latter a feature found among some Dutch stems. In addition there is a wide range of bowls that appear to be of English or Dutch shapes but were made from a red- or buff-firing clay, and so are thought to be of Virginian manufacture. Besides these there is also a considerable range and variety of yellowish brown bowls, shaped or decorated in styles that may well be aboriginal in origin. Although more common on sites dating later in the century, some Indian-type bowls are decorated with European initials or with European sailing ships.24 The Martin’s Hundred collection includes none of these, but from Site A came three with an incuse E— one on each of the undersides of three stems, two of them from Pit 3 and one from the filling of the Structure D cellar hole.25 The majority of the supposedly locally made pipes are distinctly larger than their English parallels, presumably indicative of the cheap-

15. Colonial Williamsburg is greatly obliged to Mr. Richard Le Cheminant of London for bringing the Thames pipe to our attention. Pers. comm. to INH, February 14, 1985. 16. Ch. 5, pp. 159–160. 17. Pt. II, Figs. 92, no. 10; 97, no. 4; and 109, no. 2, respectively. 18. Pt. II, Figs. 109, no. 1; 103, no. 6; and 106, no. 1. 19. Pt. II, Figs. 103, no. 3; 107, no. 6; and 108, no. 1. 20. Pt. II, Figs. 108, no. 3; and 110, no. 7. 21. Pt. II, Figs. 99, no. 6; and 104, no. 4. 22. Pt. II, Figs. 102, no. 2; and 106, no. 9. Although no agatestyle bowls were found on the Martin’s Hundred sites, examples were recovered in 1933 on the north shore of the James River at Hampton and discussed by Michael Pawson in “Clay Tobacco Pipes in the Knowles Collection,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. XXIII, no. 3 (1969), n.p., fig. 6, nos. 1a and 1b. The bowl sizes suggested a post-1640 date. 23. Pt. II, Figs. 102, no. 5; 108, no. 5; and 110, no. 6.

24. The so-called Indian-type pipes are thought by some archaeologists to have been made by black slaves, and so they try to equate the decorations (e.g., a running deer) with West African ceramic designs. For examples of these pipes, see Jean C. Harrington, “Tobacco Pipes From Jamestown,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. V (1951), n.p., fig. 4. The same scholars see a wide range of ceramic shapes made in a finely burnished, pale brown, and shell-tempered ware (but lacking the use of a wheel), which to some degree parallel the wares used by the pipe makers, as “colono Ware” and see that, too, as the product of black slave potters. The author believes that he was the first to recognize this ware and that it was he who dubbed it “Colono-Indian” (employing a similar vernacular, which created such terms as Romano-British or Graeco-Roman), this after finding fragments of the same ware on the Permunkey Indian Reservation near West Point; see Ivor Noël Hume, “An Indian Ware of the Colonial Period,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. XVII (1962), n.p. 25. Pt. II, Figs. 105, nos. 9–10; and 110, no. 10.

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ly available Virginia leaf. There is as yet no datable correlation between these pipes and the sizes of their stem holes. Nevertheless, on the off-chance that a student of the subject may have a use for that information, the stem-hole diameters are included in the catalog descriptions. Only one pipe-bowl fragment from Martin’s Hundred has been “personalized” by its owner, this by scratching the initials IR on its heel.26 Unfortunately no one with the initials JR has been identified as resident in Martin’s Hundred.

Consultant David Higgins is of the opinion that some pipe bowls from the Fort’s post-1622 cattle pond, as well as from features at the Harwood site, are considerably later than the dates cited in these studies.27 It must be remembered, however, that the principal artifact for any post-ca.-1645 site or feature is the presence of fragments from globular-bodied (rather than square case forms) bottles. No such bottles were found on any of the Martin’s Hundred sites that are the subject of these studies.

26. Pt. II, Fig. 101, no. 11.

27. For specific citations, see Pt. II, notes for Figs. 92–110.

CHAPTER 9

The Pits For the purposes of these essays the word pit is used to mean any man-made and unlined hole in the ground or any naturally created cavity into which man-, woman-, or child-made artifacts have been thrown. Consequently pits include tree holes, cellars without surviving walls, unlined well shafts, storage pits, and deliberately dug trash depositories. The term would also include graves, were it not for the fact that burials have been addressed on previous pages. On sites like those at Martin’s Hundred, where occupational strata have been destroyed by plowing, holes deeper than the blade reached provide us with our only datable contexts1 and thus are of the first importance. Not only do they provide us with dating evidence, but they also are likely to contain artifacts that escaped damage by the plow. The dating sequencing provided by identically marked tobacco pipes in the several pits (particularly those on the Harwood site [Site A]) has been discussed in Chapter 8 (see also Ill. 22). Similarly the importance of crossmending ceramics, glass, and other artifacts has been explained.2 Together these clues help determine which pits were simultaneously open and give some idea of how a site developed. Then, too, the angle from which the artifacts were tossed, dropped, or poured into the pits can be an indicator of both usage and passage. Thus, for example, if hypothetical pits A, K, and M contain fragments of the same vessel, all thrown in from the northwest, it is reasonable to postulate that (a) the pits were open at the same time, (b) they were filled from the same source, and (c) that source existed at some location further to the northwest. This, of course, presumes that the barrowers or dumpers pushed and carried in a single straight line from

source to pit, a presumption that need not be true. It is fair to conclude, nonetheless, that there had been a path or track that led to or past the receiving pits. The author has given much thought over the years to the enigma of artifact distribution and has tried to simulate or read into his own domestic activity some pattern that can cause broken dishes and the like to be deposited in more than one location. Today, of course, the handy “dumpster” is the pit into which most of the fragments of anything are cast, and it is rare indeed for any major fragments from dropped and broken dishes not to be deposited together. In rare instances, however, the breaking of a dish can cause a fragment to slide under a cupboard, where it may remain for years, or under a table, to be found several days later. As a rule such domestic disasters cause only relatively small sherds to escape the initial clean-up, whereas in archaeology, often for reasons we cannot fathom, the components are often very much larger, e.g., the previously discussed axe blade and poll from the Boyse site (Site H).3 The tobacco-pipe evidence is of a different caliber, for it means only that pipes stamped with the same maker’s mark or initials were thrown away at different times. The question is: what is meant by times? The colonist who intended to arrive with three gross of pipes almost certainly bought them from the same supplier, who in turn placed his order with a single maker. The question then is: how long does it take to smoke and discard three gross? If the colonist sold the pipes to others, his supply would last for Y, but if he kept them all for himself, the time could be Z. By that reasoning all one can say of the pipes from the Harwood site pits is that they were likely to have been discarded there during the lifetime, be it long or short, of a single individual.

1. The exception is Site B, where there had been logging but no plowing, thus enabling the occupational strata to survive. 2. See Ch. 5, p. 159.

3. See p. 181 and Pl. 79.

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Illustration 39. Plan and section through Pit I at Site H. As has been done throughout these pages, the several sites are discussed in chronological order (as best as that can be determined) rather than of

importance or the sequence in which dug. Thus Site H precedes Site C, which comes before B, D, and A.

Site H The Boyse Homestead, ca. 1619–1622 This site (Ill. 10) yielded five pits, only two of which were of archaeological importance.

PIT I (C.G. 4061) This pit was almost certainly created by the falling of a tap-rooted tree, which produced an oval hole measuring ca. 9´ x 13´ and extending to a depth of 4´6˝ (Ill. 39). The primary pit had been cut into

4. C.G. 4061A (Pit I) to C.G. 4143A (Pit II).

along its western edge to create a rectangular feature measuring 5´6˝ x 3´. When sectioned it revealed a bowl-shaped depression at its southern end that had been filled with black loam, and out of which came a storage jar fragment that joined to another from the upper level of Pit II located only 8´ to its west.4 As both layers were immediately below the disturbed topsoil, it is likely that the joining sherds had been parted by later leveling or plowing, and therefore may be of no seventeenth-century significance. Other finds from Pit I included a fragment of blue green glass visually paralleling fragments from the Sidney Wood glass factory in Surrey, England, which was in production from ca. 1550 through the first half of the seventeenth century. Also recovered was a complete tobacco pipe, the only one from Martin’s Hun-

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PIT II (C.G. 4143) This pit also had the appearance of having begun its life as a hole created by the falling of a tree. The pit’s top measured ca. 7´4˝ x 6´3˝ and extended to a depth of about 2´8˝ below grade (Ill. 41). It contained at its bottom an uneven deposit of mixed clay that almost certainly was the product of silting, perhaps in the hours or days immediately after the tree went over—possibly in a storm that filled the hole with water and caused the initial silting. Later came deposits of domestic trash, most of it in the topmost stratum of dark brown loam. From it came tobaccopipe fragments, 7 sherds from at least two locally made storage jars, a quantity of glass from at least three case bottles, and the blade of the axe whose poll was found in Granny’s grave (Pit V).8 The direction of trash deposition clearly pointed to the south and toward the northern gateway into the Boyse stockade (Ill. 10).

PIT III (C.G. 4065) Illustration 40. Examples of tobacco-pipe bowl shapes, all in use contemporaneously aboard the ship Warwick before she sank in 1619. The single specimen below is from Pit 1 at Site H. Warwick pipes courtesy of Edward B. Tucker, Bermuda. dred.5 Another incomplete pipe from the pit’s main ash level turned out to have a bore diameter of w˝, a measurement that J. C. Harrington placed primarily in the period 1650–1680. In this period stem holes of w˝ represented 57% of Harrington’s test sample, leaving the remaining 43% to be split between bores of v˝ and x˝. In his previous time frame, 1620–1650, pipes having bores of w˝ represented only 21% of the total sample for that period.6 Here then is further evidence of the need to use Harrington’s dating discovery no more tightly than he intended. In this instance the shape of the bowl is a more reliable guide than the diameter of its stem hole. The Pit I pipe is shown here in the company of a pipe series recovered from the 1619 wreck of the Warwick in Bermuda (Ill. 40).

5. Pt. II, Fig. 95, no. 1. The bowl and part of the stem came from a layer of dark gray loam (C.G. 4061D), while the rest of the stem was in a layer of yellow clay that sealed it (C.G. 4061C). The stem, from heel to mouthpiece, measured 5b˝ (13.34 cm). 6. See I. Noël Hume, Guide to Artifacts, p. 298, fig. 96, this work being more readily available than Harrington’s seminal paper of 1954.

The location of Pit III immediately outside the north gateway led to still unresolved sequential problems, for it would have been impossible to use that entrance while the hole remained open. This pit also seems to have been created by the falling of a tree or the removal of its stump, and possibly by the removal of a shrub creating a secondary, dish-shaped feature to the south,9 and overlay a posthole and postmold belonging to the western palisade (Ill. 42).10 As the section shows, however, the north edge of this feature overlay the final filling of Pit III, and the absence of datable finds from its lone deposit of graybrown loam renders the feature undatable. Clearly, however, it postdated the removal of the Boyse palisade. The main pit’s section shows five clearly defined strata, beginning with the usual deposit of silted clay that washed in shortly after the feature was created. There would seem to have been much more mixing of the fill than the section implies, for a Staffordshire stoneware butterpot base from a concentration of burnt daub and ash to the north of the pit11 cross-

7. For a consideration of the pipes’ significance, see Pt. II, Fig. 97, n. 650. 8. Pt. II, Fig. 65, no. 8. 9. C.G. 4073A. 10. C.G. 4073D and E. 11. C.G. 4065F, joining to 4065D and E.

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Illustration 41. Plan and section through Pit II at Site H.

Illustration 42. Plan and section through Pit III at Site H. mended to sherds from two overlying layers (Pl. 87). The interrelationships did not end there, for fragments of a delftware cup from the uppermost layer crossmended to a sherd found halfway down the pit.12 Then, too, a local cooking pot sherd from Level D crossmended to another from the top layer of Pit IV,

a small circular and shallow feature 4´6˝ to the south and inside the palisade.13 Pit III contained many fragments from locallymade kitchen wares—pans, a cooking pot, and storage jars; part of a glass case bottle;14 the only Dutch hoe; an incomplete spade nosing; and an intact plas-

12. C.G. 4065C to 4065E. 13. C.G. 4065D to C.G. 4077A.

14. Pt. II, Fig. 36, no. 7.

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Plate 87. Site supervisor Eric Klingelhofer at work in Pit III. In the foreground to the right of the handled vessel fragment lies an anomalous tasset beneath fragments of a case bottle. The large curved ceramic fragment in the background is part of a Midlands Purple butter jar (Pt II, Fig. 15, no. 6).

PIT IV (C.G. 4077C)

terer’s trowel.15 More important, however, were its military finds, notably an unparalleled armor tasset16 and 25 jackplates, none of which were articulated and so appeared to have been thrown away already separated.17

This pit was, as previously noted, small and shallow, but contained another ten jackplates,18 thus linking

15. Pt. II, Fig. 65, nos. 5, 3, and 6. 16. Pt. II, Fig. 62, no. 3.

17. Pt. II, Fig. 64, no. 9, etc. 18. Pt. II, Fig. 64, no. 7, etc.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 43. Plan and section through Pit V and Granny’s grave at Site H.

Pit V was located ca. 20´ southwest of the Boyse dwelling and outside the compound. It comprised three holes, two of them to the south; all three were sealed by a stratum of brown, sandy loam flecked with daub and black ash, suggesting that this represented a clearing-up process in the aftermath of dwelling’s destruction. This stratum20 in the area of

the largest pit contained the poll of the axe whose blade was found in Pit II.21 The two smaller holes,22 both of which appeared to be tree-root related, contained only one fill. The larger pit was situated to the northwest of the other two, and all three stretched out in a westerly direction to the south of the palisade’s southwest gate (Ill. 43). Unlike its smaller companions, the large pit (10´ x 8´) possessed highly complex stratification of washes and dumpages and clear evidence that the depositions had been made from the northeast, almost certainly through the palisade’s southwest gate. The layer of brown sandy loam that overlay the three pits melded into the main top fill of the large pit and thus became its Level D—this even more heavily flecked with ash and daub, suggesting that it was the product of the burned dwelling’s eroding clay wall nogging. Beneath this lay a stratum of yellow clay mixed with loam, probably representing deliber-

19. Pt. II, Fig. 62, no. 1. 20. C.G. 4115A.

21. Pt. II, Fig. 65, no. 8. 22. C.G. 4115B and 4115C.

its fill to that of Pit III. It also yielded part of a brassriveted tasset lame.19 Collectively it seems that the filling of Pit III and the hole of Pit IV represents a clearing-up period after the 1622 massacre. The presence of the jackplates in two adjacent pits (and nowhere else in Martin’s Hundred) is surprising, for in this period jackcoats were one of the most common forms of body defense.

PIT V (C.G. 4115)

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ate fill overlying the skeleton of the woman we had called Granny. Out of this clay level came the first clear evidence of a relationship between the Boyse site and Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), this in the shape of an Augsburg bale seal identical to five found in the Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond.23 A second such seal was found in a layer that abutted Level E from below at two points.24 That layer (J) consisted of white-to-gray ashes with lumps of black charcoal that seemed to have been a deposit from the kitchen hearth, dumped shortly before the massacre. Screening of the ash layer resulted in the recovery of a charred corn cob, fish scales, an iron clothing eye, slivers of lead clipped from bale seals, iron tenterhooks, and fragments from astonishingly small tobacco-pipe bowls.25 Also present were whole and crushed oyster shells and fragments of animal bones. Faunal consultant Stanley J. Olsen examined these fragments but concluded that they were “so small and fragmentary that they could not be classified below the taxonomic level of kingdom. Because of their poor condition,” he added, “these fragments provide little information about cultural utilization of animals.”26 Dr. Olsen identified 215 miscellaneous bone fragments of fish from the ash layer. He observed that “Forty-nine of these could be identified as to element, and indicate that whole fish, rather than fillets or heads, were discarded there.”27 It should be noted, however, that extreme care was taken in removing the ash layer and that no articulated fish remains were encountered. Of no little interest was the discovery in the ash layer of the articulated remains of a puppy, the body and legs still together but the head and neck vertebrae separated by several inches. This could have been caused by slippage after the flesh had decayed, or it could mean that the head was already separated when the remains were dumped into the pit. Of this find, Dr. Olsen had this to say: Canis familiaris. The remains of probably one domestic dog puppy came from CGER 4115J. An articulated puppy burial was located in an ash lens near the burial of the middle-aged woman. It is uncertain whether the dog was definitely associated with the woman’s burial. The puppy was between about five weeks and six months of age, since the deciduous fourth premolar had erupted (5–8 weeks), but the three bones of the innominate had not yet fused at the acetabulum (6 months). It is not possible to ascertain whether the entire skeleton is present due to the fact that it is still partially imbedded in matrix, but the head, trunk, and all

23. C.G. 4115E and Pt. II, Fig. 61, no. 7. 24. C.G. 4115J and Pt. II, Fig. 61, no. 8. 25. For the tenterhooks, see Pt. II, Fig. 67, nos. 15–22; for the tobacco-pipe bowls, see Pt. II, Fig. 95, nos. 6–7. 26. Stanley J. Olsen, “Faunal Analysis of Martin’s Hundred”

four limbs are represented by elements. It, therefore, appears to be an intact burial.28

A test trench west of the palisade and immediately south of the Pit V complex “yielded the palatine process of a left maxilla of a puppy.” Dr. Olsen observed that “the premolar laveoli suggest that, again, the individual was approximately between the ages of five weeks and six months.” He added that no adult dog remains were recovered from Site H.29 The similarity of ages and their relationship one to the other can suggest that a litter of puppies at the Boyse household had met a premature end—as, of course, had Granny. The woman’s position in the pit has already been discussed, but her posture has a bearing not only on her demise but also on the filling of Pit V. She lay on her right side with her right tibia resting ca. 3˝ from the bottom of the pit within the thick layer of orangeto-gray clay that spread over part of the pit and constituted the primary filling. Indeed the layer below (M) was sufficiently similar to be part of the same primary deposit—save for a thin lens of washed sand (N) that lay in a hollow at the very bottom of the feature, which almost certainly was the product of erosion and percolation. It is reasonable to deduce, therefore, that the hole contained a primary silting or filling of mud that remained wet to the point of saturation at the time when Granny crawled into the pit to hide and die. Her left femur was parted from the right by as much as 9˝ of the mud fill (Level L; Pl. 18). That her legs did not remain together, as shown in artist Schlecht’s reconstructive painting (Pl. 19), is strange, for one would expect the weight of her wet clothing to push the knees together. It is possible, therefore, that, save for her wire-supported cap, this woman was naked when she lay down in the mud, and that as long as her pelvic muscles held her femurs in position, the buoyancy of the mud kept the left leg elevated while the right sank of its own weight. An (if not the) interpretation of the Pit V sequence goes as follows: Levels N, M, and L had been created, perhaps naturally as the redeposition of root material after the falling of a tree that went down in a westerly direction toward the adjacent ravine. To these mixed layers was added the domestic hearth ash stratum (J), soon after that came the massacre and the flight of Granny, and shortly after that some of the ash was washed or blown to cover Granny’s left femur (Level F). When the clean-up squad arrived after the massacre, they found Granny, left her where she lay, and

(n.d.), p. 8. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., p. 13. 29. Ibid., p. 14, C.G. 4051A.

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settled for dumping a mixture of orange and yellow clay, as well as brown loam, on top of her. Later still, after the palisade had gone, wash from within the compound (Level D) carried the top layer of mixed daub and ash into the hole. There must, of course, have been at least some human involvement, other-

wise the axe poll would not have found its way into the D stratum. The final stage was the cutting of a drainage and perhaps boundary ditch along the east side of the ravine, 30 which severed and virtually destroyed Pit V at its western extremity.

S i t e C : Wo l s t e n h o l m e To w n e Site C’s complex divides into four parts: 1) the Governor’s House and Fort; 2) the Company Compound with its longhouse, shed, and impaled yards; 3) the Domestic Unit with its single house; and 4) the Barn. Of these, only two—the Fort and Company Compound—yielded any pits other than graves.

The Governor’s House and Fort, ca. 1620–1622 The Fort contained three pitlike features (Ill. 13): a rectangular hole within the main building, the well shaft and its related cattle pond, and another shallow pit of figure-eight configuration to its east.

PIT 1 (C.G. 3017) This pit provided, if nothing else, a classic example of the fallacy of trying to draw conclusions on the basis of too little evidence (Ill. 44). The feature, measuring 3´10˝ x 2´7˝ and 2´ deep, was thought to be a privy pit and was described as follows: an 11˝ thick deposit of oyster shells (D) filled the bottom of the pit. Among the shells were small amounts of gray loamy soil and a few nails and small pieces of burned clay and brick. The oyster shells were covered by a sandy fill (C), without finds, probably a layer of naturally silted soil. In the pocket formed by the sloping surfaces of the sandy soil, lay a soft gray ash (B) which seemed unrelated to the black ash with burned clay fragments found elsewhere on the site. The gray ash had the appearance of a dump of cleansings from the hearth or fireplace, and included a few broken bones and shells, part of an antler, and two clay pipe bowls. Black loam with ash (A) filled the rest of the pit. Much domestic refuse was found in the loam,

30. C.G. 4141.

including a broken knife and the melted and fused remains of what may have been turned lead from a casement window. It has been suggested that this relatively small feature was a privy pit. The shells may have been deposited at one time, or added occasionally for drainage, or as lime to neutralize the acidic waste material. After a period of disuse, as evidenced by the silted-in sand, the slightly eroded hole was backfilled with domestic debris. A careful examination of the natural clay surface around the pit failed to reveal decisive evidence for a covering structure.31

Further excavation revealed that the pit lay within the only large structure on the Fort site, presumably the premassacre home of Governor Harwood. The pit’s location close to one end of the building and squarely on its center line suggested that it had been dug close to a hearth—hence the gray ash. It was a common practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to bury root crops near the warmth of a hearth, and in this case it seems much more likely that this was the pit’s number-one function. The shells at the bottom (Level D) could have served as drainage to keep the underside of the crops dry. Water running under the post-built house drained down into the pit, rendering it unsuitable for domestic storage and washing in a quantity of sand from the clay around. Having discovered that the pit was of no use as storage, ashes (B) from the adjacent chimney were shoveled in, ash that soon settled and compacted, leaving an oval depression that in turn was filled with loam and trash (A). Thus the presumed privy hole became a conjectural storage pit.

PIT 2 (C.G. 3011 AND 350): THE INDIA PIT Pit 2 was a large, irregularly shaped depression surrounding the Fort’s only well shaft that is believed to

31. Eric Klingelhofer, “The Excavation of 17th century Site ‘C,’ Carter’s Grove, Va.: An Interim Report for 1977” (1977), p. 13.

THE PITS

Illustration 44. Plan and section through Pit 1 in the Fort’s dwelling. For location, see Ill. 13.

203

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

have been created for—or even by—cattle housed within the palisades before or after the massacre of 1622 (Pl. 88). Known as the India Pit because of a similarity of shape, its southerly tail is interpreted as an approach route created by cattle arriving to drink from what had become a pond, fed in part by rain shedding from the high ground behind the Fort and in part by the abandoned and partially filled well shaft. The sectional drawings (Ill. 45–46) show better than any number of words can describe just how complex was the stratigraphy of the India Pit feature. Reading from southwest to northeast it is evident that the southerly Layers E and J were cut through by Strata A–D, and that K predated the disturbance.32 Missing from the equation is the source of the disturbance, which may or may not be the product of settlement some time after the well shaft had been widened by erosion. As near as could be determined the well shaft had had a diameter of 3´ and had been cut through 4´9˝ of natural clay and 3´5˝ into the marl stratum beneath it. It was through this shell layer that rainwater drained from the hill behind the Fort. But this was an unreliable source, there being no spring to feed the shaft in dry weather.33 The well having been dug to a depth of 6´8˝, a rectangular trough was dug to a further depth of 1´6˝, but whether this was dug contemporaneously with the marl hole to serve as a sump to receive silt washing from the sides, or whether it was an afterthought to try to reach water even after the well dried up, one cannot tell. Nevertheless this second stage did serve as a catch basin and became filled with mud, twigs, seeds, and grasses34 whose analysis would, we hoped, provide valuable information about the flora present within the compound during its later lifetime. Unfortunately, due to a laboratory miscue, that study was never pursued. In the northwest corner of the sump was found a small posthole extending 7˝ further into the marl stratum, and resting 2˝ into the top of the hole was the fully preserved (and clearly cut) end of an oak post 4˝ in diameter and 1´4˝ in length. The post had fallen sideways to lay against the south wall and was capped by an armor backplate, which also was lying against the side of the shaft. Toward the eastern edge

was found another oak post, 4a˝ in diameter at its greatest width and 3´8˝ long, again sufficiently preserved to show precisely how it had been lopped to a point at one end (Ill. 45). The filling of the shaft was no easier to interpret than was the India Pit fill around it. The top three layers (C.G. 3010B, 3010C/3050A, and 3050B) may have been the product of the later infilling of the settling shaft’s contents, as may the thin layer of ash (C.G. 3050D) that separated two magnum fills of mixed clay and loam (C.G. 3050C and E). The obvious question is: what do the ashes mean? They certainly point to a burning activity of some kind that occurred after the dumping of the first clay deposit (E). But was this an event separated by minutes, weeks, or more? Artifacts from the shaft’s fills were few, but those that were present were relatively intact. Thus a redware chamberpot35 rested immediately on top of the ash layer, and from its position it seems likely that the clay was tossed in only minutes or seconds later, gripping the pot in a semi-upright position. Another fragment of this pot was found below the ash, in the top of the next clay layer (E), a relationship impossible to explain until one studies the section drawn slightly to the southeast of the shaft (Ill. 46). Here the two fills of loam and clay are separated in part by a much thicker deposit of ash, but at the eastern end of the profile the two clay levels abut and are almost certainly one. The suggestion, therefore, is that the well was being filled from two directions, the clay from the northeast and the ashes from the southwest and in the general direction of the large dwelling (Structure A). Below the ash level was the premier deposit of mixed clay and loam, and near the top of it a complete and uncracked two-handled casserole-style vessel.36 The presence of the chamberpot and casserole so close together in fill of the same texture supports the thesis that both fills occurred almost simultaneously, separated only by the time it took to tip in the ash divider.37 No matter how one explains the clay sequence, however, no explanation jumps to mind to account for the presence of the undamaged vessel.38 Below the clay was a downwardly compressed deposit of gray silt (C.G. 3050F) created by a mixture of decaying organic matter and clay washed from the unlined (?) walls. Into this had been thrown an

32. The India Pit stretches across three 10´ grid-squares: C.G. 3011; 3050; and Level K in 3011, which becomes Level M in C.G. 3010. 33. A second marl layer lies 20´ deeper under a second belt of clay and it is only this lower marl level that draws on natural springs and can be relied on to provide water regardless of temporary rainfall variations. 34. C.G. 3050H. 35. Ill. 45; Pt. II, Fig. 1, no. 1. 36. Pt. II, Fig. 1, no. 8.

37. Testing of the way in which ashes behave once in the ground have shown that they are quickly reduced in volume and in many instances will disappear altogether (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 250). It is likely, therefore, that the thin band of ash shown in the drawn section had been much thicker when first deposited, and that it was due in some measure to its contraction that the upper Layers A and B were necessary to level up the ground. 38. Although nothing but clay filled the casserole, it is possible that it had held something too offensive to be removed, which had since rotted away.

THE PITS

205

Plate 88. The northeast corner of the Fort as revealed in the 1977 season. The watchtower is in the foreground and to the left of it the cattle trail heading toward Pit 3 and beyond to Pit 2 (the India Pit) and the open well shaft. View from the east.

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Illustration 45. Section through Pit 2 and the Fort well. See also Ill. 46.

THE PITS

207

Illustration 46. Plan and sections through the Fort’s Pit 2 on lines A–B and C–D. armor backplate and immediately thereafter a closed helmet. 39 Unfortunately the helmet lay on rather than in the wet silt and in consequence had been subject to the wetting and drying of its environment from season to season, the worst possible condition for the preservation of iron. The backplate lay almost entirely in the silt and so survived in much better condition, save for its left side, which had projected above the preserving silt and so had rotted entirely away. From the same silting came a broken eye from a hoe with a fragment of its wooden shaft still in it.40 Also present were a miscellany of pieces of wood, several of them heavily burned; a split oak log that may have been a fireplace billet; and a board 1´1˝ in length, 2˝ wide, and c˝ thick, into which a 2b˝ nail had been hammered. Amid the organic material at the bottom of the well and lying within the rectangular sump was the neck from a Westerwald jug,41 whose decoration and color almost exactly paralleled the base of a jug of the same size found in Pit 3 at Site A, thus pointing to a domiciliary connection between that site and the Fort.

Finds from the depression or basin south of the well shaft included local pottery as well as a glass bottle piece and numerous tobacco-pipe stem fragments. Of importance was a rim sherd from a North Devon sgraffito-decorated dish,42 the earliest example from Martin’s Hundred and perhaps from any Virginia site. Of similar importance and for the same reason, the India Pit yielded fragments from a tall, purple-bodied stoneware-hard storage jar, a type long known as Staffordshire butter jars.43 The India Pit had a secondary tail that stretched eastward toward the Fort’s postern gate and was cut by the bivalve-shaped Pit 3 (C.G. 3016). The previously mentioned cattle track ran up to the pit’s east edge and there was lost (Pl. 88). It seems likely, however, that the tail of the India Pit had originally been part of the cattle track. If so, the interrupting Pit 3 should have been dug after the cattle track had been created. The India Pit reached to a row of postholes thought to have been part of an enclosure (or broad lean-to) at the back or landward side of the Harwood dwelling. To the east the small Structure C, which so evidently had been destroyed by fire, was flanked on

39. Pt. II, Figs. 52, 53, and 54. 40. Pt. II, Fig. 39, no. 5. 41. Pt. II, Fig. 4, no. 2. 42. Pt. II, Fig. 3, no. 4.

43. Pt. II, Fig. 3, no. 6. These wares are today known as “Midlands purple,” a broadening of source endorsed by the spectrographic tests performed by Dr. Stephen Clement at the College of William and Mary, who determined that not all the tested samples were made of clay from a single source.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 47. Plan and section through the Fort’s Pit 3.

209

THE PITS

the west by the India Pit and on the north by Pit III, suggesting that this little building coexisted with both pits (see Ill. 13 and Pl. 28). If so, we can deduce that the cattle wallow existed at a very early stage in the Fort’s life and was not the product of postmassacre usage of the Fort as a cattle compound—as has long been supposed. In that case there may have been no usage of the palisaded area after the 1622 attack, and instead such cattle as survived or were replaced were housed at Site A. It is possible that the well shaft was dug to provide water for the cattle after the India Pit basin went dry and was not used by the occupants of the Fort, who drew their water from the spring adjacent to Site H. Erosion along the north side of the shaft eventually extended through the firing step and beyond (or beneath) the planked palisade.

The Company Compound, ca. 1620–1622

PIT 3 (C.G. 3016) The stratigraphy of Pit 3 (Ill. 47) indicated that it began as two quite distinct holes, one saucer-shaped and measuring 11´ x 6´6˝, the other a square-cut rectangle 7´6˝ x 3´6˝, each with the same dirty clay fill at the bottom (C.G. 3016J and G) and both sealed by the same fill of ash-flecked brown loam (C). The combining upper levels consisted largely of black and gray ash mixed with lenses of loam and sandy clay. At the bottom of these distinct tips were found several large pieces of burnt wood, one of them 2´2˝ long, 6˝ wide, and 2˝ thick. Most of the artifacts came from the upper ash levels, among them a pewter porringer, an incomplete gun barrel, a butcher’s cleaver, a well-preserved stirrup, and an equally well-preserved dagger blade.44

POTTER’S POND (C.G. 3110–3113) In addition to the massacre victim’s grave, the compound’s northerly enclosure (Ill. 14) contained one

Illustration 48. Transverse sections through the Potter’s Pond in the Company Compound at Site C.

44. Porringer: Pl. 83 and Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 8 ; gun barrel: Pt. II, Fig. 49, no. 17; cleaver: Pt. II, Fig. 43, no. 4; stirrup: Pt. II, Fig. 50, no. 8; and dagger: Pt. II, Fig. 50, no. 1.

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large pit, which was at first thought to be another backfilled cellar hole akin to Structure D at Site A. When first revealed immediately below the plow zone, the irregular spread of mixed loam and clay measured ca. 25´ north–south and 30´ east–west (Ill. 49). In the manner of the Fort’s India Pit, this feature had a tail projecting to the southeast that was ca. 5´ in length. When fully excavated it became clear that no structure had stood within it and that in all probability it had been dug to obtain clay, either for house construction or for potting—or possibly both. The pit was excavated using the quadrant method and its sections showed seven quasi layers, i.e., strata having compositions that were predominantly mixtures of loam and clay and whose separation was often hard to detect and sometimes imaginary.45 The richest of all the Martin’s Hundred features in terms of artifacts, most of the pit’s finds were concentrated toward the middle of the lowest levels (E and F), while the bottom (F/G) was reached at 2´2˝. In the hope that their distribution would prove informative, the positions and elevations of 139 artifacts were precisely plotted; but other than serving as an aide memoire the time devoted to this level of recording was unwarranted—though one never knows that until it is done. It was visually evident that part of a brigandine—or a collection of 62 plates and 115 additional fragments46—had been deposited close to the pit’s rim at the northeast, and that wash had caused some of them to slide down almost to the center of the feature. Most of the artifacts, however, had been thrown into the pit from the northwest and either rolled or were washed toward the center. Although the pit was rich in military items as well as others relating to pottery manufacture, there was no separation between them: e.g., the visor of Martin’s Hundred’s second close helmet lay in contact with an earthenware pipkin waster whose handle poked up behind it (Pl. 89).47 A fragmentary armor backplate similar to that from the Fort well48 lay in part atop the helmet. The pieces were sufficiently scattered to make it unlikely that the plate had been intact when discarded, and there was no evidence of major disturbance to the overlying stratigraphy to suggest that the armor had been broken, say, by subsequent cattle trampling. The second juxtaposition of a helmet to a backplate might be read as evidence of a change of

defense philosophy by Martin’s Hundred settlers, based on the conclusion that helmets provided protection during hand-to-hand combat with edged weapons and this was not the way the Indians played the game, and on the assumption that the backplates were unnecessarily cumbersome and hot to wear when confronting an enemy, musketeer to bowman. This seems an improbable scenario, in part because the Indians were as likely to fire from behind as from the front and in part because the colony’s blacksmiths were always in need of scrap iron. Nevertheless, apart from this implausible explanation, another one not much better is offered, to wit: the colonists abandoning Wolstenholme Towne in the immediate aftermath of the massacre discarded superfluous close helmets into the two water-filled ponds to prevent them from being carried off by Indians returning to make “as well as they could a fresh murder.”49

45. The quadrants were numbered as follows: C.G. 3110 (NE); 3113 (NW); 3111 (SW) and 3112 (SE). The overall top layer was designated throughout as Level A, while the B, C, D, and E layers for the four numbers generally paralleled each other. At the bottom, however, the arbitrary distinctions created by the quadranting were discarded in favor of a single defining number: C.G. 3113F. 46. Pt. II, Fig. 57, nos. 12–14 (C.G. 3110C and D). 47. Helmet: Pt. II, Fig. 55; pipkin: Fig. 6, no. 10. 48. Pt. II, Fig. 56, no. 1 (C.G. 3113F). The similarity between

this backplate and the example from the Fort well is enhanced by the presence in the same Potter’s Pond level (C.G. 3113F) of a broad garde-rein plate (Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 17) paralleling the one still attached to the well example. The fact that both backplates had these broad rump defenses, as well as diamondshaped brass washers securing their shoulder straps, strongly suggests that both were munition armor drawn from a singlesupply source. 49. Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 551, Edward Waterhouse’s Declaration of The State of The Colony And Affaires in Virginia., 1622.

Plate 89. The second close helmet in situ in the Company Compound and abutting it a small pipkin probably broken in firing.

THE PITS

Unfortunately this does not explain the disposal of backplates, either whole or incomplete. The evidence for pottery making (as discussed earlier) remains undeniable (Pls. 66 and 90). The presence of wasters both over- and under-fired, coupled with the several fragments of a clay oven or kiln, leave no doubt that pottery was manufactured within the Company Compound prior to the massacre. At no time does the abandonment of complete objects make much sense, and here the discarding of the still-usable clay-stirring blunger (Pl. 70)50 is one such enigma. So, too, is the abandonment of the musket barrel with its hidden store of glaze-contributing lead beads (Pl. 69).51 It would be misleading to let it be supposed that the Potter’s Pond’s contents were limited to military preparedness and ceramic production (Pl. 91). Several domestic and agriculturally-related objects were scattered throughout the pit, among them a bucket handle, a sheet brass (?) skillet (Pl. 84), a frame and handle from another, a frying pan, a gophering iron,52 a bill, two broad hoes, a weeding hoe, and two spade nosings,53 these last found throughout the pit from Levels B–G. With the exception of the blunger, most of these objects were incomplete: e.g., the spades, the second broad hoe, the weeding hoe, the brass skillet, and the frame for another. Evidently,

50. Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 6. 51. Pt. II, Fig. 57, no. 1. 52. Bucket handle: Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 8; skillet: no. 3; pot frame: no. 4; frying pan: no. 1; and gophering iron: no. 5. 53. Bill: Pt. II, Fig. 59, no. 7 (F); broad hoes: Fig. 58, nos. 3–4 (C and F); weeding hoe: Fig. 58, no. 5 (B); and spade nosings: Fig. 58, nos. 1–2 (G and C).

211

Plate 90. A bucket pot with its characteristic pinched handle from the Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond, and in the foreground a similar handle fragment from Site A. See Pt. II, Figs. 5, no. 1; and 30, no. 1. therefore, not all the throw-aways were being hidden from the Indians, but why they were not saved as scrap metal is another Martin’s Hundred mystery. Two small pits were encountered close to the palisade in the southern enclosure of the Company Compound, but these were shallow, barren of artifacts, and were dismissed as holes created by growing shrubs or small trees.

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Plate 91. The Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond in course of excavation.

Site B The Jackson/Ward Site, ca. 1623–1640 Site B (Ill. 18) proved to be one of the richest in artifactual terms yet discovered in Martin’s Hundred, the majority of its finds coming from two layers immediately under and merging into the forest-created topsoil. The site yielded only two pits, one of them (B) very small and the larger (A) apparently dug for a purpose other than a repository for trash.

PIT A (C.G. 2115) This pit lay to the east of the Jackson/Ward dwelling and was sealed beneath the topsoil and a stratum of dark, organic loam (designated Layers A and B respectively), the latter extremely rich in artifacts, so much so that they identified the presence of the pit before its outline emerged. Following normal recording practice, the 10´ square in which the feature lay was designated C.G. 2076; the two covering strata were labeled C.G. 2076 and 2076A and the nat-

213

THE PITS

Illustration 49. Plan and section through Pit A at Site B. ural around it 2076D. Layers I and II within the pit were hard to tell apart, for both comprised a dark loam fill. In the interests of caution, however, the top 3˝ were isolated as C.G. 2076B and below that arbitrary cut-off the numbering was changed to C.G. 2115. In this way one could be sure that there was no confusion between finds from and finds near the main pit. These last are shown in the drawn section (Ill. 49) as Levels I–VI. The large number of tobacco-pipe fragments from in and around this feature have already been discussed. Nevertheless their presence was of sufficient importance for the pit’s fill to be bisected, each layer being taken out in halves so as to retain two groups of testable pipe fragments from each stratum. Using the Binford formula, the pit’s several layers (reading from top to bottom) gave the following mean dates: 1621, 1621, 1617, 1616, and 1616, with an accumulated date of 1619—all on top of the 1631-dated dish.54 An inventory of the contents of Pit A reads as follows:

54. A. Noël Hume, “Clay Tobacco Pipes Excavated at Martin’s Hundred,” p. 6 and figs. 5–6, pp. 20–22.

Earthenwares, Virginian Covered cooking pot Pipkins Chamber pots Dishes Mugs Storage jars Pans Shallow bowls Plate, slipware (1631) Plate, sgraffito

1 4 2 3 2 3 4 4 1 3

Earthenwares, English and Dutch Pipkin, West of England, gravel-tempered Dish, West of England, sgraffito Storage jar Ointment pot, delft Plates, delft Possit pot, delft Mug, delft

1 1 1 1 4 1 1

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Stoneware, Rhenish Jug

1

Glass Bottles, square

1

Arms and Armor Suit, plate armor Brigandine Mail (coat?) Sword Hanger Breastplate Snaphaunce

1 1 1 1 1 1

Tools Axe, felling File Scissors, pairs Table knives Spoons, pewter Spit holder Pot- or meat-hanger

1 1 2 3 2 1 1

Miscellaneous Buttons, brass Latch plate, brass Trunk handle Tobacco pipes Pin, brass Tinderbox, brass Trunk lock & hasp Nails Curtain ring, brass Indian Artifacts Projectile point (Archaic) Axe, small (late Woodland)

2 1 1 38 1 1 1 131 1 1 1

The above listing does not include small and not readily identifiable fragments of iron, brass, shell, egg, or bone scraps. Although in many instances the listed items are represented by only a single fragment, the fact remains that complete objects (no fewer than the items cited) were in use at Site B ca. 1630. Although the suit of armor is represented by a lone couter (Pl. 52), it is extremely unlikely that one incomplete arm defense was not part of a half, three-quarter, or—less likely—a full suit. Consequently, and because the couter is of good quality, it points to the presence of a person of distinction, for only officers would have owned or worn such armor, their servants and tenants being provided with nothing more elaborate than helmets and cuirasses. That deduction runs into trouble immediately when one remembers who is thought to have lived at Site B, namely John Jackson, bricklayer, and Thomas Ward, potmaker—hardly the trades of gentry. But then again the 1624/25 muster supports the archae-

55. Jester, p. 46.

Plate 92. Part of the large Westerwald stoneware jug in situ in Site B’s Pit A. ology when one reads that the Jackson/Ward household possessed “Peeces fixt 4; Armours, 3; Coate of Male, 1; swords, 3.”55 This brings us back to the question of what each census taker considered to be an armor. When completely excavated Pit A proved to be rectangular in shape with a smaller rectangle leading into it from the east. It was in the latter sector that most of the small pottery fragments were found, as was a large part of the Rhenish Westerwald-type jug (Pl. 92). Although there was no evidence of burning in or around the feature (though Layer III contained much redeposited charcoal and ash), it was tempting to see the pit as the stoke-hole or draft-controlling foundation for a small ceramic kiln. Perhaps dug and never used as such, or cut sufficiently deep to have avoided direct heat, the feature had every appearance of being a relic of some craft or industrial activity. One thing is certain—so carefully dug a hole cannot have been intended solely as a repository for trash. Crossmending linked the Rhenish stoneware jug (Pl. 61) to a single small sherd found near the dwelling’s hearth, while a fragment from a locally made sgraffito dish was found just west of the dwelling. Then, too, a fragment of delftware from the pit joined to another recovered from the filling of the much later ditch (for locations, see Ill. 19). Together these crossmends pointed to a movement of trash away from the dwelling out of the southwest door and around the end of the building to Pit A. One can postulate, too, that with the remains of a hearth in the southwest corner, the accumulative evidence points to that being the area of the kitchen. Then again the dearth of postholes along the east wall line (albeit with one replacement post?), coupled with the absence of an abutting debris field,

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215

may be read to suggest that there was no door in the east wall.

PIT B (C.G. 2105) Site B’s Pit B lay to the southeast of Pit A and may have started life as a tree root and ended it filled with a single deposit of clay mixed with brown loam. It measured 5´ in length, 3´ in width, and was barely 1´3˝ deep, save in the circular cavity that may have been the mold from a tap root. Artifacts were not plentiful and comprised a few sherds of local earthenware and glass bottle fragments, half a pair of scissors, and the best example of a sword’s basket guard to come from Martin’s Hundred.56 The unusually well-preserved guard from Pit B, as well as the wide range of ferrous objects from Pit A— among them a still operable trunk lock, an axe that could be put to work, and a usable pair of scissors (Pl. 93)57—all suggested that the soil of both pits contained a preservative or at least neutralizing element. In retrospect an effort should have been made to identify it. Traces of a powdery blue substance on the

Plate 93. Tools of two cultures: The Site B pit in course of excavation revealing in the same stratum two axes, one English and the other Native American. axe was reminiscent of the deposits of tannic acid found in Roman levels of the Walbrook in London, which proved to be the by-product of tanning and of buried leather scraps in the vicinity of the remarkably preserved Roman iron.58

Site D C.G. 3501 This site is one about which little is known, comprising as it did one post-built structure, which could have been anything from a dwelling to a large cow shed, and one large pit that was partially excavated during the 1970 survey (Ill. 16 and Pl. 33). The pit had a northerly heading tail, suggesting that it had been dug as—or had become—a cattle pond, a feature reminiscent of the central pit within the Fort. The pit contained very few artifacts—indeed far fewer than had been expected as the result of the 1970 survey. Of its four distinct layers, only the top (A) appeared to have been hand-deposited, the rest having the appearance of silting (Ill. 50). Level D yielded one tobacco-pipe bowl that could date anywhere between ca. 1620 and 1640 (Ill. 51) and a brown, lead-glazed cup of local manufacture. In the piled-up glaze within the cup’s base were two pieces of lead shot of similar size to those found in the gun

barrel in the Potter’s Pond (Pl. 69).59 This cup almost certainly was a product of the Martin’s Hundred potter, but whether it was discarded before or after the massacre remains in doubt. The majority of the artifacts had been found during the 1970–1971 Carter’s Grove survey and included several one-might-think usefully diagnostic objects: a rim sherd from a delftware charger, an early (because of its crudity?) North Devon sgraffito slipware dish rim, and the base of a rare manganesestippled delftware salt. This last object suggested the presence of a household of substance, as did the charger,60 thus giving rise to Site D’s nickname of “Audrey’s Delft Site.” Whether the good-quality artifacts came from the nearby structure or had been brought from further afield remains to be determined. One thing is undeniable: Site D failed to live up to its name, for no more delftware was found when the pit’s excavation was completed.

56. Pt. II, Figs. 77, no. 3; and 72, no. 8, respectively. 57. Pt. II, Figs. 79, no. 5; 73, no. 1; and 77, no. 1. 58. Ralph Merrifield, The Roman City of London (1965), figs.

126–129. 59. Pt. II, Fig. 17, no. 2 60. Pt. II, Fig. 17, nos. 11–12.

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Illustration 50. Plan and section through the only pit at Site D.

Site E Site E (Ill. 17) was located on the high ground north of Wolstenholme Towne and was scarcely more informative than Site D. It was, however, much better defined, comprising (as previously stated) a two-bay house measuring 20´ x 15´ and fitting well into the Martin’s Hundred domestic unit pattern (Ills. 7–8). Its four pits (one of them evidently a tree hole) were more-or-less equidistantly placed around the house, and of these only two (A to the south and B to the north) yielded any artifacts of significance.

PIT A (C.G. 741A) This pit had been found and largely excavated in the 1970 survey, and when re-examined nine years

Illustration 51. The sole datable pipe bowl from the Site D pit. See Ill. 40 for comparative examples.

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THE PITS

later, its reported 6´ x 2´ dimensions were less easily recognized. A sherd of the local slipware had been found in 1970, thus dating the deposit to the Ward era. More interesting was half of an extremely crudely made milk pan in a red ware botchily coated internally with a green glaze. What gave this pan its distinction was the fact that a wide crack acquired at the

sun-drying stage had been smeared with clay in an attempt to convert an inevitable waster into a passable second. It did not succeed. Although this example of tinkering is paralleled by a pan from the Potter’s Pond,61 the shape and body characteristics do not suggest that both repair jobs are the work of the same craftsman.62

Site A The Har wood Plantation, ca. 1623–1645

a type of depositional feature: Pit 10 was only a shallow hole quickly filled in; Pit 9 a deep hole with no subsidiary features; Pit 2 possibly a former storage pit, and Pit 3 a double hole with ancillary features.

On Site A (Ill. 22) there were more pits than on any other, ten in all, and indicative, one might suppose, of longevity of site occupation—which may indeed be the case. The following description of Site A’s pits is culled in large measure from archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer’s interim report.63

PIT 1 (C.G. 1735)

Because the site’s surface layers had been plowed out, all the major deposits of refuse were in pits. Five of them lay northeast of Structure A (Ill. 3) and the remainder were grouped together northwest or southwest of the building complex. Three pits, nos. 2, 5, and 9, were of approximately the same size and shape, round or polygonal on the surface with a diameter of close to 6´. Their sloping, curved bottoms were dug about 3´ into the natural subsoil, and had been perhaps 4´ below the old ground surface. As a great deal of effort would have gone into the digging of these three features, it is probable that the dumping of refuse into them was a secondary function. Even if the pits had been dug simply to gather clay with which to plaster daubed walls or chimneys, they may subsequently have served as storage pits for crops, particularly Pits 2 and 5, which exhibited subsidiary features. Three other pits, nos. 6, 7, and 8, had fills that contained large amounts of ash but little refuse. It is possible that the storage of ash was their true function, and they may have been created by the removal of clay for daub construction. At a later date, ashes were commonly saved for soap making, but at Site A there was no archaeological evidence to support or refute that association. The remaining pits, nos. 1, 4, and 10, showed every indication of having been simply tree holes filled with rubbish. The plans and sections of four pits (nos. 2, 3, 9, and 10) are included in this study, each illustrating

61. Pt. II, Fig. 8, no. 5. 62. For a discussion of tinkering, see p. 171. 63. Klingelhofer was the supervising field archaeologist for the Site A excavations and the author of “The Excavation of Site ‘A’” (1976). His pit descriptions have been edited both for

Pit 1 was a shallow, 7´6˝ x 6´6˝ depression, only 9˝ deep, with a taillike extension running 7´ to the east. The upper fill was dark loam containing numerous artifacts. Beneath it a 3˝ stratum of sandy loam was indicative of root activity. This pit was almost certainly created by the removal of a tree stump. The finds were both agricultural or utilitarian, and domestic in nature. Among the former was a hoe blade, part of a barrel hoop, and a nailmaker’s anvil.64 Domestic finds included a wide variety of pottery along with a “smoker’s companion,” and a brass clasp in fleur-de-lis form from a small book.65

PIT 2 (C.G. 1736) Pit 2 had a rounded bottom 2´8˝ into the subsoil, curving up to vertical sides (Ill. 52) and therefore quite clearly a dug rather than a tree-created hole. Its top measured 6´3˝ in diameter but evidently had not been circular, possessing instead eight sides of differing breadths. This octagonal shape was most unusual and certainly unnecessary in a rubbish pit. It would, however, be admirably suited to a pit lined with planks. Two shallow concavities (possibly postholes F and G) were found on opposite sides of the pit, but as they were cut through by it, they either predated it or had abutted boards that had reached to the seventeenth-century land surface.66 These holes probably seated small posts for a structure

brevity and for compatibility with the style of the present study. 64. Hoe: Pt. II, Fig. 82, no. 2; anvil: Fig. 83, no. 9. 65. Smoker’s companion: Pt. II, Fig. 88, no. 10; clasp: no. 9. 66. The italicized words here and hereafter have been added to Dr. Klingelhofer’s description by INH.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Illustration 52. Plan and section through Pit 2 at Site A. related to the original use of the pit, perhaps a lean-to roof covering crops stored below. Although rodent burrows had caused considerable damage, five distinct layers were observed. The topmost surviving layer was of brown loam (A) similar to the topsoil, and sealed a gray loam (B) upon which rested a stratum of gray ash. This last (C) comprised a medley of small layers of slightly differing colors and texture, rendering it virtually impossible to count them with any degree of accuracy, but each representing individual dumpings. Beneath the ash lay a stratum of gray loam (D), while in the bottom was a small lens of sandy soil (E) caused by weathering and containing no finds. Most layers of Pit 2 yielded at least a few sherds of locally-made slipware,67 of which only five fragments were found elsewhere on the site. Two objects, military in character, came from this pit: an iron buckle for a sword hanger, and an iron pike head with a deliberately broken point, from the D and B levels respectively.68

67. Pt. I, Fig. 30, nos. 8–10, all from Layer B. 68. Pt. II, Fig. 81, nos. 11 and 3.

PIT 3 (C.G. 1737) Pit 3 lay northeast of structure A and was the largest, but unfortunately the most damaged by rodent burrowing (Ill. 52). Excavation showed the feature to have been the product of two intersecting cuttings unequal in either size or depth. The northerly hole was 7´3˝ wide and 2´1˝ deep, while the southern was 6´6˝ wide and reached 3´3˝ into the subsoil. A shallow, only 6˝ deep, was found to the south end of the pit (J) and another, seemingly related to it, at the north end (M) that was both shallow and wide. Because the latter feature either created or followed the line of the northerly pit, it might be construed to have been a primary fill, albeit at the top. Alternatively, one might read deposits M and J as predating the two large holes. Beyond feature M was a hole69 2´6˝ wide and 11˝ deep that may be related to the depositional complex to the south. This smaller hole had cut through the line of a perimeter fencing slot70 and

69. C.G. 1776C. 70. C.G. 1840A.

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219

Illustration 53. Plan and section through Pit 3 at Site A. so postdated it . . . . Two shallow depressions lay along the west side of the dual complex and could refer to the different times that it was created. Adjacent to the most northerly of these depressions was another small and shallow hole,71 which contained little except two almost-complete Iberian earthenware bottles (Pl. 94).72 The placement of these bottles in the depression beside the main complex suggests either that they were thrown away before the large holes were serving as repositories for trash or after they had been filled. It seems likely the Pit 3 complex had served as a place of storage with postholes at its north and south ends, and was later expanded for use as a rubbish pit. The top of Pit 3 was covered with an ashy loam (A) which overlay a spread of black ash mixed with many small fragments of burnt clay (B). This ash was concentrated along the east side of the pit. Below this layer, animal burrows disturbed the stratigraphic relationship between the deep and

shallow holes. In the north, a light gray clay layer (K) lay below the ash, a condition duplicated to the south (C) and therefore arguably one and the same. Returning to the north, there the K level overlay a stratum of heavy gray clay (L), whereas to the south this layer (E) was separated from the lighter clay (C) by a thin layer of black loam (D). It seems highly likely, however, that deposits L and E were the same . . . . Beneath the southerly heavy clay, a deposit of sandy soil (F) separated it from another of the same character (G). Lenses of similar silting were found at the bottom of both the deep and shallower holes (H and N), and it is possible that the last three layers represent the effect of a full season’s exposure to the elements. Pit 3 yielded two groups of especially interesting objects, but with apparently contradictory natures. The military items noted in Pit 2 were much more evident here, though there were a large number of the more “normal” artifacts: an iron trivet, fire tongs, trunk handles, and hoe blades.73

71. C.G. 1776A. 72. Pt. II, Fig. 33, nos. 1 and 3. No. 1 was missing a handle and no. 3 both handles and the neck. They had clearly been discarded together. Although Klingelhofer’s report cites these bottles as being from the shallow hole C.G. 1776A (which is probably correct), the field numbers on the bottles puts them in the B stratum of the main pit complex, i.e., 1776B. After the passage of a decade there is no way of being certain which is

correct. These bottles have long been thought to be diagnostic clues that identifiy their context as dating from the second quarter of the 17th century, but the discovery of one aboard the Bermudian wreck of the Warwick, lost in 1619 (I. Noël Hume, Shipwreck!, p. 41), means that these vessels were in use throughout the Martin’s Hundred period, i.e., 1619–ca. 1640. 73. Pt. II, Figs. 87, nos. 1, 3, and 5–6; also 82, nos. 1–2 and 5–6.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Plate 94. Seville tin-glazed earthenware flasks in situ at Site A. See Pt. II, Fig. 32. By far the most significant domestic item from this pit and possibly from Site A as a whole was the base of a Westerwald jug that was so similar to the neck and handle from the Fort well that they might have been from the same vessel. The significance of this find in linking Site A to the Fort has been discussed earlier. Nevertheless it remains important to recall that it was through this jug and Pit 3 that the connection with Governor Harwood was forged (Pl. 60). As Klingelhofer noted: The military items were impressively varied: a point from a brandistock, a 7 lb. 4 oz. cannonball, a sword pommel 74 that may have belonged to the same weapon as a swept-hilt guard found in the possible structural hole to the north (C.G. 1776C),75 and fragments from an armor backplate 76 that appears to have been deliberately cut up into scrap and may have joined to other pieces found in Pit 4 . ... Pit 3 yielded the only large concentraction of Indian artifacts from Site A, consisting of a dozen sherds of Late Woodland pottery, two quartz projectile points, and several crudely-made tobacco pipes.77

74. Pt. II, Fig. 81, nos. 4, 16, and 6. 75. Pt. II, Fig. 81, no. 7. 76. Pt. II, Fig. 81, nos. 1–2.

Klingelhofer saw in the Native American items from Pit 3 “a connection of some sort with the Indians . . . whether it be trade or enslavement . . . . It is possible,” he went on, “that the colonists no longer felt obliged to keep all their military items, but could discard or convert some to less martial uses, as in the case of the armor in Pits 3 and 4.” He had also expressed surprise that so many military artifacts should be found in a pit that also yielded domestic trash. It must be remembered, however, that these tentative and then very reasonable assumptions were made 20 years ago. In the meantime many more sites of the Martin’s Hundred era have been excavated,78 each demonstrating that the juxtaposition of military and domestic discards was the norm rather than the exception. How to explain it is something else again. It may well be that over time the replacement of old weapons by new and likewise the replacement of rusted and leather-decayed armor freed up the metal for other uses. Because the Indian menace remained imminent throughout the Harwood years at Site A, it is hard to equate the discards with complacency. Indeed the Indian problem remained in the wings, if

77. See the tobacco pipes from Pit 3; Pt. II, Fig. 105. 78. E.g., Governor’s Land, Flowerdew Hundred, Jordan’s Point, and most recently at Jamestown.

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THE PITS

not at center stage, until the second massacre attempt in 1644 and the murder of the captured Opechancanough. The presence of Indian sherds in Pit 3 is not surprising, as aboriginal pottery was almost certainly among the items (or containers for them) that were traded in times of relative peace. The presence in seventeenth-century colonial deposits of lithic items whose ancient, even Archaic, origins are accepted by prehistorians is much harder to justify. There is, for example, a fine celt from Site B’s Pit A, which was found within inches of an intact iron axe that cannot be dismissed as a colonist’s discarded curio (Pl. 93). One cannot help but wonder whether these hunting/fighting objects were picked up by the Indians and reused no matter how old or—perish the thought—whether many of the lithic items traditionally categorized into time periods (Archaic; Early, Middle, and Late Woodland; and Contact) may be regionally rather than time-separated, making some not nearly as old as is supposed.

PIT 4 (C.G. 1749) Pit 4 comprises an irregular group of holes, probably caused by the removal of tree stumps. The topmost layer, an ashy brown loam with most domestic refuse, entirely filled the eastern part of the pit, an oval depression only four inches deep. In the western part, the same type of fill contained the fragments of a backplate and covered lenses of sandy soil that probably washed into the hole. The pit’s bottom was more or less flat and lay only 1´5˝ below the topsoil. This pit suffered from a paucity of artifacts. It is important to note that Pit 4 was cut into by the same slot that had been cut by the hole associated with Pit 3 (C.G. 1776C). This is the same slot that, to the west, yielded evidence of it having supported a riven-log palisade (Pl. 40). It seems reasonable, therefore, that the palisade was erected soon after the 1623 Indian incursion and the arrival of Ellis Emerson described by Robert Addames in 1625. If true, then the fragments of armor thought by Klingelhofer to be representative of much-later complacency must in reality have been discarded in or before the time of massacre-bred chaos.

to the postholes flanking Pit 2. The top fill was an 8˝-thick layer of brown loam that sealed a deposit of ash with many animal bones. A spread of redeposited clay lay between the ash and a lower layer of brown loam that contained small fragments of burned clay from brick or daub. At the bottom of the pit was a 1´-thick deposit of gray sandy loam and lenses of dirty yellow sand, probably the result of weathering. Besides a wood-worker’s wedge and a small trimming axe79 from the uppermost layer, most of the noteworthy finds came from the ash beneath it, among them a bag-shaped padlock and a miscellany of trunk-related equipment comprising several hasps and a lock.80 Perhaps the most unique find were two incomplete halves of a spoon mold81 made from clay similar to that used to make the local tobacco pipes.

PIT 6 (C.G. 1739) Pit 6 was shallow and rectangular in shape, 5´3˝ wide, 7´3˝ long, and 1´9˝ deep. It may have been partially emptied and refilled because a brown loam layer had been largely cut into and replaced by a 9˝-thick layer of ash containing a number of brickbats. The undisturbed brown loam sealed a thin stratum of gray loam, over another of mixed clay. This, in turn, covered a layer of sandy fill resting on a thin deposit of gray clay mixed with ash. From these bottom layers came a field hoe and a horseshoe.82

PIT 7 (C.G. 1740) Pit 7 almost abutted the south of Pit 6. A small, irregular-sided feature, it measured an average 5´5˝ in diameter and cut into the natural clay to a depth of 1´7˝. Most of the pit held a single fill comprising brown loam mixed with ash and domestic rubbish resting on ashy gray loam. Beneath that the ash predominated and rested in turn on a stratum of sandy gray clay, almost certainly the product of initial erosion. Very few artifacts were found in Pit 7, none of them noteworthy.

PIT 5 (C.G. 1738)

PIT 8 (C.G. 1755)

Pit 5 was similar to Pit 2 in both size and shape, and was 3´1˝ deep and 7´3˝ wide, but with more sloping sides and a flat bottom. The top was almost octagonal, and there were indentations in the northeast and southwest sides, similar in placement

Pit 8 lay alone, 75´ east of the building complex and closer to the cellar than to the tight domestic complex. Its maximum dimensions were 11´6˝ by 6´8˝ and it had two bottoms, similar to those of Pits 2 and 3. On the surface, brick or daub fragments lay in a

79. Pt. II, Fig. 83, nos. 1 and 4. 80. Pt. II, Fig. 85, nos. 13, 1–3 and 7.

81. Pt. II, Fig. 88, no. 8. 82. Pt. II, Figs. 82, no. 4; and 81, no. 19.

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Illustration 54. Plan and section through Pit 9 at Site A. general spread of ashy loam that covered the northern half of the pit. Lying below the loam and covering also the south half was a 6˝ deposit of ash that sealed a second loam layer of the same thickness. Beneath the loam, a gray sandy soil stratum contained numerous brickbats (a rarity on any Martin’s Hundred site) and a well-preserved broad axe.83 This sandy level lay upon natural subsoil in the south half of the pit, but sloped northward into a deeper concavity. There, covered by the same sandy clay, a gray clay stratum overlaid a deposit of wash comprising thin layers of sand and loam that reached 2´1˝ into the natural subsoil.

PIT 9 (C.G. 1773) Pit 9 was oval at the top and measured 5´6˝ x 7´8˝, and possessed sloping sides that extended to a concave bottom at 2´8˝ into the natural clay (Ill. 54). This was the only pit that exhibited evidence of having been deliberately capped, covered as it was by a 1´1˝ thick layer of orange clay (A) that con-

83. Pt. II, Fig. 83, no. 6. 84. Lock: Pt. II, Fig. 85, no. 3; window lead: Fig. 90, nos. 1–3. 85. Pt. II, Fig. 36, no. 4. 86. Pt. II, Fig. 28, no. 6. The soil found within the alembic was given the number 1773E. The ashy loam fill included a thin,

tained few artifacts. The removal of the clay revealed a fresh-appearing pile of oyster shells, which had been tipped into the pit from the north (Pl. 95). The shells had settled into a layer of loam (B) containing much domestic rubbish, which included fragments from at least seven case bottles, a door lock, and most importantly fragments of window lead internally dated 1625,84 thereby firmly associating this pit with the filling of the cellar hole (Structure D, Ill. 22). Beneath the loam, a 10˝-thick deposit of pale ash occupied the pit’s center (C), a deposit that yielded fragments of at least 11 more case bottles.85 Partially covered by the ash and pressed into an underlying layer of soft loam (D) lay a large conical alembic made from the local clay,86 unquestionably the most accomplished example of early American potting so far recovered. It was found lying on its side (Pl. 96), cracked but intact save for the spout, the loss of which may have accounted for its having been discarded. The fill adjacent to the alembic included part of a roofing tile that evidently had been associated with it in a nearby (Site B?) kiln; also a shattered Iberian costrel similar to those found beside Pit 3 (C.G. 1776B).87 The loam layer (D) was concentrated in the western side of the pit, and separated the ash above

twisted strand of silver wire (Pl. 76), another of which was found in the underlying stratum, some of which had washed into the alembic. 87. Tile: Pt. II, Fig. 28, no. 4; costrel: Fig. 33, no. 2.

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THE PITS

Plate 95. Site A’s Pit 9 in course of excavation, its heavy deposition of shells dipping down from the right side. from another similar deposit below it. The latter (F) covered a layer of mixed clay (F), which was partially separated from a similar layer (M) by a sandy wash (K) and a deposit of gray clay (L). The gray ash (F) also sealed thin layers of sand and ash (G and H) that do not show on the drawn section line. The bottom stratum of mixed clay (M) yielded no finds. Seventeen brass pins88 and eight aiglets (sheathing for lace points) were scattered evenly about the pit, suggesting that it received sweepings from the floor

88. Pt. II, Fig. 88, no. 4.

of a dwelling, as did the discovery of two pieces of twisted silver wire from quality clothing (see n. 86).

The tobacco-pipe interrelationships with the several Site A pits has been discussed on p. 192; but it is pertinent to recall that they, as well as ceramic and glass crossmends, suggest connections between both pits and the cellar thusly: Cellar to Pits 1, 8, and 9 Pit 1 to Pits 2 and 3

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

addition (K) to Structure C’s expansion unit crossmends to the cellar fill,89 strong evidence that the cellar had ceased to exist before Structure C was enlarged. Logic, in any case, indicates that the cellared structure had been abandoned while Site A was still occupied, for if it belonged to the final phase nobody would have gone to the trouble of filling in the hole before leaving. Nevertheless the fact that the Structure C expansion was of rough puncheon construction, unlike the presumably well-built twobay buildings that had preceded it, suggests (as previously noted) that in its final phase Site A’s occupancy was grading down rather than up.

STRUCTURE D CELLAR

Plate 96. Site A’s Pit 9 with its alembic exposed. To the right of the alembic lies a handle from a Seville flask and beyond that the fragment of locally made roofing tile whose glaze suggests that it had served as a kiln prop. Pit 2 to Pit 3 Pit 3 to Pits 4, 7, and 9 (also to the Site C Fort) Pit 5 to Pit 7 Pit 7 to Pit 9 Pit 8 to Pit 9 Pit 9 to Pits 2, 3, and 8 (also to the Fort) Pit 10 to Pits 1 and 9

In sum, therefore, the marked pipes and crossmends point to connections between all the pits save Pit 6. But as previously noted pipe marks do not necessarily indicate immediate connections, at least not as directly as do ceramic or glass crossmends. The fact that such mends occur between the cellar and Pits 5, 8, and 9, coupled with the knowledge that the cellar was filled no earlier than 1625 (based on the dated window lead), provides similar termini post quem for the pits. Other linking crossmends occur for Pits 1 and 2, as well as for Pits 4 and 5, and for 8 and 9. A shallow depression inside and under the shed

89. C.G. 1767A to (cellar quadrant) C.G. 1760E. 90. See pp. 128–132. 91. Klingelhofer, “The Excavation of Site ‘A’.” 92. Pt. II, Fig. 83, nos. 7 and 5 (C.G. 1764H and 1771J) respectively.

This cellar has previously been discussed in its broad architectural and historical context (Ill. 23),90 and so it remains only to consider the character and content of its fill. Klingelhofer described it as follows:91 Structure D was the most interesting and complicated building on the site. Dug at least 4´ into the natural clay, it had a level bottom and sides that were vertical at the base but had been heavily eroded at the top. The bottom measured 17´2˝ and 16´11˝ on the north and south sides and 20´ and 19´ on the east and west sides respectively. It was estimated that the builders had removed at least 1,360 cubic feet of clay, plus the topsoil and whatever had been lost to erosion. The structure was excavated by the quadrant method, leaving cruciform balks that were removed after the floor had been reached in all four segments (Ill. 23). These balks were numbered the same as their respective quadrants thusly: Northwest C.G. 1760, Southwest C.G. 1770, Northeast C.G. 1771, and Southeast C.G. 1764. There was no evidence that the structure had a wooden floor. Instead a 2˝ spread of dirty sandy soil lay on the clay bottom. It stopped at the lines of the wall slots but settled into the concavities caused by the settling of the posthole fills. A draw knife and a side or trimming axe blade92 were found in each of two of these depressions. The tools both being commonly used by coopers, it seemed rea-

THE PITS

225

From this occupation layer came fragments of glass case bottles and tobacco-pipe stem fragments.94 Once the cellar hole’s plank walls had been salvaged (?) and the clay had washed in, domestic rubbish was tossed in from the northeast—more or less on a line toward the southwest door into Structure C. These tips included the 1625 window lead, fragments of window glass, and two stem fragments from a façon de Venise drinking glass,95 as well as most of the previously discussed tazza fragments96—certainly one of the most important drinking glasses from early colonial America. The ashy clay of this postdestruction fill included fragments of Portuguese faience97 and most of a South Netherlands single-handled pipkin,98 as well as the only fragment from a Netherlandish delft-

ware fireplace or wall tile.99 Among other finds were much of a large Bartmann bottle whose stylized rosette decoration suggests a date in the 1630s and part of a now-rare Rhenish chamberpot.100 Along with the above-average table and kitchen wares were many large nails, some of which are illustrated in the catalog.101 An obvious question arising from this evidence is: what does it tell us about the cellared building? The answer, alas, is very little. In its lifetime it served as a repository for tools and possibly for bottles, and was a place where one or more persons smoked. It therefore does not equate with the previously cited New Netherlands parallel described by Secretary van Tiennoven of New Amsterdam, who in 1650 told his superiors in Holland that those “who have no means to build farmouses at first . . . dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep.” Although van Tiennoven’s description fits the structural evidence, the recovered artifacts do not reflect the cellar’s usage as a place where the first Martin’s Hundred settlers could “live dry and warm in their houses, for two, three, or four years.”102 On the contrary all the evidence points to the building having been a store or a work place, for the quality objects from the upper fill were all dumped from a dwelling elsewhere—presumably Structure C at and about the time of its enlargement.103

93. C.G. 1771F, i.e., the NE quadrant; Pt. II, Fig. 87, no. 2. 94. Pt. II, Fig. 36, nos. 2 and 6a. 95. Pt. II, Figs. 90; and 37, no. 2. 96. Pt. II, Fig. 37, no. 1. The vessel’s fragments were scattered through three of the four quadrants: C.G. 1760, layers A, B, and F; 1761B; and 1771B. 97. Pt. II, Figs. 34, no. 8; and 35, nos. 1–6.

98. Pt. II, Fig. 33, no. 10. 99. Pt. II, Fig. 34, no. 11. 100. Pt. II, Fig. 34, nos. 2 and 1. 101. Pt. II, Fig. 84, nos. 2–7. 102. Cited by Linn and Egle, vol. 5, pp. 179–186. Also quoted by Esther Singleton, Dutch New York (1968), p. 14. 103. See p. 127.

sonable to equate their presence with the construction of barrels for the export of tobacco. A few nails were found elsewhere in the bottom sand, but no domestic artifacts. From the same sand stratum came an elaborate wrought-iron object that, even after 20 years of discussion and sought parallels, still defies identification.93 Directly above the sand was a 3˝-thick deposit of gray clay containing a scatter of domestic artifacts. The layer is thought to represent dirt washed or tracked into the cellar during its lifetime, or immediately thereafter, for upon it lay the collapsed clay infill from behind the plank walls (see Ill. 23, E/W quadrants layer E–G).

Postscript The Federal Government’s encouragement to treat every impacted acre as though it contains a fragment of the Grail is undeniably a boon to professional archaeologists, most of whom make their living working on compliance projects. But at the same time the ever-rising cost of archaeological fieldwork and the even greater cost of its aftermath pose problems for every private and commercial developer. From time to time the print and television press ask their constituents whether an old shoe or a piece of chipped quartz are worth the cost of saving them. And more often than not the question is phrased in such a way that the inevitable answer is an emphatic “no.” The seven years of digging at Carter’s Grove were undeniably expensive and probably would not have been undertaken, at least on so large a scale, had it not been for the interest so generously shown by the National Geographic Society, which underwrote the cost of five of those years. At no time, however, was the need for the work in doubt. Why not, one may ask? The answer is simply that at Carter’s Grove there was a recognizable end product. The place was already a museum actively imparting history to the general public—albeit the history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Consequently an investigation of the plantation’s seventeenth-century beginnings was an obvious addition to the curriculum. At the outset there was no way of knowing that the discoveries would be of such a magnitude as to merit the building of a museum wherein to exhibit the best of them. Indeed in the private sector such an outcome is a rarity. So was the fact that Colonial Williamsburg had not only a permanent archaeological staff to conduct the excavations but also a facility for the conservation and study of the hundreds of fragments that poured into the laboratory every digging day for five years. Furthermore the Foundation possessed a photographic department able to provide not only still coverage, but also to make a filmed record that eventually won international prizes. In short the ideal machinery was in place to do the job

without undue pressure to complete it as quickly and economically as possible. What, then, was accomplished—besides providing Carter’s Grove visitors with an opportunity to visit places where a dramatic event occurred and to join the archaeologists in their quest for knowledge? The massacre of 1622 came within an ace of reshaping subsequent American history. Consequently the what-if factor is one that provides twenty-first-century Americans with food for educated thought—and that’s good. It provided Carter’s Grove with historical importance that it previously lacked. The plantation’s handsome mid-eighteenth-century mansion had been built by people most visitors had never heard of, and in the end was lived in by a wealthy family whose name was no household word and whose furnishings were a reflection of their taste and of an era not yet out of living memory. Thus the preserved Wolstenholme Towne site and its adjacent Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum provided the average visitor with something unusual to see and think about. It also provided historical archaeologists with useful information about the dating of artifacts within the first half of the seventeenth century. And it provided a lot of young people with summer employment. None of this will historians deny. But at the same time they have a right to counter: yes, but what’s in it for me? For decades archaeologists like the National Park Service’s trail-blazing pioneer Jean C. Harrington have been urging traditional print-and-paper historians to recognize archaeology as a respectable handmaiden to history. And the historians have been understandably slow to accept it. What, they ask, can you show us that we don’t already know from documents? And when you do show us, where is the proof that you are right? At Carter’s Grove archaeology found a wooden fort and a palisade-defended house that are mentioned in no known document. It showed that there had been a potter working there both before and after

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the massacre of 1622. It showed social and military historians the kinds of arms and armor possessed by the Martin’s Hundred settlers and the shapes and range of ceramics made by the first potters, as well as the variety of imported ceramics reaching Virginia between 1619 and 1640. But when it came to real history—the down-in-abook kind—the discoveries only endorsed Edward Waterhouse’s vivid description of the March massacre. They could not contribute anything to Richard Frethorne’s moving accounts of the sickness and starvation that followed. Were it not for the newly found letters of Robert Adams and Thomas Ward, archaeology would know virtually nothing about the character of Governor William Harwood or the attack on his plantation in 1623, nor would we know the name of the potter. When the documents are there to validate archaeology’s assumptions, all is relatively well. But when they are not, archaeology is left to speculate and to litter its conclusions with maybes and perhapses, and to leave unanswered the principal questions that a historian is likely to ask: When did the first settlers build in Martin’s Hundred? We are not sure, but we believe it to have been John Boise in 1619. Where was the church and was it completed? We don’t know. It may be in the river. When and why were Sites A–E abandoned? Perhaps around 1640, but we don’t know why. Was it possible to distinguish with certainty between artifacts made and deposited before and after the massacre? No. Then was it possible to be sure whether the artifacts were deposited early or late in the 1619–1640 period? Only in very broad terms. Meaning what? That we really can’t be sure. Can archaeology tell us with certainty who lived where in Martin’s Hundred before the massacre? Only at Wolstenholme Towne, at Site B, Site H, and maybe Site A. On what basis can that be said? By assumption—educated guesswork. Small wonder is it, therefore, that historians have been slow to accept archaeological reasoning, however educated, as being on a par with the testimony of

the contemporary pen. When one moves away from sites having some historical importance and seeks funding for excavating the home of an unknown individual, no matter how early the date, the reason for doing so becomes shadowy at best. And when there is no public end product—meaning no conservation laboratory to preserve and no museum to display—then archaeology is being applied for its own sake, namely for the intellectual and physical pleasure it affords it practitioners—which is fine, providing those who fund it are aware of this caveat. One frequently hears of idealistic plans to create a Williamsburg in the West, or in the Caribbean, or some such place, and invariably those who propose it have very little idea of what it takes to do a Williamsburg well. Just as the eminently successful Jorvik Viking Center at York spawned several money-losing imitations, so one hopes that the success of the Martin’s Hundred excavations and the popularity of its museum will not be used to demonstrate that archaeology elsewhere—any elsewhere—can be as fundable or as rewarding. I am not naive enough to suppose that anyone will read these pages from beginning to end, but I remain hopeful that students will discover from them a little of what we can learn from a marriage of work both in the field and in the library—and no less important—the need to have the courage to apply educated guesswork, if only to see it demolished by one’s peers, for it is by the process of elimination that we can sometimes arrive at the truth. Ivor Noël Hume

The Archaeology of Martin’s Hundred

The Archaeology of Martin’s Hundred By Ivor Noël Hume and Audrey Noël Hume

Part II: Artifact Catalog

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION Williamsburg, Virginia

© 2001 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Noël Hume, Ivor. The archaeology of Martin’s Hundred / Ivor Noël Hume and Audrey Noël Hume. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-924171-85-5 (set : acid-free paper) 1. Martin’s Hundred Site (Va.) 2. Carter’s Grove (Va.) 3. Wolstenholme Towne (Va.) 4. Williamsburg Region (Va.)—Antiquities. 5. Plantation life—Virginia—Williamsburg Region—History—17th century. 6. Excavations (Archaeology)—Virginia—Williamsburg Region. 7. Carter, Robert, 1663-1732—Homes and haunts—Virginia—Williamsburg Region. 8. Williamsburg Region (Va.)—Biography. I. Noël Hume, Audrey. II. Title. F234.M378 N6253 2001 975.5'4252—dc21 2001001394 Printed in the United States

To Nathaniel “Nate” Smith Foreman and Friend

Contents of Part II List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix User’s Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Appendix I Faunal Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554 Appendix II Index of Illustrated Tobacco-pipe Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 Appendix III Cited Excavation Register Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 Appendix IV Ceramic Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20 Figure 21 Figure 22 Figure 23 Figure 24 Figure 25 Figure 26 Figure 27 Figure 28 Figure 29 Figure 30 Figure 31 Figure 32 Figure 33 Figure 34 Figure 35

The Fort (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231 The Fort (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234 The Fort (Site C): English and European ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .237 The Fort (Site C): European ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .248 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .258 The Company Compound (Site C): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260 The Company Compound (Site C): Kiln wall fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263 The Company Compound (Site C): Imported earthenwares and stonewares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): English and European ceramics . . . . . . . .271 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): English and European ceramics . . . . . . . .275 Site D: Local and imported ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .279 Site E: Virginian and English ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .283 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .287 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .290 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .294 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Local slip and sgraffito wares . . . . . . . .296 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): North Devon sgraffito slipwares . . . . . .300 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): North Devon sgraffito slipwares . . . . . .302 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Anglo-Netherlandish tin-glazed wares . .304 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Rhenish stonewares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .308 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Imported earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . .311 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . .314 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . .317 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Local earthenwares . . . . . . . . . .321 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Local and imported (?) earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .325 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Imported kitchen wares . . . . . .327 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Imported earthenwares . . . . . .329 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Imported stonewares and tin-glazed earthenwares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Imported tin-glazed wares . . . .336

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 36

William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), the Fort (Site C), and John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Glass case bottles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .339 Figure 37 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Glass tableware . . . . . . . . . . . . .342 Figure 38 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), the Fort (Site C), and John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Glass and crystal beads . . . .344 Figure 39 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346 Figure 40 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous closures and other objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349 Figure 41 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous handwrought spikes, nails, and tacks . . . . . . . . .353 Figure 42 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous fireback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356 Figure 43 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous and pewter tools and utensils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .358 Figure 44 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous knives, tools, and instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361 Figure 45 The Fort (Site C): Brass, ferrous metal, and pewter clothing and household items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .365 Figure 46 The Fort (Site C): Brass and copper objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .368 Figure 47 The Fort and Company Compound (Site C): Copper coins . . . . . . . . . . . . .370 Figure 48 The Fort (Site C) and Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Copper or alloyed jettons or casting counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .372 Figure 49 The Fort and Barn (Site C): Ferrous firearm parts and pewter accessories . . .375 Figure 50 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous military and equestrian objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381 Figure 51 The Fort and Barn (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .385 Figure 52 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .390 Figure 53 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393 Figure 54 The Fort (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .393 Figure 55 The Company Compound (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396 Figure 56 The Company Compound (Site C): Ferrous armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .398 Figure 57 The Company Compound (Site C): Ferrous arms and armor . . . . . . . . . . . .400 Figure 58 The Company Compound (Site C): Ferrous agricultural tools . . . . . . . . . . .407 Figure 59 The Company Compound (Site C): Ferrous and copper-alloy tools and utensils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .409 Figure 60 The Company Compound and Environs (Site C): Ferrous and copper-alloy small finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .413 Figure 61 The Company Compound (Site C) and John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Lead seals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .418 Figure 62 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous armor and other objects . . . . . . .421 Figure 63 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous, pewter, and lead military small finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .424 Figure 64 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous armor plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429 Figure 65 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .433 Figure 66 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous knives, pewter spoon, and other ferrous tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .436 Figure 67 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous locks and related hardware . . . . .439 Figure 68A John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous nails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .442 Figure 68B John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Multiple Grave: Ferrous nails, clothing eye, and lead musket balls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .444 Figure 68C John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Ferrous head band or ear iron . . . . . . . . .446 Figure 69 John Boyse Homestead (Site H): Copper-alloy, glass, and pewter objects . .448 Figure 70 John Boyse Homestead (Site H) and the Fort (Site C): Buttons . . . . . . . . . .451 Figure 71 Site D: Ferrous miscellaneous objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .453 Figure 72 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous armor, weapons, and accoutrements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .455 Figure 73 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .459 Figure 74 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous kitchen wares and metalworking waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .462 Figure 75 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous decorated table knives . . . . . .465 Figure 76 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous cutlery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .468 Figure 77 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous scissors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .470 Figure 78 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Pewter and copper-alloy spoons . . . . . .472 Figure 79 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Ferrous locks, handles, and nails . . . . .474

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 80 Figure 81 Figure 82 Figure 83 Figure 84 Figure 85 Figure 86 Figure 87 Figure 88 Figure 89 Figure 90 Figure 91 Figure 92 Figure 93 Figure 94 Figure 95 Figure 96 Figure 97 Figure 98 Figure 99 Figure 100 Figure 101 Figure 102 Figure 103 Figure 104 Figure 105 Figure 106 Figure 107 Figure 108 Figure 109 Figure 110

Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B): Miscellaneous metal small finds . . . . . .478 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous armor, weapons, and equestrian items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .481 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous hoes and spade . . . . . .485 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .487 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous nails and spike . . . . . . .490 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous hasps, lock, and keys . .492 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous objects . . . . . . . . . . . . .495 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Ferrous kitchen and other household equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .497 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Cutlery and other small finds . .500 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Copper-alloy pins, tacks, and fastenings, and glass beads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .503 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A): Turned lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .506 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), Massacre Victim’s Grave: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .508 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), Cattle Pond: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .510 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), Cattle Pond: English and/or Dutch and Virginian tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .512 The Company Compound (Site C), Potter’s Pond: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .514 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Pits I and V (“Granny’s Grave”): English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .516 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Pit V (“Granny’s Grave”): English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .518 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Various Stratified Locations: English and/or Dutch and local tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .521 Site D, Pit I: English tobacco pipe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .523 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Pit A: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .525 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Pit A and Other Contexts: Dutch and English tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .528 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Various Locations: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .530 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Various Locations: European and Virginian tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .533 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 1: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .535 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 2: English and/or Dutch and local tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .537 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 3: English and/or Dutch and Virginian tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .540 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 5: English and/or Dutch and Virginian tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .542 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 9: English and/or Dutch tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .544 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 10: English and/or Dutch and local tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .547 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 7 and Other Contexts: English and local tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .549 William Harwood and Thereafter (Site A), Structure D Cellar and Fill: English and/or Dutch and local tobacco pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .551

xi

User’s Introduction This, the second of two parts, illustrates and describes the principal artifacts from the Martin’s Hundred excavations of 1970–1981. It is sufficiently footnoted to stand alone as an interpretation of the objects within the range of their use and broad historical context. Only rarely are catalog entries designed to place the items in their Martin’s Hundred archaeological contexts. That is the purpose of the first part, which pieces together the plantation’s history from documentary sources as fragmentary as the artifacts and attempts to weave together the testimony of both. In several instances peripheral information—such as the lengthy gabled coffin research—has been omitted in the knowledge that it has been sufficiently disseminated in other publications. Omissions from this part are inevitable, the collection being of such magnitude—and thousands of artifacts being so small as to defy intelligible illustration—that the selection (like that for the museum at Carter’s Grove) has been dependent as much on the objects’ “readability” as on their individual importance. The catalog illustrates the principal artifacts from several chronologically and geographically related sites: Wolstenholme Towne, established ca. 1620 and destroyed on March 22, 1622; the John Boyse Homestead (1619–1622); the Jackson/Ward Homestead (ca. 1623–1640); the William Harwood Plantation (ca. 1623–1645); and two other smaller, domestic sites (D and E) whose dating is imprecise (ca. 1623–1645). The illustrated artifacts are divided by category and by site. Being the most readily and reliably datable, the ceramics from all the sites are grouped together and discussed first, then the glass (of which there is little), next the metalwork in all its varied aspects,

and finally the tobacco pipes. Each item is located by provenance using its Carter Grove Excavation Register number (abbreviated from C.G.E.R. to the prefix C.G.), followed in square brackets by its Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum catalog number; for instance, C.G. 2070A [7422]. Each 10´ square of the site grid was given a number (e.g., 2070) when digging began there. The lettered suffix to the C.G. number identifies the stratum or feature from which the artifact came. A descriptive listing of the C.G. field numbers is provided in Appendix 1. Thus C.G. 2070A [7422] will be found to have come from “Site B, Sq. X-2B-8. Dark loam 2˝ to 5˝ thick. Field stratum below topsoil adjacent to SW corner of house.” The triple-numbered square reference is to the site’s 10’ grid coordinates. When the C.G. number lacks a lettered suffix, the object is always from the topsoil (usually plowzone) and therefore archaeologically unstratified. Thus, for example, a posthole and -mold found directly beneath the topsoil (e.g., C.G. 2058) would be lettered “B” and “A” respectively, the last to be created or disturbed (the postmold) being the first to come out and thus receiving the “A” designation. Many of the field descriptions in Appendix III include measurements in feet and inches, that being the system current when both buildings and their contents were built and used. In the interests of modern preferences, however, measurements used in the catalog are cited in both inches and centimeters. There have been frequent attempts to standardize ceramic nomenclature, but a consensus has been lacking, in part because national, regional, and chronological variants have generated too many exceptions to the proposed rules. At Martin’s Hundred the excavations that began in earnest in the

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mid-1970s preceded most standardizing efforts, and so charts of basic forms were developed to ensure that the ceramic terminology was consistent within our own parameters. Those criteria have been applied to this catalog, to which two pages of such charts are appended as Appendix IV. Throughout, the Plate prefix refers to photographs; the artifact catalog drawings in Pt. II are refered to as Figures, to distinguish them from the other drawings, refered to as Illustrations, in Pt. I.

Abbreviations ave. conj. est. ext. int. max. surv.

average conjectural estimated exterior interior maximum surviving

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 1

231

232

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Figure 1 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3050D [7215] Height: 6b˝ (15.88 cm) The ware’s surface unevenly pink and body yellowish, with some ochre inclusions; unglazed save for small patches of red brown lead glaze under rim and on upper surface, where another vessel or kiln support touched during firing. Other, apparently inadvertently acquired patches of glaze occur at the girth and in a ribbon at the junction of the base and lower wall.1 The absence of interior glazing (an unusual omission for a chamber pot) suggests that this example may be a once-fired kiln reject. The vessel’s wall is decorated with a single groove below the rim and five more at its girth. Its base is flat and padlike. 2 Although the pot’s ear-shaped handle is similar to many examples from other Martin’s Hundred sites, its greater body hardness seems to set it apart from the products of the Company Compound’s potter (Figs. 5–11). 2 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3016A–C and E [7216] Diameter: rim 6d˝ (15.56 cm) Rim, wall, and base fragments; the ware’s eroded surface originally pale pink over orange body containing ochre flecks; interior evenly coated with ginger brown lead glaze, a little of which is smeared externally below everted rim. The latter is gently dished and squared on the outside, while the wall above the girth is decorated with five cordons of differing width. The rather unusual base is square cut to create a slightly flaring foot. 3 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7217] Height: surv. 4e˝ (11.12 cm) The ware’s eroded surface originally purplish red over poorly fired orange body containing ochre flecks; interior coated with thin, purplish brown coat1. Here and throughout, glaze colors are described as they appear on the vessel, though in reality lead glaze is transparent and yellow toned, acquiring most of its color from that of the fired clay body beneath it. Thus the yellowish glaze on a red or pink body appears brown, while the same glaze over a white clay appears yellow. 2. See Pt. I, p. 171. 3. The angular, almost carinated body shape characteristic of Martin’s Hundred pipkins seems to have been more common among Netherlandish wares of this period than among English

ing more like slip than lead glaze. The vessel has an extended lug handle, and the slightly everted rim is flattened on the top and pinched into a spout at a right angle to the handle. The wall exhibits a pronounced ridge at the point where it turns sharply inward toward the base, an angularity of profile characteristic of many of the local earthenwares.3 Only the tops of this pipkin’s three feet survive. Applied separately when the bowl was still wet and without prior scoring of the point of contact, such feet frequently broke off. 4 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7218] Height: 6e˝ (16.19 cm) The ware’s eroded surface originally ranging from pink to gray over lightly fired buff-to-orange body containing few ochre flecks; interior coated with thin, greenish brown lead glaze that fades into purplish slip at rim; glaze broken down into powdery yellow patches that seem to be characteristic of glazing failures among the products of local kilns.4 Only the base of the extended lug handle survives, and, like no. 3 above, the flattened and everted rim is pinched into a spout at a right angle to it. The wall is markedly angular at its girth, the shape apparently accentuated by upward smoothing with a paddle. The vessel stands on three feet attached to the base, which were drawn out with the ball of the potter’s thumb and smeared upward with his forefinger to create a slight terminating flap. This rather tall pipkin shape is represented on Sites A and B (Figs. 29, no. 5; and 28, no. 2) but not among the kiln waste from the Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond. 5 Pitcher Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7219] Diameter: base 4n˝ (12.23 cm) Base fragment; the ware orange and ochre flecked; surface dappled pink by the action of glazing; orange wares. Though strongly represented among finds from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 7–10) and thus in production before March 1622, it also occurs at Site A in various forms (Fig. 28, nos. 1–2 and 5), where they appear to have been in use in the postmassacre period. 4. Although a common phenomenon on pre-1622 sites (e.g., the Company Compound and Site H), the classic example of this glaze failure is provided by the 1631 slipware dishes from Site B (Fig. 22).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

brown lead glaze ran down exterior and was smeared around base; interior glaze poured to cover bottom but coats little of the rest of the surviving walls. The base is tooled into a sharp edge at one side, but around much of it smeared clay obscures the lines. Nevertheless the style is evident and well paralleled by a pitcher from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 7). However, the latter’s base rises while this example is flat. 6 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7220] Height: 8b˝ (20.96 cm) The ware’s surface pink to orange over ochreflecked body varying from pale orange to gray, the latter possibly the result of oxidation due to use in a cooking fire; lead glaze confined to interior and varies in color from ginger brown to dirty green. One of the vessel’s two ear-shaped handles survives; the dished rim is everted and skillfully square cut; a pronounced cordon decorates the shoulder; and a paddle-created ridge enhances the girth angle (see no. 3 above). One of three small thumb-impressed feet survives. In spite of this vessel’s modeling similarity to no. 3, its rim style and overall appearance seem to set it apart from the other cauldrons found in Martin’s Hundred, suggesting that it may have been made elsewhere. 7 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3011G and 3016A [7221] Diameter: rim 9c˝ (24.77 cm) Rim, handle, and wall fragments; the ware deep orange both on surface and in body; interior and rim coated with brownish green lead glaze. The everted and slightly dished rim is reinforced externally by a

5. See also Pt. I, p. 171, n. 48. 6. The term casserole is here used to describe a lidded, flat-bottomed, and straight-sided food vessel having two handles. There is no evidence that the word was used by the English in

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strip of clay carefully thumb-impressed to create a decorative band below the lip. Three roughly incised grooves ornament the wall above the girth and on a line with the only surviving ear-shaped handle. These three lines point to a relationship between this cauldron (whose fragments may represent two vessels rather than one) and another from Pit A (ca. 1631) on Site B (Fig. 20, no. 15), but at the same time may set it apart from the several multicordoned examples from the Potter’s Pond (e.g., Figs. 10, nos. 4–5; and 11, no. 1–2).5 8 Casserole6 or stew pot Provenance: C.G. 3050E [7222] Height: 4i˝ (10.64 cm) The ware low fired, buff to orange-pink both on surface and in body, with many ochre inclusions; interior coated with pale, brownish green lead glaze that has spread to overlap rim. A flange below the rim projects horizontally to seat a lid akin to Fig. 2, no. 4, and below the flange, on opposite sides, project two lug handles.7 The base is flat and thick, and the vessel as a whole is heavy for its size. The color and texture of the ware, though seemingly Virginian clay, appear to set this pot apart from all others made in Martin’s Hundred. With that said, however, the fact remains that a vessel of identical form (but very different glaze and body characteristics) is among fragments from Site B (Fig. 20, no. 12). The latter’s differences clearly associate it with a large pan from Site E (Fig. 18, no. 1), which evidently is either a poor “second” or a potter’s waster. Thus the source of the Fort’s casserole remains as much an enigma as the reason for its being thrown undamaged into the silted well.

the 17th century. On the contrary, the first O.E.D. reference dates from 1725 and gives no indication of the vessel’s shape. 7. See Pt. I, p. 171, n. 53.

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Figure 2

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 2 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3011J and 3050E [7223]8 Diameter: rim 13o˝ (35.40 cm) Rim and wall fragments; the ware’s surface dull orange to purple over orange body; interior coated with brown lead glaze that also occurs in small, inadvertent patches on exterior. The vessel’s principal feature is a pronounced external ridge 1˝ (2.54 cm) below the rim, a detail mirrored by an interior wall concavity. Both shape and glaze color are closely paralleled by a pan from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 8, no. 3).9 2 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3017A [8110] Diameter: 10f˝ (26.99 cm) Rim and base fragments; the ware pinkish orange, markedly sandy with ochre inclusions; interior coated with buff slip, over which lead glaze appears greenish; slip ceases below rim and where absent and glaze in direct contact with body, glaze appears red brown. The color and character of the slip, as well as its combining glaze color, are paralleled on a pan from Site E (Fig. 18, no. 1) and on a casserole from Site B (Fig. 20, no. 12). The bowl’s rim is rounded at the lip and the exterior wall immediately below it is decorated with two grooves and ridges. This distinctive shape is closely paralleled by two smaller bowls from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 11, nos. 4–5), the latter specimen a waster. The rim form is also paralleled on more rounded bowls from Site B (Fig. 19, nos. 9–10), both from the top of Pit A (ca. 1631). Were it not for the presence of the base sherd, this rim fragment could be interpreted as coming from either a rounded or straight-sided bowl. The tentative reconstruction is based on a waster from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 11, no. 3). 3 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7224] Diameter: rim 4e˝ (11.11 cm) The ware’s surface pale orange over body ranging from yellow to pink and containing few large ochre particles; interior evenly coated with orange brown

8. Significant crossmends such as this are indicated, but lateral crossmends between one area or quadrant of the same stratum are omitted in the interests of brevity and because they are of no archaeological significance. 9. See also Pt. I, p. 171, n. 48.

lead glaze. The rim and upper wall lean slightly inward, the latter ornamented with two pronounced cordons, the lower ridge drawn out from the carinated profile. Although no handle survives, it almost certainly was akin to that of a very similar porringer from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 4) and another from Site B (Fig. 20, no. 4). The body characteristics of all three specimens resemble those of the alembic and bucket pot handle from Site A but are unlike the generally cruder and orange pink wares from the Potter’s Pond. The porringer’s shape and ornamentation is well represented among finds from London and loosely attributable to the first half of the seventeenth century.10 4 Lid Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7225] Diameter: rim, ext. 8b˝ (20.96 cm) The unglazed ware pale yellow at rim and on interior surface, but pink on upper surface and top, all the products of atmospheric variation in firing. The suggested central handle shape is based on examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 1–2). The large internal diameter of this example (ca. 7c˝ [19.69 cm]) suggests that it comes from a vessel similar in size to the Fort casserole (Fig. 1, no. 8), whose exterior rim diameter is the same. Smaller lids of this type were used to cover flanged pipkins (e.g., Fig. 6, nos. 4–6). 5 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7226] Length: handle 2c˝ (6.99 cm) Handle fragment; the gray-surfaced ware overfired to purplish gray body; spots of greenish brown lead glaze on interior surface caused localized, purple-colored reduction of body beneath glaze. The extended lug handle is elegantly formed and thumb flattened at its end. What remains of the wall beneath extends to its junction with one of the vessel’s three feet, creating a profile best paralleled by a pipkin from Site A (Fig. 28, no. 2) and another from Site B’s Pit A (ca. 1631) (Fig. 19, no. 3).

10. A buff-bodied and yellow-glazed porringer of this type, now in the Museum of London, was found in a cesspit flanking the church of St. Olave, Hart Street, in a context of ca. 1620–1640.

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6 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7227] Length: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Handle fragment; the ware pale orange throughout, containing ochre inclusions along with one quartz pebble; traces of lead glazing on the pan’s interior. Although the vessel’s shape can only be guessed at, the handle is of a distinctive shape, being drawn out, centrally ridged, and its sides folded up and over the top to create a flapped effect at its junction with the pan’s wall. Though apparently made from Virginian clay, there is no evidence that the vessel was a Martin’s Hundred product.

Base and wall fragments; the ware pale yellow, with pronounced ochre flecks; interior and exterior unevenly coated with dirty, greenish brown lead glaze. The vessel is underfired, and the body color resembles that of no. 3 above. The base of a strapped handle survives, indicating that this example is similar in shape to six others from Martin’s Hundred localities (Site D: Fig. 17, nos. 2–3; Site B: Fig. 20, nos. 6–7; and Site A: Fig. 29, nos. 2–3). The type was common in southeastern England in the first half of the seventeenth century and occurs with tortoise-shell brown glazing, sometimes in conjunction with a green glaze on the inside.

7 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3016F [7230] Diameter: rim 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Neck with handle fragment; the ware orange under thick, rich brown, exterior lead glaze. The mouth is cup shaped; the neck decorated with a triple cordon below the lip, another cordon in its midsection immediately below the handle, and yet another above the shoulder. This lower neck cordoning configuration is closely paralleled by that of another jug from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 6). The latter should be studied in tandem with a third from Site B (Fig. 21, no. 1), whose unusual handle explains the apparent crudeness of this fragment. The roll of clay used to create the handle was squared (probably with a paddle), the sides pushed upward with the potter’s fingers, and the resulting ridges pinched inward here and there along the handle’s length. Traces of the pinching process are visible on this example. One sherd of the Site B jug’s handle was found in Pit A (ca. 1631).

9 Mug Provenance: C.G. 3005A [7228] Diameter: base 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Base and lower wall fragment; the ware’s surface purplish gray, visible only on bottom, body orange in section; interior and exterior coated with dark brown lead glaze dappled with yellow clay particles. The glaze has piled up at one side of the interior bottom, where the last of it remained after the rest had been poured out.11 This feature is common to most of the locally made Martin’s Hundred mugs, notably the shot-gripping example from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 2). This barrel-shaped example differs from most of the others in that it is heavily cordoned above its pad foot, the ribbing a decorative feature that could have extended from base to lip but was more probably divided into two zones, one above the foot and the other below the rim, creating an effect similar to that of osier-bound barrels. Comparably heavy cordoning at the top and bottom also occurs on tygs (e.g., Fig. 5, no. 11). A base fragment almost certainly from an identical mug, unglazed and so probably a waster, was found in the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 12), thus helping to date this mug prior to March 22, 1622.

8 Mug Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7229] Diameter: base 2l˝ (6.51 cm)

11. Base and lower wall fragments of mugs can generally be distinguished from similarly shaped extremities of jugs by the

fact that the former are glazed inside and the latter are not.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 3

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Figure 3 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN CERAMICS 1 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3011E to 3050C [7231] Diameter: rim 4a˝ (11.43 cm) North Devon plain;12 rim and body fragments; the ware’s surface pale orange to gray and hard fired; interior lead glazed, color ranging from purplish black to brownish green. The jar’s neck is thickened, slightly everted, and internally concave, the concavity capable of seating a lid, which could have been held in place by a string-secured covering of fabric or waxed paper. The balustroidal body tapers toward a rather impractical, small base, which, though missing from this example, is represented among similar jars from other Martin’s Hundred sites (e.g., Fig. 13, no. 2).13 The earliest firmly datable examples of these jars come from the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture at Bermuda,14 and fragments of another have been recovered from a wreck in the Island’s Castle Harbour, identified as the Warwick, sunk in 1619. 2a–b Kitchen pot15 Provenance: (a) C.G. 3011F–H [7232]; (b) C.G. 3013G and 3050A–B [7233] Diameter: rim 8a˝ (21.59 cm); base 5c˝ (14.61 cm) North Devon or Donyatt plain; rim and handle fragments (a), plus an apparently related base (b); the ware’s exterior pale orange brown, body orange to gray in core; interior coated with thin, purplish green lead glaze, splashes of which extend onto exterior. The shoulder has been brushed laterally with a cream-colored slip and cut through by a series of decorative, finger-wiped arcs or loops. The rim is slightly thickened externally and lightly thumb impressed to create a collar of vertical ridges. The surviving handle is anchored directly to the rim and decorated with a

12. These jars are sometimes described as “butter pots.” While they would readily serve that purpose, they could have served as containers for a much wider range of commodities; see Pt. I, p. 167, n. 32. 13. An intact specimen found at Plymouth, England, is illustrated by Cynthia G. Brown, ed., Plymouth Excavations, Castle Street: The Pottery (1979), p. 59, fig. 8/39, but presumably it is an unstratified find and thus attributed to the “17th century or later.” 14. Ivor Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” National Geographic, vol. CLXI (1982), p. 71. The Sea Venture had stopped at Plymouth en route and may have taken the jars aboard then. 15. The term kitchen pot is used here to describe a vessel that declines to fit any more specific terminology. Because the exterior is slip decorated, the pot is unlikely to have been

single spinal groove, created by drawing a thumb down its length after anchoring the handle to the rim. The vessel may have had two handles; however, its exact shape cannot be determined. The base is of a ware similar to the upper sherds, though the interior glaze is a brownish green more akin to that of no. 1 above, a difference not sufficiently striking to prevent it being part of this kitchen pot. Scars from other pots or kiln spacers are visible amid glaze adhering to the underside of the base, suggesting that the pot was fired upside down and that the glaze dripped from vessels inverted above it. The close presence of those vessels is evidence that this one had no feet. The form would appear to be paralleled by a specimen recovered from excavations at the Somersetshire pottery making site at Donyatt,16 which provides grounds for attributing this specimen to that center. Of special interest, however, is the fact that a chip from a kiln spacer (or from another pot) remains gripped in the glaze on the rim, its ware the graveltempered West of England fabric usually attributed to the kilns of Barnstaple, which became common in the following century.17 3 Jar, small cauldron, or pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3011E [7234] Diameter: rim 6i˝ (15.72 cm) North Devon gravel-tempered; rim sherd; the ware’s surface pinkish brown over quartz-rich, pink body—characteristic West of England gravel-tempered fabric. The sherd (but not necessarily the vessel) lacks any glaze. The rim is everted, somewhat dished internally, and flattened and squared at the lip.

intended only for fireplace use; but as the handle springs straight from the rim, it could not be securely covered and therefore cannot have been for transportable storage. The absence of body sherds makes the profile equally debatable. 16. See R. Coleman-Smith and T. Pearson, Excavations in the Donyatt Potteries (1988), p. 249, fig. 129, no. 14/15. 17. See Malcolm C. Watkins (“North Devonshire Pottery and Its Export to American in the 17th Century,” United States National Museum Bulletin, vol. 225 [1960], pp. 17–60. That both plain and gravel-tempered wares should be fired in the same kiln is not surprising. A jug sherd from a late-17th-century context in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, married a North Devon plain ware handle to a gravel-tempered body, thus proving that both wares were produced in the same factory by potters having access to both prepared clays.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

4 Dish Provenance: C.G. 3012G [7235] Diameter: 11˝ (27.94 cm) North Devon sgraffito slipware;18 plain body akin to nos. 1 and 2 above; upper surface coated with white slip, through which concentric circles and scroll and foliate decoration was incised before lead glazing, the combination providing dirty green ornamentation against a yellow ground. Both slip and glaze ran down over the rim and onto the back, whose surface is otherwise purplish pink. The dish was poorly potted, being very thick at its square-cut rim and at the inner edge of the marly,19 but also wafer-thin at the center of its base, which is further weakened by its sgraffito decoration. The marly is decorated with two concentric circles irregularly scored when the wheel was stationary, and between them an interlocking Sscroll characteristic of North Devon sgraffito dishes from Site B (Figs. 23–24).20 Another wider band encircles the central decoration and hugs a pronounced ridge marking the junction of marly and base. Little of the central motif survives, but a floral or foliate design can be assumed on the basis of one surviving “leaf.” The dish is important in that it suggests a link between the Fort and Site B. 5 Mug or small jug Provenance: C.G. 3133A [7236] Diameter: base 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Base and lower wall fragment; the ware’s surface buff over orange body containing pink ochre particles; interior coated with yellowish green lead glaze. The base is flat and drawn out into a thin foot akin to those of early gallipots.21 The wall is markedly ribbed, a feature that sets it apart from most tall, English “Tudor style” jugs of the early seventeenth century.22

18. Although the source of the North Devon gravel-tempered and plain wares has yet to be established through the recovery of kiln-site wasters, sufficient fragments of the sgraffito-decorated wares have been found at Bideford and Barnstaple in north Devonshire to leave little doubt that they were made in that area. Watkins (pp. 24–26) used the 17th-century Bideford port books to show that large quantities of earthenware were exported to Virginia and other American colonies. See Pt. I, p. 168. 19. The term marly is used here and throughout to define the flat or slightly concave zone or flange projecting from the bowl of a plate, dish, charger, etc., distinguishing it from the rim. The latter is used to identify the raised or otherwise tooled outer edge. The O.E.D. cites the word “Marli” or “Marly” as being “The raised rim of a dish or plate,” but offers neither examples nor evidence of its antiquity. 20. Although variations on the interlocking S-scroll decoration are common to all the Martin’s Hundred sgraffito dishes, that marly design is absent from the fine collection at Jamestown, where thin pinwheel devices are the most common. Whether the difference is one of origin or of date remains to be proven. Sketchy archaeological evidence from Jamestown suggested that its dishes were discarded before 1689 (Watkins, p. 36). 21. Ivor Noël Hume, Early English Delftware from London and Virginia (1977), p. 60, fig. III/1–2.

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These, it should be noted, were usually decorated with an apple green lead glaze at the rim and shoulder, but not internally. 6 Jar Provenance: C.G. 3011F, 3058A, and 3134A [7237] Diameter: rim 7˝ (17.78 cm) Rim, wall, and base fragments; the ware’s exterior surface purplish gray over stoneware-hard purple body, with grit inclusions. The everted rim is dished. The thinness of the wall relative to the height of the jar has characteristically resulted in pronounced ribbing; three narrow grooves ornament the wall below the shoulder. Similar jars were found at two other early Martin’s Hundred sites, D and H (Figs. 17, no. 16; and 15, no. 6).23 7 Olive jar24 Provenance: C.G. 3012B [7238] Diameter: rim 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Spanish; mouth and neck fragment; the ware pale pink, gray in core, and containing much sand. The rim is thickened and wedge shaped, a style common among such jars from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The vessel is important in that fragments of Spanish jars, though common elsewhere, are poorly represented among the Martin’s Hundred ceramics (Figs. 15, no. 10; and 33, no. 4). It is possible that the type inspired the locally made product from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 9). 8 Bartmann bottle25 Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7239] Diameter: base 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Base and lower wall fragment; gray-bodied stoneware, interior surface pinkish brown; interior iron-oxide slipped and salt glazed. Pulling marks are

22. The shape is reminiscent of a very underfired version of a Beauvais stoneware pot found in Castle Street, Plymouth, England, and loosely attributed to the 17th century (Brown, p. 73, fig. 22/149). That example is “glazed pale green-grey externally” (p. 31). The Martin’s Hundred pot is glazed inside. 23. Like the North Devon jar (no. 1 above), vessels of this type are often referred to as “butter pots.” The term is perhaps more appropriate in this case, most of the jars being fired to stoneware and therefore well suited to storage in water. The jars have often been further defined as “Staffordshire butter pots.” However, Dr. Stephen Clements has tested several Martin’s Hundred sherds and finds that not all their alkali-to-titanium ratios match those of examples found in Staffordshire; see Pt. I, p. 169. 24. Jars of this type were put to a variety of uses, among them the shipment of both olives and olive oil. Some are green glazed internally, suggesting grades either in quality or purpose. For the standard work on such jars, see John M. Goggin, “The Spanish Olive Jar” (1964). However, his dating of rim forms can no longer be trusted; see Pt. I, p. 164. 25. For more than a century these Rhenish bottles have been known to English collectors as Bellarmines, after Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542–1621), whose Catholic orthodoxy allegedly made him the butt of Protestant potters’ jokes. But

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visible on the bottom.26 With so little surviving the shape cannot be closely dated, but examples having a similar lower wall-to-base profile were recovered from the 1613 wreck of the White Lion.27 9 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 3134A [7240] Width: sherd 1˝ (2.54 cm) Wall and medallion sherd; stoneware body and interior gray; exterior iron-oxide slipped and salt

glazed; relief-molded medallion embellished with cobalt. Insufficient design survives for it to be positively identified. However, this sherd is believed to come from the same vessel as another cobalt-enriched medallion fragment from the Company Compound (Fig. 13, no. 9)—the only recognized artifactual link between the two areas of Site C. If this connection is valid, this sherd comes from a large bottle of a triple-medallion type often dated ca. 1580–1610.28

like so many collectors’ terms, the name is historically incorrect. The beard-mask bottles were in production before Bellarmino was born. For this reason, ceramic scholars now prefer to use the German descriptive term Bartmannkrug, meaning “bearded man jug.” It is unusual, however, for foreign objects used in England to retain their generic source terminology. A case can therefore be made for calling these bottles greybeards, for this term was used to describe them as early as 1788 and perhaps much before. The O.E.D.’s secondary definition is “A large earthenware or stoneware jug or jar, used for holding spirits.” In truth, however, size is irrelevant, for some greybeards hold less than a pint. In the 1811 edition of a Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (Francis Grose, [1984]) the definition of “GREY BEARD” reads as follows: “Earthen jugs formerly used in public houses for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large beard stamped on them; when they took the name: see Ben Jonson’s plays, Bartholomew Fair, & c. Dutch

earthen jugs, used for smuggling gin on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, are at this time called grey beards.” See Pt. I, p. 162. 26. Early collectors thought it possible to distinguish between Rhenish Bartmann bottles and copies made in England by the latters’ absence of wire-cutting marks on their bases. However, two almost certainly Rhenish examples in the Museum of London collection (ex-Guildhall Museum) are decorated with the same medallion, one with pulling marks on the bottom and the other without; see Pt. I, p. 162. 27. C. L. Van der Pijl-Ketel, The Ceramic Load of the “Witte Leeuw” (1613) (1982), p. 247. The Witte Leeuw was a Dutch East Indiaman wrecked off St. Helena in 1613. 28. For illustrations of such large and dated Bartmanns, see Ivor Noël Hume, “German Stoneware Belleramines—an Introduction,” The Magazine Antiques, vol. LXXIV (1958), pp. 439–451.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 4

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Figure 4 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 EUROPEAN CERAMICS 1 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3011H and 3161B [7241] Height: conj. 13l˝ (34.45 cm)29 Rhenish stoneware; body sherds; gray on interior and in section, also exterior where surface visible between cobalt-enriched ornamentation. The decoration is roller-molded, stamped, and incised, the lower wall gently fluted with alternating panels cobaltfilled, plain, and stamped with hearts and rosettes. The girth is elaborately cordoned and highlighted with roller-applied chevrons interrupted by rosettes created from dots. Above, at the shoulder, are uncolored panels of hatching around heartlike areas decorated with cobalt and probably impressed with central rosettes. The jug’s shape, with its complex decoration, is closely paralleled by two from Site B (Fig. 26), one of them discarded into Pit A (ca. 1631). The principal difference focuses on the stamped ornamentation between the lower bodies’ vertical fluting: the Site B jugs are decorated with multiple chevrons while these sherds exhibit rows of hearts and small rosettes (Pt. I, Pl. 61). In the absence of potters’ or mold-makers’ marks, the three similar Martin’s Hundred jugs can only be attributed to the Westerwald district of the Rhineland.30 Although the archaeological evidence proves that one was in use as late as 1631, the type was common in the first quarter of the seventeenth century.

29. The dimensions are derived from the restored jug from Site B (Fig. 26, no. 1); see Pt. I, p. 163. 30. The Rhineland’s exported salt-glazed stoneware industry grew up in the vicinity of Siegburg, near Bonn, and extended northward to Cologne and, more importantly, nearby Raeren. This last is best known for its production of elaborately decorated wares, the majority of which are a plain, rich brown. Some of its later products, however, were gray and decorated in blue, usually very heavily cordoned and contoured almost to the point of carination. Such wares can be confused with those from the later-developing stoneware center on the north bank of the Rhine in the Westerwald district, near Coblentz. That industry began ca. 1590, with its principal centers at Grenzhausen and Hohr. The difficulty of identifying run-of-the-mill products to specific factories is such that the generic term “Westerwald” seems safest—regardless of the fact that the longtime principal authority, M. L. Solon (The Ancient Art Stoneware of the Low Countries and Germany [1892], vol. II, p. 78; see also Ivor Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America [1970], p. 280) found the term unacceptable. Significantly more reliable was Otto von Falke’s Das Rheinische Steinzeug (1908), which

2 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3050F [7188] Diameter: rim 2j˝ (5.87 cm) Rhenish stoneware; neck and handle fragment; the ware gray on exterior and in section, interior gray to buff. The principal neck feature is a chevron-ornamented cordon flanked by bands of cobalt, and beyond them borders of multiple stamped fleur-de-lis. Another band of cobalt encircles the neck at its junction with the shoulder. No published or dated parallel has been found for the neck decoration. The handle is plain but stamped on the top with the potter’s initials, WM, a feature of such rarity that no published parallel has been found.31 This neck is closely related to a base and wall fragment from Site A’s Pit 3 (Fig. 34, no. 4), the parallels being as follows: 1) the interior surface color, 2) matching rim and base diameters, and 3) matching cordons at the neck and above the base. The jug was a Westerwald product, and its chevron-decorated cordon clearly associates it in date with the large and more elaborate jugs from the Fort and Site B. This fragment’s similarity to the base from Site A is one of the most significant archaeological relationships identified from the Martin’s Hundred sites, suggesting as it does a personal link between the occupant of the Fort and of the Domestic Complex at Site A. 3 Gallipot32 Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7242] Diameter: rim 2b˝ (5.72 cm) was reprinted at Osnalüch in 1977. All such early works are eclipsed, however, by David Gaimster’s German Stoneware 1200–1900: Archaeology and Cultural History (1997). 31. Marks on Rhenish stoneware are relatively common on the elaborately decorated jugs of the late-16th and early-17th centuries, but these are generally molded in relief within panels of ornamentation. In some cases such marks are those of the mold-block makers rather than of the throwers. In this case the mark is evidently that of the potter. It is reasonable to deduce that the initials are those of Wilhelm Menniken, grandson of the famed Baldem Menniken of Driesch, who was working in the decade 1580–1590 (Michel Kohnemann, Raerens Töpferfamilie Mennekin [1992]). 32. The term gallipot (also “galleypot” or “gallypot”) is used here to define glazed ceramic containers used by apothecaries for a wide variety of commodities. Elsewhere I and others have described these vessels as ointment pots and then have gone on to cite alternative uses. There being no way of knowing what the Martin’s Hundred pots contained, the contemporary term gallipot (first recorded in 1465 as “galy pott”) seems safest. It continued in use as recently as 1811, at least in slang, as “A nick

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Delftware or early Netherlandish maiolica;33 rim and body sherds; yellow body, with some ochre inclusions; thin tin glaze; decorated with Italianate design in cobalt and antimony (yellow to orange). Little of the decoration survives. The largest fragment shows four blue bands of varying thickness below the central wall zone, the latter ornamented with blue swags and an unidentifiable motif that includes tear-shaped dots in pale orange or dirty yellow, painted under the glaze rather than in a second firing, as seems to have been the case with some early English examples. A broad blue band encircles the neck and rim, another feature foreign to the recognized products of the early English delftware kilns.34 The inference, therefore, is that this pot is not English and may well be of Netherlandish manufacture. 4 Gallipot Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7243]35 Diameter: base 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Delftware; base and lower body sherd; body orange in core and yellow on surface; interior and exterior coated with yellowish white tin glaze; undecorated. The exterior glaze is crazed and much thicker than that inside. The foot spreads in the manner common

name for an apothecary” (Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue). 33. The word delftware (with a lower case “d”) is used here to describe tin-glazed or enameled earthenwares made in England, as distinct from the industry established at Delft, Holland, in the 1640s. The same tin and lead formula used in the glaze was common to Islamic, Italian, Hispanic, and early Netherlandish manufactories (whose products are called maioli-

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to such pots; the base rises slightly and is almost wafer thin toward the center. English or Netherlandish. 5 Vessel of uncertain type Provenance: C.G. 3011E [7244] Length: sherd g˝ (2.22 cm) Maiolica; possible handle fragment; body typical “delftware” yellow; tin-glazed interior and exterior; exterior decorated with bands of green, blue, and yellow below a˝ (1.27 cm) zone of white turned pale blue by bleeding from another blue band beyond it. Traces of yet another yellow or green band follow the blue. The palette suggests an Italian or Hispanic rather than an English or Netherlandish origin for this object. This is a single sherd, perhaps from a handle, tightly curved almost to the point of being rolled. That characteristic would point to its being a spout were it not for the fact that what might otherwise have been the interior of the tube is plugged with a small wad of clay. Although unidentified, this object clearly was of considerable elaboration and has something significant to say about the quality and range of the ceramics owned by someone resident in the Fort.

ca) and to those of France and several other European countries in the 17th and later centuries (whose wares are termed faience). 34. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pp. 24–26, 65, fig. V. 35. If the cited interpretation of the slot is correct (Pt. I, p. 106), it follows that the gallipot sherd (and several other small artifacts) found their way there after the gun platform ceased to exist.

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Figure 5

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 5 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Bucket pot handle Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7242] Thickness: 1d˝ (2.86 cm)36 The ware orange, containing ochre and much quartz sand; upper surface unevenly coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The surface was ornamentally pinched up between finger and thumb.37 2 Bucket pot Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7246] Diameter: rim 7d˝ (18.10 cm) The ware orange to orange pink, with ochre and quartz sand inclusions; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, which, not surprisingly, was poured out through the spout. The rim is everted and flattened on the outside, being smoothed down to a sharp edge before being undercut. A pinched spout has been applied at a point at a right angle to the handle, the remains of which show it to have been similar to (if not) no. 1 above. The handle is clumsily anchored to the rim, its mounting reinforced with applied pads of clay. Two separate grooves decorate the upper wall. No fragments of this or another recognizable bucket pot survive from the site to indicate its below-girth shape. However, there is an intact parallel in the collection of the Museum of London.38 3 Colander Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7195] Diameter: 11e˝ (28.89 cm) The ware pinkish orange, containing ochre and quartz sand; interior coated with thin, ginger-to-yel-

36. The thickness is cited here rather than the length because the former is an absolute measurement while the latter is the product only of breakage. 37. A bucket pot handle of similar character, albeit in palerfired clay, was found at Site A in the same deposit as the fingerdecorated alembic and is thought to have been the work of Thomas Ward; see Figs. 30, no. 1; and 28, no. 6. 38. The London Museum specimen does not necessarily point to southeast England as the design source, for bucket pots with pinched handles have been found in excavations on an early16th-century kiln site in Goldsmith Street, Exeter (J. P. Allan, Medieval and Post-Medieval Finds From Exeter, 1971–1980 [1984], p. 157, fig. 72, nos. 1672–1677). Bucket pots with comparably pinched handles were in production and use in the Lower Rhineland as early as the mid-15th century. For an example, see D. R. M. Gaimster’s 1991 Ph.D. dissertation, “Pottery Supply and Demand in the Lower Rhineland c. 1400–1480: An Archaeological Study of Ceramic Production, Distribution and

lowish brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is everted, vestigially concave on its upper surface, and squared on its outer edge. Below the rim are three sharp ridges, the last of which encircles the girth. Below the girth the wall shelves abruptly in to a flat base supported on tapering tripod feet. The vessel’s interior is pierced by four rows of stick-driven holes, with more haphazardly penetrating the base. One of the holes cut through the side of one of the feet, indicating that they were added after those had been attached. 4 Fuming pot Provenance: C.G. 3113F and 3110E [7247] Diameter: est. rim 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Alternatively called a perfuming pot; used to sweeten the air in sickrooms; the body pink, with some ochre inclusions; exterior exhibits traces of powdery yellow substance that on other Martin’s Hundred wares represents the remains of a failed lead glaze. The pot has a small mouth, and a rim folded outward and somewhat rounded on its upper surface. The globular wall extends outward to a double cordon at the girth and then curves in to an apparently flat base, whose diameter is comparable to that of the mouth.39 The wall above the girth is pierced by multiple holes laid out in radiating rows and created with a round-sectioned tool (stick). At one side, below the girth, there is the remains of an applied handle flanked (and perhaps surrounded) by decorative strips of finger-impressed clay.40

Use in the City of Duisburg and its Hinterland,” fig. 44, no. 4— a well group dated ca. 1450–1525. 39. The nonjoining base fragment is unglazed and of the same color and texture as the rest of the fuming pot, but it cannot be claimed beyond all doubt that the base belongs to the same vessel. 40. The Potter’s Pond yielded large numbers of fuming pot sherds, which are identifiable by their piercing, and also many other small sherds of comparable character that could well come from the lower (unpierced) walls of one or more fuming pots. That at least two were made is evidenced by no. 5 below. Fuming pots are a rare ceramic form, and the fact that the Company Compound potter had a market for them may point to the severity of health problems in Martin’s Hundred even before the disastrous arrival of the Abigail in December 1622. I know of two examples from London, one of them a fragment in the collection of the Museum of London with a body shape and folded rim similar to these from the Company Compound

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5 Fuming pot Provenance: C.G. 3299A [7248] Diameter: est. rim 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Rim sherd; the ware as no. 4 above, but exterior with traces of ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is flatly folded, slightly incuse on the upper surface, and squared at the edge. 6 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7249] Diameter: est. base of neck 3f˝ (9.21 cm) Shoulder sherd; the ware pinkish orange, with ochre and occasional quartz pebble inclusions; exterior evenly lead glazed to deep ginger brown appearance but flecked with black (ochre) and yellow clay particles. Similar glaze ran down inside the neck and reached the top of this sherd. The neck had at least one ornamental ridge at its mid-section and another at its junction with the shoulder, that decorated in turn with at least three grooves creating two or more shallow cordons. For the upper neck and mouth of a similar jug, see Fig. 2, no. 7, which had a pinched handle reminiscent of no. 1 above. 7 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7250] Diameter: base 4f˝ (11.75 cm) Base and body below girth, possibly part of no. 6 above; the ware pinkish orange, containing ochre and particles of quartz sand; exterior partially coated with yellow powder of failed lead glaze. The jug stands on a small collarlike foot and has a rising base. At least four grooves (and three cordons) encircle the wall at its girth.

but in a buff ware coated with yellow-appearing lead glaze. In the absence of any datable archaeological context the fragment must be assumed to date from the late-16th to the mid-17th century. The second London example has fairly close parallels at Sites D and H (Figs. 14, nos. 3–4; and 17, no. 10) and is an internally unglazed rim sherd from the north shore of the Thames at Queenhithe, having a yellowish buff to gray body beneath an exterior, rich “Tudor green” lead glaze. Attributable to the second half of the 16th century, the pot’s narrow mouth opening is gently rounded and flanked by two well-shaped cordons against the outer of which the first hole has been pierced. This is in the INH collection. For a photograph of it in situ see Ivor Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred [1982], p. 312, fig. 14-8. 41. This handle type has been found on jugs excavated in Exeter and stated to be characteristic of wares produced in southern Somersetshire in the 16th century (Allan, pp. 167–169, figs. 8 and 82, nos. 1848 and 1867). 42. Repairing air-dried or “green” vessels that would otherwise be discarded was described by Josiah Wedgwood in the 18th century as “tinkering.” For other examples of local “tinkering,” see Figs. 8, no. 5; 11, no. 8; and 18, no. 1. For a jug handle of comparable shape, see Brown, fig. 15, no. 85; the sherd is described as a “strap handle, grey fabric flecked with quartz and mica. The handle is jabbed. 15th century or later.” It is only

8 Jug handle Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7254] Width: 1o˝ (4.92 cm) From large jug; the ware orange, with ochre inclusions; with unintended ginger brown-appearing lead glaze at lower junction with wall and a run of greenish brown lead glaze on one side. The handle is rolled up at the edges and grooved on the upper surface to smooth the transition and the grip.41 It had cracked while being air dried and the potter had “tinkered” it by applying a sealing patch of clay. The repair failed, turning this handle (and its jug) into a waster.42 9 Bottle or jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7251] Diameter: max. rim 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Rim and neck; the ware pinkish orange, containing ochre and some mica. The rim or mouth is flattened and expanded above a short collar. The neck was crudely fashioned by drawing up the neck and wrapping a strip of clay around it, then drawing the projecting neck down over it to create a shape reminiscent of the mouths of Spanish storage jars.43 The approach did not prove effective and there are cracks running laterally around the underside of the rim. 10 Cistern Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7252] Diameter: rim 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Bung-hole collar fragment; the ware similar to no. 9 above, containing similar flecks of mica. It is possible that it comes from the base of the same vessel. This sherd is identifiable on the evidence of the flat,

reasonable that, knowing the identity of the potter, one should seek through his products to determine where he learned his trade. Belonging, as this sherd does, to a class of micaceous earthenwares made at St. Germain, a village six miles west of Plymouth, it is tempting (but dangerous) to see this handle form as a locale marker. In truth, however, large numbers of 13th- and 14th-century pitchers found in widely diverse parts of England possess strap handles of this character (e.g., Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of the Glaisher Collection of Pottery and Porcelain [1987], vol. II, pl. I, B, no. 6, and J. B. Ward-Perkins, Medieval Catalogue [1940], p. 216, no. 4, 13th-century). Of no relevance beyond further demonstrating the dangers of attributing simple techniques and shapes to specific areas one may note that this kind of handle occurs on Winchester Ware in the 11th century, as do spouted pitchers like those from York cited in n. 44 below (Vera I. Evison et al., eds., Medieval Pottery from Excavations [1974], p. 158–159, figs. 4–5, nos. 1–9, 10a, and 11). 43. See Fig. 3, no. 7. Based solely on the drawing and description, Gaimster is of the opinion that this neck and mouth fragment is of Spanish rather than Martin’s Hundred origin. But having studied both this sherd and its look-alike, cited here, the author begs to differ.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

luted face at the fracture, without which it would be mistaken for a bottle neck.44 Vessels with drainage holes 1˝ (2.54 cm) or so above the base were common in England from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, at first in glazed earthenwares and later in stoneware. 11 Tyg Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7255] Diameter: base 2g˝ (7.30 cm) The ware varying from orange to buff, with sand and quartz pebble inclusions; greenish brown glaze flecked with yellow clay particles on interior, exterior, and covering handle. The spread foot is topped by four cordons, and there were at least two more below the separated rim and at the junction with the

44. See Colin Platt and Richard Coleman-Smith, Excavations in Medieval Southampton, 1853–1969 (1975), vol. II, p. 111–112, no. 751 for examples found in 16th- to 17th-century contexts in Southampton; also Allan, p. 157, fig. 72, nos. 1678–1679, for cisterns with above-base bung holes from the Goldsmith Street kiln site, there attributed to the early-16th century. It would be misleading to suggest that cisterns or bung-hole pots are limited to the 16th and 17th centuries or that they are characteristic of the south of England (e.g., Catherine M. Brooks, Medieval and Later Pottery from Aldwark and Other Sites [1987], p. 198, fig. 76, no. 794, attributed to a date between the mid-15th and -16th centuries). Roughly comparable spouts sometimes occur below the lips of large jugs, and one such specimen from York is illus-

247

top of the single, oval-sectioned handle. The illustrated rim comes from another example and, while the glaze is comparable, its body has been burned to dull purple. The lip is thin and, a˝ (1.27 cm) from the top, expands into the first of two or more cordons.45 12 Mug Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7255] Diameter: base 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Apparently of barrel shape; the ware pink to gray, with sand, gravel, and mica inclusions; traces of what may have been failed lead glaze on exterior. The flat base spreads to an everted foot, and the wall immediately above is embellished with three or more cordons.46

trated in Brooks, p. 228, fig. 90, no. 842. 45. For a tyg of similar shape and decoration but fired at a lower temperature, see Site A’s Fig. 30, no. 4, and another base fragment from Site B (Fig. 20, no. 5). There is a comparable, though incomplete, tyg from a pre-1645 context at Basing House, Hampshire (Stephen Moorhouse, “Finds from Basing House, Hampshire [c. 1540–1645]: Part One,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. IV [1970], p. 69, fig. 17, no. 169). 46. No 17th-century parallel has been found for this mug shape, but the form was relatively common in creamware in the last quarter of the 18th century.

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Figure 6

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 6 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Pipkin lid Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7256] Width: sherd 3j˝ (8.41 cm) The ware buff in core and pinkish orange on surfaces, containing ochre; unglazed. A surface scar contains charcoal and the remains of a twig inadvertently mixed into the clay, which only partially burned away in the firing. The lid is concavo-convex, its shape approximately as nos. 2–3 below, and the handle is drawn up and slightly collared below a top apparently flattened with a wooden tool. A swirling of the clay in shaping the handle is evidenced by an S-shaped crack, which at first might be taken for an identifying letter but in reality is only a firing blemish. The way in which the lug handle is drawn up out of the same clay as the lid itself causes it to differ from standard Martin’s Hundred pipkin lids and suggests that it may be the work of another potter.47

The ware as no. 2 above. The applied handle had broken away at the point of luting. 4 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7259] Height: 8j˝ (21.11 cm) The ware pinkish orange, with few ochre inclusions; exterior ranging from orange to purplish pink; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze that runs haphazardly over exterior and extends onto flange. There is more glaze on the handle’s upper surface. The interior glaze has pooled in the belly (interior girth) rather than on the bottom, suggesting that the pipkin fell over in the kiln. The rim slopes inward to receive a lid and extends externally into a well-shaped flange designed for the same purpose. The upper wall is embellished with a single cordon and two more encircle the girth. The lug handle is relatively well shaped, being thumb and finger impressed on its upper surface and squared at its end. The two surviving feet taper and are more or less triangular in section, a feature that may be of dating significance.48 This vessel may be a waster.

2 Pipkin lid Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7257] Diameter: 6k˝ (16.35 cm) The ware orange pink, containing ochre and quartz sand; unglazed. The rim is slightly everted, the top flat, and the handle differs from that of no. 1 above in being smaller and luted to the flat upper surface rather than being drawn up out of the same clay. Potting rings on the interior show that this simply made object was fashioned on a turning wheel rather than being shaped in a mold or on a still board.

5 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F and 3110D [7260] Height: 8j˝ (21.11 cm) The ware and shape similar to no. 4 above, differing only in that no. 4’s single upper wall cordon is here expanded into three by the addition of two extra grooves somewhat hesitantly applied.

3 Pipkin lid Provenance: C.G. 3113F, 3110D, etc. [7258] Diameter: 6b˝ (15.88 cm)

6 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F, 3112D, etc. [7261] Diameter: est. rim 6˝ (15.24 cm)

47. The possibility that the premassacre potter was working with an assistant is a potentially crucial factor, for it helps to explain the similarity of wares made at and used in Martin’s Hundred both before and several years after the disaster. For additional clues supporting this thesis, see n. 48. 48. Before learning that Thomas Ward, potmaker, had arrived in Martin’s Hundred aboard the Warwick in one or other of its 1620 and 1621 voyages, sufficiently ahead of the March 1622 massacre for him to have fired at least one kiln, the careful study of the shapes of pipkin feet pointed to there having been two potters. The reasoning went as follows: The shaping of the feet on pipkins from the Potter’s Pond (and therefore premassacre) differs from those from later sites, suggesting that two potters worked in Martin’s Hundred, making essentially the same kinds of vessels. The feet of the Potter’s Pond pipkins were shaped by attaching a roll of clay to the base of

the air-dried vessel and drawing it out, a tapering process involving the thumb and three fingers and completed with a forward motion of the thumb to flatten the foot’s end (see nos. 4–5, 7–10). An exception is the large cauldron (Fig. 11, no. 1). But postmassacre pipkins from Sites B and A consistently have squared feet, suggesting that the clay strip was so shaped before being applied to the bases (e.g., Figs. 19, nos. 5–6; and 28, nos. 1–3 and 5). The inference, therefore, is that the tapered feet were the work of one potter and that the squared feet were made by his successor. Taking this thesis a step further, attention is drawn to a pipkin from the Fort’s Cattle Pond that displays the squared feet and weak body shape characteristic of pipkins from the later Site A (Fig. 1, no. 3), a factor supporting the belief that there was a postmassacre connection between the two sites. Assuming that the reading of the feet is valid, how then does

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The ware in two distinct color layers, pinkish orange interior and buff exterior,49 both containing flecks of ochre; unglazed exterior surface ranges in patches from pinkish orange to dull purple; interior thickly coated with dark greenish brown lead glaze flecked with specks of yellow clay.50 It is possible that this vessel fell over in the kiln, for there are bubbles and scars internally close to the rim, where clay had fallen into or onto the hot and still-soft glaze. The rim is well shaped and incurves to receive a lid; the exterior flange has a ridge beneath it, a feature present on nos. 4–5 above and indicating that all were the work of the same potter—though differing visually due to their placement in the kiln and the resulting temperature and atmospheric variations. This pipkin differs from nos. 4–5 in that it has only one, albeit well-cut, cordon at its girth. 7 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7197] Height: 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Of bowl type; the ware pink, with ochre and sand inclusions; overfired exterior ranging from dull pink to purplish gray; interior coated with thick, dark greenish brown lead glaze flecked with yellow clay, a feature identical to that of no. 6 above and to many other hard-fired Martin’s Hundred wares. The lug handle and tapering feet are characteristic of the premassacre potter’s work (see no. 4, n. 48, above). The pipkin’s rim is thin, externally squared, and upturned, while the wall slopes down to a low carinating ridge before angling sharply in to the flat base.51

one explain the differences? The answer may be that Ward conscripted apprentices to apply the feet. It is by no means uncommon for a master potter to throw the vessels and leave it to assistants to apply feet and handles when the pots are in the leather-hard state. 49. Color variations such as this are the product of atmospheric conditions in the kiln at different times in the course of the firing. There can also be reduction and oxidation differences due

8 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7262] Height: 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Of bowl type; similar to no. 7 above, but smaller and therefore somewhat more clumsy in its construction. 9 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7263] Height: 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Of bowl type; the ware orange, flecked with ochre, and with some surface blackening; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is everted but lacks the squared and upturned lip of nos. 7–8, while the girth carination is accentuated, having been created by heavy pressure with the left hand below a shaping paddle held in the right. The base is slightly sagging, and the surviving foot is of the tapered variety characteristic of the other pipkins in this figure, with another example from the Fort (Fig. 1, no. 3). 10 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7196] Height: 3c˝ (9.53 cm) Of bowl type; the ware, color, and overfired interior glazing similar to those of nos. 7–8 above. The rim differs in that it is less sharply formed, being upturned and only slightly dished on its upper surface. Nevertheless its handle, feet, and girth characteristics proclaim it the work of the same potter.

to the vessel’s placement in the kiln. They are not the product of different clay sources. 50. For other examples of this high-temperature and atmosphere-generated glaze coloring, see Figs. 7, no. 11; 17, no. 6; and 29, no. 9. 51. See also Figs. 7, no. 11; 17, no. 6; 20, no. 3; and 29, no. 9.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 7

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Figure 7 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7264] Height: 6i˝ (15.72 cm) The ware orange in core but becoming buff toward surfaces; exterior pinkish brown, with usual ochre inclusions and fine sand; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze that extends in a poured run down exterior. The rim is everted and slightly concave on its upper surface. The wall below it is decorated with multiple grooves extending to the girth, the well-made foot is expanded and slightly rounded, and the base slightly elevated. The ear handle is less well formed, oval in section, and heavily reinforced at its lower end. Additional clay is smeared over the wall’s grooves and cordons.52 2 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7265] Height: 6e˝ (16.19 cm) The ware, glaze, and shape similar to no. 1 above; but differing in that the rim is externally square cut, and the exterior grooving is lower and separated from a single cordon at the shoulder. 3 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7266] Diameter: base 5e˝ (13.65 cm) The ware orange but orange pink on surface, containing ochre flecks and a quartz pebble imbedded in base; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, which also occurs in patches on exterior wall and slightly rising base. This is a much larger pot than those illustrated above and is decorated with a single grooved cordon at its girth. 4 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7267] Diameter: base 4c˝ (12.07 cm) The ware orange, with ochre and coarse sand inclusions; exterior surface fired to purplish pink, interior flaked and therefore of unknown color. The vessel stands on a well-turned and rounded foot.53 52. This pot is closely paralleled by another from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 1), while the square-cut rim variant illustrated by no. 2 below has its parallel on Site D (Fig. 17, no. 1). 53. The base and wall shape of this sherd are well paralleled by another incomplete example, also from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 7). 54. The closest parallel to this rim form (though not as thinly

5 Storage jar or chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3113G [7268] Diameter: est. rim 6b˝ (15.88 cm) The ware orange, with ochre and yellow-firing clay intrusions; interior unevenly coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is everted and slightly rolled, and immediately below it are four sharply defined grooves creating three narrow cordons. 6 Pipkin (?) Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7269] Diameter: rim 5f˝ (14.29 cm) Rim fragment; the ware orange, with fine ochre inclusions; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is well formed, being flat on its upper surface, then dished and sharply angled at its junction with the interior wall.54 7 Dish or bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113C–D [7270] Diameter: rim 8g˝ (22.54 cm) Rim sherds; the ware dark pink, containing ochre and much quartz sand. The rim is square cut externally and neatly round on the upper surface, highlighted by an internal ridge. Insufficient survives to determine how this vessel’s shape progressed below the well-turned rim. Although it could have sloped gently to a dish form, it might equally well have turned abruptly down, as does the heavier but otherwise kindred no. 8 below. 8 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7271] Diameter: 10˝ (25.40 cm) The ware orange pink, with ochre and quartz sand inclusions and underfired to the point of being an almost certain waster; remains of thin, brown-appearing lead glaze cling here and there to interior. The rim is everted, square cut, and upturned in a style characteristic of so many of the Martin’s Hundred wares.55 A shallow external groove encircles the body, which slopes inward to a flat base. potted) is provided by a pipkin from Site B (Fig. 19, no. 4). 55. For rim parallels, see, e.g., nos. 8 and 10–11 above; Fig. 6, nos. 7–8; and Site A’s Figs. 29, no. 9; and 30, no. 6, this last sgraffito-decorated. A similarly shaped bowl (albeit lacking its rim) was found at Site D (Fig. 17, no. 8). The rim form and general shape parallels 1631 slipware dishes from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–2); see also Pt. I, p. 170 and Pl. 68.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7272] Diameter: est. rim 14c˝ (37.47 cm) Rim sherd; the ware orange; powdery yellow traces of failed lead glazing on upper surface. The rim is externally square cut and inturned on the upper surface to create a sharply defined collar.56 10 Bowl or pan Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7273] Diameter: est. rim 15˝ (38.10 cm) The ware orange, with many ochre and some large quartz sand inclusions; interior coated with yellowish brown-appearing lead glaze. The shape is reminiscent of other bowls from the Potter’s Pond, having a sharply defined girth accented with a single cordon matched by a corresponding internal concavity, and the exterior wall above the cordon rising to almost

56. The basic rim form is closely paralleled by a notched and scoring-decorated bowl (Fig. 9, no. 2). 57. Like nos. 8–9 above this bowl has a rim similar to that of Fig. 9, no. 2, as well as displaying the girth characteristics of that specimen and those of a group of large pans (Fig. 8, nos. 2–5).

253

straight to a sharply everted and upturned rim akin to that of no. 9 above.57 The base (not joining, but identical in color and ware) is flat. 11 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1145A and 3084A [7274] Diameter: 5b˝ (13.34 cm) The ware deep orange red, brownish purple on exterior surface; interior evenly coated with dark, greenish brown lead glaze flecked with small yellow spots. This is a miniature version of the larger bowls, its rim square cut and upturned to form an external collar around the flat internal rim zone, and the exterior body sharply carinated with a pronounced ridge at the angle. The shape differs from those of the larger bowls in that its slightly rising base is tooled outward into a vestigial footring.58

58. In both shape and color this little bowl is related to the pipkins shown in Fig. 6, nos. 7–8, to an almost matching bowl from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 6), and to the brazier or chafing dish from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 9).

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Figure 8

ARTIFACT CATALOG

255

Figure 8 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3183A [7275] Diameter: est. rim 15˝ (38.10 cm) The ware orange, with occasional quartz pebble inclusions, surface slightly pink; very thin and pale orange-appearing lead glaze covers upper (interior) face of surviving sherds. The rim is everted beyond a thumb-created ridge at its junction with the interior wall and externally squared before being undershaped and the wall smoothed with the potter’s first and second fingers. There is a thin ridge at the vessel’s girth created by the lateral smoothing above it.59 2 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7276] Diameter: est. rim 13a˝ (34.29 cm) The ware pinkish orange and containing much fine and coarse sand; exterior surface ranging from dark pink to grayish purple; interior surface thickly coated with dark brown-appearing lead glaze that contains many small yellow flecks.60 The marly is flat, and the simple rim slightly and perhaps unintentionally squared, while being smoothed gently out above a minimal girth ridge. 3 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3110C–D and 3113F [7277] Diameter: est. rim 14f˝ (37.15 cm) The ware and shape similar to no. 2 above; but the rim more rounded, and the glaze not quite as dark, probably the result of having been fired in a slightly cooler part of the kiln. The wall and flat base are reconstructed from comparable though nonjoining sherds from the same deposit. 4 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7278] Diameter: est. rim 13˝ (33.02 cm)

59. All the pans in this figure are essentially of the same type and characterized by basic carination and girth ridges created by the way in which the potter used his fingers in shaping the exterior walls. See also Figs. 2, no. 1; 7, no. 10; and 9, no. 2; from Site H, Fig. 14, nos. 6–8; and, from Site A (with less assurance), Fig. 31, nos. 3–4. 60. This yellow-dappled glazing is exhibited by several examples from different sites: a small bowl (Fig. 7, no. 11), a similar

The ware and shape similar to nos. 2–3 above; but less highly fired and interior glaze, therefore, paler ginger brown. A patch of the exterior wall at and close to the base is buff in color, suggesting that it had been in close proximity to another vessel or to some other heat-controlling barrier within the kiln. The reconstruction is derived from nonjoining sherds of comparable color, texture, and archaeological source. 5 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7194] Diameter: 13l˝ (34.45 cm) Complete; the ware orange with many ochre inclusions, exterior ranging from pink to grayish purple; interior coated with thick, dark brown glaze containing a multitude of yellow specks. The rim is similar to those of nos. 3–4 above, but the distance between it and the girth ridge is greater. The rim possesses a vestigially thumbed pouring spout and has cracked in the kiln at that point. It also possesses another, vertical, firing crack. Both cracks initially occurred while air drying, but were repaired by applying strips of clay to the cracks prior to glazing and subsequently reopened during firing; together they undoubtedly caused this milk pan to be discarded as a waster. As such, it represents one of the most informative relics of early colonial potting yet discovered in Virginia.61 6 Bowl or pan Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7279] Width: sherd 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Rim sherd; the unglazed ware orange, with ochre and yellow clay inclusions. The rim is everted, slightly ridged on its upper surface, and gently rounded externally.

bowl from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 6), the chafing dish or brazier from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 9), and the hard-fired pipkins from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 7–9); see also Pt. I, p. 170 and Pl. 66. 61. “Tinkering” is exhibited on another Potter’s Pond specimen (Fig. 11, no. 8), one from the Company Compound (Fig. 5, no. 8), and one from Site E (Fig. 18, no. 1), which is unlikely to have been the work of the Company Compound’s potter.

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Figure 9

ARTIFACT CATALOG

257

Figure 9 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7280] Diameter: 12b˝ (31.12 cm) The ware orange, with many ochre inclusions both large and small; interior lead glazed, appearing both light and ginger brown due to swirling that left a greater thickness of glaze at the side from which it was poured out. The rim is sharply everted, undercut externally, and notched to create a piecrust effect at the edge.62 The upper surface is roughly ornamented with an incised wavy line, which begins with broad and heavily incised arcs, but by the time the decorator reached the other end of his overlapping line the gentle waves had been reduced to a much more lightly applied but tight zigzag.63 The outer wall has a pronounced ridge at its girth, which is mirrored by an internal incuse line. 2 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7281] Diameter: 12a˝ (31.75 cm) The ware and decoration similar to no. 1 above, though ginger brown-appearing lead glaze more consistently applied; almost certainly the work of the same potter. The principal differences are its shorter wall between girth and rim, and the external squaring of the latter, which is elevated and rolled inward to create a collar around the upper surface.64

62. The same ornamenting technique is evident also on nos. 2–3 below, as well as on four fragments from bowls and dishes found at Site B (Fig. 20, nos. 8–11). 63. The dramatic difference between the two ends of this incised ornamentation provides a useful object lesson, demonstrating the ease with which errors can creep into “vessel count” assessments based on numbers of disassociated sherds from hand-decorated wares. Were these not joining fragments, one would almost certainly count them as two different bowls. 64. This upturned edge technique is a common feature among Martin’s Hundred wares, found both as wasters from the Potter’s Pond and in used condition on other sites. In virtually all other examples, however, the vessels are smaller and range from dishes, pipkins, and shallow bowls to a brazier or chafing dish (Figs. 6, nos. 7–9; 7, nos. 7–10; 20, nos. 2–3; 22, nos. 1–8 and 10; 29, no. 9; and 30, no. 6). The upturned rim form occurs on

3 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3083B [7282] Diameter: est. rim 13i˝ (33.50 cm) The ware similar to nos. 1–2 above, and the shape allied to them. The rim is thickened and squared, and its edge notching more widely spaced than on the other examples. This specimen differs from them in that the upper outer rim is decorated with an incised line defining the edge of the wavy incuse ornamentation. A wider and more undulating incised line decorates the exterior wall, extending from a ridge a˝ (1.27 cm) below the rim to another shallow ridge e˝ (0.95 cm) above the heavy girth cordon.65 4 Bottle or jug Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7283] Height: sherd 1o˝ (4.92 cm) Shoulder fragments; the ware orange, flecked with ochre, but paler on exterior and interior surfaces; unglazed (at least on surviving fragments) but decorated with incuse notches, apparently in a chevron design. No parallel for either shape or decoration has been found elsewhere on the Martin’s Hundred sites. Nevertheless the poor firing and source of the fragments indicate that this is a local product.

Netherlandish earthenwares of the 17th century and might be used as evidence that the Martin’s Hundred potter learned his trade in England from a Netherlandish emigrant. 65. This is the most elaborately decorated vessel of its type from the Potter’s Pond area, but the single incised line around the rim is its feature of greatest interest. It (and the character of the ware itself) suggest a kinship with an upturned-rim bowl fragment that has no decoration (Fig. 22, no. 10), which in turn is related in style to an unglazed dish rim (Fig. 22, no. 7) that almost exactly parallels the rim of a sgraffito-decorated dish from Site A (Fig. 30, no. 6). Although the vessels from the Company Compound were made before the 1622 attack, it is evident that others made by the same hands either survived to be used at least into the 1630s or were made by the same potter after the settlement had been re-established.

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Figure 10

ARTIFACT CATALOG

259

Figure 10 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7286] Diameter: rim 8c˝ (22.23 cm) The ware pinkish orange, ochre flecked and with occasional quartz inclusions; interior with thin lead glaze appearing ginger brown when evenly spread but also streaked yellowish green.66 The rim is everted, squared, and slightly dished on its upper surface, reinforced externally with a thumb-impressed applied strip. On the upper wall, beginning ca. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) below the strip, are nine grooves creating eight shallow cordons that extend downward to the girth. Below the girth the wall slopes gently to a flat, very thick, but nonjoining base. 2 Storage jar or cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3092C [7285] Diameter: est. rim 10˝ (25.40 cm) Rim fragment with insufficient shoulder surviving to be sure of body shape; the ware orange in core but yellowish buff on surface, with ochre inclusions; interior spattered with matte yellow “glaze,” in which there are numerous small beads of lead; spots of same yellow “glaze” occur on exterior—in the centers of some are individual beads of lead.67 The rim is everted and concave, flat on the top, and reinforced externally with a strip of thumb-impressed clay. Shoulder cordoning begins immediately below it. This vessel is unlikely to be of Martin’s Hundred manufacture. 3 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7287] Diameter: rim 10d˝ (25.72 cm) The ware orange, with occasional ochre inclusions; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, which here and there breaks down into greenish streaks, noted in no. 1 above. Glaze has beaded and bubbled on the rim’s upper surface and runs through a crack in the wall that begins at the rim, a blemish that makes this vessel an almost certain waster. The thick and everted rim is concave internally and characterized by an encircling groove j˝

66. This glaze variation is seen in extreme examples represented by the slipwares from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–2). Related glazing problems are encountered on nos. 2–4 below. 67. To the history of early colonial potting, the liberal presence of lead pellets in the unsuccessful batch of lead glaze is perhaps

(0.79 cm) below the flattened top. The rim is externally reinforced by a thumb-impressed applied strip, below which nine cordons reach to a sharp girth ridge. An unusual feature of this vessel is that at least four more cordons continue below the girth. 4 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7289] Diameter: rim 10d˝ (25.72 cm) The ware pinkish orange, with many ochre inclusions; interior unevenly coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze that is powdery yellow where thinnest and often greenish at edges of thicker glazing. In short, this vessel incorporated most of the glaze failure variations exhibited among the other examples in this figure. The rim is everted, flattened on its top, and reinforced externally with an applied and thumb-impressed strip. Cordoning begins immediately below it and extends downward in six ridges to a sharper girth ridge, below which the wall slopes gently in toward the missing base.68 One of two earshaped handles survives: round sectioned, anchored to the rim, and extending to the girth, where it is only lightly reinforced with applied clay. 5 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7290] Diameter: rim 10h˝ (26.19 cm) The ware orange, containing ochre flecks, quartz sand, and yellow-firing clay particles; unglazed exterior may have been subjected to post-kiln burning and ranges in color from orange to dull brown; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, which, though leaving bare patches at and under the rim, is more successfully applied and fired than that of the examples above. The rim is everted and internally dished, flattened on its upper surface, and sharply spread over a narrow external reinforcing strip secured with proportionately small thumb or finger impressions. A band of four cordons decorates the upper wall immediately above the girth, all of them blackened with what may be soot or pitch.

the most revealing technical detail yet discovered. See also the larger lead pellets in a locally made cup from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 2). 68. For a complete reconstruction of a comparable cauldron from the same feature, see Fig. 11, no. 1.

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Figure 11

ARTIFACT CATALOG

261

Figure 11 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7290] Diameter: rim 9f˝ (24.45 cm) The ware orange, with ochre and fine and coarse quartz sand inclusions; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, which adheres unevenly at rim.69 The rim is everted, flattened on the top, and reinforced externally with a separate strip of clay, whose adherence was ensured by the use of decorative thumb impressing. The wall above the girth is decorated with six cordons of varying width and sharpness. Below the girth, the wall slopes quickly inward to a slightly sagging base supported on three well-shaped and flattened lug feet. A vessel of this type would have possessed two ear-shaped handles attached at the rim and reaching to the girth.70 2 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 3112D [7291] Diameter: est. rim 9f˝ (24.45 cm) The ware unevenly fired and ranging from buff to orange, with ochre, quartz sand, and yellow-firing clay inclusions; interior coated with thick, greenish brown lead glaze flecked with yellow clay inclusions. More of this glaze runs up the exterior toward the rim and divides to run also up the handle. It seems likely that the vessel was dipped into a bath of glaze to fill the inside and that the exterior became streaked with glaze when the vessel was turned upside down to empty it. The vessel was thick, clumsily potted, and very heavy. Its rim is everted above a sharp internal ridge at its junction with the wall. Because only a handle fragment survives it is not possible to determine whether the rim was externally reinforced and thumb impressed. However, there is a hint at the fraction suggesting that that may have been done. The ear-shaped handle is round-sectioned and heavily anchored at both rim and girth. One encircling cordon is visible between girth and rim, and there may have been more now concealed beneath the spread clay used to reinforce the lower end of the handle. A nonjoining wall fragment sug-

69. The unevenness and splattering of glaze on the rim of this vessel and of many another from Martin’s Hundred is occasioned by the fact that the potter was using a liquid glaze that could not be easily filled above the rim angle of deep hollow wares. 70. This cauldron type is represented by further examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 10, nos. 4–5), as well as from the Fort (Fig.

gests that cordoning either extended continuously down to the girth or was limited (as the drawing indicates) to a narrow and separate zone above it. The same fragment provides the evidence for a sharply incuse internal line at the girth. This cauldron is more closely paralleled by an example from the Fort (Fig. 1, no. 7) than by others found with it in the Potter’s Pond. 3 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7292] Diameter: 10b˝ (26.04 cm) The ware orange pink, with many ochre and quartz inclusions; interior coated with thin, ginger brownappearing lead glaze, which had run into a firing crack that extended from base to rim, rendering this bowl a certain waster. Glaze on the interior base is heavily blistered, suggesting that too much moisture remained in the clay when the bowl was put into the kiln. The rounded rim is externally folded, its edge luted to the wall by the pressure of laterally held tool (stick?).71 The base appears to be slightly convex, but has suffered so badly from flaking (perhaps through exposure to frost after being discarded) that the minor details of its shape are uncertain. 4 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7293] Diameter: 6n˝ (17.30 cm) The ware orange, with ochre and quartz pebble inclusions; interior coated with thin ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is rounded, and externally the gently flaring wall beneath it is decorated with four grooves, creating three rounded cordons of approximately equal width. The base rises slightly and the interior wall exhibits several potting rings. This is a very simple vessel, calling for few potting skills, and may perhaps be the work of an apprentice. 5 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7294] Diameter: est. rim 7˝ (17.78 cm)

1, no. 7). However, the latter is much heavier in its construction and may be a better parallel for no. 2. 71. The rim form and the groove immediately below it are paralleled by a sherd from Site B (Fig. 19, no. 8). Although the latter’s body color and surface are not the same, the difference may be the product of firing variations.

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The ware over-fired to dark purple; interior lead glaze blackened and running over one edge of the sherd—identifying it as a certain waster. The shape is similar to no. 4 above, the wall flaring to a rounded rim, under which were two (rather than no. 4’s three) cordons.

The ware orange, with ochre, quartz sand and pebble, and yellow-firing clay intrusions; interior coated with ginger brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is narrowly rounded, and the gently convex wall slopes inward to an essentially flat base concentrically ridged by potting rings on its upper surface.

6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7295] Diameter: 8a˝ (21.59 cm) The ware over-fired to dark purple; interior lead glaze blackened and running through a firing crack to identify this bowl (Pt. I, Pl. 90) as a certain waster. The rim is narrowly flattened on its upper surface and externally stepped. The flattening may have been accentuated by pressure from a kiln spacer or from standing inverted on the kiln floor, either of which could have caused the glazed rim to be marred in the way exhibited on this bowl. The flaring wall is without decoration, and the base rises.

8 Dish Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7296] Diameter: est. rim 7m˝ (19.53 cm) The ware orange, with ochre inclusions; interior with traces of thin and failed lead glazing. The wall is slightly flaring and thickens quickly toward the base, a shape virtually identical to that of no. 7 above. The dish has been “tinkered,” additional clay being smeared both inside and out over a crack that developed during air drying.72 That this repair occurs at the edge of the surviving sherd is clear evidence that the mend failed and the dish must be classified as a waster.

7 Dish Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7198] Diameter: 8˝ (20.32 cm)

72. For other examples of this repairing method, see Figs. 5, no. 8 and n. 42; 8, no. 5; and 18, no. 1.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 12

263

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Figure 12 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 KILN WALL FRAGMENTS 1–13 Kiln wall fragments Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7308–7320] Length: (no. 10) 11˝ (27.94 cm) A selection of low- temperature-fired clay fragments, apparently originally plastered together to create the dome of a pottery kiln; the body generally fired pink in an oxidizing atmosphere, but some pieces partially gray through atmospheric reduction, and several yellowish in the core due to underfiring. The clay evidently was unrefined and used as dug from the Martin’s Hundred subsoil. Although several fragments exhibit smoothed faces (e.g., no. 10) and some are rounded at the edges as though shaped to create an opening (e.g., no. 9), it is not possible to reconstruct any such opening or even to interpret the size of the kiln or its method of construction. None of the clay fragments exhibit holes or impressions left by the burning-out of a wattle skeleton over and around which the dome may have been built. At the same time, however, the absence of lath, wattle, or house-framing impressions speaks against the clay having been in-fill between studs in one of the nearby dwellings. More convincing is the group’s close association in the ground with wasters from a potter’s kiln. No kiln was found on any of the Martin’s Hundred sites, but the presence of wasters left no doubt that one or more had been there. That they left no sub-

73. Edward A. Chappell, “Morgan Jones and Dennis White: Country Potters in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” Virginia Cavalcade, vol. XXIV (1975), pp. 148–155; I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred (1982), p. 104, fig. 5-12. 74. I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 136, fig. 7-2.

surface flues, chamber foundations, or stoke holes would be a serious interpretive problem were it true that all pottery kilns found by archaeologists, be they from Roman Britain or late-seventeenth-century Virginia,73 do exhibit those features—but only because those are the features that leave their impressions in the ground. Kilns that did not leave such features consequently went unfound and so failed to enter the archaeological record. A domed, clay-constructed kiln encountered by the writer at Uxmal, Mexico, had no below-ground flues or footings and exhibited a clay-plastered entrance that well matches the shaped Potter’s Pond fragments. That kiln was said to have been used for six years by far-from-stupid peasants manufacturing copies of antiquities for sale to tourists.74 It seems likely, however, that the Company Compound’s kiln was part of a one-firing operation, which meant that to extract the batch the kiln would be broken down after each burning—the supposition being that the potter went from settlement to settlement throughout the Tidewater, providing only the number and variety of wares needed and requested by his immediate customers. This interpretation serves to explain the impermanent character of the kiln and why no subsurface traces were found.75 But it does not explain why resident potter Thomas Ward did not build himself a permanent kiln.

75. The 1685 London edition of Johann Comenius’s Orbis Sensualium Pictus includes a woodcut of a potter at work (a German-style stove in the background), showing an exterior kiln very similar in appearance to the example from Uxmal (ibid., p. 137).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 13

265

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Figure 13 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 IMPORTED EARTHENWARES AND STONEWARES 1 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7297] Height: surv. 7a˝ (19.05 cm) North Devon Plain; rim and wall fragments; the ware’s surface pale orange to gray over hard gray body, with quartz sand inclusions; interior coated with greenish brown-appearing lead glaze that runs over mouth and lip. The mouth is somewhat everted to enable a cord to secure a fabric or waxed paper cover. The ware is best represented among ceramics recovered from the 1609 Bermudian wreck of the Sea Venture. Small fragments have also been found on the 1585 workshop site at the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island, North Carolina.76 2 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3115F [7298] Diameter: base 3i˝ (8.10 cm) North Devon Plain; base of example similar to no. 1 above and probably belonging to it; interior glaze darker where thick at bottom. The base is thick and slightly rising, and the lower exterior wall exhibits slight potting ridges, a detail common among North Devon Plain jars. 3 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3074 [7299] Diameter: est. rim 3k˝ (8.73 cm) North Devon Plain; rim sherd; the ware as nos. 1–2 above; but characteristic greenish-brown North Devon Plain glaze on interior fired almost to black.77 The lip is externally slightly incuse. 4 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3093A [7300] Diameter: est. rim 5f˝ (14.29 cm) North Devon Plain; rim sherd; the ware as nos. 1–3 above, but less well fired. The rim form differs in that

76. These inverted-balustroidal-shaped jars would seem, on the basis of current archaeological knowledge, to have been in production from the last quarter of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century. Dating from English contexts comes predominantly from West Country sites, but the dating attributions are rarely anything closer than “17th century or later” (Brown, p. 17, no. 39, and p. 59, fig. 8, no. 39). Shipped out of Devon ports from Barnstaple to Plymouth, the jars were among the most common of ceramic container exports to Virginia in the early colonial years. For a selection of the 1609 Sea Venture’s cargo, see Ivor Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 71, and Shipwreck! History from the Bermuda Reefs (1995), pp. 16–17.

there is a slight external groove beyond the lip, the result of greater pressure than was applied to the lip of no. 3 above. 5 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7301] Diameter: rim 4c˝ (12.07 cm) North Devon Plain; rim and shoulder sherds; the ware essentially as nos. 1–4 above; but exterior a brighter and more even orange than those above; interior lead glaze mottled yellowish brown and courses in a series of irregular runs up to the lip. The rim upturned and thin, rising internally to an almost knife-edged lip. The vessel’s wall is thin and well potted, clearly the work of an artisan superior to the potter(s) who turned the other illustrated examples. 6 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 3115F [7302] Height: sherd 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Body sherd; the ware highly fired purple stoneware, slightly pink on interior and exterior surfaces, with slight evidence of potting rings inside and out; no visible glazing, but none is expected at the tall cylindrical vessel’s interior mid-section.78 7 Drug jar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7303] Diameter: base 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Anglo-Netherlandish tin-glazed earthenware; base and lower wall fragments; the ware pink, with many ochre flecks; interior and exterior white glazed but base unglazed. The exterior is decorated in two tones of cobalt, comprising three lines above the base capped by a row of short diagonal dashes, then three more encircling lines enclosing the bottom edge of a central motif executed as a running scroll with multiple dashed embellishments.79 It is estimated that the

77. There is wide variation in the thickness and color of the lead glazes used on North Devon Plain wares, much of the latter due to differing kiln atmospheres. The rim sherds represented by nos. 3–5 have been selected only to illustrate the insignificance of minor variations among jars of the same type in the same period. 78. For a more recognizable example of this ware and vessel type from Site H, see Fig. 15, no. 6, as well as others from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 16) and Site A (Fig. 32, no. 1). 79. The scroll-style ornament of this jar is indicative of an early date and owes its stylistic origins to Islamic motifs that were

ARTIFACT CATALOG

fragment extends slightly above half the vessel’s original height, and that the lower border decoration of line and dashes is repeated at the shoulder. 8 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 3255A [7304] Height: sherd 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Sprig-applied medallion fragment; the stoneware’s exterior saltglaze tightly mottled light brown over iron oxide slip and interior surface coated with light wash in pale yellow. The medallion displays a shield of arms quartered and charged: dexter chief point a lion rampant, at the dexter base three chevrons, at the sinister chief perhaps a star, and in the central charge a bend. The size and style of this medallion suggests that it was one of three and adorned a bottle of similar character and shape to that from Site H (Fig. 16, no. 9) dating ca. 1600–1620. Probably Frechen. 9 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7305] Width: sherd 4j˝ (10.95 cm) Girth: est. bottle 11˝ (27.94 cm) Medallion and girth fragment; well-potted and evenly fired stoneware; exterior coated with iron oxide slip richly mottled in the saltglazing. This was a large bottle, with three proportionately large medallions highlighted with splashes of cobalt. The surviving medallion, being so large and cast in such a thin sheet, failed to adhere and came to pieces in the kiln. It demonstrates, however, that (as one might expect) the iron slip was applied after the medallion was luted to the body. Consequently, after the sprigging broke away, the unslipped area behind it failed to salt mottle to the degree exhibited by the rest of

common on the cruder Hispanic maiolicas of the 15th–16th centuries and later used by the early Netherlandish potters of Antwerp (Dingman Korf, Nederlandse Majolica [1981], p. 62, no. 113, first half of 16th century; and Rackam, pl. 50a). For a discussion of the Islamic scroll style and its possible use at London’s Aldgate tin-glazed earthenware factory, which began operation in the 1570s, see I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pp. 107–119. An albarello (i.e., a tall, usually waisted Italianate jar of large or small size) found in London is ornamented in part with scrolls and dots reminiscent of the Site C specimen. The London jar is attributed to “Probably Aldgate c. 1600” (Frank Britton, London Delftware [1987], p. 103, no. 18). Although this freely applied, running-scroll decoration is rare on ointment pots and drug jars, one can see traces of it on English mugs and jugs into the 1640s (Sarah Jennings, Eighteen Centuries of Pottery from Norwich [1981], pp. 212–213, fig. 96, no. 1501). A drug jar from Norwich of wide rather than the earlier albarello form, yet retaining a loose scrolling decoration, is

267

the sherd. In reference to Martin’s Hundred’s other large Bartmann (Fig. 34, no. 2), it is important to note that no finger impressions are present on the interior behind the medallion, the potting rings there being unmarred by subsequent handling. The medallion’s arms are too fragmentary to be either identified or profitably described. All that can be said is that they are supported on the sinister side by a rampant lion.80 Perhaps Cologne or Raeran. 10 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3300 [7306] Width: sherd 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Shoulder fragment; cobalt-decorated gray stoneware; glossy gray on interior, pitted with salt and lightly dappled brown, suggesting the presence of iron in the kiln atmosphere; its major element a cordon decorated with chevrons flanking diamondshaped rosettes. Grooves above and below are infilled with cobalt. A fragment of a similarly decorated jug (and perhaps the same one) was found in the Fort (Fig. 4, no. 1).81 Westerwald or Raeren. 11 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3078 [7307] Width: g˝ (2.22 cm) Lower body fragment; cobalt-decorated gray stoneware, vertically decorated with alternating flutes and ridges comprising stripes of impressed rosettes dotted with blue, flanked by undecorated flutes and beyond them flutes infilled with cobalt. The solid cobalt areas have flowed in the saltglazing to dapple the undecorated areas of the vessel. Compare the jugs from Site B (Fig. 26), where this example’s stamped rosettes are replaced with incuse chevrons. Westerwald or Raeren.

there attributed to the 17th-century’s second quarter (Jennings, pp. 204–205, fig. 91, no. 1452). 80. The supporter style is paralleled on a pair of large Bartmann bottles decorated with the arms of Elizabeth I, dated 1595, that had been in Littlecote House, Wiltshire, since they were taken there for use in the late-16th century (Catalogue for the Contents of Littlecote House, vol. I [1985], nos. 4–5). For another with similar supporters, dated both 1608 and 1609, see I. Noël Hume, “German Stoneware Bellarmines,” p. 440, fig. 3. An attribution of ca. 1600–1610 is reasonable as a manufacture date for the Site C bottle. See also Pt. I, p. 161. 81. The paralleling fragment and others associated with it were found in the Cattle Pond and in a rodent disturbance close to the parapet step against the Fort’s south palisade. The presumption must be that they were deposited between 1620 and 1622, and therefore the same terminus ante quem can be applied to the two unstratified sherds here illustrated.

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Figure 14

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 14 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Lid Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7321] Diameter: 4g˝ (12.38 cm) Coarse red body, with ochre and occasional mica inclusions; exterior sides coated with iron-oxide, purplish-appearing slip intended to glaze, but due to underfiring did not. The lid is tall for its size82 and possesses a roughly squared knop handle; this, too, retains traces of purplish slip. 2 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 4066A [7322] Diameter: est. rim 8b˝ (20.96 cm) Rim fragment; the ware red, with few ochre inclusions; dark brown, treacly lead graze flecked with small yellow spots. The rim is internally incuse, its everted lip externally reinforced with a heavily thumb-impressed strip. The whole similar in form and diameter to those of jars from the Company Compound (e.g., Fig. 10, no. 1). 3–4 Fuming pot Provenance: C.G. 4084A and 4058A [7323 and 7324] Width: rim sherd 1˝ (2.54 cm) Rim fragment and one small shoulder sherd from same vessel; the ware red orange; exterior surface coated with purplish slip, which, when properly fired, became treacly brown lead glaze. The holes that encircle the shoulder are square and tapering, as though driven by a nail. The rim thickened, square cut, and flat on the top.83 5 Pan Provenance: C.G. 4065C [7325] Diameter: est. rim 11a˝ (29.21 cm) Rim fragment; the ware orange and flecked with ochre; unglazed.84 The wide and everted rim is somewhat upturned, ornamented with a single groove on

82. See Figs. 2, no. 4; and 17, no. 9. 83. This fuming pot is paralleled by another from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 10). For a discussion of the significance of fuming pots in Martin’s Hundred, see Fig. 5, n. 40. Although the fuming pots from Sites D and H are unquestionably of the local ware, they differ markedly from the most complete specimen from the Company Compound (Fig. 5, no. 4), whose rim is flattened and everted, identical to a yellow-glazed fragment found in London and in the collection of the Museum of London. So different are these examples from those shown in Figs. 14 and 17 that one is tempted to see in them the work of a different

the upper surface close to the lip and with another, less distinct, at the juncture of marly and bowl. 6 Pan Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7326] Diameter: est. rim 11˝ (27.94 cm) Rim fragment; the ware orange, flecked with ochre; surface retaining traces of failed glazing. This example is very similar to no. 5 above, but is thicker at the rim and lacks the groove at the junction of marly and bowl. This pan must be considered either a waster or a second. 7 Pan Provenance: C.G. 4053C [7327] Diameter: est. rim 15a˝ (39.38 cm) Rim fragment; the ware orange, flecked with ochre; upper surface brown lead glazed, glaze dappled with tiny yellow specks that are characteristic of the locally made brown-glazed wares from Martin’s Hundred. The fragment differs from those above in being square cut at the exterior of the rim and lacking any decorative grooving. There is a pronounced shoulder to the outer wall, similar to those of examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 8, nos. 1–2). 8 Pan Provenance: C.G. 4065B [7328] Width: sherd 2c˝ (6.99 cm) Rim and spout fragment; the ware orange, flecked with ochre and small specks of mica; interior of unglazed body blackened by smoke, suggesting that the pan was fired upside down. The fragment comes from a very large and heavy pan, having a sharp external shoulder and an everted rim that has been pulled downward and outward to create a simple spout. The type is paralleled by a glazed waster from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 8, no. 5).

potter—regardless of the fact that we know that potter Thomas Ward was resident in Martin’s Hundred both before and after the 1622 massacre. 84. The absence of any trace of glaze or glazing slip, coupled with the pan’s similarity to Fig. 8, no. 1, from the Potter’s Pond, strongly suggests that this rim is part of a kiln waster and was never intended for use. On the other hand, there remains the possibility that wares rejected by the potter were good enough to be considered seconds and may have been used for some low-level purpose, such as feeding corn to chickens.

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9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4071A [7329] Width: sherd 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Rim sherds; the ware orange, with ochre and mica inclusions; upper face (interior) lead glaze pale yellowish brown. The everted rim is externally slightly undercut, and there is a distinct groove on the upper face separating the lip from the marly. There being no body fragments to suggest the vessel’s shape, it is possible that this is a chamber pot rim.85 10 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7330] Diameter: base 5a˝ (13.97 cm) The ware pink to orange, flecked with ochre and less mica; interior lead glazing varies from greenish brown to red brown. The vessel is badly underfired, very soft in the body, and parting company with its glaze. The shape is paralleled by another underfired specimen from Site B (Fig. 20, no. 1). 11 Bowl (?) Provenance: C.G. 4074A [7331] Width: sherd 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Rim fragment; the ware orange, with ochre inclusions; lead-glazed to purplish red. The rim is square cut and upturned.86 12 Dish Provenance: C.G. 4104A, 4251C, and 4101A [7332] Width: largest sherd 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Slipware vessel akin to the 1631 dish from Site B (Fig. 22, no. 1); three upturned rim sherds; the ware orange with ochre inclusions; decorated with a slipped ladder pattern. Applied before glazing, the buff-colored slip has come away, leaving only its imprint in the broken, ginger brown glaze.87

85. If this is so, the form would differ from all other Martin’s Hundred chamber pots and would more closely parallel the flat-rimmed, metallic shapes that became the norm in the late17th century. For a Potter’s Pond parallel, see Fig. 7, no. 7. 86. This sharply upturned rim edge is characteristic of the best of the Potter’s Pond wares (Fig. 6, nos. 7–10) as well as of the slipped and sgraffito-decorated local wares from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–10). As noted elsewhere (Pt. I, p. 169), this rim form is commonly found on Netherlandish earthenwares of the same period. 87. In addition to these three sherds and the illustrated fragments (nos. 13–15), Site H yielded 34 tiny sherds of the same slipware, decorated with straight lines and round dots. There is no doubt that they are the product of the same potter who

13 Dish Provenance: C.G. 4077 [7333] Width: rim sherd max. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Slipware vessel whose ladderlike marly decoration is similar to that of the 1631 dish from Site B (Fig. 22, no. 1); two upturned rim fragments; the body the familiar orange redware, with ochre inclusions, showing no evidence of over-firing. It must have been fired in a different atmosphere (less oxygen?), which caused the lead glaze to turn blackish brown and the underlying slip to become darkened and partially obscured.88 14 Dish Provenance: C.G. 4096A [7334] Width: sherd 1˝ (2.54 cm) Slipware akin to that of the 1631 dish from Site B (Fig. 22, no. 1); body fragment; the ware orange, with ochre inclusions; decorated in underglaze slip with pairs of dots separated by a curving line.89 15 Dish Provenance: C.G. 4096A [7335] Width: sherd 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Local slipware; shoulder and rim fragment; the body orange, with ochre inclusions; decorated with buff (yellow-appearing) slip under ginger brown lead glaze. This sherd differs from the previously cited examples of local slipware in that there is an undecorated b˝ (0.64 cm) shelf or collar separating the marly’s ladder decoration from the bowl. However, this variant is no more than that, and clearly a product of the same workshop as the others.

made the 1631 dish. Because there is no structural evidence of rebuilding or reoccupation at Site H after the 1622 massacre, one is faced with two explanatory choices: 1) that Thomas Ward, who is known to have been resident in the Hundred before the attack, made the same types of slipware ca. 1620 that he did in 1631; or 2) there was indeed occupation after the massacre but whose evidence has gone unrecognized in the ground and is made manifest only by the presence of the 1631 dish look-alikes. 88. There are an additional 25 small sherds of this dark-glazed slipware from Site H, thus raising the same questions prompted by no. 12 and discussed in n. 87. 89. This small sherd could come from the curving tail of a bird like that on the 1631 dish (Fig. 22, no. 1).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 15

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Figure 15 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN CERAMICS 1 Storage Vessel Provenance: C.G. 4065E etc. [7335]90 Diameter: girth ca. 10˝ (25.40 cm) Lead-glazed earthenware; the ware orange red and very thin for vessel’s size, but thickest in rim; the body pale gray in core, resulting from reduction early in firing process, and extremely friable, containing much fine sand; may have been subject to scaling due to frost action; interior, from bottom to above girth, coated with buff slip, over which lead glaze appears yellow; above girth, where there is no slip, glaze appears ginger brown. The rim sherds are badly flaked and most of the surface has gone, leaving but one exterior finger or thumb impression below the everted collar rim. This impression alone is shown on the drawing, but it is likely that the same impressed ornament extended all around. One of almost certainly two horizontal handles survives, oval in section and finger impressed at both ends. The impressions of four fingers are visible on the inside, demonstrating how one hand supported the still-soft bowl while the other pressed the ends of the handle to the exterior wall. Before the handles were added the bowl’s shoulder had been decorated with four encircling grooves. The bowl’s base has a small footring and is flat. The source of this unusual vessel is not known. The shape, ware, and potting technique are unEnglish and have no known parallels from Virginian kilns. At the same time, however, the use of drab clay as the slip, rather than the better quality white-firing clay used for most English and French slipwares, suggests a provincial origin. It should be noted that the Martin’s Hundred potter(s) was faced with a lack of white clay when it came to producing slipwares (e.g., Fig. 22). On balance, the vessel appears more southern than northern European in character, and that, coupled with the buff slip, points to an HispanoAmerican source.

2 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 4065D etc. [7336]91 Diameter: int. rim 7b˝ (18.42 cm) Rim and upper body fragments; the earthenware pinkish orange and very thin for vessel size; interior lead glazed, probably overall below girth and thin runs of glaze extend to rim, where it had pooled in patches. The vessel’s principal surviving characteristic is its internally straight collar rim, the mouth slightly expanding and rising to a narrow ridge or lip, and the rim itself extending outward, rolled, and externally undercut. The upper edge of the lip possesses a series of small indentations parallel in orientation from one side to the other and underlying the glaze. At first thought to be decorative, these indentations are almost certainly the result of the pot being stood upside down on a wire rack while the glaze previously poured inside drained back into the glaze tub. The weight of the still unfired jar, coupled with the thinness of its lip, caused the wires to be impressed into the clay. It would appear that these were not anchored equidistantly as the spaces between indentations range from b–a˝ (0.64–1.27 cm). The origin of this vessel is unknown.92

90. Although the largest part of this vessel came from Pit III, its rim and base sherds were widely scattered both to the north and west, as well as far to the south inside the palisade (C.G. 4088). The contexts are: C.G. 4071A, 4088, 4093A, and 4104A.

92. See also Pt. I, p. 169. 93. For a discussion of this form and its source, see Fig. 3, no. 6, n. 23. 94. Sherds of this vessel were widely scattered: C.G. 4052B, 4055A, 4057A, 4078A, 4080A, 4081A, 4082A, 4084A, 4097, and 4124.

91. Other joining fragments come from the following contexts: 4052C, 4058C, 4065A and C, 4077A, and 4093A, all in the vicinity of Pit III.

3 Jar93 Provenance: C.G. 4097A etc. [7337]94 Diameter: rim 5f˝ (14.29 cm) Rim, shoulder and upper wall fragments; gray stoneware body with small yellow inclusions; exterior dull purple and interior paler purple. The lip is slightly everted, the collar neck concavo-convex, and the shoulder decorated with a double cordon. There are other examples of these so-called Staffordshire butter pots from the Fort (Fig. 3, no. 6), from Site D (Fig. 17, no. 16), and from Site A (Fig. 32, no. 1).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

4 Jar Provenance: C.G. 4065A and 4072A [7338] Diameter: base 6a˝ (16.51 cm) Base fragments; gray to purple stoneware body with small yellow inclusions;95 dull purple on exterior surface with interior lead glaze colored blackish brown with iron oxide or manganese. The intense heat needed to fire the jar to such hard stoneware caused the glaze to bubble. Patches and spots of glaze also occur on the underside of the base. On most examples of this ware, the glaze is thick at the interior base but extends only 2–3˝ (5.08–7.62 cm) up the inner wall. It is not possible to determine whether the rim of either no. 3 or no. 5 belongs to this specimen. 5 Jar Provenance: C.G. 4065C etc. [7339]96 Diameter: rim 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Rim and shoulder fragments; the ware’s exterior purplish gray and interior matte, purplish brown over stoneware-hard, dull purple body. The lip is slightly everted over a concavo-convex collar rim. A single cordon survives at the junction of collar and shoulder. Nonjoining fragments from this vessel suggest that there were two such cordons, either at this point or lower on the shoulder. 6 Jar Provenance: C.G. 4065E etc. [7340]97 Diameter: base 6e˝ (16.19 cm) Base, wall, and rim fragments; the stoneware-hard body purplish gray in the core, oxidized pink at one side on both interior and exterior surfaces and to an increasingly lesser degree elsewhere in the circumference; these variations reflected on exterior surface, which ranges from pink to gray purple; interior base coated with thick, dark brown glaze, the surplus subsequently poured out but adhering up one side.98 Variations in color on the exterior base indicate

95. The combination of gray stoneware with yellow clay inclusions and purplish glaze are reminiscent of Buckley ware, a North Wales kitchen product common throughout the 18th century. Although Buckley ware is generally less highly fired and emerged from the kiln in an oxidized condition (i.e., redbodied), high-temperature specimens are sometimes found (see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 133). 96. Additional contexts are: C.G. 4059A, 4072A, 4074A, 4097A, and 4105A. 97. The association of the rim sherd (C.G. 4005A) with the many joining wall and base sherds is based only on visual similarity. The latter’s contexts are: C.G. 4052A and C, 4058A and C, 4065E (4, plus this cataloged sherd), 4065F, 4068A, 4078A, 4082A, 4084A, 4091A, 4098A, and 4103A. 98. Although, as previously noted, these vessels are often described by modern writers as “butter pots,” that may not have been their only or even primary use. The fact that the jars are deliberately and invariably glazed only at their bottoms is evi-

273

stacking methods in the kiln, but there is no clear evidence of sagger usage. The jar’s wall exhibits potting ridges both outside and in, and the rim possesses contours similar to those of no. 3 above. 7 Jar Provenance: C.G. 4080A etc. [7341]99 Diameter: rim 4a˝ (11.43 cm) West of England plain; rim and body fragments, none joining; the ware’s unglazed surface pale orange to buff, gray in core; interior coated with olive green lead glaze mottled by occasional white quartz inclusions in the body. The shape cannot be reconstructed on the basis of the surviving fragments, but the form is well known and is discussed at length under Fig. 3, no. 1. 8 Jar (?) Provenance: C.G. 4115A etc. [7342]100 Rim and small body fragments of insufficient size to establish vessel’s true shape; pale pink, soft earthenware, with few red ochre inclusions; interior covered with thin, greenish yellow lead glaze. The rim is everted and flat, square cut on the underside. The origin of this vessel is uncertain, but a North Devon source cannot be precluded. 9 Jar (?) Provenance: C.G. 7073A etc. [7343]101 Width: sherd c˝ (1.91 cm) Represented in the drawing by one everted rim sherd, but on site by 29 small fragments, none of sufficient size to enable vessel’s body shape to be determined; the red earthenware body thin, sandy, and gray in core; interior coated with thin lead glaze without deliberate color or underlying slip. The rim is thickened, everted, and exhibits a single groove on the interior. On one rim sherd there is evidence of external reinforcing, possibly related to the application of a handle. A North Devon source is possible.

dence of a specialized usage that seems to have been unrelated to the storage of butter. Some writers refer to these jars as “Midlands purple ware,” a term too broad to be useful. See Alain C. Outlaw, “An Interim Report, Governor’s Land Archaeological District Excavations: The 1976 Season” (1978), p. 107; also Fig. 32, no. 1. 99. These sherds range from the rim and shoulder to points close to the base; though visually consistent, it cannot be said with certainty that all are from the same jar. Their contexts are: C.G. 4051C (3), 4056 (3), 4080A (3, plus this cataloged sherd), 4086A (4), 4097A (3), 4104, and 4104A (2). 100. Additional contexts: C.G. 4072A, 4080A (2), 4082A, 4083A (2), 4086A, 4091A, 4101A, 4107A (2), 4141B, and 4115A (plus this cataloged sherd). 101. Additional contexts: C.G. 4051C, 4052C, 4056, 4059, 4059A, 4074 (2), 4074A (4), 4080A (5), 4081A, 4086A, 4091A, 4092A, 4097A (2), 4096A, 4098A, 4104, 4105, and 4120A.

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10 Olive jar Provenance: C.G. 4086A [7344] Width: sherd 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Spanish;102 rim fragment; the ware pale pink, gray in core, and containing much sand. The rim form is

102. See Fig. 3, n. 24. Although most archaeologists continue to follow Goggin in calling these vessels Spanish olive jars, they were used for a wide variety of purposes ranging from water containers to supports for architectural arches. The Spaniards identified them as tinajas (Pt. I, p. 164).

generally similar to that shown in Fig. 3, no. 7, but is slightly thinner at the mouth, as well as being undercut below the collar. These are not sufficient differences to suggest another origin, date, or form. See also Figs. 3, no. 7; and 33, no. 4.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 16

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 16 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN CERAMICS 1 Dish Provenance: C.G. 4077 [7345] Diameter: rim ca. 7a˝ (19.05 cm) London delftware; rim and wall fragment; the body buff, with some red ochre inclusions; tin glaze surviving only on interior upper rim, decorated with a single surviving blue line. The rim is thin and everted.103

crossed by thinner lines. A parallel in color and character, if not in exact design, was found at Battlebridge House, Bermondsey.105 Though large and bold in its treatment this charger is noticeably lacking in majesty.

2 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 4065E [7346] Diameter: rim 5b˝ (13.34 cm) London delftware; rim and wall fragments; the body buff, with red ochre inclusions; off-white and heavily crazed tin glaze on interior surface and reduced tin on exterior. The interior is polychrome decorated with cobalt blue dashes at the rim and, below, three blue bands above another in orange brown (probably antimony), below which are interlocking swags of thin blue lines and arcs, and, within each, alternating triangles of blue and orange brown created from stacked brush strokes of diminishing length. This decoration is characteristic of Southwark and Netherlandish pharmaceutical ointment pots of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. 104 The bowl’s rounded rim retains the edge of a handle decorated on its upper surface in blue.

4 Mug or jug Provenance: C.G. 4065D [7348] Width: sherd 1l˝ (3.97 cm) London delftware; body sherd; yellow/buff body exhibiting ground discoloration; coated on both sides with thick white tin glaze, exterior slightly blued through contact with rich cobalt decoration. This has been a vessel of very superior quality and seems to be most closely paralleled by a mug in the Museum of London’s collection attributed to the sixteenth century and to Antwerp or Aldgate.106 It is questionable, however, whether an Antwerp jug or mug of this simple character would have been shipped to Virginia as late as 1619, and, for the same reason, whether an Aldgate product would have been exported when the factory had closed ca. 1615, by which time two Southwark delftware potteries were in business. Nevertheless, setting aside the Site H evidence, the prevailing wisdom would suggest an Aldgate origin for this important sherd.

3 Charger Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7347] Width: sherd 2g˝ (7.30 cm) London delftware; lower wall fragment extending to edge of footring; the body buff, with pink core and some red ochre inclusions; off-white tin glaze on upper surface and lead glaze on exterior or back. The upper is crudely painted in two tones of a medium blue. Poorly executed concentric circles toward the charger’s center suggest that it was painted while the wheel was stationary. Outside the circles the principal wall ornament seems to have comprised arcs or zones painted with radiating fronds and with stacked bars

5 Mug Provenance: C.G. 4067A [7349] Width: sherd o˝ (2.38 cm) London delftware; neck fragment terminating in a projecting cordon; the body pinkish buff; thickly tin glazed interior and exterior; interior white and exterior decorated in tight-dotted stipple in manganese purple and cobalt blue.107 Although stippled decoration in either color continued into the mid-seventeenth century, the combination of both is generally an early characteristic. A mug of similar type with purple stippled decoration is included in the ceramic collection from the Mathews Manor site.108

103. Too little survives to be sure of the dish’s stylistic date, but the width of the blue band is comparable to that of a charger in the Museum of London’s collection (MoL no. 18712) from Gateway House and attributed to the “early 17th century” (Britton, p. 107, fig. 28). 104. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 26, pl. 13. 105. Ibid., p. 71, fig. VII, no. 4. 106. Britton, p. 100, fig. 8. 107. There is a fine 16th-century mug or jug in the Colonial Williamsburg collection decorated in the same stipple combi-

nation (see I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 13, pl. 5). Although debate continues over whether these co-called Malling jugs were made in England or in the Netherlands, this fragment is of a well-established English shape of the first half of the 17th century. It should be noted that the use of cobalt in tandem with manganese stipple persisted into the middle of the century, e.g., a bottle in the Museum of London’s collection (MoL no. 23505; Britton, p. 121, fig. 68) possesses blue brush strokes around both lip and foot. 108. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 27, pl. 14, no. 13.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

6 Bartmann bottle109 Provenance: C.G. 4115D etc. [7212]110 Diameter: est. base 4f˝ (11.75 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; buff body lightly iron mottled on exterior; decorated at mouth with poorly executed cordoning, but with a well-molded mask below, of which only the lower half survives. Some prefiring damage at the base of the handle (?) had caused a slice of the wall to break away. Part of one of the vessel’s three medallions was recovered and bears a variation on the arms of the German duchies of Julich, Cleve, and Berg.111 The remaining fragment of the base shows that this bottle possessed an unusual feature, namely a rolled footring or basal collar. With the exception of the base detail, this bottle is well paralleled by an intact specimen recovered from the 1613 wreck of the White Lion in the South Atlantic (Pt. I, Pl. 59).112

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8 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 4098A etc. [7352]116 Diameter: base 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; gray body with light brown to pinkish interior, optimum brown mottling on exterior. No neck survives, but the handle is of good quality, relatively thin, and rectangular in section with a central ridge. Little of the medallion is represented, but it would appear to include a heraldic, front-facing helm over a small crown, both flanked by a foliate wreath. 117 The base is well formed, exhibits pulling marks, and has several particles attached that might be interpreted as some form of identification. The bottle’s quality is akin to that of the example from the 1613 wreck of the White Lion (Pt. I, Pl. 59).

7a–b Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 4115A, 4093, etc. [7350 and 7351]113 Length: mask fragment 3n˝ (9.68 cm) Width: medallion 2o˝ (7.46 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; gray to pink body; iron slip running down interior of neck; exterior pale brown mottled, both mask and medallion fragments liberally splashed with cobalt. The mask had been poorly luted, and most of its mouth had broken away before firing at the saltglaze level. The mask belongs to the Batavia’s Type D, and the medallion also is represented aboard that 1629 shipwreck. 114 The medallion’s arms are comparable to that of no. 6 above. This was a large bottle and undoubtedly decorated with three similar medallions.115

9 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 4065F etc. [7353]118 Diameter: base 3˝ (7.62 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; the body gray, interior surface pink, exterior light brown and finely mottled. Nonjoining fragments extend from the base to the edge of the bearded mask. The latter is of good and naturalistic quality and belongs to Batavia Type A or B.119 Fragments of at least two of the bottle’s three medallions survive, none, unfortunately, able to define their central motif. The most complete had flaked in the kiln after the application of the iron oxide slip, leaving a gray patch where the sprigged ornament had broken away. All that can be said is that the well-executed central device was enclosed within a wreath interrupted at top, bottom, and sides by three pellets. Within that enclosure was another shieldlike border created from multiple,

109. See Fig. 3, n. 25. 110. Although most of the sherds came from Pit V, where “Granny” met her death, others were scattered both inside and outside the Site H compound. It cannot now be determined whether the distribution occurred at the time of breakage or as a result of subsequent disturbance. The additional contexts are: C.G. 4052C, 4053C, 4054B, 4077A, 4085, 4088, 4088A, and 4135. 111. Several scholarly attempts have been made to use the applied masks and medallions on the necks and walls of Bartmann bottles to arrive at a datable sequence. In 1951 M. R. Holmes (“The So-Called ‘Bellarmine’ Mask on Imported Rhenish Stoneware,” pp. 173–179) devised a typology for the masks that would put this example in his type II. More recently Myra Stanbury, in her preliminary catalogue of the 1629 wreck of the Dutch ship Batavia (“The Wreck of the Batavia” [n.d.], n.p.), used a lettered typology that would put this Site H example in type B. Significantly the Batavia yielded a remarkable range of Bartmann masks (types A to G), which run the gamut from finely naturalistic to the grotesque, a sequence hitherto looked upon as representing the decline of the Bartmann modellers’ art. The same logic previously applied to medallions— those with clear and often complex shields of arms being early and those with simpler and cruder designs being later; but examples representing both ends of that spectrum were aboard the Batavia in 1629.

112. Pijl-Ketel, p. 246, but not illustrated. This example was purchased from an English dealer and is now in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection [CW 1982-84]. 113. Like no. 6 above, this Bartmann bottle was represented by sherds in and adjacent to Pit V. Other sherds were widely scattered: C.G. 4054A, 4055A, 4089A, 4092A, 4093, 4107A, and 4134A. 114. See n. 111 above. The arms are a commonly found composite of the following: 1, lion (Jülich); 2, charbocle (Cleve); 3, lion crowned (Berg); 4, fess checky (Mark); and 5, three chevrons (Ravensburg). 115. For a comparable bottle, represented by a sherd found close to the Fort, see Fig. 3, no. 9. 116. Other fragments were found in these contexts: C.G. 4056, 4086A, 4100, 4103A, 4106, 4121A, and 4198A. 117. A possible parallel for this medallion comes from the 1629 wreck of the Batavia. See n. 111 above (Stanbury, BAT 2147). 118. The sherds of this bottle were widely scattered: C.G. 4052C, 4055A, 4058, 4058A, 4078A, 4079B, 4082A, 4085B, 4094A, 4095A, 4109A, and 4109B. 119. See n. 111 above. In considering the dating testimony of the Batavia, which leaves no doubt that the cited parallels were in use in 1629, one should be aware that one of its examples bears the date 1619 (Stanbury, BAT 539C). Then, too, the presence on board of parallels to the Martin’s Hundred Bartmann

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double-lined swags, and in turn, within that, a shield defined by similar double lines but outlined with dog-tooth dashes. The bottle’s base exhibits pulling marks. Like no. 8 above, this was a bottle of good quality and consistent with a pre-1622 date. 10 Mug Provenance: CG. 4093A etc. [7354]120 Diameter: base 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; the body gray, yellowish gray interior, exterior heavily iron oxide slipped with very little salt stippling. The mug’s premier characteristic is its very distinctive foot, with two carefully tooled cordons at its junction with the everted wall. As in this instance, such decorated bases are most often found on straight-necked and otherwise undecorated drinking vessels designed to be ornamented with metal mounts. On this example a single sharp cordon separates neck from body. There is a single incuse line below the slightly internally thinned lip, and the missing handle terminated in a sharply tooled rat tail. There are pulling marks on the base. At least one close parallel has been found at Norwich and there attributed to Frechen, alas without any suggestion of date, and another in excava-

medallions demonstrates only that a wide range of ornamented bottles was in use at the same time, among them one bearing the arms of England (ibid., BAT 428). 120. This vessel was scattered: C.G. 4073A, 4080A, 4081, 4087A, 4088A, 4091A, 4093, 4093A, 4098B, 4101, 4101A, and 4107A.

tions at Basing House in Hampshire.121 A much larger version of this same type (13b˝ [33.66 cm] in height) has been found in Virginia at the Governor’s Land site, again without close dating.122 The type was reaching England by ca. 1580 and, in its taller and heavier forms, continued to be imported at least into the 1640s. 11 Mug Provenance: (rim) C.G. 4080A; (base) C.G. 1120A Diameter: base 2-5/16˝ (5.87 cm) Rhenish salt-glazed stoneware; base and rim fragments; the body gray, exterior rich brown with fine mottling, interior yellowish buff with trail of the exterior’s iron oxide slip running down it. The rim fragment has an incised groove below the internally thinned mouth. The underside of the base exhibits very slight traces of pulling marks, but it does possess small clay strip attachments that almost certainly result from the wire cutting process (see no. 8 above). The identification of the base as being part of a mug rests solely on its internal and external color similarity to the mouth sherd. Were that not so, one would almost certainly identify it as coming from a small Bartmann bottle.

121. Jennings, p. 120, fig. 49, no. 806; Moorhouse, “Finds from Basing House, Hampshire,” part 1, p. 77, fig. 21, no. 258. 122. Outlaw, p. 121–122, fig. A3.5, no. 56.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 17

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Figure 17 Site D, ca. 1620–40 LOCAL AND IMPORTED CERAMICS 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 3501A and 3500 [7356] Diameter: rim 5m˝ (14.45 cm) Local earthenware; the body red, with some red ochre inclusions; surface purplish near rim and over round-sectioned handle; interior lead glaze overlapping lip. The mouth is everted and concave internally, square cut on the outside. The shoulder is highlighted with a V-sectioned cordon, and the wall banded with at least four incised grooves cut prior to attaching the handle. The type is similar to an example from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 1), but also to two examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 7, nos. 1–2), ca. 1620–1622.

4 Jar or cauldron Provenance: C.G. 989A [7359] Diameter: est. rim 9m˝ (24.61 cm) Virginian earthenware; rim sherd; the body orange pink, with red ochre inclusions, drab brown on surface; interior splashed with dark brown-to-black lead glaze indicative of more even internal glazing. The rim is slightly dished internally, rounded at the lip, and reinforced externally with an applied clay strip decoratively thumb impressed. Rims of this type occur on both jars (e.g., Figs. 10, no. 1; and 29, no. 6) and cauldrons (e.g., Figs. 10, nos. 4–5; and 11, nos. 1–2).

2 Mug Provenance: C.G. 3501D [7357] Height: 4i˝ (10.64 cm) Local earthenware; the body orange, with red ochre inclusions; interior and exterior coated with dark brown-appearing lead glaze. The mug’s rim is straight and thin, its shoulder is decorated with a double cordon, and its bulbous body stands on an expanded and rounded foot. The oval-sectioned, earshaped handle is expanded at its base, where the clay was spread to ensure firm luting. This mug’s most important characteristic is a pooling of the glaze at one side of the interior bottom, glaze that grips three small lead pellets very similar to those found packing the musket barrel from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 57, no. 1) and thought to have been intended for melting into the potter’s glaze. Although no wasters of this mug type have been found on Martin’s Hundred sites, as good a case can be made for its having been potted in the Company Compound as anywhere else in ca. 1620–1630 Virginia.123

5 Jar or cauldron Provenance: C.G. 989A [7360] Diameter: est. rim 10i˝ (25.88 cm) Virginian earthenware; rim sherd; the body and glaze similar to no. 4 above; but differing in that the rim is flattened at the lip. There is evidence of a firing crack at one edge, but insufficient for the vessel to be discarded. 6 Chafing dish Provenance: C.G. 989A [7361] Diameter: rim 6r˝ (16.19 cm) Local earthenware; rim and wall fragment; the body two-toned, pink interior and grayish purple exterior, with red ochre and buff clay inclusions; exterior surface matte purple as result of reduction late in firing; interior similar but coated with thin lead glaze turned purplish brown by underlying body surface color. The rim is everted, flattened, and raised to a ridge at the edge. The exterior wall is ridged at its girth. All these characteristics are to be seen in several Martin’s Hundred made vessels (e.g., Figs. 6, nos. 7–10; and 7, nos. 8–11, notably the last, which is a small bowl very closely paralleling this example). This, however, exhibits the slender trace of an applied detail at its rim fracture, indicating that its real parallel is the small chafing dish from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 9), the anchored detail being the edge of one of the three characteristic cover supports.124

3 Mug Provenance: C.G. 989A [7358] Height: 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Local earthenware; underfired, the body orange to buff, with red ochre inclusions; interior and exterior coated with thin, orange brown glaze, markedly mottled by the ochre beneath. The shape is generally similar to no. 2 above but the rim slightly flared, a single cordon at the shoulder, the handle a little larger, and the foot somewhat more pronounced.

7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 989A [7362] Diameter: base 4b˝ (10.80 cm)

123. See also Pt. I, p. 172.

124. See also Pt. I, pp. 117 and 170–171.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Local earthenware; base, wall, and trace of rim; the body pinkish orange, containing fine traces of red ochre; exterior unglazed but interior coated with what should have been clear (thus brown) lead glaze. A firing anomaly resulted in the glaze turning semimatte mottled yellow, a fault paralleled on the 1631 slipware dish from Site B (Fig. 22, no. 1). There is an incised line at the internal junction of wall and rim, and two vestigial grooves similarly located externally. 8 Bowl or pan Provenance: C.G. 989A [7363] Diameter: 4g˝ (12.38 cm) Local earthenware; base and wall fragments; the body similar to no. 7 above; interior dark brown lead glazed.125 9 Pipkin lid Provenance: C.G. 3501C [7364] Diameter: 6e˝ (16.19 cm) Local earthenware; incomplete rim and top fragment; the body pinkish orange, with many red ochre inclusions; unglazed, interior and exterior surfaces slightly darkened by short-term reduction. This example is rather crudely made, being uneven on both surfaces. The type is well represented from other Martin’s Hundred sites (e.g., the Potter’s Pond [Fig. 6, nos. 2–3], Site H [Fig. 14, no. 1], and Site A [Fig. 30, no. 2]). 10 Fuming pot or brazier Provenance: C.G. 3500 [7356] Diameter: est. rim 4d˝ (10.48 cm) Virginian or European earthenware; rim sherd; the body pinkish orange, with red ochre inclusions; thin orange-appearing lead glaze on exterior. The rim is flat, collar shaped externally, and unglazed on its upper surface. A single groove encircles the collar, and below, on the shoulder, are the remains of two holes punched through from outside with what appears to have been a sharp stick. Although rare on reported archaeological sites, fuming pots are represented by two examples from Site C—one from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 4) and the other from a ditch south of the Company Compound (Fig. 5, no. 5)—and one from Site H (Fig. 14, no. 3). This example is most closely paralleled by the Site H specimen in that the rim is flat at the top, whereas the examples from Site C are care-

125. See also Pt. I, p. 169. 126. A Tudor green-glazed fragment from a similar vessel, having a similarly flat rim, was found by the author in the River Thames at Queenhithe Dock (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 312). The everted and folded rim form has also been found in London; see Figs. 5, n. 40; and 14, n. 83. 127. For a discussion of the use of manganese on English delftware in the Martin’s Hundred period, see Fig. 16, n. 107. 128. The removal of glaze from the thin, molded feet of elabo-

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fully everted and folded—a quite different technique and indicative of a different potter’s work.126 11 Charger Provenance: C.G. 989A and 3501B [7366] Diameter: rim ca. 13f˝ (34.61 cm) London delftware; rim and wall fragment; the body buff, with small red ochre inclusions; lead glazed on back and tin glazed on upper surface, the latter decorated in tones of cobalt blue. The ornament comprises an uncertain medley of arcs and scrolls within the rim and central borders of three dark circles over one light blue ring. The painting is crude but practiced, creating a design that must have been pleasingly bold in the eyes of people more accustomed to a life of labor than of educated ease. 12 Salt Provenance: C.G. 989A [7367] Width: foot: 3f˝ (9.21 cm) London delftware; hexagonal base and wall fragments; the body pink, very thin, and very fragile; exterior coated with pale buff tin glaze that leaked through a central air hole in the base to unintentionally coat part of interior; exterior glaze decorated with stippled manganese.127 The shape of the complete vessel is uncertain, but the walls appear to be straight and standing on a molded cordon over a flaring foot. No glaze survives on the actual standing surface, and one might deduce that none had been applied. This would be unusual, and in this instance the absence of glaze has caused the foot to crack both horizontally and laterally into fragments ca. b˝ (0.64 cm) in width. It seems likely that the glaze piled up to such a degree that the vessel would not stand properly, and that to combat the problem the protective glaze was filed off.128 No published English parallels have been found for this salt shape.129 However, the faceted pedestal form has been found in the Netherlands and there attributed to Delft and the first half of the seventeenth century.130 13 Plate Provenance: C.G. 989A [7368] Diameter: ca. 10f˝ (26.99 cm) North Devon sgraffito slipware; rim sherd; the body pink; coated on both sides with drab slip decoratively incised and covered on upper surface with

rate English delftware objects was not confined to this example. The same treatment occurs on a candlestick dated 1753 (Louis L. Lipski, Dated English Delftware: Tin-Glazed Earthenware, 1600–1800 [1984], p. 354, fig. 1563). 129. For salts in other 17th-century shapes, see Lipski, pp. 346–348; Britton, p. 115; and I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 67, fig. 6. 130. H. J. E. Van Beuningen, Verdraaid gred gedraaid (1973), pp. 107–108, no. 530.

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yellow-appearing lead glaze; sgraffito decoration exposes body, over which glaze appears olive to brownish yellow. The rim is heavy and in marked contrast to the almost wafer thinness of the central base, a contrast emphasized by the deep cutting of a wide groove at their junction. A similar groove highlights the marly’s inner edge, while a corresponding but much shallower groove occurs below the lip. The space between is decorated with pairs of incised swags. The plate’s exterior is marked by knife work creating a cordon below the upturned rim and shaped while the clay remained on its bat mold.131 Although a single example of this ware was found in the Fort (Fig. 3, no. 4) and many more fragments at Site B (Figs. 23–24), none exhibit this distinctive swagged marly ornament. There can be little doubt that the decoration on these slipware chargers and plates became more sophisticated over time, but no viable chronology has yet been established.132 14 Jug Provenance: C.G. 3502A [7369] Width: sherd 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Raeren brown salt-glazed stoneware; the ware drab gray; interior high-gloss lighter gray, perhaps slipped with a finer gray-firing clay inside and out prior to application of iron oxide exterior coating; decorated with incuse chevrons and double-lined stripes. The chevron treatment is reminiscent of decoration on the blue and gray Westerwald jugs from Site B (Fig. 26). Although the size and exact shape of the vessel to which this very small fragment belongs cannot be unequivocally ascertained, its high quality suggests a

131. See Fig. 3, nn. 16–17. 132. Watkins, pp. 32–33. 133. Adelhart Zippelius, Volkskrunst im Rheinland (1968), pp. 74–75, no. 210, attributed to the end of the 16th century.

manufacture date in the late-sixteenth century.133 A possible design parallel incorporating both chevrons and incised stripes is to be seen on a kiln waster (mug) from Raeren.134 A sherd from a related mug having the same gray glazed interior has been found at Norwich, but no dating is offered.135 15 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 3500 [7370] Width: sherd 1l˝ (3.97 cm) Rhenish brown salt-glazed stoneware; medallion fragment; the body pale gray and buff on interior. The medallion shows the upper sinister and dexter quarters of a shield of arms, comprising facing lions rampant. A parallel was aboard the Dutch ship Batavia, wrecked in 1629.136 16 Jar Provenance: (wall) C.G. 989A; (base) C.G. 3500 [7371] Diameter: est. base 5c˝ (14.61 cm) Base and wall fragments; the stoneware-hard body purple; exterior bluish gray slipped (?); interior matte brownish purple, but not the base sherd, which is heavily coated with black lead glaze akin to that of Fig. 15, no. 4. The wall of the latter sherd is darker purple and flecked with yellow-firing clay, and, therefore, may not be from the same vessel as the body fragment. For comments on the usage of these ubiquitous jars, see Fig. 15, n. 98. Note that the fragments are here drawn in conjectural vertical relationship to each other, but the diameter is omitted.

134. Van Beuningen, pp. 54–55, no. 312, attributed to the second half of the 16th century. 135. Jennings, pp. 115–116, no. 780. 136. Stanbury, BAT 2517, 477.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 18

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 18 Site E, (ca. 1620–1635) 137 VIRGINIAN AND ENGLISH CERAMICS 1 Pan Provenance: C.G. 741A–B [7372] Diameter: rim 14c˝ (37.47 cm) Virginian earthenware; the body sandy orange; coated unevenly with thin buff to yellow slip, glazed dark green on interior bottom and part of wall, becoming stippled, apple-to-brownish green at rim, with similar glaze variations occurring both by happenstance and by intent on exterior. The rim is thickened, everted, and slightly dished internally, and the exterior wall is unintentionally ridged. This pan’s most significant characteristic is a prefiring crack, which the potter attempted to repair both with strips of applied clay and with glaze inside and out. The remedy was only partially successful, but, in the absence of any other kiln rejects at Site E, one must assume that this pan was considered a marketable second. The clay, glaze, and shape set this pan apart from the Martin’s Hundred wares, and clearly it is the work of another potter. Bowl fragments exhibiting the same clay, slip, and glaze characteristics were found in the storage pit within the Fort’s dwelling (Fig. 2, no. 2), thus establishing a date before March 1622 for this ware’s production. However, a casserole fragment exhibiting the same diagnostic features was found at Site B in Pit A (ca. 1631) (Fig. 20, no. 12), indicating that wares from the same source had a long life in Martin’s Hundred.138

4 Jar Provenance: C.G. 4010A etc. [7376]139 Diameter: rim 7d˝ (18.10 cm) Virginian earthenware; rim, wall, and base fragments; the body buff, with red ochre and quartz inclusions; interior lead-glazed, its color brown to greenish brown. The rim is everted and dished internally, but with an almost vertical collar outside and reinforced by a thumb-impressed clay strip, each impression exhibiting the potter’s finger (thumb) prints. The wall above the girth is decorated with six deep grooves. The surviving base fragments are flat and show no evidence of applied feet. Although this jar exhibits some familiar Martin’s Hundred ware characteristics (e.g., thumb decoration below the rim), its overall appearance differs from the jars and related vessels known to have been made there. It is, however, similar to a fragment found in the backfilling of the Company Compound’s massacre victim’s grave (Fig. 10, no. 2), suggesting a manufacture date before March 1622.

2 Pan Provenance: C.G. 741A [7373] Width: sherd 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Virginian earthenware; rim fragment; the body deep pink and surface somewhat purple due to reduction, one edge soot blackened; lead glazing on interior appears brownish yellow and occurs in spots on exterior. The rim is flat on its upper surface, and smoothed down and thumb-shaped externally. The form is akin to that shown in Figs. 2, no. 1; and 8, no. 4.

5 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 4012A [7375] Width: sherd 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Local earthenware; handle terminal fragment; the ware orange in core but pink at surface, with red ochre inclusions. The vessel’s wall had been too wet when the handle was luted onto it, resulting in a bonding failure. The handle came away from the wall but retained impressions of the cauldron’s girthgirdling grooves. The type is paralleled from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 10, no. 4).

137. Dating for this site is woefully imprecise and based on several seemingly inconsistent criteria. First, its local coarse pottery includes an “almost waster” (no. 1 below) not made by the Martin’s Hundred potter, but perhaps by a craftsman who preceded him (i.e., prior to 1622). Secondly, the group includes a southeast of England white-ware pipkin of a type rare in Virginia but common in England in the first quarter of the 17th century (no. 8 below). And thirdly, a fragment of a bird-

decorated slipware bowl identical to those found in waster (or second) condition at Site B dated 1631 (nos. 6–7 below) is also present. 138. See also Pt. I, pp. 120 and 171. 139. Additional fragments came from the following contexts: C.G. 4008, 4008A, and 4081A (base); and 4000 (wall).

3 Pan Provenance: C.G. 741A [7374] Diameter: base 4i˝ (10.64 cm) Virginian earthenware; base and wall fragment; both ware and glaze characteristics are akin to no. 1 above. The shape is paralleled by most pans from Martin’s Hundred (e.g., Fig. 8, no. 3).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4012A [7378] Width: sherd g˝ (2.22 cm) Local slipware; rim sherd; the ware orange, with red ochre inclusions; brown-appearing lead glaze over wriggled lines of buff slip. This sherd (and no. 7 below) are closely paralleled by the 1631 slipware bowls from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–5). 7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 741A [7377] Width: sherd 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Local slipware; base sherd; the ware orange, with occasional red ochre inclusions; brown-appearing lead glaze over decoration in buff slip. The fragment is closely paralleled by the 1631 bird-decorated slipware bowls from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–2). The surviving motif might be interpreted as a bird’s foot, and, if so, the curve beneath may be part of a date—but perhaps not 1631. 8 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 4010A [7380] Diameter: rim 5a˝ (13.97 cm)

285

English earthenware loosely defined as “Surrey White Ware”; rim fragments; thin, hard, light buff body; interior coated with thin, apple green lead glaze overlapping exterior lip. The type’s principal characteristics are its thinness and its delicately upturned lid-seating flange. These pipkins are tripodfooted, multiridged, and grooved at the wall, and possess single hollow side handles. Although the type is well represented in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, examples were found burned in the ruins of Basing House, Hampshire, destroyed by fire in 1645.140 9 Charger Provenance: C.G. 4000 [7379] Width: sherd 1i˝ (3.02 cm) London delftware; upper wall fragment; the body yellow and slightly pink in core; tin glazed on upper surface and yellowish lead glazed on back; decoration in Wan Li panel style in two tones of pale blue. Although this type was a common product of Christian Wilhelm’s Bermondsey factory, where dating pieces was not uncommon, no dated examples of chargers with this Chinese decoration are known.141

FERROUS AND COPPER-ALLOY OBJECTS 10 Knife Provenance: C.G. 4019A [7381] Length: bolster 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Iron bolster and tang, the handle and all but a fragment of the blade missing; bolster long, oval in section, and decorated with incised diagonal lines flanking a central panel whose ornament does not survive. Knives with long bolsters generally date from

the late-sixteenth century through the first third of the seventeenth century.142

140. Moorhouse, pt. 1, pp. 42–44, nos. 8–11. Each generation of scholars elects to make its mark by changing the name of those wares that cannot be definitively attributed to any single production site. Thus white-to-buff-colored bodies with yellow and/or green lead glazes are today (1996) called “Border Ware,” meaning wares from several potteries made in the 16th and 17th centuries in the region bridging the borders of west Surrey and its adjacent counties.

chargers with similarly tinless backs have been found in the Netherlands. 142. J. F. Hayward, English Cutlery: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century (1956), p. IId, pl. VIIa. The apparently complete but short tang on this example suggests that the handle itself was short (e.g., Stephen Moorhouse, “Finds from Basing House, Hampshire [c. 1540–1645]: Part Two,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. V (1971) p. 37, no. 4. 143. Aiglets were usually made by pinmakers, in the same metal they employed to make pins, needles, and fishhooks. Since some aiglets have been found with pins inside them, they have been described as pin cases. While this was a practical secondary use, their primary use was as the tags to laces securing all manner of clothing. Aiglets should not be confused with points, the latter being woven ribbons, sometimes from metallic threads (Fig. 89, no. 40), to which the aiglets were attached. More often, however, aiglets were used for the practical purpose of stiffening the ends of leather laces—as they still are today. Examples found by the writer in mint condition on the foreshore of the River Thames at London range in length from m˝ (1.75 cm) to 3b˝ (8.26 cm). Those that are short (ca. 1˝ [2.54 cm]) are often found with small holes close to their tops,

141. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pp. 45–47. This fragment does not precisely match any of the cited examples, the left panel containing, as it does, a motif built from lateral straight lines rather than the looping ribbon around a central lozenge common to most London Wan Li-style chargers. However, a matching sherd has been found in excavations north of the Thames at London’s Aldgate, but no close dating is provided. Students should be aware that this decorative style was also employed in the Netherlands (Korf, Nederlandse Majolica (1981), pp. 179–191), but usually in a more careful rendering of the copied sources. A long-standing criteria for distinguishing English from Dutch chargers in the first half of the 17th century has held that the former were not tinned on their backs. While that seems still to be true, it also is a fact that

11 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 741A [7382] Length: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Copper-alloy lace terminal of above-average length. Probably the partner to no. 12 below.143

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

12 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 741A [7373] Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Copper-alloy lace terminal of above-average length, slightly larger than no. 11 above, but probably the partner to it, indicating that the entire lace had been lost or discarded into the pit.

13 Mail Provenance: C.G. 4010E [7384] Diameter: link l˝ (1.43 cm) Three iron links; their overlapping ends flattened and riveted.

and it has been deduced that these enabled them to be securely sewn to points or thongs. But two Thames examples retain very small copper-alloy tacks seated in the holes as proof of the way in which they were anchored. No dating is yet forthcoming

for these pierced aiglets. On rare occasions copper-alloy aiglets were ornamented with stamped decoration so small as scarcely to be visible to the average eye.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 19

287

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 19 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 2104A [7385]144 Height: 5f˝ (14.29 cm) The ware pinkish orange, darker on surface, and flecked with ochre; interior lead-glazed, appearing rich brown. The rim is everted, internally dished, and externally square cut and grooved.145 The vessel has four decorative grooves above the girth and stands on a well-formed and rounded foot. Its ear-shaped handle is oval in section and rather crudely fashioned. 2 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7386] Height: 6d˝ (15.56 cm) The ware pink, with much sand and some ochre; interior coated with brown-appearing lead glaze. The rim is everted and externally rounded, and the wall is decorated with four grooves above the girth. The earshaped handle is crudely formed, and the spread foot is roughly squared and trimmed.146 3 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 2115F [7387] Height: 7˝ (17.78 cm) The ware buff, with ochre and occasional shell inclusions; exterior unevenly blackened by wood fire, blackening extending through a fracture and indicating that the burning occurred after or at the time of breakage; interior lead glaze thin and appears ginger brown. The rim is everted, externally rounded in a style comparable to that of no. 2 above, and pinched opposite the handle to form a spout. The lug handle

144. This layer and square was one of the richest in artifacts and yielded many crossmends to items from Pit A (ca. 1631), as well as to layers and features all over the site. 145. The chamber pot’s rim form is paralleled by another from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 1), as are its handle and foot. However, it differs in that the latter is heavily grooved from its girth to its rim. There are significantly different, Virginian-made chamber pots from the Fort (Fig. 1, nos. 1–2). See also no. 2 and n. 146 below. 146. Although this pot possesses a handle and above-girth decoration similar to no. 1 above, its rim is sufficiently different to strongly suggest the work of another potter. The rim more closely matches that of an example from the Fort’s well (Fig. 1, no. 1). 147. The sharpness of the girth angle, though visually distinctive, is less a guide to a potter’s handiwork than is his rim or handle. In this instance the closest parallels are from the Fort (Fig. 1, no. 4) and Site A (Fig. 28, no. 2).

is upswept and everted. Three shallow grooves encircle the body above the weak girth, and the incomplete base is flat and has lost all three feet. 4 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 2104B [7405] Height: est. surv. 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Rim, wall, and base fragments; the ware pink surfaced but orange in core, with ochre and quartz inclusions; brown-appearing lead glaze on interior. The everted rim is flattened on the top and probably had a pinched spout, and the undecorated wall is characterized by a distinctive girth angle.147 The base is flat, and neither the vessel’s handle nor its three feet survive. 5 Pipkin Provenance: (body) C.G. 2115B/C; (handle) C.G. 2137A [7388] Height: 5˝ (12.70 cm) The ware sandy surfaced; orange interior and black exterior under blackish purple lead glaze, this combination the product of serious overburning in the kiln. The everted rim is flattened, slightly incuse on its upper surface, and pinched out to form a spout, presumably opposite to the lug handle.148 The wall is undecorated and markedly carinated, and the flat base stands on three small and roughly formed feet.149 6 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 2115A/B [7389]150 Height: 8i˝ (20.80 cm)

148. Although providing a joining-fragment section from foot to rim, this vessel is represented by nonjoining sherds from several layers, which include topsoil. Thus, for example, the handle does not join to the repaired body, and one cannot be certain of its relationship to the nonjoining spout fragments. Nevertheless fragments of the repaired section, as well as those of the spout, were recovered from Pit A and therefore provide its datable context. 149. Base fragments from two more pipkins of the same size and type were found at Site B, both of them correctly fired and their interior glazes appearing the same ginger brown characteristic of most of the pink-to-orange-bodied local wares. Both unillustrated examples come from Pit A, one larger (C.G. 2115B) and one smaller (C.G. 2115A/B). The latter exhibits scratches through the glaze, which appear to have been cut with a sharp instrument. 150. Although fragments of this pipkin were well represented in Pit A, it had been broken into a multitude of small sherds

ARTIFACT CATALOG

The ware pinkish orange, containing fine quartz sand; uneven interior lead glaze appears ginger brown; glaze also occurs on exterior base, running vertically up the wall away from it. It would appear, therefore, that this was a dipped glaze, and that the vessel was stood upside down either to drain or to be fired. The mouth incurves and possesses a stepped exterior collar, features designed to seat a lid. Four grooves decorate the wall above the girth and extend beneath the scar of the missing handle. Two of the flat-based vessel’s three feet do not survive, but the third is markedly spread on its ground surface, as well as being angled outward and upward.151 The vessel’s interior is heavily ribbed, particularly toward its base. 7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7391]152 Diameter: est. 10˝ (25.40 cm) The ware pinkish orange, containing some ochre and much sand, resulting in rough exterior surface; interior unevenly lead glazed, appearing dark ginger brown. The bowl’s wall flares outward and expands slightly to a flattened rim. One of the sherds has been burned after being separated from the others. No base survives.153 8 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2126B [7404]154 Diameter: conj., as drawn 8c˝ (22.23 cm)

that were found widely distributed across the site. No believable explanation has been forthcoming to explain this distribution, a spread common to many of Site B’s ceramic vessels. It is almost as though people went there at the time the site was abandoned and took a rake to it. That, however, cannot be the explanation since the crossmending sherds were found in distinctive sequential strata and not in one homogeneous layer. 151. The feet of the larger Martin’s Hundred pipkins are commonly found to stand only on their inner edges, indicating that no attempt was made to test their ability to stand squarely on their bases. This flanged pipkin differs from the others from Site B, but is fairly closely paralleled by examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 4 and 6). Here, as in several other instances, there is suggestive evidence that more than one potter or assistant potter worked in Martin’s Hundred, and that kilns were fired there both before and after the 1622 disaster. This pipkin would appear to have survived from the former. 152. A sherd from Pit A crossmends to another found ca. 34´ to the southwest, in the area occupied by the shed, yet another example of the wide distribution of the site’s broken pottery. 153. This fragmentary bowl is well paralleled by a complete specimen from Site A (Fig. 31, no. 6).

289

Rim sherd; the ware pale buff pink on surface, containing ochre flecks and isolated particles of quartz; interior lightly coated with green-to-orange lead glaze. The single rim sherd (which may be from a pan much larger than is suggested in the drawing) is thickened and rounded internally.155 9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7393] Diameter: est. 10c˝ (27.31 cm) Rim sherds; the underfired ware pale orange, with large ochre inclusions; interior lightly lead glazed but appears yellow and powdery, similar to that seen on the 1631 slipware dish (Fig. 22, no. 1). The rim appears to have been externally folded and secured by the first of at least two deep and decorative grooves.156 10 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7394] Diameter: 9˝ (22.86 cm) The ware pinkish orange, containing quartz sand and significant flecks of mica;157 interior lightly lead glazed, appearing pale ginger brown. The rim is rounded and seems to have been externally folded, its edge secured by means of the first of two deep and widely separated grooves, which together create a distinctive below-the-rim cordon.

154. Other fragments from this sealed stratum crossmend to sherds from Pit A (ca. 1631). 155. The closest parallel is a bowl from the Potter’s Pond, but there the ware is fired to pink and the glaze to the standard ginger brown. 156. The closest parallel for the rim profile and external grooving is provided by a much smaller bowl from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 11, no. 4). 157. The large quantity of mica present in the clay of this bowl sets it aside from most of the coarse earthenwares from Martin’s Hundred. At the same time, however, its potting characteristics are closely paralleled by examples from the Potter’s Pond (e.g., Fig. 11, nos. 3–5). Recalling Captain Christopher Newport’s early attempts to send home gold from the James River, it is likely that the clay for this bowl was derived from mica-rich banks further down the river. If this is so, it supports the argument that the Martin’s Hundred potter(s) was/were itinerant and moved from plantation to plantation, firing expendable kilns and carrying to the next plantation those products not needed or purchased at the site of manufacture. Such a scenario would explain the presence of this differently bodied bowl at Site B.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 20

ARTIFACT CATALOG

291

Figure 20 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Pan Provenance: C.G. 2115B/C [7395] Diameter: est. 12b˝ (31.12 cm) The ware underfired, in section pale buff and pink in core, rich in ochre; pink slipped (?) on exterior surface; interior lead glaze appears yellowish orange flecked dark brown by underlying ochre inclusions. The rim is everted and slightly under tooled, exhibiting a glaze-breaking scar that suggests it was fired upside down and elevated by a kiln spacer. The wall thickens to a flat base. 2 Pan or bowl Provenance: C.G. 2134B [7396] Diameter: est. 6˝ (15.24 cm) The ware comparable to no. 1 above; but interior coated with lead glaze having dark greenish brown, mottled appearance. The rim is upturned, thin, and square cut.158 3 Pan or bowl Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7397] Diameter: est. 9b˝ (23.50 cm) The ware pinkish orange; interior coated with brown-to-purple-appearing, mottled lead glaze. The rim is everted, distinctively upturned, and internally rounded at the edge of a flat marly.159 4 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 2103B Diameter: rim, as drawn 5m˝ (14.45 cm) The ware pale orange, containing ochre both in grains and lumps; interior lead glaze mottled yellowish brown, the brown apparently enhanced by the use of iron-rich slip, and two small patches of green glaze occur on otherwise unglazed exterior of rim. The vessel has a straight, collarlike upper wall and

158. The upturned rim form exhibited by this sherd and, in a slightly different variety, by no. 3 below, is well represented among vessels found in the Potter’s Pond (e.g., Figs. 6, nos. 7–8; and 7, nos. 7–10) and from Sites D (Fig. 17, no. 6) and A (Fig. 29, no. 9). Essentially the same rim-shaping technique was employed to make the 1631 slipware dishes (Fig. 22, nos. 1–2). 159. The rim relationships cited in n. 158 also apply to this pan. 160. This vessel is reconstructed from 12 small and widely scattered sherds. The shape reflects an Anglo-Netherlandish form common in the late-16th and -17th centuries. A comparable but unillustrated porringer base was found in Pit A (C.G. 2115E). Another example was found in the Fort (Fig. 2, no. 3) and yet

rim, and slopes sharply inward below two or more decorative cordons to a vestigial foot and flat base. The horizontal handle is round sectioned and splashed with the mottled glaze.160 5 Tyg Provenance: C.G. 2108A [8108]161 Diameter: base 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Small base sherd; the ware varying from orange to gray in section; interior and exterior coated with dark greenish brown lead glaze. The foot is slightly spread and rounded, with two (and probably several more) cordons above it.162 6 Mug Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7399] Diameter: base 2n˝ (7.14 cm) The ware pinkish orange, containing large and small flakes of ochre; mottled brown lead glaze interior and exterior, thicker on exterior and in appearance akin to well-made English versions, where the glaze type is usually described as tortoise-shell. While one of the most accomplished examples of early Virginian glazing, the potting proved less successful, the handle having broken away at the point of luting. The mug has a well-formed and round foot, but the underside is marred by adhering clay from the kiln floor (?).163 7 Mug Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7400]164 Height: 4f˝ (11.75 cm) The ware as no. 6 above; but mottled tortoise-shell glaze much thinner and consequently more inclined to flake. The collar neck and rim are slightly thickened externally and terminate in a single cordon at its junction with the shoulder. The body incurves to a

another at Site A (Fig. 29, no. 4). 161. Sherds from this stratum crossmend to others found in Pit A (ca. 1631). 162. This common, early-17th-century drinking mug type, generally with one or two handles, is represented by other locally made examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 11) and Site A (Fig. 30, no. 4). 163. The shape is paralleled by no. 7 below and other examples from the Fort (Fig. 2, no. 8), Site D (Fig. 17, nos. 2–3), and Site A (Fig. 29, nos. 2–3). 164. This mug is assembled from 35 widely scattered fragments and includes sherds found within the area of the shed.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

well-defined and expanded pad foot, slightly rising beneath, and the handle is oval in section. 8 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2102A [7401]165 Width: sherd 2˝ (5.08 cm) Rim sherd; the ware pinkish orange, with ochre inclusions; upper surface’s lead glaze appearing ginger brown. The rim is externally squared, upturned, and notched in the manner of nos. 9–11 below.166 9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2126 [7403] Width: sherd 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Rim sherd; the ware’s color and character disguised by burning; uneven lead glaze appearing olive green;167 straight externally and notch decorated on the upper edge.

these fragments come from a bowl akin to no. 10. It is possible that they are from the rim and marly of a large dish or charger. 12 Casserole Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7390] Diameter: est. max. 8e˝ (21.27 cm) The ware pinkish orange; interior coated with thin yellow slip, which served to render the pink surface slightly lighter but which had no effect on dark greenish brown lead glaze that seems to have been thickly applied only to lower interior; spots of lighter glaze dapple fragment at one side but give no hint of the rest of the vessel’s glazing characteristics. The interior wall is slightly concave and rises to a thinned collar rim, suitable for receiving a lid, as is the flanged exterior. A scar lower on the sherd indicates the position of a missing lug handle, which probably broke away soon after its first use.168

10 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 2077A [7402] Width: sherd 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Rim sherd; the ware pinkish orange, with ochre inclusions; unglazed exterior purplish pink, interior lead glaze appearing greenish brown. The bowl’s principal characteristic is the notching of its rim. There is evidence of burning after breakage, suggesting an association with sherd no. 9 above. Enough of this fragment survives to indicate that it comes from a flaring sided bowl akin to the plain specimen from Site A (Fig. 31, no. 6).

13 Cauldron or storage jar Provenance: C.G. 2057A [7406]169 Diameter: est. rim 7c˝ (19.69 cm) Rim sherds; the ware pinkish orange, with ochre inclusions, reduction to gray on exterior and into section; thin traces of lead glaze present on everted interior face of rim, the lead broken down into yellow powder exactly paralleling the damage to the 1631 slipware dish from Pit A.170 The rim is flattened, internally everted, and reinforced externally with an applied strip heavily thumb impressed.

11 Bowl (?) Provenance: C.G. 2152A [8109] Width: fragment 1c˝ (4.45 cm) The ware pinkish buff, with white inclusions that may be reduced ochre; unglazed exterior surface gray; lead-glazed interior surface appears brownish black. These unusual colors almost certainly are the result of burning in a reducing atmosphere, though whether that occurred in firing or in subsequent usage is uncertain. The rim is notched in the manner of no. 10 above, but the three joining sherds exhibit little or no curvature. Although, in the absence of vessels having so flat a shape, it must be assumed that

14 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 2115B/D [7407] Diameter: est. rim 8b˝ (20.96 cm) The ware blackened by reduction; interior lead glaze dark greenish brown. The fragment or vessel may have been burned in usage, though it is unlikely that outside a kiln it could have been sufficiently heated in a reducing atmosphere to darken the glaze to the exhibited degree. The rim is slightly everted, internally dished, and rounded at its upper edge. The exterior junction, with its heavily cordoned shoulder, is reinforced with a thumb-decorated clay strip.171

165. Sherds from this layer crossmend to others found in Pit A. 166. This unusual rim decoration may have been applied with a small stick and is paralleled by a bowl from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 9, no. 2). Such notching usually occurred in association with sgraffito ornamentation of the marly and may have been executed with the same tool. For its usage on another form, see nos. 10–11 below. 167. This sherd may come from the bowl or bowls represented by fragment nos. 10–11 below. 168. This stew pot’s shape (but not its ware) is paralleled by an intact specimen found in the filling of the Fort’s well (Fig. 1, no. 8). However, the ware and glaze are closely paralleled by the potter-repaired pan from Site E (Fig. 18, no. 1).

169. The fragment crossmends to another recovered from topsoil ca. 56´ to the northwest, at the southwest corner of the dwelling (C.G. 2070). 170. From thumb-decorated rim fragments alone it is impossible to determine whether they come from storage jars or double-handled and tripod-footed cauldrons. Examples of both types are represented among the ceramics from the Potter’s Pond (Figs. 10 and 11, no. 1). The storage jar type (but not the cauldron) is among the illustrated vessels from Site A (Fig. 29, no. 6). 171. This rim is unequivocally identified as a storage jar because its rim is externally rounded (e.g., Fig. 19, no. 6) and its wall is thinner than are those of most cauldrons.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

15 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 2115E/F [7408] Diameter: est. rim 10c˝ (27.31 cm) The ware orange in section, ranging from pale purple to yellowish pink on exterior surface; interior unevenly spattered with dark brown, mottled lead glaze.

172. The closest parallel comes from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 10, no. 5) though even that differs in that the shoulder is ornamented with four rather than three grooves.

293

One of two heavy, oval-sectioned ear handles survives. It is securely luted to the rim and was applied before the under-rim clay band was thumb impressed. The rim is internally everted and slightly dished. Three grooves, creating two cordons, decorate the shoulder.172

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 21

ARTIFACT CATALOG

295

Figure 21 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Jug Provenance: (body) C.G. 2138B; (handle) C.G. 2076B and 2115D Diameter: est. girth: 7a˝ (19.05 cm) Shoulder to girth and handle fragments; the form reconstructed using the shape of a comparable jug from Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 7) and a neck from the Cattle Pond in the Fort (Fig. 2, no. 7).173 The ware orange, with ochre inclusions, burned gray over much of exterior; thin lead glaze appears ginger brown and extends upward from the upper band of grooves, but on the surviving sherd does not reach to the cordon that defines the junction between shoulder and neck. It must be concluded that, like late medieval and Tudor wares in England, glazing was limited to a bib at neck and shoulder opposite to the handle.174 A second band of four grooves encircles the girth. The vessel was well potted but unevenly fired and not nearly as thoroughly glazed as the product merited. The pinched handle fragments were not found with the body sherds, all but one coming from the upper layers of Pit A (ca. 1631). Their fabric color, consistency, and glazing match those of the body and parallel the traces of pinching exhibited by the neck and handle terminal from the Fort (Fig. 2, no. 7).175

2 Jug Provenance: C.G. 2076A/B [8112] Diameter: est. girth 6d˝ (15.56 cm) The ware yellow, with localized pink core and ochre inclusions; pinkish orange surface on interior and unglazed areas of exterior; lead glaze appearing dark, mottled green and covering all of exterior save for lower wall immediately above lost base. The neck below the V-shaped lip is heavily cordoned in the manner of English tygs, and there is an unusual incuse double cordon at the girth. The handle is oval sectioned and none too successfully luted to the wall at its lower terminal. Apparently recognizing the problem, the potter had thrust a stick into the wall clay from the inside to keep it from bulging inward when the handle was being attached; however, the angle of the clay displaced as a result indicates that the stick’s pressure was from below rather than from above as one would expect. The color of both glaze and ware, as well as the cordoning treatment of the neck, suggest that this vessel was made by the same potter who threw the tyg from Site A (Fig. 30, no. 4) and perhaps that from Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 11).

173. There is an additional jug base from the Fort (Fig. 1, no. 5) that may be associated with those cited in the text. 174. Rackam, vol. I, p. 2, no. 7, and vol. II, pl. 2, no. 7. Writing in 1935, Rackham attributed this jug to the 14th century, but its more likely that it dates from the late 15th–early 16th century. 175. This is a distinctive and sophisticated handle making tech-

nique, for which no published 17th-century parallels have been found. However, the concept of decorating handles and other ceramic appendages by pinching and pushing is represented among other Martin’s Hundred wares, e.g., bucket pot handles (Figs. 5, no. 1; and 30, no. 1) as well as the Site A alembic (Fig. 28, no. 6.).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 22

ARTIFACT CATALOG

297

Figure 22 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 LOCAL SLIP AND SGRAFFITO WARES 1 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115E [7183] Diameter: 10g˝ (27.62 cm) The ware orange red, with occasional flecks of ochre; slip decorated (Pt. I, Pl. 68); deep walled, flat base, and rim upturned in the manner of wasters and seconds found in Potter’s Pond (Figs. 7, nos. 8–11; and 17, no. 6). An incised but shallow groove encircles the bowl at the inner edge of the marly and is overlaid with trailed “ladder lines” in pale yellowish ochre-colored slip.176 The central element of the interior body slip decoration features a standing bird, which has a stylized outward scrolling tail (seen more clearly in no. 2 below) and at least one spread wing created from straight lines and single rows of slip dots between the trailed lines. Below the bird’s feet, within a dotted box, is the date 1631. It appears that any empty spaces, be they large or small, were filled with flowers (?) formed from a ring of dots around a single dot within the circle. Additional devices, roughly cruciform in shape, flank the date box; another is to be seen above the box’s upper left corner, while six more are prominent on the body. The surface of the glaze is marred by a wide and irregular, somewhat pitted, mustard-colored stripe, a blemish also to be seen on other locally made Martin’s Hundred sherds, suggesting that some, if not all, were considered seconds, if not wasters. This example is the most seriously damaged of the three such bowls represented by sherds from Site B, strongly suggesting that they were made there. The potter’s apparent fixation with birdlike decoration (manifest also in the sgraffito bowl, no. 10 below) has been cause for considerable speculation, suggesting, perhaps, that there might be an heraldic connection between the bird and Martin’s Hundred. In reality, however, birds were relatively common slipware design elements, particularly in Germany and the north Netherlands.177 The bird design seems to be best known on North of Holland two-handled

porringers, but there is also a curfew whose central, dated (1596) device is flanked by rings of dots around another, which is strongly reminiscent of this dish. A second curfew, undated but almost certainly from the same factory, is encircled at its base by ladder stripes similar to those on its marly.178 While the strong European parallels suggest that Thomas Ward may have learned his craft in the factory of an emigrant Dutch potter and thus included birds in his slipware training, it remains a fact that the letter seal from Site H also depicts a bird (Fig. 69, nos. 14 and 14a). Then, too, there are two West of England sgraffito slipware dishes from Site B (Figs. 23, no. 1; and 24, no. 1), which might conceivably have been made knowing that Harwood (a Barnstaple man, whence came the dishes) was going to Martin’s Hundred, a place whose symbol was a standing bird. This, however, is a theory tenuous to the point of transparency.

176. Comparable rim sherds have been found at Site H (Fig. 14, nos. 12–13 and 15), Site E (Fig. 18, no. 7), and Site A (Fig. 30, nos. 9–10). 177. Bernard Beckman et al., Volkeskunst Im Rheinland (1968), p. 124, nos. 427 and 448; John G. Hurst, David S Neal, and H. J. E. van Beuningen, Pottery Produced and Traded in North-west Europe, 1350–1650 (1986), pp. 162–164, figs. 76–78; and 254, fig. 120. Spectrographic analysis confirmed that the alkali-to-ti-

tanium ratios were the same as those from wasters recovered from Potter’s Pond. 178. Hurst et al., pp. 155, pl. IX; and 168, pl. 27. 179. The presence of 12 joining sherds in this corner of the excavated area suggests that the digging could usefully be expanded in that direction.

2 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2257 [7409]179 Diameter: est. rim 10o˝ (27.78 cm) The ware and slip decoration comparable to no. 1 above, undoubtedly the product of the same thrower and decorator. The bird differs, however, in being narrower in the body, whose surviving outline is infilled with dots rather than the cross devices that fill most of the body of no. 1 above. It can be argued, however, that insufficient survives to know whether or not the upper body was decorated in that way. Although extremely fragmentary, when reassembled the result suggests that the dish was badly warped in firing and may be a waster. 3 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2134B [7410] Diameter: est. rim 8e˝ (21.27 cm) Rim sherds; the ware, shape, and decoration similar to nos. 1–2 above; possibly part of the latter.

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4 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2076A and 2108A/B [7411] Diameter: est. rim 10e˝ (26.35 cm) Rim sherds; the ware, shape, and decoration similar to those of the marlys illustrated in nos. 1–3 above. The rim differs in that it is more square cut, to the point of appearing triangular in section. 5 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7412] Diameter: est. rim 10a˝ (26.67 cm) Rim fragments; the ware and decoration as nos. 1–4 above; but the glazing more successful. 6 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2089B and 2149 [7413] Width: mended sherds 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Base fragments; the ware and decoration similar to nos. 1–2 above. The lined and dotted ornament is believed to be a version of the bird’s stern end. 7 Dish or charger Provenance: C.G. 2113A [7415] Diameter: est. rim 12˝ (30.48 cm) Rim sherd; the ware orange, with ochre inclusions; marly sgraffito decorated, with groups of straight lines separated by wavy lines of uncertain length and character under lead glaze that appears both ginger brown and yellowish green.180 Traces of a buff slip are visible under parts of the glaze (see no. 9 below). Its rim is square cut externally and upturned in the style of the slipware examples illustrated above, but sloping more gently in toward a wide marly terminating at the interior wall in a shallow groove. 8 Dish or charger Provenance: C.G. 2178B [7415]181 Diameter: est. rim 11c˝ (29.85 cm) Rim sherd; the ware, shape, sgraffito decoration, and slip traces similar to no. 7 above; but glaze somewhat darker in patches. The raised rim is more sharply defined internally. It seems likely, nonetheless, that both sherds are from the same dish. 9 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2091E and 2178B [7416] Width: fragment 2j˝ (5.87 cm) Base sherds; the ware orange pink, with ochre and yellow-firing clay inclusions; traces of buff lens between body and glaze, which, on other examples

180. This rim may be from the same dish as no. 8 below and provides a marly ornament unparalleled among other sgraffito wares from Martin’s Hundred. However, it should be noted that large bowls from Potter’s Pond had been decorated with a heavy wavy line around their marlys (Fig. 9, nos. 2–3), and that both bowls have notching around their rims, a detail encountered on rim sherds from bowls found on Site B (Fig. 20, nos. 8–11).

(e.g., no. 10 below), represent an attempt to slip the surface employing the same clay as was used to decorate the slipwares illustrated in nos. 1–6 above. The dish is sgraffito decorated in a design incorporating scalelike arcs.182 10 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2070A, 2138B, and 2115F [7417] Diameter: 11c˝ (29.85 cm) The ware orange pink, with ochre inclusions; buff slip coated and sgraffito decorated in a bird’s-wing design closely paralleling that of no. 1 above, leaving no doubt that both are the work of the same potter. The slipware design using trailed lines and dots is here replaced by incised lines and short dashes, while incised arcs creating alternating diamonds and lozenges substitute for the slipware rim’s ladder bars. This dish’s rim is squared externally, slightly undercut at its junction with the wall, and, on the upper surface, rolled inward to create an outer collar. These fragments include a groove and ridge separating the marly from the wall. The latter slopes to a flat base, creating a profile very similar to that of no. 1.183 11 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2070A [7418] Diameter: base 5b˝ (13.34 cm) Wall and edge of marly fragments; the ware, slip, and glazing as above, the sgraffito decoration including part of the body of a bird akin to that of the slipware dish (no. 1 above), and almost certainly an element of the same design represented by no. 10 above. 12 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2138A [7419] Width: sherds 2˝ (5.08 cm) Base fragments; the ware, slip, and glazing identical to nos. 10–11 above, with sgraffito decoration representing part of a bird’s wing. 13 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2070A [7420] Length: sherd 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Wall fragment; ware, slip, and glaze as nos. 10–12 above; sgraffito design element apparently a bird’s foot akin to that of no. 1 above. The sherd reaches to the groove separating the wall from the ridge below the marly and is almost certainly part of the same vessel as nos. 10–12.

181. Unrelated ceramic fragments from this stratum crossmend to others from Pit A (ca. 1631). 182. This unusual motif is paralleled on two bowls from Site A (Fig. 30, nos. 6–7). 183. The drawn profile incorporates base and decorative details provided by no. 11 below.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

14 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2070A [7421] Width: sherd 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Base or wall fragment; the ware, slip, and glaze as nos. 10–13 above; sgraffito decoration including a holly leaf motif.184 15 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2070A [7422] Width: sherd 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Wall fragment; the ware, slip, and glaze as nos. 10–14; sgraffito decoration including a holly leaf motif.

299

Wall fragment; the ware, slip, glaze, and sgraffito holly leaf motifs as nos. 14–15 above. 17 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2100E [7424]185 Diameter: base 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Base and wall fragments; the ware pink, with heavy ochre inclusions and much quartz sand; buff slip under thin, pale brown-appearing lead glaze; sgraffito decoration includes a hatched element (pomegranate?) and perhaps a large holly leaf. The unglazed exterior wall exhibits two vertical and shallow slashes that appear to have been cut at the air-dried stage.186

16 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2138A [7423] Height: sherd 1c˝ (4.45 cm)

184. This leaf motif occurs on a sgraffito-decorated bowl from Site A (Fig. 30, no. 6) and seemingly also on a slipware sherd from the same site (Fig. 30, no. 8). 185. The pile of clay was not submitted to a potter for firing (as

were clays from Site C), but it is possible that the deposit was related to potting activity on this site. 186. See n. 179 above for comments on the provenance of these sherds.

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Figure 23

ARTIFACT CATALOG

301

Figure 23 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 NORTH DEVON SGRAFFITO SLIPWARES 187 1 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7425] Diameter: 16b˝ (41.28 cm) North Devon sgraffito slipware; the ware unevenly fired in both oxidizing and reducing atmospheres, resulting in pink surfaces and largely gray core, containing quartz sand inclusions of large size similar to the deliberate gravel temper found in other North Devon earthenwares; 188 unglazed exterior ranges from gray to pink; upper surface coated with white slip, through which decoration incised prior to glazing; glaze turning incisions muddy greenish brown while leaving the rest of the dish yellow inherent in the uncolored lead glaze. The marly decoration features a running S-shaped scroll (guilloche) between two wide bands, another of which encircles the wall immediately below the ridge. The central decoration

takes the form of a somewhat hesitantly drawn bird flanked by foliate sprigs, one of them resembling a Zulu shield.189 The rim is upturned, there is a sharp and undercut ridge at the junction of marly and wall, and the base is flat.

187. Most of what is known of these North Devon sgraffito slipwares was published by Watkins in his pioneering 1963 study (see Fig. 3, n. 18). However, its archaeological base was founded on a remarkable assemblage of the ware found more or less together at Jamestown—a group that evidently dates from the second half of the 17th century. In 1963 the archaeological investigation of earlier Virginian colonial sites had barely begun; consequently Mr. Watkins had no datable archaeological controls for the first half of the century. It is evident, however, from the study of the many fragments from Martin’s Hundred (almost exclusively from Site B and their deposition safely attributable to the early 1630s) that evolutionary stylistic differences are discernable. 188. For comments on the gravel-tempered wares, see Figs. 3, no. 3 and n. 15; 27, nos. 3–5, n. 210. 189. It is tempting to see a design influence between the bird rendering on the 1631 slipware dish from Pit A (Fig. 22, no. 1) and perhaps the local sgraffito bird (?) attempts (Fig. 22, no. 10) and the North Devon ware. But if the Fig. 22 slip and sgraffito wares are related, as they certainly appear to be, one might equally well look to Metropolitan- or Wrotham-style slipwares of southeast England as the design source (e.g., John Eliot Hodgkin and Edith Hodgkin, Examples of Early English Pottery: Named, Dated, and Inscribed [1891], Metropolitan: p. 12, no. 39, and Wrotham: p. 7, nos. 19–20). 190. The sgraffito-created guilloche marly decoration characteristic of the North Devon wares had its English origins much earlier, although the manufacturing source is uncertain. A dish found in excavations at Eltham Palace in the 1930s is similar in profile to the North Devon dishes but is green glazed. Molded in its center are the English Royal Arms and supporters that predated the reign of Elizabeth I, and around them a sgraffito pattern of swags and dots. The marly, however, is decorated with the running S-scroll, differing from the Devon treatment

only in that each loop contains an incised dot. The dish is attributed to ca. 1540. Describing it, Robert Charleston (pers. comm.) noted that Henry VIII (who built a chapel at Eltham Palace) possessed “green plates of earth for spice and fruit.” If, as seems likely, the Eltham dish was made in Surrey, it might be suggested that a potter or potters apprenticed there moved to the West Country later in the century. If the Jamestown series is characteristic of the North Devon sgraffito style of the mid- to later-17th century (Watkins, pp. 32–33, and fig. 11), it would appear that by then the central decoration had become much busier, filling the field either with geometric or floral devices, often with the addition of short lines of rouletting. Equally significant, the marly decoration changed from guilloche to scrolls and, in the more sophisticated versions, to swags or floral motifs complementing those used in the central design. Additional archaeological support for this datable stylistic evolution was provided at Mathews Manor in 1963, where a dish closely paralleling one in the Jamestown series (Watkins, p. 32, fig. 11, top left) was found in a context then attributed to a deposition no earlier than 1661 (W.W. 231 and 232A). The Jamestown series is strongly represented among finds from a pit on Quaker Neck, Kent County, Maryland, the assemblage attributed to 1660–1700 (L. T. Alexander, “Treasures from a Seventeenth Century Trash Pit, with Emphasis on North Devon Pottery” [n.d.], photos 1–6). However, other artifacts in the collection suggest a date closer to the middle of those brackets (i.e., ca. 1675). The Quaker Neck (known locally as the Buck Site) group yielded no guilloche-marlyed North Devon dishes. North Devon sgraffito wares are surprisingly absent from nearby Site A, but there is one sherd from within the Fort (Fig. 3, no. 4) and another from the enigmatic Site D (Fig. 17, no. 13).

2 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2089B [7426] Diameter: 14c˝ (37.47 cm) North Devon sgraffito slipware; more bowl-shaped than no. 1 above; marly narrower, with scroll decoration tighter; in all other respects, the ware and border decoration are the same. Too little of the central decoration survives for it to be identified. Nevertheless it exhibits the very loose drawing that seems to be characteristic of these wares in the early years of the seventeenth century.190

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Figure 24

ARTIFACT CATALOG

303

Figure 24 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 NORTH DEVON SGRAFFITO SLIPWARES 1 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2089B [7427] Diameter: 13a˝ (34.29 cm) The ware and glazing as Fig. 23. The profile, however, differs from these examples in that the rim is folded inward to create an overhanging ledge at the edge of the marly, whose guilloche decoration is crude and attenuated. The central design appears to be a bird, but rather more tightly drawn than that of Fig. 23, no. 1. 2 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2209B [7430] Diameter: est. rim 10˝ (25.40 cm) The ware and glazing as no. 1 above. The rim is markedly upturned, creating an external shelving at the marly’s junction with the wall, and the rim’s upper surface is almost flat, save for a vestigial bead at its inner edge. The guilloche is tight and well executed. 3 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2089B and 2210B191 Diameter: est. rim 12˝ (30.48 cm) The ware and glazing as nos. 1–2 above. The rim is slightly incuse externally, flattened on the upper edge, and drawn up into a bead at its inner edge, this last undercut at its junction with the marly. That, in turn, ends in a weak, V-shaped ridge at its junction with the shallow base. The guilloched decoration around the marly is well and deeply executed, while the central motif is more hesitant and appears to include foliate devices.

The ware and glazing as nos. 1–3 above. The rim is very weak, flattened, and slightly dished on its upper surface; guilloche decoration is present on the marly, the strokes firm and wide. 5 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2089B etc. [7432] Diameter: est. rim 9a˝ (24.13 cm) The ware and glazing as above; but sgraffito decoration incredibly crude. The exterior is markedly shelved at the junction of the marly and wall (which is really the sloping internal base), and the rim is upturned to create an almost vertical collar that is weakly rounded on its inner edge. The usual ridge at the junction of marly and wall has been reduced to a step crudely incised on its upper edge, work evidently done after the dish had been removed from the wheel (or at least when it was stationary). The usual guilloche decoration around the marly has become a series of slashes of varying depth and length, while what is left of the central ornament takes the form of a series of swags very hesitantly executed. It is possible that the leather-hard clay had become too dry before the decoration was incised. Whatever the cause, the result was singularly unsuccessful.192

4 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2077B [7431] Diameter: est. rim 11˝ (27.94 cm)

6 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2050B etc. [7433] Diameter: est. rim 14˝ (35.56 cm) Its ware and glazing as all others above. The dish is deeper than several of the others and lacks any sharp external ridge separating the wall from the marly. The rim is slightly upturned, rounded at the top, and lacks the angularity of other examples. The marly’s guilloche decoration is well executed, but the central decoration is uncertain. It may, however, include a coronetlike detail.

191. It is notable that these crossmending fragments were found in strata lying both east and west of the dwelling. No reliable explanation is forthcoming, but it might be deduced that there was a general spreading of the site’s trash after the dwelling was destroyed. But why or by whom remains anyone’s guess. 192. The presence of so many North Devon dishes on Site B

(perhaps eight or nine), coupled with their scarcity elsewhere (Fig. 23, n. 190), suggests that they all arrived together. If so, it follows that no distinction was then drawn between the good, the bad, and the so-so, and therefore that the quality of the North Devon decoration (as opposed to stylistic content) cannot be used either for dating or as evidence of their owners’ social or cultural status.

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Figure 25

ARTIFACT CATALOG

305

Figure 25 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 ANGLO-NETHERLANDISH TIN-GLAZED WARES 193 1 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2076B, 2115A, etc. [7434] Diameter: 9b˝ (23.50 cm) The ware pink, with ochre inclusions; tin-glazed on both faces but tin level on back thinner and appearance proportionately more gray. The upper surface is decorated in two tones or intensities of blue, both of them drab. The design is built on concentric circles, two narrow and one wide below the rim and three more narrow bands around the basal motif, which was created from a central, widening spiral of broad, overlapping or abutting circles, creating an opencentered disk of solid color. Over this area, in darker blue, is a petalled design of narrow lines, within and capping which are radiating stripes both long and short. The upper wall decoration, between its two groups of concentric circles, comprises a zone of double-lined gadroons. Within them are dark blue foliate sprigs, while outside and between each pair of gadroons there are solid blue triangles built from two broad strokes, one shorter than the other, and topped by a dot. This last feature is reminiscent of the primary design element found on pharmaceutical ointment pots in the period ca. 1580–1640.194 The dish’s rim is everted and slightly downturned, the

footring is square cut, and the base raised and flat within it.

193. The more one works with early tin-glazed wares found on British home and colonial sites, the more hesitant one becomes about identifying the recovered examples as English, Dutch, or, more loosely, Netherlandish. Others confronted by this problem have elected to use the term Anglo-Netherlandish, and that course is somewhat reluctantly followed herein. Because the early potters and decorators of these tin-glazed wares, working first in Norwich and then in London, came from Antwerp and points north, it follows that their design sources and experiences are Continental rather than English. Only by a thorough analysis of clay components in search of localizing elements can distinctions be drawn, and even then the fact that English clays were exported to the Netherlands renders certainty elusive. The recovery of large quantities of sherds (including wasters) from Southwark sites owned by Hays Wharf, Ltd., and associated with Christian Wilhelm’s Pickelherring Quay potteries did much to identify designs being produced there in the first half of the 17th century (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware). Unfortunately it also showed that virtually all the designs were copies of those used in the Netherlands. In addition the collection assembled by Hays Wharf chairman Sir David Burnett included many sherds of vessels that were not made there, raising doubts about many more that could have been but were not represented among the actual wasters.

Dating for early delftwares in England and America is sadly lacking, for although many examples have been illustrated in major reports on excavations at Exeter, Southampton, Norwich, and elsewhere, rarely, if ever, are they closely dated. On the contrary, many are published in contextual associations whose dates of deposition are far divorced from those of the examples’ manufacture. Unless, therefore, one knows from experience that such is the case, these reports can be more misleading than useful. Thus, in cataloging the Martin’s Hundred tin-glazed wares (as with most other categories), their own archaeological associations (such as Pit A [ca. 1631] from Site B) provide the best and often the only available dating. 194. The central spiral element overlaid with radiating petals in two shades of blue is paralleled in the Pickleherring kilns collection (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 79, fig. X, no. 3), but also in Holland (Korf, Nederlandse Majolica, p. 26, no. 32) and there attributed to the first to second quarter of the 17th century. In addition Korf discusses this central motif in a broader context (see n. 196 below). There is an unpublished dish or charger sherd from the 1609 Bermudian wreck of the Sea Venture that possesses this Catherine (or pin-)-wheel design. 195. The similarities and differences exhibited by these two dishes illustrate the to-be-expected design variations from the hand of a painter at work on a single, once-fired batch.

2 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115B etc. [7435] Diameter: est. rim 8c˝ (22.23 cm) Virtually identical to no. 1 above; but moving the wide band from the rim to the inner edge of the gadrooned zone.195 3 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115B–C [7437] Diameter: footring 3c˝ (9.53 cm) Base sherds; the ware yellow, with ochre inclusions; tinless lead glaze on back and tinned on upper surface. The central decoration comprises an open spiral extending outward into a solid cobalt disc, around which is a wide band of antimony yellow. Both disc and yellow band are overlaid with interlocking cobalt hooks, to create a petalled design. Beyond this element and at the junction of base and wall are three concentric circles, the first wide and pale blue and those beyond it narrow and darker. The footring is wide, shallow, and externally undercut. The base within sags slightly toward the center,

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and there is a single trivet scar on the upper surface.196 Although from scattered contexts and with only one of six sherds coming from Pit A, it is likely that the rim and wall fragments illustrated as no. 4 below are from the same dish. 4 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2115B etc. [7438] Width: max. fragment 2b˝ (5.72 cm) The ware, glazing on back and upper surfaces, and color density all identical to no. 3 above, suggesting that they are parts of the same dish. The only difference is in the width and spacing of the concentric circles at the junction of base and wall. However, it is common for such differences to occur from one side of a dish to another. It may be significant, too, that of the three cobalt bands below the rim, the innermost exhibits the two tones that occur on the inner circle around the basal motif. The wall decoration is one common among dishes that have a central floral or Catherine-wheel ornament, namely a series of arcs filled with a stand of fronds made up from overlapping stripes, a motif akin to those commonly seen on early tin-glazed ointment jars.197 5 Dish Provenance: C.G. 2076B, 2115B, etc. [7436] Diameter: footring 4˝ (10.16 cm) The ware pale yellow, with occasional ochre inclusions; tinless lead glaze on back and tinned on upper

196. This fragment is almost exactly paralleled in both shape and design by a waster in the Burnett Collection (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 86, no. 8 and n. 16; fig. XII, no. 8). This fragment’s English origins seem almost certain. Nevertheless the design is one of the commonest among Netherlandish dishes of the 17th century’s second quarter (Korf, Nederlandse Majolica, p. 116, no. 249, for the closest parallel, one attributed to the last quarter of the 16th century or the first of the 17th century). In pp. 100–124 Korf illustrates the evolution of the central design and its use in combination with a wide variety of outer motifs. 197. This wall design is closely paralleled by a blue-dashed charger (12b˝ [31.12 cm] diameter) in the collection of the Museum of London (MoL no. MA. 2538) found on the site of Christ’s Hospital and illustrated by Britton (p. 106, no. 26), who gives no date beyond “early” and questions its English origin by citing a Netherlandish parallel, yet makes no reference to the Burnett Collection waster noted in n. 196 above. This last, along with the rest of the Burnett assemblage, is now in the Colonial Williamsburg collection. For parallels for the “fronds in arcs” design on contemporary tin-glazed ointment pots and drug jars, see Korf, Nederlandse Majolica, pp. 138, no. 337; and 140, no. 349, both attributed to the last quarter of the 16th century. It is worth noting that in time—and among sloppier painters—these vertical, radiating fronds declined into triangles of stacked horizontal strokes. A transitional version of the radiating frond design is among sherds from Sir Walter Ralegh’s 1585 settlement site on Roanoke Island, North Carolina (Jean Carl Harrington, Search for the Cittie of Ralegh: Archaeological Excavations at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina [1962], p. 23, fig. 21).

surface, the “white” slightly pink; decoration in blue and orange. The latter is confined to the lower (outward-facing) arcs of the wall decoration and to the dish’s most unusual feature, a central boss at the base, ornamented half with diminishing lengthened blue strokes and half with orange. Creating the boss has pushed the base down within its slightly spread footring until it touches the table. Spiraling out from the boss is a very thin, threadlike line that provides a painting control for laying in a spiraling pattern of blue fronds and dots. These reach out to four concentric circles delineating the junction between base and wall, the innermost circle being wide and light and those beyond it thinner and a denser blue. Three more concentric circles define the inner face of the everted rim, and between these multiple blue bands run a chain of interlocking arcs, those facing out in orange and those curving inward in blue.198 6 Mug Provenance: C.G. 2076B etc. [7439] Diameter: base 2b˝ (5.72 cm) The ware pale yellow, with some ochre inclusions; tin-glazed interior and exterior; exterior manganese stippled. The mouth is straight, slightly flaring, and terminates at the shoulder in a single cordon. The bulbous body stands on a gently spread foot, and the base is concave within. The handle is ovoid but flattened on the inside. The vessel is almost certainly English.199

198. The essence of this elaborate foliate design is to be found among Netherlandish dishes in the late-16th and early-17th centuries (e.g., Korf, Nederlandse Majolica, pp. 122, no. 270; 123, no. 275). However, this example’s crudity of treatment suggests that it may well be of Southwark manufacture. A dish of this style, but of quality and design more comparable to those cited by Korf, was found in excavations at Norwich, there called Dutch and dated 1630–1640 (Jennings, pp. 198–199, fig. 88, no. 1407). The distinctive central boss, its painting reminiscent of tin-glazed ointment pot decoration, is not represented among the examples illustrated by Korf nor is it to be found in the Burnett Collection. On the other hand, the latter does include a bowl whose wall is decorated with the interlocking arc motif in blue and orange, a bowl whose exploded glaze rendered it a certain Southwark waster (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pp. 79–80, fig. X, no. 6). A wall fragment from this dish is also illustrated in color in Early English Delftware, facing p. 36, lower left, and described on p. 34 under pl. 24. 199. A mug of similar character with manganese decoration, found at Oxford and dated by association to 1640–1670 (Ashmolean Museum, 1937.512), is illustrated in I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 33, pl. 23. A biscuit mug from the Burnett Collection is drawn in fig. VI, no. 7 and there attributed to ca. 1630–1650, still a reasonable assumption. Note that biscuit refers to wares fired once prior to glazing in the glost kiln and thereafter discarded as wasters. A fragmentary example found at Mathews Manor in 1963 (W.S. 200) was then given a date “post 1655,” but that and all other Mathews Manor dating needs revision in light of new evidence assembled through more recent work at Martin’s Hundred and elsewhere.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

7 Mug Provenance: C.G. 2076B and 2115A [7429] Height: sherd 1a˝ (3.81 cm) The ware pale yellow to pink; interior and exterior thickly and evenly tin-glazed; exterior decorated in what is believed to be Wan Li style; perhaps the bestquality fragment of tin-glazed earthenware from Martin’s Hundred. The joining sherds almost certainly come from the lower wall of a barrel-shaped mug, decorated above the foot with multiple blue lines, above which the wall probably was decorated with a bird-on-rocks design, of which only a “rock” fragment survives. The upper sherds may not be from the same mug, but its quality and Wan Li-style frond point to its being of the same type, as does the archaeological proximity of one piece to the other.200 That this vessel is assumed to have been a mug rather than a bottle (which are also known with bird-onrocks designs) is based on the fact that no potting rings are visible on the inside, and the interior tinglaze is thick and even, conditions that one would not expect to find within narrow-mouthed bottles.201 8 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 2110A [7440] Width: sherd 1b˝ (3.18 cm)

200. The fernlike frond element is common among wares attributed to Christian Wilhelm’s Pickleherring Quay factory in the 1630s. It is present, for example, on a bottle until recently in the Rous Lench Collection, dated 1628 (Hugh Tait, “Southwark [alias Lambeth] Delftware and the Potter, Christian Wilhelm: 1,” Connoisseur, vol. CXLVI [1960–1961], p. 37, no. 4), and on a tankard, also illustrated by Tait (p. 41, no. 14), in the collection of the Museum of London and inscribed below its rim “James and Elizabeth Green Anno 1635.” The fern ornament is also to be seen on another London vessel, a lidded posset pot in the British Museum dated inside the lid “1632” (Tait, p. 38, nos. 8 and 8a). Tait’s article was published before the Burnett Collection had been reported on and therefore lacked the clinching evidence offered by a stack of fused wasters featuring the bird-on-rocks decoration accompanied by the fernlike background details (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pl. facing p. 37, illustrated on p. 74, fig. VIII, no. 1). A fragment of a comparable plate with similar fernlike decoration has been found in an unstratified context at Lee Hall, Virginia, and that, too, is illustrated in Early English Delftware, pp. 42, pl. 39; and 76, fig. VIIIa. 201. For examples of bottles with bird-on-rocks designs, see Britton, p. 108, no. 30. A mug in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum offers a likely parallel for this piece. Its rim is inscribed “William and Elizabeth Burges 24th August 1631” and under the handle “1632” (illustrated in Tait, p. 38, no. 7). Another, sold at Sotheby’s in 1970, is inscribed around the neck “Edmund Pierson and Elizabeth 1635” (Antique Dealer and Collector’s Guide [September 1970], p. 72). 202. No dated delftware porringers have been found from the

307

Handle fragment; the ware pale yellow and core pink; heavily crazed tin-glazing overall; handle pierced by two or more heart-shaped openings.202 9 Ointment pot Provenance: C.G. 2115B and 2050 [7442] Diameter: base 1k˝ (3.65 cm) The ware pinkish orange, with large ochre inclusions; interior and exterior tin-glazed (but not on base), glazing pitted and much crazed; no decoration. The vessel is cylindrical and pinched inward above the base, a type common throughout the first half of the seventeenth century.203 10 Salt Provenance: C.G. 2076C, 2115, etc. [7442] Diameter: est. rim 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Rim and upper bowl fragments; the ware yellow with large ochre inclusions; tin-glazed interior and exterior; no evidence of exterior decoration. The everted and flattened rim is ornamented with four concentric circles in blue, and what little remains of the bowl is busily painted with dots and lateral lines in an undetermined pattern.204

1630s, making dating attributions for the plain white examples of that period well nigh impossible. Among examples in the Burnett Collection, this fragment most closely resembles that illustrated in I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, fig. XIV, no. 6, where the suggested date (on the basis of no cited evidence) was 1670–1700. However, this fragment is closely akin to another from Site A (Fig. 34, no. 7), and there is not the smallest doubt that both date from the second quarter of the century. Proof that porringers were being made with pierced, trefoil handles (often called “ears”) in the early-17th century is provided by surviving pewter specimens. An example with such a handle, on loan to the Museum of London in 1990, is attributed to ca. 1550 (Peter R. G. Hornsby, Pewter of the Western World, 1600–1850 [1983], p. 58, no. 31). 203. For biscuit parallels in the Burnett Collection, see I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, fig. III, nos. 1–2. 204. There is a biscuit parallel for this porringer’s bowl shape in the Burnett Collection (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftwares, fig. VI, no. 14). There again the suggested dating, the second half of the 17th century, is given without supporting documentation. However, that conclusion is endorsed by a parallel dated to 1675 (Lipski, p. 348, no. 1538). A close, whiteglazed parallel to both the cited examples has been found in Southwark and is now in the Museum of London’s collection (MoL no. A. 4338; Britton, p. 115, no. 44), dated ca. 1675 on the basis of the Lipski and Archer evidence. All this serves to demonstrate the frailty of dating based on too-few specimens, for although this salt’s rim is not as wide as those referred to above, clearly shallow-bowled, wide-flanged, and pedestal-based salts were in use in Martin’s Hundred in the 1630s.

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Figure 26

ARTIFACT CATALOG

309

Figure 26 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 RHENISH STONEWARES 1 Jug Provenance: C.G. 2115B; (base) C.G. 2079C [7182] Height: restored 13l˝ (34.45 cm) Westerwald; gray salt-glazed stoneware; cobalt-decorated, with isolated patches of mottled brown. The template-sculptured body is fluted below the girth and there ornamented with zones of stamped chevrons as well as with cordons of molded chevrons (Pt. I, Pls. 61–62). The relief and incuse decoration alternates with bands of cobalt blue, a sequence repeated above the girth but with the addition of a narrow zone of alternating impressed hearts and cobaltfilled dots. Above this complex girth-girdling band starting at the base of the handle, the shoulder is ornamented with leaf-shaped panels in two tones of cobalt, the inner, darker area impressed with uncolored rosettes. Between these panels are others filled with uncolored rouletting. Above the shoulder, the neck begins with a narrow cordon decorated in relief in a rope pattern, above which there is another plain cordon separated from it by a band of cobalt. A similar sequence encircles the neck below the plain lip and at the level of the top of the handle. Between the encircling bands, the neck is decorated with a sprigged strip comprising alternating cobalt-filled hearts and medallions containing (a) a female “sav-

205. Friezes for jugs of this type took many forms, often varying in such small details that one might suppose that making so many molds would be unnecessary, as the variations would go unnoticed by the factory’s customers. The only logical explanation seems to be that (a) numerous potters were decorating similar jugs at the same time, and (b) production was so voluminous and so long-lived that many molds were needed. Michel Kohnemann (Auflagen auf Raerener Steinzeug [1982]) has published drawings of the multitude of molds found on Raeren sites, and those that most closely match these jugs are numbered 246–247. 206. The jug is almost exactly paralleled by no. 2 below, which makes use of the same molds and stamps, and presumably was potted at the same time. Thus it can be supposed the two jugs were not only thrown together but were fired together, sold together, shipped together, sold again together, shipped again together, and finally used and broken in the same household. However, the association goes further, for there are fragments of a third jug from the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 4, no. 1). This last differs slightly in that the heart-shaped stamps used to decorate the girth of this jug are there used in substitution for the vertical, chevron-stamped panels of the lower wall. The inference must be that in a single batch of generically alike jugs, the potter would draw from his array of ornamenting tools in whatever variations occurred to him. Evidently, therefore, minor detail differences cannot be used as evolutionary or source

age’s” head wearing pendant, triangular earrings, and (b) a wild-haired male.205 The handle is oval in section, decoratively ribbed on its upper surface, and terminates at the bottom in a rattail pressed into three ridges. The jug’s foot is plain and slightly spread; but this was not found with the rest of the jug and is a nonjoining fragment found within the dwelling. That it is legitimate to assume the connection is demonstrated by the discovery of a small, joining body sherd in the same dwelling area. Above the base two narrow cordons with a band of cobalt between have been reconstructed on the evidence of many other intact examples. The lower wall extending upward to the girth zone alternates panels of cobalt-filled flutes and vertical zones of impressed chevrons dotted with cobalt flanked by plain, vertical stripes. Although highly elaborate and involving several sophisticated potting techniques, in general terms this jug is by no means unusual.206 2 Jug Provenance: representative (shoulder) C.G. 2201C; (neck) C.G. 2117A [7443] Height: est. (on the basis of no. 1) 13l” (34.45 cm) Westerwald; almost identical to no. 1 above; but differing in that no. 1’s leaf-shaped shoulder orna-

guides. A fairly close parallel, albeit smaller, was among finds from excavations in Exeter and there attributed to ca. 1600–1620 (Allan, pp. 181, fig. 92, no. 2121; and 186). Hurst (Hurst et al., pp. 222, figs. 337–338; and 224–225) illustrates three much smaller, biconic jugs, whose necks are ornamented with the same “savage” head but with different flanking ornamentation, and these he dates to the first quarter of the 17th century. One of these jugs is impressed on the top of the handle with the initial E. Although this jug has no such mark, the handle from the Fort’s well is impressed with a ligatured WM. Further examples of the short, biconic jugs whose necks are decorated with “savage” medallions were recovered from the 1628 wreck of the Batavia (Stanbury, BAT 2303 and 2358). It should be noted that in his discussion of these elaborately decorated stoneware jugs, Hurst proposes (as others had before him) that those coated with a brown iron slip (in Bartmann style) should be classed as Raeren products, while those that are blue and gray should be termed Westerwald wares. However, the presence of mottled brown patches on this jug suggests that brown, “Raeren” vessels were fired in the same kiln. For an illustration of the jug in color, see Ivor Noël Hume, “First Look at a Lost Virginia Settlement,” National Geographic, vol. CLV (1979), p. 751.

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ment is replaced by a more angular device infilled with cobalt of uniform density. This terminates at its base with an impressed rosette, while in the triangu-

207. The rouletting common to both Site B jugs also occurs on the shoulder fragment from the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 4, no. 1).

lar area above and below the rosette common to both jugs, the shoulder is impressed with a cruciform foliate stamp, a feature also absent from no. 1.207

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 27

311

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Figure 27 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 IMPORTED EARTHENWARES 1 Jar Provenance: C.G. 2050B, 2071A, and 2091B [7444]208 Diameter: rim 4a˝ (11.43 cm) The ware pink-surfaced and gray-bodied; interior coated with thin, mottled green and purplish brownappearing lead glaze. The vessel is of balustroidal form, the neck concave internally to seat a lid or sealer, and proportionately rounded externally. This classic West of England storage jar type, often described as “North Devon Plain,” has been found on the 1609 Bermudian wreck of the Sea Venture.209

4 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 2115A, 2091B, etc. [7447] Diameter: 7˝ (17.78 cm) The ware and glazing similar to no. 3 above, but more crudely potted. The rim is everted, internally dished, and squared externally. There is a vestigial ridge at the neck’s junction with the shoulder, and both are striped with glaze that ran down when poured out. There is reason to believe that the handle and foot fragments of no. 5 below are parts of this vessel.210

2 Jar Provenance: (rim and wall) C.G. 2115B, 2099A, etc. [7445] Diameter: rim 4o˝ (12.54 cm) Of similar shape and origin as no. 1 above, but fired at a lower temperature; body much abraded, but originally orange fabric with gray surface, over which interior lead glaze appears yellowish green. The rim is thinner than that of no. 1 and tooled externally below the lip. Although smooth-surfaced on the exterior, the interior is heavily ribbed.

5 Pipkin Provenance: (handle) C.G. 2170A; (foot) C.G. 2050B [7449] Length: handle surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm), foot 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Handle and foot fragments, the ware and glazing similar to no. 4 above and probably parts of same vessel. The handle sherd has been faceted with finger and thumb, and the end is finger impressed. The foot, too, is finger impressed at its end but less squared, and the clay has been smeared around beneath the base of the vessel, creating a folded appearance.

3 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 2099B etc. [7446] Diameter: 6a˝ (16.51 cm) North Devon gravel tempered; rim and collar fragments; the ware pink and gray in core, heavily gravel tempered; interior coated with thin, mottled greenish yellow-appearing lead glaze. The rim is carefully formed and externally squarely grooved under the lip, perhaps to enable it to receive a tied-down cover. An unattached fragment hints at the presence of a spout drawn out from the lip.

208. The ceramics from Site B were widely scattered through two undisturbed 17th-century layers across the site. Fortunately most of the key finds were represented among sherds sealed in Pit A, at whose bottom was found the 1631 dish (Fig. 22, no. 1), and so can be said to have been in use on the site at that date or shortly thereafter. Because the individual numbers of sherds scattered through the other layers are of no interpretive value to users of this catalog, they are only selectively cited. 209. Allan J. Wingood, “Sea Venture Second Interim Report— Part 2: The Artifacts, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, vol. XV, pt. 2 (1986), p. 150. The Sea Venture provided the earliest complete examples of these North Devon jars yet recovered. But small sherds of the same ware have been found on the “Science Center” floor at the

6 Mug or jug Provenance: C.G. 2077A [7448] Diameter: est. rim 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Neck fragments; the ware gray with occasional patches of pink, containing a few transparent and opaque gravel particles similar to those found in North Devon gravel-tempered wares. This, however, appears to be the untempered “plain” ware, and its overall yellowish green-appearing lead glaze is consis-

1585–1586 English settlement site on Roanoke Island, North Carolina (not yet published). These jars are also well represented in the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 13, nos. 1–5) and in the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 3, no. 1). 210. A complete example of this North Devon pipkin type was found at Jamestown (John L. Cotter and J. Paul Hudson, New Discoveries at Jamestown: Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America [1959], p. 179, pl. 77, no. J-7308) but unfortunately lacks close dating, being recorded only as “found near Structure 51.” Another fragmentary specimen of the type represented by nos. 4–5 was found ca. 1980 in a trash pit in Kent County, Maryland, and attributed to a deposition date of ca. 1660–1700 (L. T. Alexander, pl. 10).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

tent with that found on West of England storage jars like nos. 1–2 above. The neck is straight, and its rim emphasized only by a single, exterior groove below the lip, a feature common to plain Rhenish stoneware drinking pots, which are thought to be the design source for this example.211

313

(e.g., Fig. 10, no. 1), the body color and character promote the possibility that this jar is an import.212

7 Jar Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7450] Height: 8g˝ (22.54 cm) The ware pinkish orange, with sand inclusions; interior lead glaze appearing greenish brown. The rim is everted, internally dished, and externally reinforced with a strip of thumb-impressed clay. Four grooves encircle the girth; its base is slightly rising and the interior wall is ridged upward to the girth. Although both shape and design features (the thumbed reinforcement and girth grooves) are paralleled among locally made Martin’s Hundred wares

8 Jar Provenance: C.G. 2076B, 2090A, etc. [7451] Diameter: est. rim 8b˝ (20.96 cm) The ware purplish gray on the surface and pinkish red beneath; interior exhibits patches of lead glaze that appear dark greenish brown over purplish gray body surface. The rim is slightly thickened and appears to have been folded and finger smoothed before being ridged with a paddle. At the shallow shoulder the wall is ornamented with four grooves (creating three weak cordons), but the body is otherwise plain save for the undulating potting rings, which are more pronounced internally. At the rim the wall shelves out to a sharp ridge, and the collar is slightly dished, a combination designed to receive and support a lid. The jar’s origin is unknown.

211. See Fig. 16, nos. 10–11. 212. A jar with similar characteristics was found at Jamestown

and considered by Cotter and Hudson (p. 179, pl. 77) to have been made there.

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Figure 28

ARTIFACT CATALOG

315

Figure 28 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1737H [7452] Height: 5c˝ (14.61 cm) The ware unevenly fired, generally pinkish orange but with areas of reduction; lead glazed interior. The rim is gently everted and slightly dished on its upper surface, but marred by the presence of a quartz pebble. The vessel is three-footed, with a solid, upturned handle, and the spout is missing.213 2 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1749E [7453] Height: 5n˝ (14.76 cm) Similar to no. 1 above, but somewhat harder fired; the body dull orange; interior lead glaze appears purplish brown; also more angular in the girth. The handle differs slightly from no. 1 in that it is markedly thumb impressed at the base. In this example, too, the spout is missing.214 3 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7454] Height: 7h˝ (17.94 cm) Of similar character to nos. 1–2 above, but the ware’s surface ranges from orange to gray over pinkish orange body fired primarily in an oxidizing atmosphere; however, interior lead glaze has picked up darkening resulting from reduction and so appears brownish green; shorter in legs, taller in body, and lacking any girth ridge. The spout survives, and in the technique characteristic of this potter, the underside of the rim was supported by a thumb and second finger while drawing out the rim between them with the index finger.215

213. Although a local product and a type well represented at Site B (Fig. 19, nos. 4–5), the absence of its rim style among the wasters from the Company Compound promotes speculation that these incuse-rimmed pipkins were not among the batch made immediately prior to the 1622 uprising. On the other hand, the presence of such a vessel in the Fort’s arguably postmassacre Cattle Pond might be perceived as evidence of its later usage, supporting that of the Westerwald jug fragments (Figs. 4, no. 2; and 34, no. 4). 214. The spouts for nos. 1–2 are reconstructed on the drawings based on that of no. 3 below, whose construction is described. 215. Much time and effort has been expended trying to determine the origin and training of the Martin’s Hundred potter(s) who made the wares illustrated in this catalog. It has not been well spent. An old potters’ adage has it that one craftsman can tell another’s work by his rims and his handles. Those, the saying has it, are his fingerprints. If true (and one

4 Tile Provenance: C.G. 1773D [7455] Width: 6˝ (15.24 cm) Thickness: e˝ (0.95 cm) Fragment, almost certainly designed for roofing, but used at or near Site A as pottery kiln prop; the body ranges from pink to predominantly buff, contains ochre flecks; smooth on upper surface and sandy beneath (Pt. I, Pl. 96). The tile’s significant characteristic is a patch of greenish orange lead glaze on the upper surface, to which adheres clay from the rim of a vessel fired standing upside down on it, which was the source of the glaze. It may or may not be a coincidence that the tile was found in the same pit and in essentially the same stratum as the alembic (no. 6 below), that the semicircular scar in the pooled glaze is consistent with the diameter of the alembic’s rim, and that the rim exhibits a matching scar. The inference, therefore, is that the alembic and the tile came from the same nearby kiln at approximately the same time, a proposition supported by spectrographic analysis of their clays, which shows them to be comparable. 5 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1736D [7456] Height: 3k˝ (8.73 cm) The ware generally pink; coated with interior lead glaze that appears greenish brown. The legs and handle are similar to nos. 1–3 above, but the vessel has a shallow, bowl-shaped form, the base of which possesses a decorative cordon.216

doubts its reliability) then the maker of this pipkin learned his trade in London. A pipkin rim fragment found by the writer on the foreshore of the River Thames at Southwark is visually identical in color, texture, glazing, and the treatment of its spout. Put together in the same box one would never believe that they were found an ocean apart and one would accept them as the work of the same craftsman. But they are different. Spectrographic testing on both showed that the alkali-to-titanium ratios for this example matched Tidewater clay, while those of the Thames sherd paralleled samples tested from a kiln site near Harlow, in the English county of Essex (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues in an Old Mystery,” p. 107, fig. 5-13). 216. This type is paralleled by a larger example from the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 1, no. 4) and in more general terms by a group of waste products found in the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 7–10). These last, however, are better made and characterized

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6 Alembic Provenance: C.G. 1773E [7181] Height: 13d˝ (33.34 cm) Spout bore: j˝ (0.79 cm) Complete save for a broken spout, which may have caused it to be discarded from the kiln without ever seeing service (Pt. I, Pl. 96); the ware is similar to that of no. 4 above, though the surface is evenly pink. Unquestionably the most accomplished piece of American potting yet discovered in Virginia, the vessel’s principal feature is a collarlike rim, which is turned up within itself to provide a channel for carrying distillate to the spout and ultimately into a receiver.217 The beehive-shaped dome is topped by an annullated finial having seven concentric rings, which

serve both as a grip and the vessel’s crowning adornment. A blob of greenish orange glaze has been dabbed on the apex, probably as an expression of achievement on the part of the potter. Glaze of the same color range coats the interior and pools on the rim. As noted under no. 4 above, scarring in the rim glaze matches that of the roofing tile fragment found with it. The dome’s exterior is ornamented with bands of multiple grooves, six close to the rim, six at the median, three more above it, and seven at the crown. The tubular spout widens at its junction with the dome, having been drawn out for luting to the wall, a step both reinforced and decorated with 12 small finger impressions.218

nos. 7–9 having distinctively dished rims with raised and rounded edges. The presumption might be that the cruder versions represented by the examples from Site A and from the Cattle Pond were made by a second potter trained by the first. It is not, however, an argument free from conflicting evidence. 217. Distilling furnace units came in four elements, namely: the furnace; the cucurbit, seated atop it and containing the material to be distilled; above that the alembic, within which the steam-borne distillate condensed; and lastly the receiver, into which, as the name implies, it was deposited. Cucurbits may be represented in Martin’s Hundred by two casserole-style vessels, one from the Fort’s Cattle Pond and the other from Site B (Figs. 1, no. 8; and 20, no. 12). Although alembics apparently of pottery are shown in Peter Bruegel the Elder’s ca. 1558 engraving The Alchemist, most early illustrations show them to have been either of glass or copper (e.g., Holbein’s ca. 1537 woodcut of another alchemist’s laboratory and the numerous draw

ings in Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory [1688] under the heading of distilling; see also I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 102, fig. 5-11). It should be noted that most early drawings of alembics show them with a simple ball-shaped finial and not the handsome, terraced cone created by the Martin’s Hundred potter. 218. Most, if not all, early alembic illustrations show them with long and curving spouts, which must, under any circumstances, have been extremely fragile. It seems quite likely, therefore, that this example’s spout was broken when extracting it from the kiln. Because the neck of the receiver had to fit over the mouth of the spout, once broken close to the dome, as this was, it would have been difficult if not impossible to jury-rig it. For several shape variations, all with long spouts, see Denis Diderot, Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (1751–1765), under the heading Chymie (pls. II, fig, 16; VI, fig. 74; and VII, figs. 77, 80–84).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 29

317

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 29 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7457] Height: 5c˝ (14.61 cm) The ware pinkish gray and orange in section; internal lead glaze appears ginger brown and has splashed onto the crest of the ear-shaped handle and the interior of the loop. The everted rim is slightly dished and squared externally. Multiple incised grooves extend from neck to girth, and the flat foot is externally rounded. The type is closely paralleled by an example from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 7, no. 2).219 2 Mug Provenance: C.G. 1736A [7458] Height: est. 4l˝ (11.59 cm) The ware pinkish buff, containing many small ochre flecks, and somewhat under fired; interior and exterior coated with greenish and orange-firing lead glaze heavily flecked with iron oxide derived in part from the clay but also from the deliberate inclusion of iron in the glaze itself. The vessel does a creditable job of copying the tortoise-shell glazed mugs common in southeast England in the same period. The shape, too, is the same, having a bulbous body separated from a short, collarlike neck by a single cordon. The handle is oval sectioned and springs from the shoulder. The mug’s base is characterized by a well-rounded footring.220 3 Mug Provenance: (base) C.G. 1822E; (rim) C.G. 1773D [7459]221 Height: est. 4l˝ (11.59 cm) Similar to no. 2 above, somewhat higher and more evenly fired; but interior and exterior iron-mottled lead glaze appears evenly ginger brown. The glaze has pooled at one side within the bottom, represent219. The strong similarity between some of the earthenwares from the Potter’s Pond and those from other Martin’s Hundred sites can be read in a variety of ways. However, the most logical is that some vessels made before the Indian attack of 1622 either escaped it or were subsequently salvaged and resumed what would be a relatively long life. 220. Catalogue of the Guildhall Museum(1908), pl. LXX, no. 11, p. 202, no. 467; Ivor Noël Hume, Archaeology in Britain: Observing the Past (1953), pp. 112–113, fig. XXVI, no. 8, attributed to the early-17th century. It should be noted that crossmending fragments of the mug’s base provide an important chronological association between Pits I–II. 221. It cannot be proven that the rim and base sherds come from the same vessel. All that can be said is that they are visual-

ing the residue left when pouring out the liquid glaze. The foot differs from no. 2 in that it has twice the depth and is therefore a more dominant feature. 4 Porringer Provenance: (rim and handle) C.G. 1781; (base) C.G. 1736B [7460]222 Diameter: est. rim 5k˝ (13.81 cm) The ware pink externally, buff in core, liberally dotted with ochre inclusions; glazed evenly, slightly greenish yellow. The ware’s ochre inclusions have had only a minimal effect on the character of the glaze, indicating that when the dapple is pronounced, it almost certainly is intentional. The bowl has two well-developed cordons above the girth; a flat, footless base; and a lateral, oval-sectioned handle, pressed and smeared downward against the lower wall. 5 Dish (?) or flowerpot stand Provenance: C.G. 1761B [7461] Diameter: est. 5i˝ (13.18 cm) Hard-fired redware, with some ochre inclusions; interior (upper surface) glazed with unintentionally mottled, greenish black lead glaze appearing purple where thin. The rim or wall flares slightly and is ridged internally above the flat base. The base is flat on the outside and markedly ridged by the impression of a wide-grained board, on which it stood when wet. Were this object not glazed on the inside one would unhesitatingly identify it as a lid (e.g., Fig. 6, nos. 2–3). It is conceivable that it is indeed a lid, but one associated with a specialized activity such as distilling. The suggested identification as a flowerpot stand is highly speculative. Although such stands occur in the eighteenth century in both earthenware and Rhenish ly identical—as well they might be if they were part of the same potting and firing batch. Only true crossmends can be accepted as firm evidence of locational relationships. In the present instance, one can do no more than suspect that Pit IX was open when Structure C was torn down and that the base fell into the posthole. It should be noted that no separation was observed between posthole and -mold. A third fragment (unillustrated) came from Pit II (C.G. 1736B). This mug type is well represented from Site D (Fig. 17, nos. 2–3) but is absent from the Potter’s Pond. 222. Although these sherds are from different features, and in spite of the reservations voiced above, there is very little likelihood that they are from different vessels.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

stoneware, there is no evidence that they were used in the seventeenth century, and no identifiable flowerpots have been found on Martin’s Hundred sites.223 6 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 1737D [7462] Diameter: est. rim 8f˝ (21.91 cm) The ware hard and pink, with much sand and occasional ochre inclusions; interior unevenly lead glazed. The rim is everted, rolled, and reinforced with a thumb-decorated strip beneath it. Three incised lines encircle the girth. Though found together in the same stratum, there is no proof that the rim and lower wall sherds are from the same vessel.224 7 Jug Provenance: C.G. 1736A/C [7463] Diameter: est. rim 2c˝ (6.99 cm) The neck reconstructed on the basis of overlapping but not all joining fragments; the ware pale pink, with ochre inclusions; exterior orange brownappearing lead glaze flecked with iron oxide, creating modified tortoise-shell style similar to that of no. 3 above. The glaze extends inside the neck, but is only the product of dipping the vessel into the liquid. A small vertical twig (?) had been trapped in the clay beneath the glaze and survives as a tubular impression. The jug has a straight neck and features a triple cordon, the uppermost cordon defining the rim. A single cordon also defines the shoulder, below which one (of perhaps several) girth-encircling groove remains. Nothing of the handle survives, but smearing and thickening at the luting joint below the rim attests to its original presence.225 8 Chafing dish Provenance: C.G. 1736A/B/D [7464] Diameter: est. rim 7f˝ (19.37 cm) Of considerable elaboration; the ware orange, with many ochre inclusions; ginger brown-appearing lead glaze, heavily dappled with iron oxide in the manner 223. Audrey Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener (1974), p. 59, fig. 38. 224. The type is represented among finds from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 10, no. 1). Variants from other Martin’s Hundred sites differ in the placement of lateral grooving much closer to their rims. 225. This jug is most closely (though not precisely) paralleled by an example from Site B (Fig. 21, no. 2). 226. For a French example of this period having rather similar dish supports, see Hurst et al., pp. 80 and 82, found in Amsterdam in a context attributed to 1575–1625. See John G. Hurst, “Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Imported Pottery from Saintonge” (1974), pp. 233–247 for an in-depth essay on French chafing dish types. Although difficult to make and vulnerable to firing damage, chafing dishes are relatively common among archaeological assemblages from the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a North Devon version from Jamestown (Cotter and Hudson, p. 179, pl. 77). Examples from kilns in neighboring Somersetshire are discussed and illustrated by

319

of nos. 3 and 7 above. The bowl is folded at the rim and pierced vertically, at a slight angle, by knife-cut slits that reach to the lower edge of the rounded rim. These slits do not occur all around the bowl. On the basis of the surviving fragments it seems that there may have been spaces of up to 3a˝ (8.89 cm) between group of slits f˝ (1.59 cm) apart. Elevated globular bosses (their number uncertain) were luted to the rim to provide separated support for dishes kept warm above the bowl’s smoldering charcoal. Nothing of the bowl’s bottom survives, but this, too, would have been slashed to permit draft to circulate upward from the hollow, pedestal foot. This last is unusual in that it evidently had three, rather than one, cut-out openings in its wall. The base projects beyond the pedestal and is decoratively cordoned. A smear of clay close to the top of the surviving pedestal fragment suggests that a handle may have been attached close to that point, almost certainly one of a pair of ear-shaped handles needed to move the vessel when hot with coals.226 9 Chafing dish Provenance: C.G. 1735A, 1736A, and 1737 [7465]227 Diameter: est. rim 7˝ (17.78 cm) The ware purplish gray on surface and orange pink in core, with occasional ochre inclusions; interior lead glaze appearing dark, mottled brown. The vessel is characterized by its flat and everted rim, which terminates in an upturned and rounded lip, a technique well represented among pipkin-style bowls from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 7, nos. 8–11).228 The rim was topped by dish or cover supports of uncertain character, luted to the lip far more crudely than were those for no. 8 above. The support shapes outlined in the figure are based on a comparable example found in excavations at nearby Kingsmill Plantation.229 The treatment of those supports bears a relationship to that of the surviving handle of this vessel, which strings upward from the girth, oval in section and smeared downward at its top. No vertical Allan (pp. 149–152), along with examples made at Exeter, south Devon (ibid., p. 155, nos. 1653–1656). The last of these is a sherd having the narrow vertical slits of this vessel. Another of the Exeter sherds has a dish support comparable to that of no. 9 below. As noted elsewhere (Fig. 30, n. 230), it remains a distinct possibility that Martin’s Hundred’s potter learned his craft in Devonshire. 227. This vessel provides a valuable crossmending relationship between three important pits. It is worth noting that the rim sherd from Pit II is heavily burned and has turned gray through atmospheric reduction, whereas the fragments from Pit III, to which it joins, are unburned and retain their original color. 228. Further examples are from Sites D (Fig. 17, no. 6) and B (Fig. 20, nos. 2–3). For a discussion of this example’s style source, see n. 226 above. 229. Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission’s excavations, KM.369A.

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vives among the bowl’s wall fragments, nor does any of its bottom. While the side slashes were not essential, those between the pedestal base and bowl bottom were necessary to draw air up through the coals.

Traces of one cut opening in the pedestal base survives, but there is no knowing whether there had been more. The basal reconstruction is derived from no. 8 above.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 30

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Figure 30 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 LOCAL EARTHENWARES 1 Bucket pot Provenance: C.G. 1773C [7466] Diameter: est. rim 8a˝ (21.59 cm) Handle and rim fragments; the ware pink on surface and varying through the section from buff to internal pink. The rim is everted and slightly dished internally, and the handle is crudely luted to it, smearing the clay over the rim both inside and out. Little of the rim’s exterior is visible due to application of the handle, but it would appear to have been squared and slightly undercut. The vessel’s principal feature is the pinching of the handle upward between thumb and forefinger to create a crested ridge. Fingerprints in the impressions indicate that the thumb held the roll steady while the forefinger applied the pressure and was drawn upward. Found in the same pit as the alembic (Fig. 28, no. 6), the finger work on both vessels suggests that they are products of the same craftsman.230 2 Lid Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7467] Diameter: 6d˝ (15.56 cm) Fragment; the ware soft orange, pinkish purple on surface, containing ochre particles; unglazed.231 3 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7468] Diameter: rim 5h˝ (12.86 cm) 230. Bucket pots with plain handles have been found on pottery kiln sites in Somersetshire (Allan, p. 151, fig. 65, no. 12), but the only example that I have been able to find with a pinched handle almost exactly paralleling this specimen was found in London and is in the collection of the Museum of London. There is, however, a bucket pot handle with three spaced pinchings from a kiln site in Exeter (Allan, p. 157, fig. 72, no. 1677). Although this craftsman, the “Goldsmith Street Potter,” appears to have been working in the early-16th century, the fact remains that pinching the handle (rather than was done on decorative ridge tiles) was not a technique totally foreign to Devon potters. Consequently, regardless of the convincing testimony of the London bucket pot, one cannot rule out the possibility that Martin’s Hundred’s potter had been apprenticed in Devonshire. See Fig. 29, n. 226, for further supporting evidence. Pinched-handled bucket pots were not peculiar to England. Gaimster (“Pottery Supply and Demand in the Lower Rhineland,” figs. 31 and 44) records two examples from Duisburg, Germany, one from a well in the Niederstrasse (1450–1525) and another from a brick-lined privy in the Schwanenstrasse (1585–1650), indicating that the type had a life of considerable duration.

Rim and wall fragments; the ware purplish gray on surface, ranging from orange to black in section; heavily burned, probably in use rather than manufacture; interior unevenly lead glazed, appearing dull brown. The rim is carefully and skillfully fashioned to seat a lid and shouldered below, projecting over a well-tooled ledge. This last is an unusual refinement. Three grooves at the girth provide a decorative double cordon, a feature characteristic of most of the Martin’s Hundred pipkins. Neither base nor handle survives.232 4 Tyg Provenance: C.G. 1749E [7469] Diameter: base 2c˝ (6.99 cm) The name given to tall, one-, two- or three-handled drinking pots, usually with blackish brown lead glaze over a red-to-purplish body. This is a poor, singlehandled imitation of such vessels; the body pink, with many ochre inclusions and low-temperature fired; interior and exterior unevenly glazed, ranging in color from dark to pale brown and flecked with iron oxide. The glazing is similar to that of the bulbous mugs from the same site (Fig. 29, nos. 2–3). The base expands into a rounded and padlike foot, above which the wall is ornamented with six cordons. Matching cordoning begins at the upper handle terminal, as is usual on English tygs.233 See also Fig. 20, no. 5.

There are fragments of another bucket pot’s pinched handle from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, nos. 1–2). The manufacturing techniques employed in creating the handle being the same in both the Site C and Site A examples, it is reasonable to conclude that they were the work of the same craftsman. But whether that means that both were made prior to the 1622 Indian attack or whether the Harwood site example was made by Thomas Ward in a postmassacre firing, no one can say. 231. The lid would have had some kind of central grip, probably in the style of an example from Site H (Fig. 14, no. 1). Two different and more elaborate handle types are represented among sherds from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 1–2). These lids were made by married pipkins, as is demonstrated by the Potter’s Pond examples. 232. Lidded pipkins of this general type were also found in the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 6, nos. 4–6), again pointing to a chronological association between Sites A and C. There is another locally made pipkin from Site B (Fig. 19, no. 6), but this is harder fired, more globular, and its lid-supporting collar is more developed. An English pipkin of this type is represented by a sherd from the enigmatic Site E (Fig. 18, no. 8). 233. While this example is more or less straight-sided and only begins to flare at the top of the handle (the only upper body

ARTIFACT CATALOG

5 Dish Provenance: C.G. 1735A [7470] Diameter: est. rim 8f˝ (21.91 cm) Vessel of uncertain character, but apparently sgraffito ornamented; rim sherd; the ware pink on surface, yellowish buff in section, with many ochre inclusions; upper surface coated with yellowish brown-appearing lead glaze. Although the site yielded hundreds of larger and more impressive sherds from locally made wares, this rim has been selected for illustration because it had broken either before glazing or in the firing and thus may be categorized as a second. A single incised and glaze-filled line is visible on the marly, and, assuming that this was intentional and part of an incuse rim decoration (in the matter of no. 6 below), the sgraffito ornamentation is presumed—but by no means proven. The rim itself is upturned and square cut, a style represented at Site A (Fig. 30, no. 6) and elsewhere.234 6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736B and G [7471] Diameter: est. rim 10i˝ (25.88 cm) Sgraffito decorated; the ware grayish-brown on exterior surface (one sherd individually burned) and dull red in section, body very sandy and containing occasional ochre and shell inclusions; glaze reddish brown and dappled with iron oxide specks. The incuse decoration appears to alternate around the wall between vertical triangles of scales and foliate forms, which include holly leaves. The basal ornament is unclear but includes triangular, star-point devices feathered at their edges, while the rim decoration is limited to interlocking arcs that combine to create alternate diamonds and lozenges. The rim is square cut

paralleled by a tyg of another type from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 5, no. 11), but too little of the wall survives to identify its shape. Base fragments from a two-handled tyg were found at the Governor’s Land Site (where Martin’s Hundred colonists were first settled), but although the vessel resembles the local products, it is categorized as “English Midlands blackware” (Outlaw, pp. 167–168, fig. 24, no. 31). For intact examples of English tyg forms, see I. Noël Hume, Archaeology in Britain, p. 115, fig. XXVII, no. 2; Catalogue of the Guildhall Museum, p. 211, no. 14, pl. LXX, no. 6; R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, “The Archaeology of the Bodleian Extension,” Oxoniensia, vol. IV (1939), pl. XIV, nos. 6–7, and p. 137, a pit at Oxford seemingly dating from the third quarter of the 17th century. 234. The Potter’s Pond (Figs. 6, nos. 7–9; and 7, nos. 8–11), Site B (Fig. 20, nos. 2–3), Site D (Fig. 17, no. 6), and Site H (Fig. 14, nos. 11–12). 235. Although the sgraffito technique was of European origin and probably goes back to the first time that a potter amused himself by drawing on wet clay, in 17th-century England it seems to have been most extensively employed in the West of England (e.g., Donyatt in Somerset and Barnstaple, Fremington, and Bideford in north Devon; see also Figs. 23–24), where the technique continued through the centuries, particularly in the form of harvest wares (jug, owls, etc.). See

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and upturned at the lip, in the manner of no. 5 above.235 7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1774A236 and 1773B [7472] Diameter: base 4˝ (10.16 cm) Sgraffito decorated; base fragment; the ware and decoration identical to no. 6 above, but the design rendered significantly smaller. A little more of the bottom ornament survives, showing that the star points terminate in fleur de lis-like scrolls or elaves and there was a hatched design toward the center. 8 Dish Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7473] Width: 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Slip decorated; body sherd; the body similar in color and texture to nos. 6–7 above, exterior blackened by fire. A marginally finer (and lighter firing) clay has been used to create the decoration, resulting in a more yellowish brown against the dark brown appearance of the overall lead glaze. The ornament comprises a circular group of dots, a crested device of uncertain character, and a leaflike motif similar to the sgraffito holly leaf of no. 6.237 9 Dish Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7847] Diameter: est. rim 11l˝ (29.37 cm) Slip decorated; rim sherd, probably part of no. 8 above; the ware orange pink on surface and a lighter shade in section, but contains the strong quartz sand inclusions characteristic of sgraffito-decorated specimens. The marly is slip decorated in parallel bars, and the bowl with a row of dots over a crownlike device.238 The lip is square cut externally and slightly

Hodgkin and Hodgkin, p. 58, for an example dated 1680 that used single arcs to ornament its marly. Sgraffito wares of very similar character are well represented at Site B, where the bowl’s scale decoration is paralleled by Fig. 22, no. 9, and the interlocking marly ornament by Fig. 22, no. 10. It should be noted that no sgraffito wares were recovered from the Potter’s Pond. 236. This posthole-postmold unit is sequentially questionable in that the hole developed into a large, dished area surrounding the post, perhaps dug out by fowls or hogs scratching around it. The fill (C.G. 1774A) overlay the postmold, but one cannot be sure that it was not disturbed by erosion after the building disappeared. It can be said with certainty, however, that, although from the hole surrounding the post, the bowl fragments were not in the original post-surrounding backfill. 237. Leaf decoration was not uncommon on 17th-century slipwares, any more than were groupings of dots. For other examples, see Fig. 22, nos. 14–17. 238. The style of decoration and the method of applying it is identical to that of the 1631 dishes from Site B (Fig. 22, nos. 1–6). It also occurs at Site H (Fig. 14, nos. 12–13), evidence strongly suggesting reoccupation there in the postmassacre period. Other sherds were found at Site E (Fig. 18, nos. 6–7).

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rounded at the top, extending to a groove that separates it from the marly. At the latter’s junction with the wall there is a pronounced ridge that steps abruptly down to the bowl. 10 Dish Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7475] Diameter: est. rim 10k˝ (26.51 cm)

Slip decorated; rim sherd; all details the same as no. 9 above, save for the fact that the marly is narrower and its ornamental slip-applied bars run at a slight angle, as though applied when the dish was still moving on the wheel.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 31

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Figure 31 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 LOCAL AND IMPORTED (?) EARTHENWARES 239 1 Pan Provenance: C.G. 1736A [7476] Diameter: est. rim 16˝ (40.65 cm) The body orange red, occasionally flecked with ochre; upper (interior) surface thinly lead glazed and appearing purplish brown. The rim and marly are everted and flattened at the inner lip, which, in turn, is slightly undercut. The rim is externally rounded.240 2 Pan Provenance: C.G. 1737A [7477] Diameter: est. rim 18b˝ (46.36 cm) The body orange red, occasionally flecked with ochre; upper (interior) surface coated with deep green glaze that turns purplish brown when thin. The ware is thicker than no. 1 above, but the shape exhibits the same turned-up rim, while lacking the flattening and undercutting at the inner lip.241 3 Pan Provenance: C.G. 1737A [7478] Diameter: rim 15i˝ (38.58 cm) The ware pale pink, with shell inclusions; upper (interior) surface with greenish brown lead glaze. The rim is flat, everted, slightly upturned, and provided with a spout created by drawing the rim downward with the thumb. Below, at the girth, there is a sharp ridge that is slightly mirrored on the inside of the wall, which slopes inward to a flat base. 4 Pan Provenance: C.G. 1773D [7479] Diameter: est. rim 15˝ (38.10 cm) Form similar to no. 3 above; but the ware harder fired, pink on exterior, and orange red in section;

239. With the exception of no. 5 below, all are thought to be of Tidewater Virginian manufacture. 240. This rim form is well represented among pans and other vessels from the Potter’s Pond (e.g., Figs. 6, nos. 7–9; and 7, nos. 8–10). But it is not a style unique to Martin’s Hundred. For examples made in the Surrey-Hampshire border kilns, see Jacqueline Pearce, Post-Medieval Pottery in London 1500–1700, vol. I (1992), p. 48, figs. 19–20. 241. This pan’s body and glaze color are almost exactly paral-

coated with ginger brown lead glaze. The surviving fragments are burned, probably as the result of household usage.242 5 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7480] Diameter: est. rim 10˝ (25.40 cm) The ware buff to gray, thick and poorly potted; interior coated with lead glaze, ranging in appearance from black to dark olive green. The rim is slightly thickened and rounded, and a zone of shallow grooves encircles the wall 2˝ (5.08 cm) below it. Crude though this bowl is, its color and character suggest that it is imported, possibly from southeastern England. 6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736D [7481] Diameter: rim 11h˝ (28.10 cm) Complete; the ware orange red, with some ochre flecking; interior lead glaze appearing reddish brown. The wall flares and extends to a flattened rim, and the base is flat. 7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1760E, 1771A and D, and 1761B [7482]243 Diameter: est. rim 10˝ (25.40 cm) The ware orange, badly underfired, with occasional shell and ochre inclusions; interior coated with orange brown-appearing lead glaze that adheres poorly to the very soft body. The rim is slightly dished on the inside, but otherwise has the appearance of a product whose potter ran out of talent.

leled by a potter-repaired dish from Site E (Fig. 18, no. 1). There is every reason to conclude that both are from the same kiln and firing. 242. The flat and everted rim forms of nos. 3–4, coupled with their distinctive girth ridges, are closely paralleled by examples from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 8, nos. 3–5). 243. The crossmending association provided by the sherds of this bowl supply an important link between the filling of the Barn/Cellar and Pit X, which lies ca. 85’ to the east.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 32

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Figure 32 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 IMPORTED KITCHEN WARES 1 Storage jar Provenance: C.G. 1735A and C, and 1736 A–B and D [7483] Diameter: est. base 6˝ (15.24 cm) Purple stoneware body; brownish slip on exterior surface and thick, treacly black (manganese?) lead glaze on interior base and lower wall. The rim is flat on the top and concavo-convex below, and the wall interior is markedly ribbed. 244 These jars are traditionally attributed to Staffordshire.

Grayish buff earthenware, gray on exterior due, presumably, to fireplace usage, buff beneath, and pale pink toward interior; sealed beneath olive green lead glaze. The neck is slightly everted, and the rim externally folded and tooled to the wall, leaving a deep, below-the-lip groove. Although the rim sherds are of the same ware and glaze color as those of the base, their glaze has a higher gloss, rendering it likely that the top and bottom are not from the same example. English, but locality uncertain.245

2 Storage or cooking jar Provenance: (rim) C.G. 1737K and 1749C; (base) C.G. 1737G [7484] Diameter: base 4g˝ (12.38 cm)

244. For details of these so-called butter pots, see examples from Site H (Fig. 15, nos. 3–7 and n. 98). Others were found in the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 3, no. 6) and at Site D (Fig. 17, no. 16). 245. The jar’s body and glaze colors suggest that it is a product of a kiln in southeastern England, probably Surrey. However, no parallel for the very distinctive rim form has been found

among published specimens from that region. Crossmending sherds from this vessel serve to associate Pits III–IV, while other crossmending relationships connect Pit III to Pits I–II. It would seem, therefore, that all the pits along Site A’s perimeter were open and being filled contemporaneously, perhaps as the result of tree removal, certainly prior to erecting the outer fence trench, which cuts across the fill of Pit IV.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 33

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Figure 33 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 IMPORTED EARTHENWARES 1 Costrel Provenance: C.G. 1776B [7179] Height: 7n˝ (19.85 cm) The body pale yellow in color, low fired; thinly coated above girth with thin lead glaze, containing tin and therefore semiopaque (Pt. I, Pl. 94). Sealed beneath the glaze, the upper wall on one side is decorated with a blue (cobalt)-slipped star created from four intersecting brush strokes. The bottle’s principal characteristics are its two strap handles (one missing), their bases secured by pinching and impressing with thumb, index, and second fingers; flattened sides; and crudely formed foot. The cylindrical neck is cordoned below the rim and at the shoulder. Iberian.246 2 Costrel Provenance: C.G. 1773F [8105]247 Girth: 4m˝ (11.91 cm) Incomplete; but generally similar to no. 1 above, save for the fact that the foot is not defined, the handle terminals are extended, and the underglaze star is painted in reddish brown (iron oxide slip) rather than in blue. Iberian. 3 Costrel Provenance: C.G. 1776B [7485]248 Girth: 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Incomplete; but similar to nos. 1–2 above; little glaze surviving and only a trace of a red brown star. The foot is defined in the manner of no. 1. Iberian. 246. These poor-quality vessels were a major Iberian export in the first half of the 17th century and are common on early colonial archaeological sites in Virginia. At least two more-orless complete examples are recorded from Jamestown (Cotter and Hudson, p. 184, pl. 82) as having been “found in the fill of Structure 112.” That building burned in 1680, but according to Cotter and Hudson most of the artifacts dated from the 17th century’s second quarter. An “unprovenanced” example in the collection of the Museum of London (MoL no. 84.431/18) is attributed by Hurst et al. (pp. 63–64, fig. 75) to Seville and a date in the first half of the 17th century. Hurst does not explain why these starred costrels are “thought to be a later product of the Seville kilns.” Although he cites only the single London specimen, fragments are common among the sherds littered along both banks of the Thames in its City reaches. An intact specimen without any underglaze star, almost certainly derived from a City building site, was purchased by the writer from a London street market. On one side are the deeply scratched initials IE, suggesting that, in the mind of at least one Londoner, ownership of such a bottle was worth specifying. No examples have yet been found in the ca. 1610 levels of Jamestown. Note that no. 3 below was found lying beside no. 1.

4 Jar Provenance: C.G. 1917A [7486] Diameter: rim 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Mouth and shoulder; the surface yellowish buff over pink body, heavily sand tempered. The mouth is reinforced with additional clay and drawn downward to create an underlying collar capable of holding cord tied to keep a stopper in place. Iberian.249 5 Lid Provenance: C.G. 1760E [7489] Diameter: 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Probably for a pipkin; the ware buff, containing much fine sand;250 coated on upper side and over incuse rim with green lead glaze. Netherlandish. 6 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1760A [7180] Height: 5d˝ (13.02 cm) The ware buff, containing much fine sand; interior lead glaze appearing bright yellow; exterior glazed over copper green slip reaching only to a point just below the girth. The vessel has three unglazed feet, and its green-glazed handle is pinched at the crown, a detail characteristic of this ware. The rim is everted, dished internally, square cut on the outside and then impressed into a shallow V, and square cut below at its junction with the wall, the latter decorated with eight pronounced ridges.251 South Netherlands.

247. An upper body fragment of another red-star costrel was found in the same pit (C.G. 1773D), along with parts of two handles, one of them with spots of cobalt in its tin glaze. 248. Note that this costrel was found in close association with no. 1 above. 249. The neck and lip form belong to Goggin’s type D in his “Middle Style,” which unfortunately embraces a time-span too wide to be useful, to wit: 1580–1780 (Goggin, pp. 263–270). 250. The fabric is similar to that of nos. 10–11 below, although the sand is slightly coarser. 251. This important pipkin is paralleled in color, handle construction, and rim character by sherds from another vessel found in Pit X (C.G. 1761C [8541]). The illustrated pipkin is important in that it represents the survival of an essentially medieval metallic form, which deteriorated in a definable sequence through the middle decades of the 17th century, ending in the bulbous vessel depicted in 1660 by Jan Steen in his painting now called The Poultry Yard. A transitional example bought in England is in the Colonial Williamsburg collection (C.W. 1982-83). For illustrations of this evolutionary sequence, see Ivor Noël Hume, Discoveries in Martin’s Hundred (1987), p.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1761A [7490] Diameter: est. rim 6a˝ (16.51 cm) The ware buff, heavily sanded, akin to those of nos. 5–6 above; interior and exterior coated with “clear” lead glaze, whose yellowish color is imparted to the vessel. The wall flares gently to a slightly thickened rim, flattened on the top and notched into a piecrust lip created by tooling inward and upward from the outer edge. Netherlandish or perhaps Santionge. 8 Dish or small bowl Provenance: C.G. 1760B and 1761A [7487] Diameter: est. rim 6c˝ (17.15 cm) North Italian slipware; 252 dense red body; ornamented on upper surface with white marbleizing under lead glaze; exterior also glazed, appearing rich brown under it. The rim and marly are everted, and a sharp ridge encircles the wall below. In all probability the dish possessed a base and footring combination akin to that of no. 9 below. 9 Dish or bowl Provenance: C.G. 1760B and 1771B [7488] Diameter: footring 2a˝ (6.35 cm) North Italian slipware; base fragment; the body dense and red; white marbleized slip splashed with

25, figs. 13–14. This pipkin was missing one side, leaving the possibility that the lost piece included a second handle. A pipkin of similar size and shape, but in glazed redware, is in the author’s collection. Found in Holland, it, too, exhibits the pinched handle characteristic—but has a pair of them. The decision to restore this specimen with but one handle is based on the evidence of a somewhat later example bought in London and now in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection (C.W. 1983-83) and on Jan Steen’s 1660 painting. However, an earlier example in redware, found in upstate New York, is a closer parallel and has but one handle (Pt. I, Pl. 65). 252. This north Italian marbleized slipware is well represented in archaeological contexts attributable to the second quarter of the 17th century and may be considered a viable dating criterion. There are numerous examples from Jamestown; see Cotter

331

copper on upper surface under interior and exterior lead glaze that appears deep red brown. The vessel possesses a shallow footring with the base raised within it, exhibiting multiple turned grooves and ridges. 10 Pipkin Provenance: C.G. 1802B [9001] Width: sherd 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Shoulder sherd;253 the ware pinkish red; slip decorated in diagonal strokes appearing bright yellow under ginger brown lead glaze. North Netherlands. 11 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8539] Diameter: est. rim 5b˝ (13.34 cm) North Italian sgraffito slipware;254 the body dense and red; interior coated with white slip with sgraffito decoration in concentric circles and other indeterminate devices, which beneath the lead glaze appear dark brown. The slip extends to the edge of the everted rim and is adorned with patches of green-appearing copper oxide. The naturally yellowish lead glaze is thick on the rim’s upper surface and covers the exterior, giving it a high gloss that ranges from pale ginger brown below the rim to dark purplish brown over the lower wall. This last extends to its junction with the lost footring.

and Hudson (p. 185, pl. 83) who, writing more than 30 years ago, identified them as English. The largest collection of the ware yet discovered in America was found by an amateur antiquary hunting along the James River at Newport News in the early 1930s. Known as the Knowles Collection, this important but still unpublished assemblage is now in Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeological collection. For the seminal analysis of these marbled wares, see Hurst et al., pp. 33–37. 253. The identification of this sherd as coming from the shoulder of a pipkin is purely conjectural, based on the fact that pipkins rather than the earlier two-handled cooking pots seem to have been most favored among English imports in the early17th century (Hurst et al., pp. 130–135). 254. These sgraffito wares are attributed to Pisa, 1575–1625 (Hurst et al., pp. 30–33). However, it seems likely that the range extends into the second quarter of the 17th century.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 34

ARTIFACT CATALOG

333

Figure 34 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 IMPORTED STONEWARES AND TIN-GLAZED EARTHENWARES 1 Chamber pot Provenance: C.G. 1760B [7491] Diameter: rim 7b˝ (18.42 cm) Rhenish stoneware; the body gray; light mottled brown saltglaze on exterior, but pale pink within. The rim is almost flat; the body undecorated save for a slight groove above the girth. The handle is secured beneath the rim and anchored at its base with applied pads both inside and outside the loop. The wall slopes in to a flat base, which exhibits pulling marks on its underside. A prefiring chip sealed under the glaze mars the inside of the rim and suggests that in wares of this caliber quality was less a factor than availability.255

with dots and chevrons, all within a ropelike border. It is important to note that the medallions were applied before the bottle was closed at the top, permitting the potter to brace the interior with his fingers while applying the sprig mold to the outside. 257 Pulling marks are present on the base, and the neck exhibits a pair of wide cordons separated by two grooves. Part of the thickening associated with the handle survives on the rim fragment. 258 Probably Frechen.

2 Bartmann bottle Provenance: C.G. 1771A and 1761B [7492] Diameter: base 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Reconstructed from overlapping fragments; the stoneware gray under mottled brown saltglaze, which turns greenish gray toward base and below iron oxide slip. Variations in color density indicate firing in a sagger having side ports, as would later be common among English stone saggers of the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.256 The wall had been decorated with three sprig-applied medallions of notable crudity, whose ornamentation can best be described as exploded rosettes. Each has a central disc resembling a Catherine wheel with four pairs of scroll-like fronds radiating from it, the spaces between infilled

4 Jug or mug Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7189] Diameter: girth 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Westerwald stoneware; the body gray; saltglazed; decorated in cobalt blue around sprigged rosettedecorated discs. These comprise a zigzag outer band around a ring of dots, within which is an incluse, sixpetalled flower. The vessel’s base is expanded and rounded below a zone ornamented (beginning above the foot) as follows: two grooves topped by a blue band, followed by a chevron-ornamented cordon, followed by another blue band, then two grooves, and another chevron cordon. This elaboration is similar to that at the base of the neck of no. 3 above.259

255. Although in the 18th century chamber pots would become a mainstay of the Rhenish blue-on-gray stoneware industry, surviving examples in England and America from the first half of the 17th century are extremely rare—perhaps because relatively few sites of this period have been excavated and published. Rarer still, however, are Rhenish stoneware chamber pots without cobalt decoration. Indeed this vessel is the only one recorded from an American colonial-era site. In Europe, however, gray-to-brown stoneware chamber pots occur both in archaeological reports and in museum collections (e.g., the Keramik Museum at Frechen). Gaimster illustrates an example from the fill of a brick-lined latrine of ca. 1585–1650 (“Pottery Supply and Demand in the Lower Rhineland,” fig. 31) and another from a pit group of ca. 1600–1675 (ibid., fig. 26, no. 9). The dearth of such chamber pots from English sites may be explained in either or both of two ways: 1) unlike Bartmann bottles such utilitarian wares were not exported in any significant numbers, or 2) plain brown or gray fragments do not “read” easily and may have been ignored. 256. Ivor Noël Hume, Here Lies Virginia [1963], p. 222, fig. 84. 257. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it has long been assumed that medallions were luted to Bartmann bottles

after the vessels were complete and sun dried. It is possible, however, that the technique exhibited here was an anomalous process peculiar to a minority of craftsmen, for the majority of broken Bartmanns show no finger pressure to their walls behind the medallions. 258. Dating criteria based on style have proved unreliable in dealing with Bartmann bottles (e.g., the Holmes [pp. 173–179] mask typology, so convincingly unhorsed by the 1628 cargo of the wrecked Batavia [Stanbury, mask types A–F]). Nevertheless it remains true that bases were made smaller and the bottles proportionately taller and more pear-shaped as the 17th century progressed. But that does not mean that those with wide bases (like this vessel) did not enjoy a long life. A comparable three-medallion bottle similar in shape and with medallions of generally similar character appears in a painting of tavern musicians by the Haarlem artist Adriean van Ostade (1610–1684) and must therefore have been in use (at least as a studio prop) mid-century (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” pp. 98–99, fig. 5-8). 259. The decorative and firing similarities exhibited by this base and the neck from the Fort’s well suggest that they are parts of the same vessel. It is more likely, however, that they are

3

Jug or mug Westerwald stoneware; neck and handle fragments, found in the Fort’s well but believed to be associated with no. 4 below. For details, see Fig. 4, no. 2.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

5 Can Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7493] Diameter: rim 3˝ (7.62 cm) Gray-bodied stoneware; cordoned below the rim and decorated with two lateral cobalt bands, each under a projecting cordon. The neck survives only at its junction with the handle and therefore no hint of the vessel’s decoration remains. The vessel’s interpretation as a tall, cylindrical drinking vessel is based on several factors: a thinness and diameter greater than that found on globular jugs, and the width and strength of the handle, which parallels examples of cylindrical drinking vessels made in the Westerwald district in the early-seventeenth century.260 The handle exhibits the remains of a now-unidentifiable circular stamp on the top of the handle, which may either be decorative or a seating to secure the hinge of a pewter lid. The edge of another encircling cordon is visible at the lower extremity of the sherd. 6 Jug Provenance: C.G. 1760B [8113] Diameter: base 3i˝ (8.10 cm) Westerwald stoneware; the body basically gray, exhibiting thin pale yellow streak in core and comparable yellow surface to interior; exterior standard mottled bluish gray characteristic of cobalt-decorated Rhenish stonewares. Although all that survives is the base, the two cordons and the intervening blue band that separate it from the decorated and bulbous body are enough to identify the vessel as having been one of good quality. However, the absence of any chevron or other molding to the upper cordon is strong indication that this is not an early specimen, but one that dates toward the middle of the seventeenth century261—thus one of the latest datable artifacts from Site A and potentially the key determinator for dating the filling of the Barn/Cellar. 7 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 1735A [7494] Width: surv. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) London (?) delftware; handle; the ware yellow under thick, white tin glaze. The flat, trefoil-shaped handle is pierced by two heart-shaped openings and

two from the same batch. A pit group from North Street, Exeter, published by Allan (p. 191, nos. 2320 and 2322) included the bases from two jugs of this type, but unfortunately the assemblage included tobacco pipes of types ranging ca. 1610–1700. Gisela Reineking-von Bock (Steinzug [1971]) attributes larger varieties of this sprigdecorated type to the second half of the 17th century (e.g., no. 511), but this quite clearly is not true of the Martin’s Hundred examples, which were in use there ca. 1620–1630. 260. Reineking-von Bock, no. 452. 261. Ibid., no. 484. 262. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, fig. XIV, nos. 4–6. 263. Rafael Salinas Calado, Portugese Faience 1600–1660 (1987),

beyond them by an impressed dot, which may or may not have been intended to penetrate through the handle, as did the hearts.262 8 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1761B [7495] Diameter: 8c˝ (22.23 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; the body pinkish buff; decorated in underglaze blue on wall and marly with simplistic pattern of radiating lines alternately wide and narrow, the latter hooked to the former to suggest two-sided petals. These reach to the rim and here and there overlie the wide and lighter blue line that covers the edge. Insufficient survives of the central motif to be sure of its character, although it evidently was contained within two concentric blue lines. The back of the plate exhibits a more-or-less square-cut footring, with the base raised and flat within it. The wall curves sharply upward to the equally sharply everted marly. The back is thickly tin glazed and slightly yellow in tone, the glaze somewhat crazed and pitted with air holes, and three long brush strokes created seemingly meaningless dashes up both wall and marly—all features characteristic of this ware.263 9 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1736A [7496] Diameter: est. rim 7c˝ (19.69 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; its tin glaze and shape similar to no. 8 above; differing only in that the marly is narrower and slightly dished. The decoration, though reminiscent of no. 8, reduces the width of its wall and marly decoration, leaving a much wider blank (white) area between it and the bottom’s central design. Insufficient of the latter survives for it to be identified. The radiating wall lines, instead of being made up from pairs of thick and thin blue brush strokes, are straight, broad dashes separated by wriggling, thinner lines. Both begin at a pair of concentric circles defining the junction of wall and bottom and extend out toward the rim, reaching and sometimes overlying a broad, pale blue band, beyond which is another, thinner and terminating, circle. The back is glazed similarly to no. 8,

pp. 28 and 32–33, nos. 1 and 5, attributed to ca. 1600–1625. This Portuguese ware has been found in excavations at Bristol (unpublished) and Exeter (Allan, pp. 191, no. 2282; and 194, fig. 103, no. 2282), allegedly in a context of ca. 1680–1690. A sherd found by the author on an upland trail on the island of St. Kitts is significant in that the island was not settled until 1636 and so provides a valuable terminus post quem for the arrival there of this distinctive Portuguese export (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 100, fig. 5-9). The ware is also well represented among ceramics found in 1987 excavations at Hampton, Virginia (Andrew C. Edwards et al., Hampton University Archaeological Project: A Report on the Findings [1989], pp. 189–192, pls. 26–29).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

but no blue dashes are visible on the two surviving fragments. 10 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1771D [9002] Width: sherd 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; its ware, glazing, and color as nos. 8–9 above; a central base sherd decorated with hatching in both wide and narrow lines.264 11 Fireplace or skirting tile Provenance: C.G. 1771B [7497]

264. Calado, p. 36, no. 7, a covered (?) bowl decorated with comparable hatching and attributed to ca. 1600–1625. 265. I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 21. 266. Available evidence, largely negative, suggests that these single-figure tiles are more likely to be Dutch than English; see

335

Width: fragment 2f” (6.67 cm) Thickness: e˝ (0.95 cm) The ware buff, with ochre flecks; tin-glazed on upper surface with thin runs extending over edges. The sides are slightly chamfered to permit mortar to grip while letting the fronts of adjacent tiles abut snugly. A small pin hole is present in the surviving corner, this a control for the cutter’s template.265 The corner exhibits the “oxhead” device common to tiles of this type,266 while the central motif features a male figure standing to left.

Korf (Dutch Tiles [1964], p. 121), who attributes the small oxhead corner motif to the second rather than to the first half of the 17th century. Examples from Jamestown are illustrated by Cotter and Hudson (p. 172, pl. 70, lower right).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 35

ARTIFACT CATALOG

337

Figure 35 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 IMPORTED TIN-GLAZED WARES 1 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1760A and 1771A [7498] Width: sherd 2˝ (5.08 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; rim and marly fragments; the ware pale yellow; thickly glaze coated on back and front; upper surface painted in Wan Li (?) style in two tones of blue and underside slashed with one or more cobalt stripes. This is essentially the same ware as Fig. 34, nos. 8–10, and possibly part of the same plate as no. 5 below.267 2 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1771D and 1737J [7499] Length: rim sherd 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; of small size; the ware as no. 1 above; the wall or marly decorated with fronds and other devices in two tones of blue, circled below the rim with a double cobalt line and two concentric circles at junction of wall and base. The plate stands on a very small, V-shaped footring and is splashed with occasional blue stripes on the exterior. 3 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1761B [7500] Width: sherd 2˝ (5.08 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; the ware and two-tone cobalt coloring as nos. 1–2 above. The rim is externally folded and decorated on its upper surface with dark cobalt dashes over a lighter encircling stripe, and the wall below ornamented with panels of decoration that include zones of concentric arcs.

267. This Portuguese ware, other examples of which are illustrated in Fig. 34, nos. 8–10, have been found only at Site A, most of them in the vicinity of the Barn/Cellar. Just as the sgraffito-decorated North Devon slipwares are characteristic of Site B, so these faience sherds are peculiar to Site A. The definition of these wares as faience rather than maiolica, as used for Spanish tin-glazed wares, is generally applied to the wares after c. 1600. 268. Although frequently blue-dashed in the Dutch and English delftware manner, the oval-sectioned folded rims common to Portuguese bowls of this type and period do not occur on those wares. A comparable bowl is represented by fragments found in Hampton, Virginia, in 1987 (Edwards et al., p. 192, pl. 29). 269. Possibly associated with no. 1 above, though not from the same context. 270. The majority of published Portuguese faience vessels exhibit designs carefully copied or adapted from Chinese porcelain. So far, however, most of the specimens published from

4 Bowl or shallow pan Provenance: C.G. 1771D [7501] Width: sherd 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; the ware, glaze, and rim decoration as nos. 1–3 above; the wall ornamented in wide and narrow cobalt stripes, perhaps in Wan Li style. The angle of the wall dictated by the positioning of the interior rim stripe suggests that the vessel was very shallow. Nevertheless the presence of the oval-sectioned, folded rim indicates that this was a bowl form rather than a plate.268 5 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1770A [7502] Length: sherd 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; base sherd; the ware pale yellow; underside’s tin-glaze somewhat yellow in contrast to the white ground of upper surface. The latter is heavily decorated in light and dark cobalt, perhaps in a pomegranate pattern.269 6 Plate Provenance: C.G. 1761B [7503] Length: sherd 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware; base sherd; the ware yellow toward upper surface and slightly pink at underside, whose tin-glaze heavily bubbled. The upper surface is unusually pitted and undulating, and heavily cobalt decorated in an indeterminate floral or foliate pattern.270

American excavations are far less sophisticated, their painters being content with essentially geometric borders and floral and foliate central motifs that became more sloppily drawn in the second quarter of the 17th century—as may be said of all the Fig. 35 examples. For examples of the later varieties, see Calado, figs. 37–38. The finest example of good-quality Portuguese faience yet recovered in America is in the collection of the Virginia State Preservation Office and was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1982 (Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent, eds., New England Begins: The Seventeenth Century (1982), vol. 2, pp. 277 and 279, fig. 272a). Although attributed to ca. 1630–1660, the use of manganese as well as cobalt in the painting would seem to place it into the third quarter of the 17th century (Calado, figs. 43–48). One wonders whether the apparently simultaneous adoption of manganese as a supporting color by Westerwald stoneware decorators is more than coincidental. It had, however, been in use among English delftware potters by the beginning of the 17th century (I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, p. 13, pl. 5).

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7 Plate or dish Provenance: C.G. 1736A/B [7504] Diameter: 10˝ (25.41 cm) Tin-glazed earthenware; rim sherds; the ware pink, with multiple ochre and sand inclusions, rendering back glaze extremely rough surfaced. The lead glaze used there contains no tin, and its own yellow color, coupled with the pink body beneath, result in a striking and singularly unattractive orange brown exterior. The upper (interior) surface is tin-glazed (although the result is drab, bluish gray) and ornamented with wide and narrow concentric circles in two tones of cobalt blue. Perhaps Spanish. 8 Dish Provenance: C.G. 1601 [7505] Width: sherd 2˝ (5.08 cm) Polychrome London delftware; the ware yellow, with ochre and sand inclusions (some of the latter

271. Illustrated in color in I. Noël Hume, Early English Delftware, pp. 37 and 34 (where the Excavation Register number is cited as C.G. 601 instead of C.G. 1601). 272. The use of green is uncommon among London-made ointment pots and jars, the palette usually being limited to

large and translucent); exterior lead glazed, upper surface thickly tin-glazed and markedly crazed. The rim is decorated with a band of pale green, below which are three blue stripes with white ground between, and below them the beginning of a swagged ornament in two tones of blue with the edge of another device in pale orange.271 9 Ointment jar Provenance: C.G. 1773C [7506] Diameter: est. rim 3˝ (7.62 cm) Polychrome London delftware; the ware yellowish buff; tin-glazed interior and exterior; decorated on shoulder with zone of cobalt dots between two bands of blue, and below them the beginning of a line in bright green. 272 The rim is slightly everted and squared downward toward its outer edge.

cobalt blue, antimony yellow to orange, and manganese purple. For a detailed description of potters’ color sources, see Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, and A. R. Hall, eds., A History of Technology (1957), vol. III, pp. 702–703.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 36

339

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 36 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 (nos. 1–5); the Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–22 (nos. 6a/b); and John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 (no. 7) GLASS CASE BOTTLES 273 1 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 1816C [7507] Height: 7a˝ (19.05 cm) The metal green but blackened by decay; square sectioned; well-formed basal kick, but no pontil scar; the wall slightly expanding to the shoulder, and the neck straight and its rim everted. 2 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 1771E [7178] Height: 11j˝ (28.73 cm) The metal bluish green; square sectioned; base thick, with pronounced pontil scar; the wall very thin and straight, thickening at the shoulder into a slightly constricted neck and thence into an everted lip. 3 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 1770A [7508] Height: surv. 9a˝ (24.13 cm)

273. Although the evolution of the English glass wine bottle from ca. 1650 onwards has been studied and reported on at excruciating length, very little has been written about the straightsided and square-sectioned bottles that preceded the globular forms. The explanation for this omission is simple: there is little to be said. Too few closely datable Elizabethan features have been excavated to be sure that the so-called case bottle did not become common in the late-16th century. It is more likely, however, that its market appeal was first recognized in the early-17th century, when English glassmaking evolved from a cottage industry into a major manufacturing enterprise managed by London-based monopoly holders controlling both imports and their own glasshouses. The few archaeological deposits that can be attributed to the early-17th century suggest that in the first two decades, bottles and flasks of the often exotic forms used by distillers and pharmacists predominated and it was not until ca. 1620 that bottling, storing, and shipping beer, wines, and other liquors in case bottles became commonplace (Ivor Noël Hume, “A Century of London Glass Bottles, 1580–1680,” Connoisseur Year Book, 1956 [1956], pp. 98–101, pl. 2-11). Thus, for example, in 1624 the Household Books of Naworth Castle (cited by Sheelah Ruggles-Brise, Sealed Bottles [1949], p. 27) listed “xix quartes of seck [sack] to fill the sellers of glasses” (also listed were mirrors and drinking vessels); the cited “sellers” were not subterranean chambers but compartmented wicker or wooden containers that became, in the 18th century, the often still-surviving case bottle cellarettes and chests. The frailty of the early bottles’ thin, cornered, vertical sides made them extremely fragile and protective boxing essential. This was a collective measure paralleling the individual wicker or straw coverings on globular bottles of glass and stoneware imported into England from Western Europe.

The metal olive green; square sectioned; basal kick thick, with rough pontil scar; the walls thin and straight, and the neck missing. 4 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 1773C [7509] Height: 8m˝ (22.07 cm) The metal dark green; square sectioned; basal kick shallow, with no pontil scar; the side straight, the neck somewhat incuse, and the lip weakly everted. 5 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 1760B [7510] Height: 9a˝ (24.13 cm) Of the type intended to be fitted with a pewter collar and screw cap; 274 the metal medium green; 275 square sectioned; basal kick high, but without pontil scar; the sides thin, straight, and thickened to a short

Although no specific shapes are mentioned, it is evident that bottle making was an important facet of the monopoly holders’ production control. Sir Robert Mansell’s patent, obtained by him in 1623, included the making of “bottles, violls or vessels whatsoever made of glass of any fashion stuff matter or metal.” That does not, however, imply a new development within the industry but rather the legal securing of control of items already in production by the previous monopoly holder, Sir Edward Zouche, who had been granted it in 1615 and on whose board Mansell was to serve (I. Noël Hume, “A Century of London Glass Bottles,” p. 100). Although bottle fragments were found in the Fort’s post1622 Cattle Pond and are well represented on Site B, their number on Site A was noticeably different. A count of necks and bases (the larger number being the only safe guide to the minimum represented among the hundreds of fragments) showed that in the course of the site’s life (predominantly toward the end of it) the Harwood and post-Harwood farmstead was home to at least 108 case bottles (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 42). The color of the glass cited in these descriptions is subjective and cannot be linked to standard color charts. The metal changes color as its thickness increases or decreases, differing depending on whether or not it has been attacked by decay and survives as translucent or opaque. No analysis of the fragments has been made, but it is evident that, as is true of later wine bottles, those that are more amber than green in hue tend to survive better in the ground, an example being provided by no. 1 below. See also n. 275. 274. A close but larger parallel was excavated by the writer in London and dated within the brackets 1630–1660 (I. Noël

ARTIFACT CATALOG

straight neck, whose mouth had been roughly struck from the pontil iron (Pt. I, Pl. 85). 6a Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7511] Width: 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Of large size; shoulder, neck, and everted lip fragment; the metal darkening green; square sectioned. The neck is weak and somewhat incuse, but the shoulder is unusually flat and, reflecting the bottle’s large size, much thicker than was normal on smaller examples. For a likely base to this bottle, see no. 6b below.

341

Of large size; base fragment; the metal comparable to no. 6a above, probably part of the same bottle; square sectioned; the kick shallow, without pontil scar. 7 Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 4065E [7513]276 Height: surv. 8n˝ (22.39 cm) Of large size; shoulder, neck, and mouth missing; the metal medium to dark green; square sectioned; kick, thick though shallow, heavily pontil scarred; walls thin and straight.

6b Case bottle Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7512] Width: surv. 4b˝ (10.80 cm)

Hume, “A Century of London Glass Bottles,” pp. 101–102, pl. 10), an attribution that still seems valid. A similar bottle with part of its pewter cap surviving was recovered from the 1628 wreck of the Swedish Wasa (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 68), and a neck with its still-removable cap was found in excavations at Mathews Manor (W.S. 200) and attributed to the mid-17th century; as was another restorable bottle of the same type with part of its threaded collar surviving (W.S. 203; Robert H. McNulty, “Common Beverage Bottles: Their Production, Use, and Forms in Seventeenth- and EighteenthCentury Netherland,” Journal of Glass Studies, vol. XIII [1971], p. 106, fig. 19; Ivor Noël Hume, Historical Archaeology [1969], p. 34, fig. 22) dated ca. 1640. It is important to recognize, however, that metal-capped, square-sectioned glass bottles were much used on the Continent and are common in Dutch paintings in the second and third quarters of the 17th century. Because Sir Robert Mansell’s patent was in effect throughout the later years

of the life of Martin’s Hundred, and because that patent permitted him to import Continental glass, one cannot assume that all glass bottles from sites of the 1630s and 1640s are of English manufacture—although that probably is the case. 275. This bottle provides a classic example of the way in which localized but invisible variations in ground acidity can effect the survival of glass. Although from a single stratum, half this bottle is preserved in pale green, translucent condition, while the other half has been reduced to layers of gold and brown iridescence having the stability of limp corn flakes. 276. Although the evidence of mortality on Site H, coupled with that of the dwelling’s destruction by fire, together point to its abandonment at the time of the 1622 Indian attack, the presence of sherds of Site B-style slipware (Fig. 14, nos. 12–15) hint at some degree of reoccupation, and several tobacco pipes from the site (Fig. 97, nos. 6–8) attest to that likelihood.

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Figure 37

ARTIFACT CATALOG

343

Figure 37 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 GLASS TABLEWARE 1 Tazza Provenance: C.G. 1760A/B and F, 1761B, and 1771B [8501] Height: reconstructed 6i˝ (15.72 cm) Reconstructed from 15 bowl, four stem, and one foot fragments; the metal very pale straw, but the thick, molded, wrythen stem pieces have turned sugary pink as the result of their sojourn in the ground, a type of break-down commonly encountered on excavated French soda glass from the eighteenth century. The vessel is of extreme thinness, and the folded foot had been one of great delicacy. This is the most fragile artifact from Martin’s Hundred. In spite of its “French” decay, the presumption must be that the tazza is of Netherlandish origin.277 2 Drinking glass Provenance: C.G. 1771B [8515] Diameter: collar |˝ (1.66 cm) Junction of stem and bowl, the latter probably of round funnel form and distinguished by basal nip-

277. Early-17th-century drinking glasses, particularly those in Venetian style, were as thinly blown as any ever produced. Consequently relatively few have survived to enter museum and private collections, rendering documentarily whole specimens hard, and sometimes impossible, to find. This tazza belongs in that category. There is, however, a winged goblet in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection which, if stripped of its wings, would parallel this tazza’s shape. Illustrated by W. B. Honey (Glass: A Handbook for the Study of Glass Vessels of All Periods and Countries & a Guide to the Museum Collection [1946], pl. 29A and p. 59), it is dated only to the 17th century. Goblets made in this general shape were not confined to Venice, and the Flemish Catalogue Colinet of 1550–1555 includes a sketch of such a glass (Raymond Chambon, L’Historie de la Verrerie en Belgique du 11me siècle à nos joirs [1955], pl. P(b) no. 47, facing p. 89). For a possible origin of the deeply wrythened, inverted baluster stem, which he attributes to the Spanish Netherlands and to the early-17th century, see Barrington Haynes, (Glass Through the Ages [1959], pl. 26b). There is, in the Straus Collection at the Corning Museum of Glass (S.2258), a winged goblet whose bowl is of conventional round funnel type but whose stem is wrythen molded, thought to be Dutch, but again dating only to the 17th century. Another glass, with a similarly molded stem but fluted bowl, is illustrated in the same collection (S.2060), similarly attributed and equally loosely dated. All in all, the available sources combine to classify this glass

ple; the metal smoky gray in reflected light; stem attached by pad collar or merise. The solid stem spreads quickly outward and may well have had another collar or shallow knop before launching into an inverted baluster.278 3 Drinking glass Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8514] Diameter: collar l˝ (1.43 cm) Crown of foot and base of stem; the metal straw colored; junction in the form of small pad collar. The stem begins to be hollow and probably expanded into some form of inverted baluster. Although both this and the upper stem fragment, no. 2 above, are from the same archaeological feature, and in spite of the fact that they are stylistically compatible, the color of this fragment states that they are not from the same vessel.

as en façon de Venise and to attribute its façoning to the Netherlands. It is worth noting that glasses with wide, hemispherical bowls akin to that of this tazza were sometimes intended for use as lamps, for which see the Papers in the British Museum relating to the Glass Sellers’ Company 1670–1690 and John Green’s Correspondence and Drawings 1667–1672, Sloane MSS 857, Greene drawing no. 30. 278. With so little of this stem (and that of no. 3 below) surviving, endless shape interpretations are possible, e.g., at the upper end of the scale, the engraved Barbara Potter goblet of 1602 (W. A. Thorpe, English Glass [1949], fig. 2) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the several tavern quality glasses from London’s Gateway House site (Ivor Noël Hume, “Tudor and Early Stuart Glass Found in London,” Connoisseur, vol. CL, no. 606 [1962], p. 271, nos. 7–8) and attributed to the Mansell period of English glassmaking (1618–ca. 1642). These glasses were discarded ca. 1630. Another group, excavated by the father of British historical archaeology, Adrian Oswald, in Gracechurch Street in the days before World War II began, includes similar glasses of the Mansell Monopoly era, exhibiting elements similar to these from Site A (Adrian Oswald and Howard Phillips, “A Restoration Glass Hoard from Gracechurch St., London,” Connoisseur, vol. CXXIV [1949], p. 31, no. V).

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Figure 38

ARTIFACT CATALOG

345

Figure 38 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), c. 1623–1645 (nos. 1–3); the Fort (Site C), c. 1620–1622 (no. 6); and John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 (nos. 4–5) GLASS AND CRYSTAL BEADS 1 Bead Provenance: C.G. 1768A [8089] Length: b˝ (0.64 cm) Dating: 1630–1645279 Small oval; clear, pale green-tinted glass encasing longitudinal, opaque rods; tube derived, round ended.280 2 Bead Provenance: C.G. 1770E [8088] Girth: e˝ (0.95 cm) Dating: post-1625 Round; the glass navy blue at core, covered with opaque layer and then another layer of blue, into which are marvered 16 horizontal rods; tube-derived, of good quality, and ground at ends. The bead appears to have been tumbled to bring out the contrast between the white and blue stripes.281 3 Bead Provenance: C.G. 2076A [8106] Diameter: l˝ (1.43 cm) Dating: ca. 1631 Multifaceted; clear crystal; polished and ground at facet edges, ends flattened and chipped by drilling. 4 Bead Provenance: C.G. 4097B [8506] Diameter: 9/32˝ (0.71 cm) Dating: 1619–1622

279. Depositional dates are appended throughout this figure because, unlike most of the others, specimens from several sites of differing dates are included. 280. The type is commonly called gooseberry, and this shape belongs to Kidd and Kidd type IIB19 (Kenneth E. Kidd and

Tubular; opaque, greenish gray glass; reheated and rounded at ends.282 5 Bead Provenance: C.G. 4050A [8505] Diameter: b˝ (0.64 cm) Dating: 1619–1622 Tubular; opaque, pale gray glass; reheated and rounded at ends. The type is similar to that of no. 4 above, but larger. 6 Lens Provenance: C.G. 3016E [8507] Diameter: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Dating: c. 1620–1622 Clear glass rendered semiopaque from burial; slightly convex on both faces, ranging from 1 mm at edges to 2 mm in center. Irregular swirling on one face suggests that the glass had been rotated while being molded, before grinding. The edges are roughly chipped, indicating that the lens was originally held in a mount that concealed its rim. The lens’s purpose is unknown. Its diameter is consistent with eyeglasses or a small telescope. However, the quality of the glass is poor and may have been inadequate for optical use. A likely alternative is that it was made as a burning glass. In its present condition, however, the lens is unable to focus light to a burning intensity.

Martha Ann Kidd, A Classification System for Glass Beads for the Use of Field Archaeologists (1970), p. 56, pl. II). 281. A variant of Kidd and Kidd type IIb13; see n. 280 above. 282. The shape is most closely paralleled by Kidd and Kidd type IIA11. See n. 280 above.

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Figure 39

ARTIFACT CATALOG

347

Figure 39 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS TOOLS 283 1 Spade shoe or nosing284 Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7514] Width: edge 9c˝ (24.77 cm)285 Divided at upper edge to seat wooden blade; flanged at sides to grip blade’s edges. The shoe’s upper retaining straps are missing, but, when intact,

would have been secured by single, laterally inserted nails. In some instances the flanges are also pierced to take small nails (Fig. 58, no. 1), but because the metal was thin and is now in an advanced stage of decay, the holes are often hard to detect.286

283. The term ferrous is used rather than iron because of the difficulty of distinguishing iron from steel (i.e., in modern usage, commercial iron containing up to 1.7% carbon) in the absence of sophisticated analysis. Ephraim Chamber’s Cyclopedia: or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2nd ed. (1738) defined steel as “a kind of iron refined, and purified by the fire, with other ingredients; which renders it whiter, and its grain closer, and finer than common iron,” adding that “The true method of making steel has been greatly concealed.” 284. Although the cutting edges of iron-shod wooden spades are often referred to as nosings, the fact that the spades were shod (or shoed) leaves no doubt that these metal parts are more correctly termed shoes. In 1688 Randle Holme of Chester, in The Academy of Armory, illustrated a spade and shoe of this type (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 146) describing the latter as “a shooe for a spade” (Holme, vol. I, bk. II, p. 331/1). However, he went on to muddy the waters by describing a wholly iron-bladed spade as “The Bottom or Shooe of a Trenching Spade,” adding, “It is all Iron and put on the Staffe . . . with a . . . Socket” (Holme, vol. I, bk. III, p. 393/1). Several well-preserved examples of straight- or square-ended shoes were found in ca. 1625–1645 contexts at Mathews Manor, Virginia (A. Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener, p. 71, fig. 46), and more recently others have been recovered from The Maine, a ca. 1620–1630 site in the Governor’s Land Archaeological District, James City County, Virginia (Outlaw, p. 183, fig. 29, nos. 86–87). Although I have yet to encounter published examples of the straight-edged shoe from excavated medieval contexts, the type is claimed to be much older, having been found at the Romano-British site of Camulodunum, Essex, and there attributed to phase IV occupation in the 1st century A . D . (Charles F. C. Hawkes and Mark R. Hull, Camulodunum: First Report on the Excavations at Colchester, 1930–1939 [1947], pl. CV, nos. 28–29, also p. 343). However, elsewhere in the report reference is made to artifacts that may be of the “Cromwellian” period, suggesting that the site had experienced 17th-century contamination. Although the Camulodunum spade shoes would fit easily into the later context, they continue to be published as “Romano-British iron spade shoes” (Sian E. Rees, Ancient Agricultural Implements [1981], p. 59c). Correspondence on this point with the Colchester Museum’s present curator reveals that there was a Civil War fort on the site, and that he, too, questions the antiquity of these tools. For further discussion, see n. 286 below and Fig. 65, n. 477. 285. Examples from Martin’s Hundred range 9c–6d˝ (24.77–15.56 cm) in edge width. At Mathews Manor the range was wider: 10a–5a˝ (26.67–13.97 cm) (A. Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener, p. 71, fig. 46). Although the lightly secured, straight-shod blade was the common type in Martin’s Hundred, it was far better suited to cutting turf or turning loose loam than for digging in heavy clay. For that a

rounded-ended blade would have been far superior. However, only one such spade is represented among the excavated artifacts, and that from Site H (Fig. 65, no. 1). 286. Iron-shod wooden spades, though weaker than those whose blades were entirely of iron, were lighter and presumably cheaper. They were in use in England by the mid-14th century, as is attested by a carved misericord of the dean’s stall in Lincoln Cathedral (Miles Hadfield, A History of British Gardening [1960], pl. 1). That example has a T-shaped grip. Examples of both round-edged and relatively straight-edged shod spades, both with D-grips, were drawn by John Evelyn before 1659 to illustrate his unpublished Elysium Brittannicum (A. Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener, p. 60, fig. 39). In addition to T- and D-shaped grips, spades were also fitted with plain shaft handles akin to those favored in America today. Consequently one cannot determine the style of a spade’s handle on the evidence of its blade type. The Holme examples cited above (n. 284) seem to be as late as one can find illustrations of iron-shod wooden spades. Although the publication date for that work was 1688, many, if not most, of his drawings were made as early as the 1640s. In 1618 supplies sent to Smith’s Hundred for the use of three men included “Thirty six shovels and as many spades” (Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London [1906–1939], vol. III, p. 96), which raises an important terminological question: to wit, the difference then seen between shovels and spades. The O.E.D. defines a shovel as “a spade-like implement, consisting of a broad blade of metal or other material (more or less hollow and often with upturned sides), attached to a handle and used for raising and removing quantities of earth, grain, coal or other loose material.” Wooden shovels with iron shoes are recorded as early as 1465 and were known as “shod-shovels.” The O.E.D. cites references to their being in the possession of 16th- and early-17th-century churches and used in grave digging. Spades are defined as having “flattish rectangular iron blades,” adding that “in more primitive forms, or for special purposes, the blade may be wholly or partly made of wood, and its lower extremity is sometimes rounded or pointed.” The distinction, therefore, seems to be between tools for digging (spades) and those solely for moving (shovels). Along with his drawings of a wooden spade and its iron shoe, Holme also drew a straight-ended tool that he termed “a shovell, a malt shovle,” and another with a rounded edge (apparently without a shoe) that he defined as “a round shovell.” Although the blade of his shovel is of the same shape as that of his spade, the latter’s handle is triangular or D-shaped, as is that of the square-edged “malt shovle,” whereas the spade’s grip is T-shaped. One might be tempted, therefore, to claim this as the detail separating spades from shovels, were it not that Evelyn’s spades both have D-shaped grips.

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2 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7515] Width: edge 6o˝ (17.62 cm)287 Similar to no. 1 above, but narrower; upper retaining straps missing. 3 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 3012F [7516] Width: edge 6o˝ (17.62 cm) Identical in width to no. 2, but slightly longer; upper retaining straps missing.

all the Martin’s Hundred hoes (be they broad or narrow), it lacks the triangular reinforcement at the junction of blade and socket common to broad hoes of the eighteenth century.291 6 Hoe Provenance: C.G. 3000 [7519] Length: surv. 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Blade fragment and eye; similar to no. 5 above.

4 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 3006A [7515]288 Width: edge 6d˝ (15.56 cm)289 Similar to the above, but narrower; most of retaining straps surviving.

7 Crosscut saw292 Provenance: C.G. 3012C [7520] Height: surv. 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Handle and blade end fragment; parts secured by large rivet. The angle of the handle identifies the type of saw, but as none of the teeth survive, its size cannot be determined.

5 Hoe290 Provenance: C.G. 3050F [7518] Length: surv. 5b˝ (13.34 cm) Blade fragment and eye; latter retaining end of oak handle. The eye or socket was created by drawing out the blade sheet, wrapping it around, and welding it to itself. The width of the blade is uncertain; but, like

8 Saw Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7521] Length: surv. 11g˝ (30.17 cm) Blade fragment; neither width nor length can be determined. The teeth are of medium size and five to the inch, larger than those of modern hand saws, which average seven to the inch.

287. This measurement may be interpreted as representing a 7˝ (17.78 cm) blade edge. 288. This postmold and -hole complex, and the spade shoe found in it, were uncovered by the grader in preliminary testing, and thus were the first feature and artifact to be identified with the Fort. Ironically the posthole proved to be one of the very few whose purpose remains unexplained. 289. This blade size is paralleled by that of another from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 58, no. 2). 290. Hoes imported into Virginia between 1618 and 1619 were variously identified as “small,” “weedinge,” and “holinge” (hilling). These last were made in the Forests of Deane, the weeding hoes being worth 14 d. and hilling hoes 12 d. (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 186). In 1623 “Three broad hoes” and “Three narrowe hoes” were shipped over for John Harrison, but their relative values are not cited (Kingsbury, vol. IV, p.

278). For further elaboration, see Fig. 58, n. 428. 291. Ivor Noël Hume, Digging for Carter’s Grove (1974), p. 37, fig. 19. 292. The term is American and seems to have been first used in the early-19th century (O.E.D., citing Webster, 1828). In early17th-century Virginia such two-handed saws were termed whipsaws or pit saws. In 1613 Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas and in ransom secured the release of seven English prisoners, a supply of corn, three muskets, a broad axe and “a long Whipsaw” (Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes [1905–1907 (1625)], vol. XIX, p. 94). In 1619 the inventory of goods shipped aboard the ship Margaret for the use of George Thorpe at Berkeley Plantation included three “hand saws,” two “long saws,” one “long thirt saw,” and two “tenant saws” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 178ff).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 40

349

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 40 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS CLOSURES AND OTHER OBJECTS 1 Fetterlock293 Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7522] Length: barrel 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Fetter and cylinder, the leaf-springed closure missing; see examples from Sites H (Fig. 67, no. 8) and B (Fig. 79, no. 6). The triple spring arrangement is revealed by the three apertures in the end of the fetter or hasp. The shape of the latter is the principal clue to the lock’s purpose. A narrow reinforcing rod is welded down the center or spine of the broad fetter strap and folded around a loop in the cylinder’s end, hinging one to the other. The strap, though flat on most of its inner surface, is gently folded away at the edges to prevent chafing from its relatively sharp edges. The question, therefore, is chafing what? Cylinder padlocks used to secure doors, trunks, leg irons, and so on usually had a rectangular-sectioned hasp akin to that of an ordinary padlock,294 but this example was designed as a shackle or hobble.295 The fetter of this example, when secured, has a diameter of 3˝ (7.62 cm). Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately estimate the pastern joint diameter of an average-sized seventeenth-century horse, ox, or cow, a 3˝ loop would fit around the fetlock of a small modern horse.296 However, it would also secure the ankle of a man or woman, and so might have served to restrain a human prisoner rather than to

prevent the theft of livestock. Two such shackles would have been connected by means of a chain having a pair of terminal rings that slipped over the lock’s cylinder before securing the hasp.

293. When the closure is of a shape to secure the hasp of a door, box, etc., a lock of this cylinder or barrel type is legitimately described as a padlock, but when the hasp is large and clearly designed to encircle an object, fetterlock is the correct term. The earliest closely datable example of the latter comes from the Late Iron Age hill fort of Bigberry, near Canterbury, England, a fortress captured by Julius Caesar in 54 B.C. and apparently not reoccupied. The fragmentary lock and hasp is listed under “Slave chains and fetters” and described as “almost certainly part of fetters for hobbling the feet” (F. H. Thompson, “Excavations at Bigberry, near Canterbury, 1978–80,” Antiquaries Journal, vol. LXIII [1983], pp. 274; 271, fig. 18.48; pl. XXXVIIIc). Locks of barrel type were in use in Roman London (i.e., before the 5th century A.D.), as is evidenced by keys in the collection of the Museum of London (R. E. M. Wheeler, ed., London in Roman Times [1930], p. 75 and pl. XXXI, nos. 11–14) incorrectly described as “hasps from locks.” Examples of both cylinder padlocks and their keys have been found in Jorvik (Viking York) in 10th-century contexts. The fetterlock variety served as part of the heraldic badge of Edmund Langley, first Duke of York (1341–1402) who, according to Holme (p. 398), adopted the device “Imploying that he was locked up from all hopes of the crowne.” The fetterlock and falcon badge later became that of England’s Henry VII (1457–1509) (George Evans, Heraldry in Britain [1953], p. 47, fig. 43). Excavations in Williamsburg, Virginia, yielded a rather

similar fetterlock to this one, from a mid-18th-century context, but differing in that the fetter is flat rather than concavo-convex (I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 249, fig. 78.2). 294. An example of this type has been found in a mid-18th-century context at Round Hill, Clavendon Parish, Jamaica (I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 249, fig. 78.2). 295. The O.E.D. defines a fetterlock as “an apparatus fixed to the foot of a horse, to prevent his running away” and notes that the term also occurs as a corruption of the word fetlock. 296. Colonial Williamsburg’s livestock authority, Richard Nichol, reports that the cannon bone element of a small horse’s foreleg has an average circumference of ca. 8a˝ (21.59 cm) or a diameter of 2a–3˝ (6.35–7.62 cm). Nichol doubts that a lock such as this would have been used to hobble a horse, for fear of damaging its legs. Nevertheless the O.E.D. cites numerous sources from the 16th–19th centuries that suggest otherwise. In Nathaniel Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 13th ed. (1749), fetters are defined as “irons to put upon the Legs of Malefactors or Cattle.” 297. For details of stock-lock (i.e., locks set into wooden stocks) construction, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 245–248. 298. This identification is tentative. Bolt covers on plain stocklocks were generally flat and secured with small nails.

2 Plate stock-lock Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7523] Width: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Octagonal ward cover and keyhole, bolt spring, and fragment of exterior plate. The ward cover is secured by three post straps riveted at both ends. Were it not for the height of the vertical spring and the lateral positions of two of the ward cover supports, one might be tempted to deduce that the fragment came from a trunk lock.297 3 Plain stock-lock bolt cover Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7524] Length: 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Triangular plate folded at ends, to be driven into wooden housing.298 4 Plate lock Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7525] Length: surv. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Perhaps from trunk or chest; plate and bolt fragment with talons intact.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

5 Key Provenance: C.G. 3136A [7526] Length: surv. 1n˝ (4.60 cm) Truck, furniture, or padlock; bow and shank fragment; bow terminals separated and rising at junction with shank to create kidney-shaped loop, a detail characteristic of small keys in the seventeenth century. The shank is unusually thick in proportion to the size of the bow, but this may result in part from decay-caused expansion. For better preserved examples of this type, see no. 7 below and Fig. 67, no. 1. 6 Key Provenance: C.G. 3134A [7527]299 Length: surv. 3˝ (7.62 cm) Trunk, furniture, or padlock; bow and shank fragment; construction as no. 5 above. A bolster separates the bow from the ornamental knop and collar common on keys of this type and period. 7 Key Provenance: C.G. 3134A [7528] Length: 3e˝ (8.57 cm) Trunk, furniture, or padlock; bow, shank, and part of web; bow constructed as no. 5 above, apparently deliberately flattened to emphasize kidney shape of loop. Below it the bolster terminates in a collar without any intermediate knop. The shank appears to have been hollow at its junction with the web and thus mounted on a pin or pivot within the lock. Insufficient web survives to identify its character. 8 Key Provenance: C.G. 3012C [7529] Length: 2n˝ (7.14 cm) Trunk, furniture, or padlock; bow very flat; decorative terminals common to nos. 5–7 above here reduced to slightly humped or V-shaped projection at junction of bow and shank. The web is almost intact and exhibits a relatively simple alteration of bits and notches along its upper and lower edges. Lacking any bolster, decorative knop, or collar, this clearly was as simple a key as one could get. 9 Key Provenance: C.G. 3016E [7530] Length: 5o˝ (15.08 cm) To plain stock-lock; complete save for half the web; bowl terminates firmly welded to shank (as no. 8

299. Although this feature appears to have been created after the Fort ceased to exist, the datable artifacts recovered from its fill are consistently of the 17th century. 300. For details of the difference between the keys of plain stock-locks and plate stock-locks, see Fig. 60, n. 446, and I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 244–248. For Martin’s Hundred examples of the latter, see Figs. 60, no. 13; and 85, no. 9. This is the only door key from the Fort, and one of only two from Martin’s Hundred.

351

above); shank shouldered at line of main ward cleft and terminating in button.300 10 H-hinge Provenance: C.G. 1013G [7531] Length: 6h˝ (15.40 cm) Cupboard or other light door; half of hinge; ends V-shaped and notched behind to create decorative arrow-point terminals. The pivot is complete, the missing arm having broken away at that junction. Two small nail holes are open parallel to the Hshaped pivot mounting, and two more can be detected, one in the center of each terminal. 11 Pintle Provenance: C.G. 3002 [7532] Length: 2o˝ (7.46 cm) Diameter: post f˝ (1.59 cm) The post somewhat oval in section (an unusual and impractical feature), but more likely the product of poor workmanship than intent. The shank is squaresectioned, tapered, and bent as it would be had it been levered out of the wood. The diameter of the post is large enough to have supported a door or window shutter, but not stout enough for anything as heavy as the Fort gate.301 12 Ring Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7533] Diameter: 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Its condition provides no clue to its function, for there is no evidence of ear in any one section. Such rings could have been used as small box handles, mounts for bucket handles or pot-hooks, or as chain terminals.302 13 Mount Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7534] Length: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Purpose uncertain, but perhaps reinforcement for saddle tree; two flat strips secured by two rivets, one of which still holds them in their original relationship, indicating the loss of wood e˝ (0.95 cm) thick. At one end the damaged strips seem to taper, suggesting that they originally were pointed in the manner of no. 14 below; at the other the ends are bent slightly inward, as though cut with a chisel. The rivets

301. It is hard to imagine how the end of this pintle could have been broken unless it had been deliberately struck with a hammer and chisel. However, the post’s oval profile raises serious doubts as to its age. 302. It has been suggested that the ring might come from a bridoon, but it seems too small for such a purpose. It must be admitted, however, that too little is known about early-17thcentury bits for that possibility to be ruled out.

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are surprisingly stout for wood so thin, hence the conjectured saddle relationship.303 14 Mount Provenance: C.G. 3164A [7534] Length: 5g˝ (14.92 cm) As no. 13 above and no better explained; one entire side (and the tip of its companion) survives,

303. Among tentative identifications have been the long wings or mounting straps from the heads of pikes. These, however, are generally somewhat beveled and only lightly anchored to a much heavier shaft by means of small nails. The thickness of the wood could be consistent with that of wooden blades for spades, but in that context it is hard to see what purpose these

pointed at one end and T-shaped at the other. A broken rivet at the center parallels the intact one of no. 13, and the complete rivet close to the pointed end is of matching size and length, paralleling the broken one at no. 13’s end. Thus, together, nos. 13–14 exhibit their complete form, but without revealing their purpose.

metal objects would serve or why they would be so shaped. Thus, in the absence of any better supposition, the straps’ use to reinforce a saddle tree seems most logical. For a 15th-century German jousting saddle stripped to its tree and exhibiting comparable iron strapping, see Arthur Richard Dufty, European Armour in the Tower of London (1968), pl. CLIII.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 41

353

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Figure 41 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS HANDWROUGHT SPIKES, NAILS, AND TACKS 304 1 Spike Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7536] Length: surv. 7˝ (17.78 cm) Head flat and proportionately small; shank square sectioned; missing tip almost certainly pointed. 2 Nail, sixtypenny305 Provenance: C.G. 3003 [7527] Length: surv. 5m˝ (14.45 cm) Head flat and uneven; shank square sectioned; missing tip almost certainly pointed. 3 Nail, sixtypenny Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7538] Length: surv. 5e˝ (13.65 cm) Head flat and proportionately small; shank rectangular sectioned; missing tip almost certainly pointed. 4 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3166A [7539] Length: 4k˝ (11.27 cm) A hybrid length; rose head, with four facets; shank rectangular; spatula point.306

304. The following specimens are examples illustrating sizes and shapes found in and around the Fort. Nothing suggests that nails were made in the Fort or anywhere else in Wolstenholme Towne; but there is a nailer’s anvil from Site A (Fig. 83, no. 9). Slitting mills had been in use at Nuremberg early in the 16th century, but, according to Hugh Bodey (Nailmaking [1983], p. 11), the water-powered process was introduced to England from Liege in 1590. By the second quarter of the 17th century, the Midlands had become the nation’s principal source of nails, the first slitting mill having been set up at Stourbridge in 1628. With rods for nails of different sizes thus prepared, finishing them called for little equipment and no more skill. Nevertheless no nail rods have been found on the Martin’s Hundred sites and none has been encountered in contemporary Virginian inventories. Large nails are often referred to as spikes, but there is no rule to state at what length or head size a nail is so defined. Rose-headed nails are those hammered down from a central apex, usually with four or five strokes. Point types are defined as: flat, meaning flattened on two sides (but not expanded); straight, meaning that all four sides taper to the point; or spatula, meaning hammered at the point so that it expands into a leaf-shaped blade (e.g., nos. 4 and 9 below), common in the 18th century. For further details of nail-making terminology, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 252–254. See also Fig. 84, n. 595. 305. The majority of nails listed in early-17th-century Virginian records are identified by “penny” (4d., 6d., 20d., etc.). Eighteenth-century dictionaries, encyclopedias, and builders’ companions name many types for specific purposes but rarely

5 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7540] Length: 3k˝ (8.73 cm) A hybrid length; rose head, with five facets; shank rectangular; spatula point. It may have been clenched after passing through wood 2” (5.08 cm) thick and partially straightened when salvaged. 6 Nail, tenpenny Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7541] Length: 2o˝ (7.46 cm) Rose head, with four facets; shank rectangular; tip pointed. 7 Nail, tenpenny Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7542] Length: 2n˝ (7.14 cm) Rose head, with four facets; shank rectangular; tip sharply pointed. 8 Nail, eightpenny Provenance: C.G. 3050M [7543] Length: 2a˝ (6.35 cm)

equate them with the “penny” sizing: e.g., Richard Neve’s The City and Country Purchaser, and Builder’s Dictionary: or, The Compleat Builder’s Guide , 3rd ed. (1736) gives the sizes of ship nails in inches and most others by weight: so many pounds to the thousand, rose-headed nails 1c–40 pounds a thousand. Round-headed nails for hinges and other visible purposes are cited by Neve as 2–8d. The usage originated in the 15th century to signify the price per hundred, and although by the early16th century the prices had dropped, it continued in use as an indication of size. Neve was singularly unhelpful and dismissed the penny-to-nail lengths as “too well known to be insisted on.” Modern American builder’s directories and hardware catalogs still identify sizes in this way, though admitting that there can be as much as d˝ (0.32 cm) variation on either side of the norm. John S. Scott (A Dictionary of Building [1964], pp. 213–214) gives approximate lengths as follows: 4d.—1a˝ (3.81 cm), 6d.—2˝ (5.08 cm), 8d.—2a˝ (6.35 cm), 10d.—3˝ (7.62 cm), 20d.—4˝ (10.16 cm), and 60d.—6˝ (15.24 cm), adding that intermediate sizes are roughly proportional. Here and elsewhere in this report Scott’s scale is used in an effort to equate nails found in Martin’s Hundred with penny increments listed in contemporary records. In 1619 supplies sent to Virginia aboard the ship Margaret included 500 10d. nails, 1,000 8d., 2,000 6d., 500 4d., 1,000 3d., 1,000 3d. hobnails, and 2,000 “sparrowbills” for repairing or reinforcing shoes (Kingsbury, vol. III, pp. 180–181). 306. Neve (n. 305 above) calls these “Flat Point” nails, long ones used in shipping and serving to grip when there is no opportunity to clench and short ones for use in oak and other hardwoods.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

355

Head damaged but probably rose hammered; shank rectangular; tip pointed.

Rose head, with four facets; shank rectangular; tip pointed.

9 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7544] Length: 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Length hybrid between sixpenny and eightpenny; rose head, with four facets; shank rectangular; spatula point.

12 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7548] Length: 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Roughly within fourpenny range; flat head; shank rectangular; tip pointed.

10 Nail, sixpenny Provenance: C.G. 3131B [7545] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Rose head, with four facets; shank square sectioned; tip pointed. It had been clenched over wood ca. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) thick. 11 Nail, sixpenny Provenance: C.G. 3011C [7546] Length: 1g˝ (4.76 cm)

13 Tack Provenance: C.G. 3162A [7548] Length: c˝ (1.91 cm) Rose head, with four facets; shaft square sectioned; tip pointed.

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Figure 42

ARTIFACT CATALOG

357

Figure 42 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS FIREBACK 1 Fireback Provenance: (“L:Y:PE”) C.G. 3011B and 3061 [7549]; (“link”) C.G. 3003 [7551]; (“corner”) C.G. 3138A, 3012, and 1007A [7550] Dimensions of reconstructed fireback: 26e˝ x 21f˝ (67.00 cm x 54.94 cm) Cast iron; bottom left and center right fragments; the whole decorated in relief with Stuart arms and supporters. The unicorn is represented by a link of its chain and the right foreleg passing behind the ribbon of the Order of the Garter, only the letters L:Y:PE surviving from its motto: HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE (Evil to him who thinks evil). The bottom left fragments carry the lion’s right back foot and a short ribbon inscribed DIEV ET. A matching ribbon to the right would have borne the rest of the royal motto: DIEU ET MON DROIT (God and my right). Nothing of the shield of arms survives. Consequently the all-important identification of the arms (and thus the dating for the fireback) has to be arrived at from external evidence. The presence of the chained unicorn precludes the arms from being those of Elizabeth I (or earlier monarchs of the House of Tudor), whose sinister supporter was a dragon.307 The rest of the remaining details can belong to any period after 1603, though royal arms firebacks postdating the Stuarts are extremely rare. If, however, this example was in use at Wolstenholme Towne prior to the Indian attack of 1622, it had to have displayed the achievement of James I. If it did not, then the site’s occupation continued after 1625 and the accession of Charles I. The drawn reconstruction is based on a reproduction fireback manufactured by the Kingsworthy

Foundry of Kingsworthy, Hampshire, England (Pt. I, Pl. 81). The company does not own the original nor does it know whether it survives. It evidently had been broken before the copy mold was made, for the top left corner has been reconstructed to portray a very strange version of the lion’s crown and to omit the cross above the ball (or mound) atop the fourarched royal crown.308 More importantly the first two digits of an assumed date (1621) are missing. Of considerable significance, however, is the surviving treatment of the unicorn, whose right foreleg passes behind the garter—as it does on the Fort fragment. Although the Kingsworthy example differs from the Fort’s in that the latter’s motto ribbon is divided into two panels, there is reason to suggest that both patterns were the work of the same carver.309 The positioning of the unicorn’s right leg, as shown on these two examples, has been found on no other. All those identified by initials or date as belonging to the reign of Charles I have the right leg raised and resting on the edge of the Garter and the left leg down and in front of the ribbon—as did the lion and dragon supporters in the reigns of the Tudors. The atypical positioning of the legs of both supporters on the Kingsworthy fireback cannot be construed as an heraldic variation adopted by James I (Pt. I, Pl. 81):310 an important example in the common hall of the College of the Vicar’s Choral at Wells is dated 1618 and displays the supporters in the conventional pose. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that the Kingsworthy and Martin’s Hundred firebacks are the anomalous products of a single mold carver, though not necessarily of the same seventeenth-century foundry.

307. In blazon, achievements are described from the point of view of the shield holder. Thus his left (sinister) is on the viewer’s right and his right (dexter) becomes the viewer’s left. 308. The four-arched official crown was used only by England’s first two Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I. Thereafter the crown’s arches were reduced to two. 309. This was the verbal opinion of A. V. D. Norman, Master of the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London, when he exam-

ined both the fragments and the Kingsworthy reproduction. 310. The Wells fireback was first noticed by archaeologist Eric Klingelhofer. Later it was inspected by retired curator of the Wells Museum Norman C. Cook, to whom I am also indebted for securing the photograph. He describes the fireback as “undoubtedly genuine and has almost certainly been in the hall since the 17th century” (pers. comm., Nov. 15, 1982).

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Figure 43

ARTIFACT CATALOG

359

Figure 43 The Fort (Site C), 1620–1622 FERROUS AND PEWTER TOOLS AND UTENSILS rod comes from the same object as no. 1 cannot be ruled out.

1 Gridiron, frying iron, or trivet311 Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7552] Length: 18o˝ (48.10 cm) Iron; handle, rear leg, and three of original bed rods surviving. The two front legs and the straight bar, into which the ends of the longitudinal rods were set and hammered, no longer survive. The handle grip is round sectioned and originally terminated in a hook for suspension.312 The shank was beaten flat and cut into rods, while others were welded into it. Gridirons of this type seem to have been among the most common of metal equipment for the kitchen fireplace (e.g., Figs. 74, no. 1; and 87, no. 1). Supplies brought over on the Margaret in 1619 included two “gredirons” valued at 2s. 8d. and two “threvets” worth the large sum of 5s. As the latter are listed alongside two “pothangings,” there seems reason to suppose that they were for kitchen use.

4 Cleaver313 Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7555] Length: 11i˝ (28.42 cm) Ferrous metal; blade, rectangular-sectioned tang, and handle collar. The survival of the collar in situ leaves no doubt that this knife retained its wooden handle when discarded into the pit where it was found. As the blade is undamaged, the abandonment of so useful a tool is hard to explain.

2 Gridiron or trivet Provenance: C.G. 3011G [7553] Length: surv. 5n˝ (14.76 cm) Iron; as no. 1 above; represented by one fragmentary bed rod at L-shaped rear configuration. Though found in a different location, the possibility that this

5 Cauldron314 Provenance: C.G. 3134A [7556] Width: fragment 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Cast iron; girth fragment; profile markedly angular. Originally with two ear-shaped handles and three feet, such cooking vessels were common products of

311. The term trivet originally described a support having but three legs. By the 17th century the usage had been broadened to embrace stands having four. Randle Holme, in the manuscript notes for his Academy of Armory (Harleian MS 2027 [1688]), sketched several types of trivet and cooking iron. A triangular example with three legs he called “a three square trivet,” another rectangular with four feet he defined as “a square trivet”; but a generally similar iron rack with four feet “and a handle” Holme called “a grid iron, a frying iron.” From this one might deduce that the term trivet was reserved for a platform used to support a pot heating in or before the fire, and that the handled stand (regardless of whether it had three or four legs) was used for the direct cooking of food. Although Holme’s first volume was not published until 1688, the preparatory manuscripts are identified in his own hand as being “my first colleccions and draughts for the Academie of Armory, Anno 1649.” Holme was born in 1627 and died in 1700. Although a gridiron could be used for the same purpose as a handleless trivet, it seems that the former should be the preferred terminology for this object. Although he did not address the terminological question, Seymour Lindsay, author of the classic Iron and Brass Implements of the English and American House (1964 [1927]), illustrated handled grids with both three and four legs, calling both gridirons (figs. 138–139); he also showed a group of rather similar appliances, which he called baking irons (figs. 68–70). There is no reason to doubt that the Martin’s Hundred irons could equally well have served that purpose.

So little study has been devoted to gridirons that their dating is as loose as their national characteristics are obscure. One of Lindsay’s examples (fig. 138) has decorative scrolls at the junction of handle and grid, these cut from the same wide, flat sheet of iron as the handle and most of the bed rods. Taking advantage of the sheet’s width, the handle has a solid heartshaped feature before getting to the round-sectioned and lozenge-shaped grip. Although the scroll rods are paralleled less flamboyantly by the presumably English example from Site A (Fig. 87, no. 1), the heart-shaped feature was seen in 1984 on a gridiron for sale in a Stamford, England, antique shop whose proprietor bought it in Portugal. However, that example’s handle remained flat throughout, lacking the round-sectioned grip. 312. See Lindsay, fig. 138. 313. The term cleaver is generally paired with “butcher’s,” and it is fair to deduce that the Fort’s example was used to cut game, hogs, and even large fish. The O.E.D. cites usage describing a butcher’s knife going back to 1449; however, it does not figure in the early lists of supplies reaching Virginia. 314. Cauldron is used here to describe a shape more specific than is provided by other contemporary terms, such as kettle or iron pot. The term was in use in the 14th and 15th centuries, referring to vessels used in the kitchen for boiling, but later examples of the usage cited by the O.E.D. are more liberal. For terminology differentiating between iron pots and kettles, see Fig. 59, n. 430.

3 Strap Provenance: C.G. 3013A [7554] Length: 5h˝ (12.86 cm) Iron; squared at one end and flattened at other; perhaps part of trivet handle.

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the English iron industry from the late-sixteenth century onwards. However, these vessels are not well represented among the surviving Martin’s Hundred artifacts (see Figs. 59, no. 2; and 74, nos. 5–7). 6 Poking or goffering iron315 Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7557] Length: surv. 6c˝ (17.15 cm) Thin sheet iron or steel casing over iron rod slightly expanded at end, originally attached to the metal rod, which extended beyond a sealing disk to secure handle. An x-ray photograph inexplicably shows the rod within the tube broken and loose inside it. That it was originally as described here is demonstrated by an x-ray picture of another Martin’s Hundred example (Fig. 59, no. 5). The tapering ferrous tube has a maximum diameter of 1˝ (2.54 cm) and is brazed both at its horizontal seam and at its junction, with the sealing plug at its broad or handle end. The tang is now markedly tapered, but that may be the product of decay. 7 Nailer’s anvil Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7558] Length: 9e˝ (23.81 cm) 315. Very little has been written about the history of goffering irons, and no examples of this early period have been identified in English museums. Most of what is known is to be found in Lindsay (p. 36 and figs. 194–206), who notes that the tools were also known as tally irons—a corruption of “Italian irons,” whence the process is thought to have come. However, the history of poking-sticks described below suggests a less traveled evolution for the English tools. In the 18th and 19th centuries goffering-iron heaters of this shape were made from solid cast iron and had long rod handles projecting from them. The heaters were placed in a fire like a poker and, when red-hot, were inserted into the backs of tapering brass tubes, usually mounted on decorative stands. Starched linen and lace were then pressed over the hot outer tubes to make the semicircular crimps characteristic of ruffs and cuffs. It will at once be evident that the Martin’s Hundred irons cannot have been used as described above. Though shaped like the outer tubes of goffering irons and having similar dimensions (1˝ [2.54 cm] and a˝ [1.27 cm] average diameters), it is clear that no heater or slug could be inserted into them. Furthermore they themselves could not have been heated redhot without damage to their braised joints. Besides, the sheet metal would not have retained the necessary temperature to heat a thick outer tube. Clearly, therefore, if these objects are indeed goffering irons, methods of ruff laundering in the early17th century must have differed from those employed later. The slender documentary evidence supports that thesis. In 1609, satirical pamphleteer Samual Rowlands (ca. 1570–ca. 1630) published The Extortioner and in it wrote of “a ruffe about his neck, not like a ruffian but inch broad, with small sets, as if a peece of a tobacco pipe had been his pokingstick” (C. Willett Cunnington and Phillis Cunnington, Handbook of English Costume in the Seventeenth Century [1955], p. 38). The O.E.D. defines a poking-stick or -iron as “A rod used for stiffening the plaits of ruffs; originally of wood or bone, afterwards of steel so as to be applied hot.” Although no details of how poking-irons were heated have yet been found, it seems reasonable to suggest that they were placed in boiling water. Countering this theory, however, is the fact that the term poking-iron is thought to derive from poker, a tool thrust directly into a fire. Then again, were that the case, one would expect the starched material on which such pokers were used to be dirtied or

Ferrous metal; identification tentative; although the bar has that tool’s characteristically expanding nail holes at either end, it lacks crowns common to such anvils and over which nail heads were hammered (e.g., Fig. 83, no. 9). Examples of later date, lacking the crowns, are known.316 The thickness of the bar and the fact that it has nail holes only at the ends makes it unlikely that this artifact had served as a reinforcing rod. 8 Porringer Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7559] Height: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Pewter; handle missing; bowl crushed and in poor condition. The rim is small and slightly everted, the bowl relatively tall and straight sided, and the small foot flares outward. All these characteristics point to an affinity with two other porringers, one found in London and the other recovered from the remains of Port Royal, Jamaica, the former long thought to be Roman and the latter believed lost in the earthquake of 1692.317

scorched. A parallel for the Fort’s example has been found by archaeologists of the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology in the cellar of the Walter Aston Site, Charles City County, Virginia (44CC.178.39.1M), a context dated ca. 1640–1676. 316. See Henry C. Mercer, Ancient Carpenters’ Tools, Together with Lumbermen’s, Joiner’s and Cabinet Maker’s Tools, in Use in the Eighteenth Century (1951), p. 239, fig. 202. 317. See Pt. I, Pls. 82A–B.The London specimen was recovered from a construction excavation in Cheapside at some time prior to 1948, and in spite of an authoritative museum identification as Roman, pewter historian Ronald Michailis ascribed it to an unidentified English pewterer, ca. 1625. In publishing this porringer Michaelis drew attention to another of similar shape in the London Museum (now the Museum of London), which has a ring handle in place of the more elaborate shell (Ronald F. Michaelis, “English Pewter Porringers—Part II,” Apollo, vol. L [1949], p. 46, fig. VIII). In his typology of porringer forms, Michaelis used the shell-handled example to represent Type III. The second example having a shell-shaped handle was found at Port Royal, Jamaica, and first published in Robert F. Marx’s Pirate Port: The Story of the Sunken City of Port Royal ([1967], p. 134). Although there is little reason to doubt that this vessel was engulfed in the 1692 disaster, it must be noted that many items alleged to have been lost at that time are actually of much later date. In this instance, however, it would appear that the Port Royal porringer was as much as 70 years old before it sank into Kingston Harbour. It is important to remember that this porringer lacks its handle, and as Ronald Michaelis noted, more than one shape can be documented. There is no doubt, however, that this vessel had only one handle. The number of handles has been used by catalogers to distinguish between porringers, having one handle, and bleeding bowls, having two. The latter, however, are best identified by the incised measuring lines around their interior walls rather than by the number of their handles. Holme’s manuscript drawings (Harleian MS 2027; see n. 311 above) show a bowl having two flat, shell-like ear handles and defines it as “a poringer.” The term porringer can be applied to any vessel, be it metal or ceramic, from which to eat soup, broth, or porridge.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 44

361

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Figure 44 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS KNIVES, TOOLS, AND INSTRUMENTS 1 Knife318 Provenance: C.G. 3011C [7560] Length: 7b˝ (18.42 cm) Blade, bolster, and tang; handle missing.319 The blade is of an early form, tapering toward a sharp point and possessing a pronounced heel. On laterseventeenth-century table knives the heel is less angular, the sides of the blade almost parallel, and the point less sharp.320 This specimen’s bolster, though decayed, appears to have had five facets rather than the more usual six. The tang is nail-like and, from its taper, appears not to have extended to a cap. 2 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3013E [7561] Length: surv. 6a˝ (16.51 cm) Blade, silver collar substituting for bolster, and nail-type tang; blade tip and handle missing. The blade’s back is somewhat humped and its edge, though damaged, appears to follow a paralleling curve. This is an unusual feature, as is the cordoned collar that gripped the handle at its junction with the

318. The 16th- to 17th-century English table or eating knife went through a readily defined evolution. Always single-edged, it began with a very sharply pointed and basically triangular blade, which served both to cut and convey food to the mouth. These Tudor knives (which had changed little since the late medieval period) generally had concave shoulders, little if any bolster, flat tangs, and plated handles. Such knives were illustrated by Theodore De Bry in his engraving Captain Gosnold trades with the Indians (at Cuttyhunk) in 1602 (Michael Alexander, ed., Discovering the New World [1976]). However, the engraving was based only on the account of participant John Brereton and not published until 1634. By the second decade of the 17th century the triangular-bladed and short-shouldered Tudor knife was being succeeded in popularity by knives with solid, usually hexagonal bolsters; nail-like tangs; and solid or multiple-component handles. On these knives the triangular blade had been replaced by one whose back and edge were more-or-less parallel and terminated in a tip whose point was less sharp than before. Such knives were often sold in pairs and in leather cases, and single knives (particularly those of the earlier and sharper type) could be housed in a separate sleeve attached to sword scabbards. Although no cutlery documentation survives for Martin’s Hundred, we do know that in September 1620 the ship Supply took aboard at Bristol “10. dozen of knives whereof .9. dozen of one sort and one dozen of another sort” valued at 16s. and bound for Berkeley Hundred (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 386). The earliest documented English fork dates from 1632/3, and although they were first intended to grip food rather than carry it to the mouth, by the mid-17th century they were doing both. As a result knife blades changed shape, expanding and

blade. The tang is eroded and, though apparently of the tapering-nail variety, one cannot be sure whether or not it extended to a cap. However, the presence of the collar suggests that the tang was driven into the handle rather than passing through it to be secured by a cap. One dares speculate that this was not an English knife. 3 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7562] Length: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Blade fragment, bolster, and tang; handle missing. Unlike no. 1 above, this blade has a weak heel and the sides appear to be parallel; its bolster is hexagonal and its nail-type tang complete. 4 Knife handle Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7563] Length: 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Bone; with remains of iron, nail-type tang inside it. The shortness of the handle leaves little doubt that it comes from a knife having a substantial bolster akin

becoming rounded where previously they had tapered to a point. Later, in the third quarter of the century, some were made with square-ended blades, though the round ends continued and developed into the scimitar form characteristic of the 18th century, but lacking its dorsal ridge. Constant sharpening and rough usage ensured that most table knives changed their blade shapes in the course of their lives, and therefore by no means all seemingly anomalous forms are of dating significance. In the Martin’s Hundred era London was the principal source of English cutlery, though the trade at Sheffield went back to the 14th century. All London knives of this period (post-1606) can be identified by the dagger (or sword of St. Paul) mark of the City of London—at least in theory. In practice, because London knives were more desirable than any other, provincial cutlers added the mark, and, as a rather similar dagger mark was used by the German bladesmiths of Solingen, identification is not always easy (e.g., Hayward, English Cutlery, p. 5, pl. II). At Martin’s Hundred that problem did not have to be addressed, none of the blades being in sufficiently good condition for marks to survive. It should be noted that the best quality and largest quantity of cutlery comes not from the Fort or supposed Harwood home at Site A but from Site B. 319. In cutlery terminology, the blade of a knife was separated by a metal block called a bolster, from which projected a tang that passed through or between the plates of a handle to a terminating metal washer or button. When the handle was in two riveted pieces, these were called scales. 320. Hayward, English Cutlery, pls. IIc and III.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

to that of no. 3 above. The oval-sectioned handle is decorated with four zones of incised grooves and shaped at the haft into a “parrot-beak” profile. 5 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7564] Length: surv. 4k˝ (11.27 cm) Blade fragment, shoulder, and tang; bone or horn scale handle. Although little of the blade survives, it evidently was large and possessed a heel even more angular than that of no. 1 above. The blade’s junction with the handle is limited to weak (and much decayed) shoulders, which are made as one with the flat tang.321 The flat tang expands to a more or less triangular handle form, and the two covering scales are secured with three rivets. Such rivets are usually of brass or latten, but these appear to be iron, expanded at one end and with slotted (screwlike) heads at the other. The handle was capped with an iron button, which had covered the entire end. 6 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3012G [7565] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Blade fragment; the shape akin to that of no. 1 above. 7 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3050A [7566] Length: surv. 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Blade fragment, bolster, and incomplete tang. Insufficient blade survives for its form to be identified; the bolster is hexagonal with no evidence of decoration. 8 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3268A [7567] Length: surv. 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Bolster and flat tang fragment; latter pierced by single surviving rivet hole. Although the handle construction is similar to that of no. 5 above, this knife differs in that it possesses the solid, hexagonal, but undecorated bolster common to most Martin’s Hundred table knives.

321. Although in England the type extends all the way from the Roman period to the present day, it was the primary form of handle-to-blade construction in the 16th century, giving way to bolstered nail-and-rod tangs in the Stuart era. In the Tudor period the weak iron shoulders were embellished with brass or latten plates secured by a single rivet. Although the shoulders of this example are so poorly shaped that they might well have been covered by such plates, there is no evidence of the necessary rivet hole. 322. Twelve examples are listed in the catalog of London’s Guildhall Museum (Catalogue of the Guildhall Museum, p. 373, nos. 308–315, 317–321, and pl. LXXXIV, 4), all having dating attributions described as Tudor or 16th-century. Four retain their handles, and all these are of wood. Another early-17thcentury example from Virginia has been reported by Outlaw

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9 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3017A [7568] Length: surv.: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Blade fragment, bolster, and incomplete tang; similar to no. 7 above. 10 Currier’s knife Provenance: C.G. 3013F [7569] Length: surv. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Tips of blade and tang missing. Although such blades are often stamped with makers’ marks, no sign of one survives on this example. Handles for knives of this kind generally are short and made of wood.322 Another example was found at Site H (Fig. 66, no. 7). 11 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 3011C [7570] Length: surv. 4l˝ (11.59 cm) Incomplete blades, part of one shank and eye surviving. The condition of this pair is such that it is not possible to determine whether the blades are flat or hollow ground. Enough remains of the eye to see that the loop is everted rather than incurving, and the swan-neck treatment of the shank suggests that these were scissors of some elegance.323 12 Gouge324 Provenance: C.G. 3011E [7571] Length: surv. 6j˝ (16.03 cm) Hollow and flat-backed blade incomplete, part of tang missing, collar at junction of shaft and handle. Similar gouging chisels were found at Sites H (Fig. 66, nos. 9–10) and B (Fig. 73, no. 9), suggesting that such hollow-bladed tools were common in carpenters’ bags on the Martin’s Hundred sites. 13 Bit Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7572] Length: surv. 5k˝ (13.81 cm) The loss of the cutting edge makes it impossible to identify the type; it may have been a gouge, spoon or dowel, or nose bit.325 The spread haft leaves little doubt, however, that this is a bit designed for use

(p. 180–181, fig. 28, 79) as having been found at the Governor’s Land, described as a “cleaver, iron; ‘GB’ maker’s mark on blade near shank. GL 127A.” It may or may not be significant that Martin’s Hundred settlers were seated in or near the Governor’s Land and Pasbehay area before moving to their final destination. 323. Little has been written about early scissors. For an overview, albeit inadequate, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 267–269. 324. This is a tool described by Mercer (p. 167) as being used “by the carpenter and cabinetmaker, oftener for ornament than construction.” 325. See Mercer, pp. 181, fig. 163A–B; 206–208, fig. 181A–D.

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with a brace rather than being fitted with a fixed lateral handle (and an auger).326 14 Awl Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7573] Length: surv. 4h˝ (10.32 cm) Identification tentative. Broken at both ends, the shorter of the two shafts is square sectioned (the handle tang?), while the other is more or less round and quickly tapering. Between the two, the metal is wrought into three knops of diminishing diameter. It is possible that these provided the grip and that the tool had points at each end, designed for punching both round and square holes. Perhaps a cobbler’s tool. 15 Compass327 Provenance: C.G. 3135A [7574] Length: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Shown in side and rusted open positions; tips of blades missing. Hinging was achieved by dividing one

326. Mercer (p. 180) points out that this bit-type, flattened shank could sometimes be seated within a lateral but removable handle for an auger. 327. Today these tools are generally described as dividers, reserving compasses for those instruments having one pointed, pivoting arm and the other shorter, fitted to hold a pencil or pen. In the 17th century, however, dividers were called compasses. 328. The arms of navigational compasses generally expanded into an arc just below the pivot, so that the points could be expanded and contracted with one hand. For examples of these,

arm into three thin strips, creating two slots, and the other into two strips that marry into them. The resulting five leaves are secured with a rivet or pivot passing through the ball terminal. The blades are flat on their butting faces and semicircular beyond. When found aboard shipwrecks these instruments are likely to be identified as navigational dividers, but on land they may be more safely considered carpenters’ scribing compasses.328 They are surprisingly well represented on Martin’s Hundred sites, there being another pair from the Fort (no. 16 below) and yet another from Site H (Fig. 66, no. 11). 16 Compass Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7575] Length: surv. 3n˝ (9.68 cm) Shown in end and expanding views; tips of blades missing. This example differs from no. 15 above in that the pivoting leaves are short and confined to the ball terminal.

and several other mid-17th-century types, see Jeremy N. Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Jacht Vergulde Draeck, Western Australia, 1656 (1977), pp. 430–431, fig. 87. Examples possessing pivots and ball terminals similar to the Martin’s Hundred specimens were found in 1885 on the island of Nova Zembla, where they had been left by a Dutch expedition in 1596. Illustrated without measurements or scale by Mercer (p. 61, fig. 59A), they appear to be considerably larger than any of the Martin’s Hundred compasses.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 45

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Figure 45 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 BRASS, 329 FERROUS, AND PEWTER CLOTHING AND HOUSEHOLD ITEMS 1 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7576] Height: g˝ (2.22 cm) Brass; manufactured in two pieces: wall and crown; pits (indentations) regularly and closely spaced. A plain zone decorated with a single groove separates the crown from the wall, and another plain band encircles the opening.330 2 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 3010E [7577] Height: surv. c˝ (1.91 cm) Brass; wall only, though contours of interior indicate it originally possessed a crown. This example is wider and more tapering than no. 1 above, and greater emphasis is placed on the decorative zone at the opening, which is strengthened by two ridges. A 329. The term brass, used here and elsewhere in the catalog, may not be metallurgically justified, for the composition of the copper alloys has not been analyzed. By the mid-18th century the standard compositions were as follows (Chambers, Cyclopaedia): BRASS 7 pounds calamine [zoncose] with charcoal to 5 pounds copper BELL METAL 22 pounds tin for each 100 pounds copper POT METAL 20 pounds lead to 80 pounds brass GUN METAL for 11,500 pounds of alloy one required 10,000 pounds copper, 900 pounds tin, and 600 pounds brass For the purposes of this catalog, yellow metal objects are called brass and those that are pink orange-colored are described as copper. Some archaeologists prefer to take their cue from numismatists, who use the Æ symbol to embrace copper and all its alloys. Though safe, this solution prevents one from distinguishing, for example, between sheet brass and sheet copper. I have, therefore, deemed it more helpful to draw imprecise distinctions rather than none at all. 330. When these examples were found, little had been written about the history of thimbles and most such attention had been addressed as guidance for collectors, limited to the decorative examples of the 18th and 19th centuries. More recently Edwin F. Holmes has published fairly extensively on the subject (e.g., “Sewing Thimbles” and Datasheet 9, Tools and Trades, vol. IV (1987), pp. 59–72; A History of Thimbles [1985]). For all this the dating of 17th- and early-18th-century brass thimbles remains visually difficult if not impossible, forcing archaeologists to date by context rather than appearance. In broad terms, of course, it can be said that medieval thimbles were beehive shaped and those of the postmedieval years were lighter (and thinner) and shaped like truncated cones. Holmes (A History of Thimbles, p. 23) has pointed out that some of these conical examples have a bare top (crown) to their cones and that this feature is “unlikely to date from after 1650.” In Datasheet 9, Holmes provides additional information, suggesting that conical thimbles with a markedly elevated peak are likely to have

lesser ridge encircles the wall close to its junction with the lost crown.331 3 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 3050C [7578] Height: l˝ (1.43 cm) Brass; made without crown and intended to be used solely with knuckle. Two decorative ridges encircle the band above and below the pitted zone.332 4 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7579] Width: surv. n˝ (2.06 cm) Brass; wall fragment; retaining part of inner brass liner.333 A wide, plain zone at the opening is separated from the pits by a single rouletted groove.

been made in Nuremberg in the period 1550–1620. However, that feature is absent from the Martin’s Hundred specimens. Holmes (Datasheet 9, p. 3) also states that “mechanical knurling of indentations under pressure” began in the Netherlands “about 1620,” prior to which time thimbles were hand punched in a spiral as the cone was rotated on a mandril. Although the three specimens from the Fort must date ca. 1620–1622, all are machine pitted. My own attempt to supply this dimly recognized need (I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 255–257) has not stood up well to the test of time, for types that I considered to date from the 17th century have since been recognized as much older. Excavations at Sandal Castle, west Yorkshire, assembled a range of thimbles dating from the 13th century to 1645, when the fortress was dismantled. Unfortunately only one dates from this last phase (1600–1645) and it is less well made than the Martin’s Hundred examples (Phillip Mayes, Lawrence A. S. Butler, and Shirley Johnson, Sandal Castle Excavations, 1964–1973: A Detailed Archaeological Report [1983], pp. 234 and 236, fig. 2, nos. 81–89). Nevertheless the Sandal Castle report provides more dating information than hitherto was available. 331. On occasions the crowns were of steel. 332. A parallel for this example was recovered aboard the 1628 wreck of the Wasa in Stockholm Harbor (unpublished, cat. no. 9395). The type is also represented from Site H (Fig. 69, no. 11). 333. Another lined thimble was found at Site H (Fig. 69, no. 11); see also I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 256. It would be a mistake to assume that thimbles are necessarily distaff-oriented, and it is reasonable to deduce that unusually thick specimens and those with brass liners were for craft- or trade-related work. In 1532 (or 1534) John Fitzherbert’s Boke of Husbandry listed the equipment to be carried by a gentleman’s servant when riding out; included were “Penknife, comb, thimble, needle, thread, point, lest thy girth break” (A. Hume, Ancient Meols: or, Some Account of the Antiquities Found Near Dove Point, on the Sea-Coast of Cheshire [1863], p. 167).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

5 Eye Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7580] Length: g˝ (2.22 cm) Iron; wire, bent to create two small loops for attachment to fabric or leather and a third larger loop to secure a hook. In conjunction with a hook like no. 6 below, this eye could have been used on clothing as thick as a buff coat or as coarse as a laborer’s jerkin. However, its large size suggests that it may have seen service for some nondress-related purpose, such as securing the flap of a tent.334 6 Hook Provenance: C.G. 3161A [7581] Length: 1m˝ (4.29 cm) Iron; from hook and eye combination; wire, folded in half, ends bent under and then everted into pair of small loops for attachment to fabric or leather. The hook’s large size makes it a good candidate for association with an eye akin to no. 6 above. 7 Button Provenance: C.G. 3013E [7582] Width: surv. j˝ (0.79 cm) Brass; fragmentary; hollow cast, casting hole open, with thin brass wire loop attached directly to ball-

334. See Pt. I, p. 75, n. 177. An iron eye barely b˝ (0.64 cm) in length was found in the multiple grave (C.G. 4060). For further information on clothing hooks and eyes, see Fig. 89, nos. 41–43. 335. Decorative buttons were used on the sleeves of doublets ca. 1590–1630; though essentially ornamental, they did button the sleeve from the elbow to a point ca. 2˝ (5.08 cm) from the wrist. Rarely unfastened, lightness was more important than solid serviceability. For an example attributed to ca. 1625, see Cunnington and Cunnington, p. 17, fig. 3. Decorative sleeve use was not limited to the 1590–1630 period; on the contrary

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shaped button. Examples of this shape and size were commonly used to fasten doublets, but the thinness of this specimen suggests that it may have been more decorative than useful, in which case it may have served as sleeve decoration.335 8 Hinge Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7583] Length: 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Brass; rectangular; secured by two rivets through each leaf to wood (?) l˝ (1.43 cm) thick. The positioning of the rivets makes this a butt hinge, originally hidden on the inside of the folding object to which it was attached—perhaps a small box of cabinetmaker’s quality (e.g., a cellar for bottles). 9 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 3002 [7584] Length: surv. 2˝ (5.08 cm) Pewter; handle fragment; diamond-shaped in section and pyramidical at end. This is a heavy, clumsy handle that fits none of the readily recognized earlyseventeenth-century types.336

such buttons were used in even larger numbers in the second quarter of the 17th century, and at all levels of society from alderman to shepherd (ibid., pp. 21 and 50). 336. Fragments of crudely cast pewter spoons were found at Site B (Fig. 78, nos. 1–2) and parts of a locally manufactured spoon mold were recovered from Site A, along with a hexagonal handle (Fig. 88, nos. 7–8). This unequivocal evidence of spoon casting in Martin’s Hundred makes it reasonable to deduce that this pewter handle fragment came from a locally made spoon. See also Fig. 88, no. 7.

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Figure 46

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 46 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 BRASS AND COPPER OBJECTS 1 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7585] Width: 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Brass; identification tentative; D-shaped; loop rectangular in section and heavy for size; bar lighter, still rectangular, but edges beveled; some indication of wear in midsection, suggesting presence of now-lost tang. A buckle of this strength and shape could come from a saddle strap or stirrup leather. 2 Plate Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7586] Length: 2˝ (5.08 cm) Brass; rectangular, with single projecting lug pierced by small hole; surfaces overall fairly rough cast on one side and finished on other. At the narrow ends and along the side having the projection the edges are beveled, but that on the remaining side is straight cut. The edges of the small hole are also beveled but exhibit no wear, discouraging the conjecture that the plate was a lid pivoting at that point. There is some damage to the edge immediately to the right of the lug, and so it remains possible (though unlikely) that another such projection once existed; placing two so close together makes little sense, however. The suggestion that this object is a brigandine plate, which was sewn rather than riveted to the backing, is a theory with little to support it.

4 Coil Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7588] Diameter: m˝ (1.75 cm) Copper; tapering at both ends, but more sharply at one than other. This may be no more than a workman’s trimming. However, the strip exhibits none of the scissor marks characteristic of such waste. 5 Wire Provenance: C.G. 3158B [7589] Length: 12˝ (30.48 cm) Brass; round-sectioned; pointed at one end and split at other.337 6 Strap Provenance: C.G. 3013F [7590] Length: 4m˝ (11.91 cm) Brass; rounded at ends; cast on one side with raised ornamental ridges paralleling edges; pierced by three circular holes, the second not equidistant from the others.

3 Strap Provenance: C.G. 3011E [7587] Length: 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Brass; D-shaped in section; tapering to a point at one end, the other broken.

7 Strap Provenance: C.G. 3016E [7591] Length: 6k˝ (16.35 cm) Brass; two lapping strips of brass, secured from behind by single copper rivet. The shorter strip is pierced by a second hole from the same direction, and ends with another hole of larger size, which may or may not have been open at one side, perhaps to serve as a latch. That end appears to be intact, but the other is not and may have broken on the line of another hole. It is tempting to suggest that this item is in some way related to no. 6 above.

337. An identical length of wire, split at one end and pointed at the other, has been found in Thomas Street, Southwark, and is considered by small finds expert Geoff Egan to be “an accessory in its own right, probably from a [female] headdress”

(Museum of London acc. no. Site 4STS/82, context 522, lab. no. 675; pers. comm., Oct. 24, 1996). This identification is of great importance, in that it provides the presence in the Fort of an item of female dress.

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Figure 47

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 47 The Fort And Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 COPPER COINS 1 Royal token farthing Provenance: C.G. 3131A [7593]338 Diameter: surv. 11.5 mm339 Date: minted between May 1613 and June 1614 Harington type 1a, tinned copper. Obv. IACO D * G MAG BRIT; the legend within a beaded border and the IACO [BUS] beginning between the lis-shaped heads of a pair of scepters that cross behind the royal crown in the coin’s field. The crown is single-arched and decorated with alternate crosses and lis, and the circlet below is enriched with five dots or jewels. Immediately beneath the crown and between the scepters is the somewhat corroded privy-mark, which probably is a B but which looks more like an inverted P. It is this detail that places this coin in G. Wilson Peck’s type 1a.340 The handles of the scepters pass between the M and A, and the G and B, and extend to the beaded border. Rev. FRA * ET * HIB * REX; the period following HIB elevated above the median line. The legend lies within a beaded border and surrounds a field containing a crowned harp with eight strings, the third from the left expanded in its midsection. The harp faces to left and although its ornamental crest has been lost to corrosion, enough survives to show that it possessed a bead at left and right. The crown is similar in design to that of the obverse. The coin’s most important diagnostic feature is its “Harington knot,” which precedes the legend immediately to the

right of the crown and takes the form of a square set diamond-ways over a St. Andrew’s cross (heraldically called a fret) and the badge of the Harington family.341 Although the weight of the Harington type 1 farthing is considered by numismatists to be a significant factor in distinguishing between it and the larger type 2, so much of this example’s copper has been lost to corrosion that its weight is meaningless.342

338. This minute and fragile token was exposed after the mechanical grader had stripped the overburden from the southwest corner of the Fort and was found by supervisor Eric Klingelhofer following a rain shower, which laid the dust and caused the token’s tinning to glisten. Had the grader gone a millimeter deeper, had the rain not fallen, and had not Eric Klingelhofer stayed to walk the site after his crew had gone home, this numismatic treasure might never have been found. 339. Harington’s type 1 had an average diameter of 12.25 mm. 340. G. Wilson Peck, English Copper, Tin and Bronze Coins in the British Museum, 1558–1958 (1970) is the primary authority on the history and evolution of the Harington farthing. For an overview of token coinage in the first half of the 17th century, see Ivor Noël Hume, “The Very Catepillers of This Kingdome: or, Penny Problems in the Private Sector, 1600-1660” (1984), pp. 239–244. 341. Lord Harington of Exton was made a peer in 1603 at the coronation of James I, and in May 1613 the king granted him a three-year patent to mint copper farthings for use in England,

Ireland, and the dominion of Wales. Harington died in February 1613/14, and the patent passed to his widow, who surrendered it on June 28, 1614. At a somewhat disputed date thereafter the patent passed to the Duke of Lennox, whose mintmen cut new dies. 342. Harington’s type 1 ranged in weight from 3–7.6 g, with an average of 5 g; type 2 averaged 9 g. 343. The Duke of Lennox was created Duke of Richmond and Lennox in 1623 and died in February 1623/4, the patent passing to his widow the Dowager Duchess of Richmond. The majority of Lennox token farthings are round, but some are oval. The latter may belong to the Countess of Richmond’s era at the end of the reign of James I. At his accession in 1625, Charles I left the token patent in the Duchess’s possession, reaffirming it for a period of 17 years, whereupon existing dies were changed from IACO to CARO[LUS]. As so little of the lettering on this Martin’s Hundred farthing survives, only circumstantial evidence prevents it from being interpreted as a Harington type 2, a Lennox, or even a Richmond issue.

2 Royal token farthing Provenance: C.G. 3111G #38 [7592] Diameter: surv. 14 mm Date: 1613–1625 Harington type 2 or, more probably, Lennox “round”; very corroded copper with no trace of tinning. Little of either the obverse or reverse designs survive, though there is sufficient to suggest that this token differs significantly from no. 1 above. On the obverse the crossed scepters appear shorter and seem not to interrupt the lettering of the legend. If that is so, then this token was minted under the Lennox patent.343 However, so few traces of the lettering survive that the handles of the scepters may have been shortened by corrosion. If that is the case, this piece may be an example of Lord Harington’s enlarged type 2, which had an average diameter of 15 mm. The edges of this example have been attacked by corrosion, and it now has a diameter of 14 mm. Lennox “rounds” average 16 mm.

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Figure 48

ARTIFACT CATALOG

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Figure 48 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 (nos. 1–2 and 4); and Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 (no. 3) COPPER OR ALLOYED JETTONS OR CASTING COUNTERS 1 Nuremberg jetton344 Provenance: C.G. 3050A [7594] Diameter: surv. f˝ (15.9 mm) Badly decayed; drawing conjectural in some details. Obv. three open crowns and three lis alternating around a rose, all within a beaded circle; the legend lost. Rev. a cross paté atop an orb or Reichsapfel, within a double tressure of three arcs and three angles separated from the legend by a beaded circle; the legend lost.345 2 Nuremberg jetton Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7595] Width: flan n˝ (20.6 mm) Date: ca. 1580–1610 344. Jettons, known to their makers as Rechenpfennige, were counters used in manual or “ocular” arithmetic, the principal method of tabulation in England until the mid-17th century. The practice persisted in Europe much later, but died out quickly in England when Hindu-Arabic figures superceded the clumsy Roman numerals. However, ocular (visual) arithmetic could be performed by people unable to read or write, as well as by those who could but who lacked pen and paper on which to do their figuring. The jettons were used in conjunction with some form of counting board scored with both horizontal and vertical lines, usually six of the latter and four of the former, two of them providing the right and left edges, one closer to the latter creating square boxes, in which the numerical values were inscribed, and the fourth down the middle of the field to their right. The six horizontal lines created five bars or panels, each line representing decimal units (i.e., 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000) and the bars between being half those increments (5, 50, 500, 5,000, and 50,000). Thus to create the sum of 267, one would place two jettons on the 100 line, one in the open bar between the 10 and 100 lines, another on the 10 line, yet another in the 5 bar, and two on the 1 line. If the clerk wanted to add another figure to the 267, say, 120, one set that out in a separate column to the right of the central vertical line, one jetton on the 100 line and two more on the 10 line. To make the addition you simply moved the jettons along their lines from the right column to the left. To make visualization of the numbers even more simple, most boards had a cross marked at the 1,000 line, so that when figuring involved numbers above that line, the tabulation could temporarily ignore the noughts. The system required that not more than four jettons occupied a line (e.g., four makes 40, but a fifth makes 50 and so one jetton goes in the bar above the line, eliminating the four perched on it) and no more than one within the bar (e.g., a second 50 making 100 and moving one to the line above). Counting boards took various forms: they could be of wood

Fairly well preserved but very poorly struck; flan roughly scissor cut at right and too small at left to capture full legend; weak and missing lettering has been reconstructed in figure. Obv. three open crowns and three lis alternating around a rose, all within a beaded circle. Leg. HANNS * KRAVWINCKELIN * NV[RNBVRG] followed by a rosette of five dots around another. A sixth dot is missing from the outer ring and was absent from the die. Rev. a decayed central motif does not appear to be the standard Reichsapfel, and may perhaps be a pelican within a double tressure of three arcs and three angles, separated from the legend by a beaded circle.346 Leg. GOTTES * GABEN * SOL * MA[N * L]OB followed by a terminating cross.347

and portable rather like a modern English shove-halfpenny board (which probably originated as a counting board); they could be substantial office (counting house) tables with one, two, or three “boards” incised on them; or they could be highly portable cloths with the lines embroidered on them in gold and silver threads. However, the pattern was so simple that it could quickly be drawn on any flat surface, and therefore it does not follow that when one finds jettons on a 17th-century colonial site, the place had once sported a counting table or even a board. No more than 100 jettons were advocated for the average counting house, and few calculations required even half that number. Nevertheless the few found in Martin’s Hundred must have represented a tiny percentage of those used there. All yet found in Virginia are of copper, brass, or latten (i.e., an alloy 60% copper, 30% zinc, and 10% lead). However, the four from Martin’s Hundred have not been analyzed to determine their composition. 345. The majority of jettons found in England and Virginia are of German origin, and of those most were manufactured in Nuremberg by four workshops, those of Hans Schultes, Hans (or Hanns) Krauwinckel, Hans Laufer, and Wolf Laufer. Like the two other comparable examples from the Fort, this specimen was probably made by Hanns (or Hans) Krauwinckel, II of Nuremberg, who died in 1635. At his death the business passed to his brother-in-law Georg Lauffer, the son of another famed jetton maker, Wolf Lauffer (d. 1601). A third family made up the Nuremberg triumvirate, that of Schultes: Hans I, d. 1584; Hans II, d. 1603; and Hans III, who was working between 1608 and 1612 (Francis Pierrpoint Barnard, “The Types of Certain Early Nuremberg Reckoning-Pennies Used in England,” Numismatic Chronicle [5th ser.], vol. IV [1924], pp. 307–309). 346. Ibid., p. 222, 86 and pl. XXXIII, 86. 347. The reverse condition of this specimen is such that when first drawn, the artifact artist reconstructed the commonly en-

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3 Nuremberg jetton Provenance: C.G. 2100C [7546] Diameter: surv. f˝ (15.9 mm) Date: ca. 1580–1610 In poor condition; some details partially reconstructed. Obv. three open crowns and three lis alternating around a rose, all within a beaded circle. Leg. H]ANNES * KR[AVWINCKEL . . . Rev. a cross paté atop an orb within a double tressure of three arcs and three angles, separated from the legend by a beaded circle. Leg. . . . ]MACHT * L[ ... 4 Nuremberg jetton Provenance: C.G. 3268A [7597] Diameter: 1˝ (25.4 mm)

countered cross paté and Reichsapfel. However, when studying the piece to write the catalog description, lines were detected in the field that had nothing to do with the cross-capped orb motif and pointed to some central device not illustrated by Barnard. That this is in fact the case is supported by him, for in describing Hans Krauwinckel stock jettons Barnard notes that “though the orb is most commonly found on the reverse, a number of other designs occur, among which are the arms of

Date: ca. 1580–1610 Extremely worn; reverse reconstruction based solely on knowledge that this design accompanies identifiable obverse. Obv. Apollo standing naked to right with a lyre in his right hand, facing Diana the huntress, nude with a spear in her right hand, her left resting on a quiver beside and around which lies a bow. A hound stands by Diana’s right leg. Leg. (1.) APOLLO (r.) DIANA; in the exergue HK (Hans Krauwinckel). Rev. Meleager at left, naked, a sword in his right hand and in his left the head of the Calydonian boar, which he hands to Atalante. She stands nude to left, her right hand raised to take the trophy, and in her left she holds a bow. The headless carcass of the animal lies on the ground between the figures. Leg. MELIAGER [sic].348

France in a lozenge, a single lis, a large mitre issuing from a coronet, &c.” (ibid., p. 222). 348. This jetton is described as a “Stock-jetton issued by Hans Krauwinckel of Nuremberg: one of a series with types taken from Classical Mythology,” adding that some of the poses seem to have been copied from gems (ibid., pp. 213–214, no. 34; and pl. XXX. 34o and 34r).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 49

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 49 The Fort and Barn (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS FIREARM PARTS AND PEWTER ACCESSORIES 1 Matchlock349 Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7204] Length: surv. 6i˝ (15.72 cm)

Ferrous metal; the plate decayed at one end, otherwise intact; serpentine markedly U-shaped; match clamp trefoil in shape. The clamp’s key bolt has a

349. Three musket mechanism types were in use in the colony in the Virginia Company period: wheel lock, snaphaunce, and matchlock. Only fragments of the last two have been found in Martin’s Hundred, and, of these, matchlocks are by far the most plentiful. They were also the simplest and cheapest. They came in two varieties: those with conventional triggers and those operated by depressing a long lever lying parallel to the underside of the stock. All the matchlocks from Martin’s Hundred whose mechanical details survive belong to the lever type. As a rough rule of thumb it can be said that, in Virginia at least, lever-operated matchlocks represent the earliest musket form, followed by those with conventional triggers, and then by the snaphaunce, representing the first step in flintlock development. Like most rules of thumb, this one has enough dissenting fingers to render it of limited value. The snaphaunce had been in use in the Netherlands as early as ca. 1560 and took its name from a Dutch word meaning “pecking fowl,” the flintgripping hammer dipping into the priming pan like a hen into a trough of seed. The snaphaunce was a much more sophisticated device than the matchlock, whose modest function was to thrust a burning length of potassium nitrate-soaked cord into an open pan of gunpowder before it had a chance to blow away or get rained on. Nevertheless the simple matchlock had a remarkably long life. They were foremost among the arms housed in the magazine at Middle Plantation as late as 1682/3, and almost a century later at least one was taken to the gunsmith at the James Geddy House, Williamsburg, to be refurbished for service in the American Revolution (Ivor Noël Hume, James Geddy and Sons: Colonial Craftsmen [1970], p. 19). Contemporary inventories tended to be very imprecise in describing musket characteristics. Thus, for example, most of those listed in the 1624 muster were identified either as “peeces” or “peeces fixt.” For some time and with no less vehemence I argued that the distinction being drawn was between guns that were in operating condition (i.e., fixed up) and others that were not. However, in addition to listing “peeces fixt” the 1624 muster also included “Peeces serviceable” (Annie Lash Jester, ed., Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607–1625 [1956], p. 14). This last seems to have been fairly widely used to indicate a gun in working order; e.g., in Bermuda in April 1623 a proclamation by Governor Harrison referred to the provision of “very good and serviceable peeces” to be kept in “good and serviceable order” (J. H. Lefroy, comp.,Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, vol. I: 1515–1685 [1981 (1876)], p. 292). In England the 1608 “Return of Men and Armour for Gloucestershire” used the abbreviated terms fur’ and furn’, e.g., “George Stephens haberdasher . . . hath one musket furn’” (John Smith, Men & Armour for Gloucestershire in 1608 [1980 (1902)], p. 3). Furn’ here means furnished, as in Robert Barret’s Theorike and practike of modern warres (1598): “He shall not suffer any soldier to come thither without his Armes fully furnished.” The meaning here extends beyond good repair or working order to include the necessary supportive furniture: e.g., rest, bandolier, and scouring stick.

The meaning of “peeces fixt” remains open to speculation. The O.E.D. defines the word fixed (citing the 17th-century usage as including “fixt”) as meaning securely fastened. With that in mind, potential illumination is offered by the May 1618 inventory of goods to be shipped to Southampton Hundred, Virginia, among them “Twenty Muskets .10. with snapphammers, & 10 without and moulded onto them” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 96). The ten “snapphammers” were snaphaunces and the “10 without” were not. Thus one might deduce that the latter were matchlocks, which, unlike the barrels of snaphaunces, had their pans welded onto them—securely fastened, “fixt”. The foregoing construction has several flaws in it. In the 1624 muster, arms possessed by the “Governor’s Men at Pasbehaighs” included “Snaphannce Peeces, 8; Matchcockes, 2” (Jester, p. 24). However, in Martin’s Hundred William Harwood had “Peeces fixt, 10; Machcocks 25 and 10 lb of Match” (Jester, p. 43). The rest of the Martin’s Hundred inventory amounted to 16 “Peeces fixt” and 1 “Matchcock.” This last was listed in tandem with “Peeces fixt, 1,” in which case, if matchlock or matchcock was synonymous with a “Peece fixt,” they would not be listed independently. An explanation seems to be provided by Holme, who, in enumerating musket parts and terminology, observed that “It is usually fired with a match sent in the head of a cock of a match lock. If it have a Lock that striketh fire [e.g., snaphaunce], and so fireth off the Gun, then it ceaseth to be called a muskett, but hath the denomination of a Fire-lock” (Holme, The Academy of Armory, p. 134). From this one may deduce that in the first half of the 17th century one did not refer to guns employing match as matchlocks, but as muskets. The term matchlock was, therefore, reserved for the mechanism, and perhaps matchcock for the match-securing clamp now known as a serpentine. Some support for that thesis is provided by the previously cited “Return of Men and Armour for Gloucestershire,” which differentiated only between muskets and shorter-barreled calivers. Tall men were considered “fitt to make a pykeman,” those of “middle stature fitt to make a musketyer,” and those of “a lower stature fitt to serve with a Calyver,” the remainder being “of the meanest stature either fit for a pyoner, or of little other use” (J. Smith, Men and Armour for Gloucestershire, p. 1). The 1623 Bermudian proclamation also differentiated between long and shorter weapons: “some who have had masketts and callivers comitted unto their custody many such small peeces have byn spoiled and in short tyme become utterly unprofitable” (Lefroy, p. 292). In both examples the terminology related to size (and presumably to range)—muskets having 4´ barrels and calivers 3´—and not to the quality or sophistication of their ignition. According to Howard L. Blackmore (British Military Firearms, 1650–1850 [1961], p. 17), calivers, like their big brothers, came with both matchlock and snaphaunce mechanisms. For a further discussion of this and related points, see Fig. 57, n. 404. There being no reference to muskets in the 1624 Virginia muster, it seems reasonable to conclude that the word was synonymous with “Peece fixt” or even simply with “Peece.” This, however, would lead one to conclude from the Martin’s Hun-

ARTIFACT CATALOG

disk-shaped grip. Of the mechanism, only the sear spring and half the link or cam survive. The spring being above the missing sear identifies this lock as having been lever operated.350 Its most significant feature is the survival of the two slotted and convexheaded bolts used to secure the mechanism to and through the stock of the gun, a thickness of 1k˝ (3.65 cm).351 2 Matchlock Provenance: C.G. 3011C [7598] Length: 7a˝ (19.05 cm) Ferrous metal; the tapering plate complete; serpentine broken and reduced to part of shank, unusually heavy, pear-shaped tail, and pivot. Although the sear is incomplete, its rear end and lateral loop survive, leaving no doubt that this mechanism was lever operated and suggesting that the post passed through a stock ca. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) thick. Part or all of a very thick sear spring remains above it. Little remains of the cam, but the surviving fragment suggests that it may not have been of the usual figureeight type. There are single holes at each end of the plate for securing it to the gun.

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survives intact, but the sear itself no longer reaches to the serpentine. Behind its pivot the eye to take the lever’s post is intact but bent into an unnatural position. A single plate-mounting hole is visible forward of the serpentine pivot. 4 Matchlock Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7600] Height: 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Ferrous metal; fore end of tapering plate and serpentine; latter’s shaft almost straight and decayed match clamp possessing unusually pronounced cockscomb-like projection at upper edge. The key bolt has what appears to be a crescent-shaped grip, but this may have been a loop terminal, now breached by decay.

3 Matchlock Provenance: C.G. 3010D [7599] Length: surv. 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Ferrous metal; the tapering plate incomplete; broken serpentine reduced to pivot and butt of shaft; latter flat, suggesting entire serpentine may have been of similar shape. Of the mechanism, the sear spring

5 Matchlock Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7601] Length: 6k˝ (16.35 cm) Ferrous metal; the tapering plate and slender serpentine intact; latter with cockscomb upper edge and notched on lower to create stylized zoomorphic head. The serpentine’s shank is light, rectangular in section, and terminates in a ball-shaped pivot. The match key has been broken off at the face of the clamp. Holes for bolts to secure the mechanism to the stock are open at both ends of the plate, the one forward of the serpentine unusually close to the upper edge. The hole at the other end is centrally placed. A third open hole, close to the lower edge of the plate at its midsection, indicates that the sear and

dred muster that the plantation’s firearms were limited to 26 matchlock muskets and 25 spare matchlock mechanisms. Although this might have been the case in the winter of 1624/5, it was not so at other times, for the archaeology has provided parts and fragments from both “Snaphannce Peeces” and “Peeces fixt.” The foregoing may or may not be a valid interpretation of the Virginia muster, but it did not hold water by 1628, when a listing of the “Armes ffor 100 men” was drawn up in London. It included “80 bastard musketts, wth snaphaunces, 4 ffoote in the barril, wthout rests; 06 long ffowlinge peeces wth muckett boare, 6 foote longe, a; 4 longe ffowlinge peeces, wth bastard muskett boare, 5 a foot longe; 10 ffull musketts, 4 foote barril, wth matchcocks and rests” (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England [1853–1854], p. 26). Here, among supplies bound for Massachusetts, a military gun was called a “muskett” regardless of whether it was operated by a snaphaunce or a matchlock, and “matchcock” was synonymous with matchlock. 350. For a diagram illustrating the mechanisms of both trigger(then called a tricker) and lever-operated matchlocks, see Pt. I, Ill. 24. Evidence of the relative values of “tricker”- over sear-operated muskets is provided by an inventory of arms supplied to the English army in Ireland in 1601—those “wth Tricker locks” priced at 16s. and those “with Seare” at 15s. Calivers with snaphaunce locks were considerably more expensive: 18s. apiece (Blackmore, p. 18, citing WO 55/1752). 351. The presence of the two retaining bolts and the absence of the sear raise interesting questions regarding the circum-

stances under which this lock arrived in the pond. Being divorced from its barrel, there could be no question that the gun had been thrown into the water intact and that the rest had subsequently rotted away. The only way that the lock could have been separated from the stock without removing the bolts was by fire. If the gun had been in one of the buildings thought to have been sacked and burned by the Indians in March 1622, it is quite possible that, with its wood consumed, the lock could have fallen into the ashes. That, however, would not explain the loss of its sear, which could not drop off, having been held in place with a screw. Only one logical explanation remains: the lock was a spare whose sear had been cannibalized for use in another matchlock mechanism. That William Harwood may later have had as many as 25 spare “Machcocks” (see n. 349 above) could have resulted from the salvaging of mechanisms from guns first rendered unserviceable (see n. 353 below) and subsequently burned when the Indians fired the houses. The serpentine grip that held the burning match in place is here shaped somewhat in the manner of a cockerel’s head, and it is likely that the alternate term matchcock is thus derived. The association still survives in firearm terminology: cocking the trigger, half cock. Good examples of matchlocks with cock’s head serpentines have been found in English Civil War contexts, such as those at Sandal Castle (Lawrence A. S. Butler, Sandal Castle, Wakefield: The History and Archaeology of a Medieval Castle [1991], p. 97, figs. a–b). The Martin’s Hundred specimen is somewhat unusual in that it retains a long spring that rides above the now-missing sear lever, whereas the spring was usually shorter and beneath it.

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sear spring were missing before the lock was discarded. Of the interior mechanism only the damaged cam survives. 6 Lever trigger Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7602] Length: surv. 6˝ (15.24 cm) Ferrous metal; identification tentative and based on detail similarities to nos. 8–9 below; post round sectioned; lever diamond sectioned and tapering to a round profile 2˝ (5.08 cm) from its incomplete end. The assumed post is 1e˝ (3.49 cm) in length, a measurement consistent with those of posts on other levers. However, this example is most eccentrically bent, and it is difficult to imagine how a post and lever, which should have been more or less at right angles to each other, could have become so distorted. 7 Lever trigger Provenance: C.G. 3122 [7603] Height: post 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Ferrous metal; rectangular-sectioned post; still secured in eye of sear. The bar extends g˝ (2.22 cm) from the center of the hole to the exterior of the sear, thus placing the lever on the center line of a stock ca. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) thick. 8 Lever trigger Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7604] Length: 7e˝ (18.73 cm) Ferrous metal; intact, though bent out of shape; still attached to eye of broken sear. The post is round sectioned, and the lever diamond sectioned, becoming round 2a˝ (6.35 cm) from its small, diamondshaped terminal. The sear fragment, from the center of its eye to the exterior of the sear, measures c˝ (1.91 cm), thus placing the lever on the center line of a stock ca. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) thick. 9 Lever trigger Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7207] Length: 8i˝ (20.80 cm) Ferrous metal; intact, without later bending or distortion. The post is round sectioned at its point of junction with the sear eye but diamond sectioned below, extending to within 4˝ (10.16 cm) of the lozenge-shaped terminal, at which point the lever tapers and becomes round sectioned. This is a more

352. The guard was a triangular piece of sheet iron bent around the post and secured to the right side of the breech to protect the eye of the sighting musketeer when the powder in the pan ignited. 353. I have argued (Pt. I, pp. 142–143) that the recovery of this and three other pans, each struck from their barrels, is evidence that after the Indian attack in 1622 the survivors temporarily vacated Martin’s Hundred, leaving behind the muskets they could not carry. Rather than allowing the muskets to augment the Indians’ arsenal, the retreating settlers took hammers

robust lever than the others from the Fort, and probably comes from a heavy and crudely made musket. 10 Lever trigger Provenance: C.G. 3002 [7605] Length: surv. 4j˝ (10.95 cm) Ferrous metal; incomplete; post and surviving lever fragment diamond sectioned. 11 Pan and cover Provenance: C.G. 3375C [7205] Length: block 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Ferrous metal; the block thick and square cut internally; pan concavity rectangular and parallel to barrel, floor tilted to encourage powder to gravitate toward touchhole. The aperture is also square cut and located in the midsection of the barrel-flanking wall. The pan retains its post and part of the guard, which wraps around it and overlies the rectangular cover.352 A projection at the outer rear corner of the cover coincides with the usual location for a projecting grip to assist in opening the cover (see no. 11A). The pan block has been struck from the barrel, to which it was originally attached by a projecting lug at a point behind the pan and beside the post.353 12 Pan Provenance: C.G. 3003 [7606] Length: block 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Ferrous metal; the block thin and rectangular; pan concavity square, shallow, and flat-bottomed, its aperture square-cut and centrally located. The hole for the post is located in a projection from the rear corner of the block, which has a notch cut beside it on the back edge to emphasize the separation of post from pan. Unlike no. 11 above, this pan is designed to spread the powder in a thin lens in front of the touchhole rather than lying deep and concentrated. However, the two pan blocks have one feature in common: both were welded to the barrel by a lug projecting from the wall immediately behind the pan, and each had been snapped from their respective barrels. 13 Matchlock Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7607] Length: 7j˝ (18.57 cm) Ferrous metal; the plate intact and part of serpentine, no interior working parts. This is an extremely

and struck off their pans, rendering the guns useless—a quicker and easier task than finding wire of the right size to spike the muskets’ small ignition holes. Two comparable matchlock pans were found in excavations at Beeston Castle, Cheshire, and they, too, have been snapped from their welded barrels. However, the Beeston specimens are from the excavators’ period 9, meaning 18th century or later (Peter B. Ellis, Beeston Castle, Cheshire: A Report on the Excavations 1968–85 by Lawrence Keen and Peter Hough [1993], pp. 157–158, nos. 22–23).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

unusual plate, being shaped to fit around the barrelanchored pan block rather than passing below it. Furthermore the slot is half again as long as it would need be to seat the average block, and its fore edge is deliberately undercut, a feature to be seen on a snaphaunce plate from Site B (Fig. 72, no. 14).354 This plate is rounded at its fore end and diagonally cut at the rear. One mounting bolt hole is located in front of the serpentine and another at the rear of the plate, the latter filled by a flat-headed nail projecting l˝ (1.43 cm) through the plate, but facing the wrong way, i.e., the broken point of the nail faced outward. The pivot of the serpentine is flat and more-or-less round, and at the point where it rises above the plate the shank is flattened and spread as though intended to rest against an external spring or buffer. There is a spring-securing slot c˝ (1.91 cm) behind the serpentine, but there is no knowing whether the spring was located on the inside or outside of this anomalous plate. Two round holes are located one above the other to the rear of the panblock recess, one presumably to hold the sear pivot. 14 Flashpan cover Provenance: C.G. 3001 [7608]355 Length: cover 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Ferrous metal; from snaphaunce lock;356 block slotted and retaining end of pivoting post. Unlike the matchlock pan block (no. 11) above, snaphaunce pans were oriented so that their narrow ends abutted the touchhole. 15 Steel or battery spring Provenance: C.G. 3005C [7609] Length: surv. 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Ferrous metal; from snaphaunce lock. A pear- or leaf-shaped terminal (incomplete) is located to the rear of the hole for a bolt to secure the spring and its overlying bridle to the plate (Pt. I, Ill. 25). A short 354. For this reason more than one gun expert has insisted that the lock comes from a snaphaunce rather than from a matchlock—though no one voicing that opinion has been able to explain the remarkable width of the pan slot. Rebutting evidence exists at the Landeszeuhaus, the provincial arsenal in Graz, Austria, whose racks include more than 600 matchlock muskets of different types, the majority dating no later than the first half of the 17th century. One of them (no. 1467), made at Suhn in the German district of West Thüringer in the late-16th or early-17th century, closely parallels this anomalous plate. Another matchlock (no. 760), having a generally similar plate but with a more conventionally sized snaphaunce-style slot, was made at Graz in the workshop of Hans Kummer in the period 1612–1625. It is possible, therefore, that this lock came from a German or Middle European gun. 355. Although the pan was found outside the Fort in an area where no features were encountered, the recovered artifacts included both a musket ball and shot. 356. The snaphaunce mechanism was the precursor for the standard 18th-century flintlock (see n. 349 above), but instead of the flint-gripping cock scraping down a frizzen attached to the pan cover, sparking and opening the pan in one move-

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post projects from the rear (plate-facing) side of the lower leaf and was seated in a small hole in the plate. 16 Steel or battery spring Provenance: C.G. 3016G [7610] Length: surv. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Ferrous metal; incomplete; identification tentative. The spring is anomalous in that the bolt securing the bridle (of which a small piece survives) is attached to the upper rather than the lower leaf. The spring itself is made (or repaired) in two pieces, the end of the lower being folded over the upper. 17 Musket barrel Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7206] Length: surv. 15n˝ (40.17 cm) Ferrous metal; almost certainly from gun of snaphaunce type; octagonal at slightly expanding muzzle, top three facets clearly defined throughout length of fragment. The other five facets are less distinct and it appears that these may have disappeared where the barrel was cradled in the stock. A post foresight extends to a height of i˝ (0.48 cm) at a point b˝ (0.64 cm) from the muzzle.357 The latter has a bore of ca. l˝ (1.43 cm), but at the broken end of the barrel the bore is closer to a˝ (1.27 cm). 18 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 3018B [7611] Length: surv. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Ferrous metal; one hemisphere from scissor-type mold; producing single balls with ca. m˝ (1.75 cm) diameter.358 19 Bandolier flask lid359 Provenance: C.G. 3000 [7612] Width: int. ca. c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; cast in three-piece mold, leaving vertical mold marks up sides beneath projecting loops. A ment, the snaphaunce pan cover was separate from the striker or battery and had to be opened independently by means of a levered mechanism within the lock. See Fig. 72, nos. 14–15. 357. Pt. I, p. 143. 358. For more complete examples, see Fig. 72, nos. 11–13; for a matching fragment from Site H, see Fig. 63, no. 27. 359. Bandoliers were broad straps generally worn over the left shoulder, from which hung a dozen flasks popularly known as “the twelve apostles.” The Massachusetts records include a March 30, 1629, agreement with John Grace, a turner, to provide “40 bandeleers, [ ] neates lether, broad girdles, ech wth 12 chargs, wrof one a priming b[ox?] of wood, covered wth black lether, at 2s a peece, to bee dd [delivered] next [weeke]; the boxes to bee for bastard muskitt sise, excepting 10 for full mus[ketts], and these to be marked M., the other for bast musketts B” (Shurtleff, p. 31). No reference is made there to the flasks or boxes having pewter caps, and no such lids have been encountered on surviving 17th-century bandoliers in museum or private collections. Though once worn and used by virtually every matchlock musketeer, bandoliers fell to pieces when their strings rotted; they decayed quickly in the ground and were of little interest to early arms collectors. Several of those

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

round sprue mark is visible in the midsection of one of the two vertical lines. The pair of small loops served to thread two cords, one end terminating in matching loops attached to the midsection of the wooden flasks and the other to the leather bandolier. In this way, even in the haste of battle, the pewter caps were kept in permanent association with their flasks (see no. 19A). 20 Bandolier flask lid Provenance: C.G. 3011H [7613] Width: int. ca. c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; similar to no. 19 above; without distinct ridge at lip.

22 Bandolier primer lid Provenance: C.G. 3016B [7615] Diameter: int. ca. c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; lid similar in shape to nos. 19–21 above, but stepped and extending upward into tubular spout n˝ (2.06 cm) in length and with mouth diameter of d˝ (0.32 cm). There is a slicing hole through the side of the spout.360 Like the other lids, this one has two projecting loops for cords, but differs in that the mold marks are not beneath them but equidistant between them, one of the marks being scarred with sprue residue in a figure-eight configuration.361

21 Bandolier flask lid Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7614] Diameter: int. ca. c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; similar to no. 20 above.

extant may have been made in the 19th century for pageant and theatrical purposes—including the one in the Colonial Williamsburg collection. The pewter caps have been found on most early-17th-century archaeological sites in Virginia (e.g., Outlaw, p. 197, fig. 35, 183), testimony to their relatively short lifespan. In England they have been recovered from excavations at Sandal Castle, in contexts of the English Civil War prior to 1645 (Mayes et al., p. 262, fig. 12, 1–5; Butler, p. 100, fig. 42 a–b). Others have been found in Civil War and later contexts at Beeston Castle (P. Ellis, Beeston Castle, pp. 159–160, nos. 40–43). More important, but as yet unpublished, are two lids from a Bermuda shipwreck believed to be that of the Warwick, which went down in Castle Harbour in 1619. Both caps contain shreds of wood, proof that they were used on wooden powder boxes. Describing these cylindrical containers as boxes seems peculiar. However, the flasks of a Pietmontese bandolier of the 17th century are made of boxwood (Wilkinson, Firearms: The History of Guns [1981], p. 19, fig. 5). It is possible, even probable, that the lightness and easy turning of boxwood made it ideal for the purpose, and for that reason the flasks were called boxes. 360. Although the hole has sharp edges and looks as though it has been cut with a knife, as there was no evident reason for such mutilation, we assumed that the damage was accidental. However, there is an almost identical primer lid from Sandal Castle, and it, too, has a sliced hole through the side of the spout (Mayes et al., p. 262, fig. 12, 5). No mention is made of this feature in the text, but I speculated whether some kind of plug was secured to the nozzle by a thread passing through the hole and out through the spout, the side aperture temporarily

sealed by glued paper or fabric. This was not a very convincing explanation, for the thread could equally well have been tied around one of the cords anchoring the primer box to the bandolier. Another explanation for the side cut has been offered by Charles Fithian of St. Mary’s Cittie, who suggests that, frustrated by a clogged and slow-pouring spout, the musketeer cut a larger hole in the side. However, one might argue that it would have been more effective to slice the end from the spout. Perhaps more reasonable is the possibility that the hole allowed air into the spout, facilitating steady pouring and, with a thumb over the hole, a better-regulated flow. See also Pt. I, p. 143 and n. 17. 361. Two comparable priming flask nozzles were found at Beeston Castle (P. Ellis, Beeston Castle, pp. 159–160, nos. 38–39). In discussing them, contributor Paul Courtney notes that these lead nozzles “suggest that lead was adopted in preference to iron for the cheap mass production of nozzles in the Civil War. The flask body would have been likewise cheaply constructed.” The Martin’s Hundred evidence leads to an entirely different interpretation. The presence of so many of these lead caps, both at Martin’s Hundred and on other Virginian sites, is clear indication that their manufacture was not the product of Civil War expediency but rather the standard method of covering bandolier flasks through the first half of the 17th century. Known as the “thirteenth apostle,” the nozzles were attached to an otherwise standard wooden charge holder. They were not used on wood and iron box flasks (e.g., Fig. 57, no. 3 and n. 410), which came in two sizes: one for the charge and the other, smaller, to contain the priming powder.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 50

381

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 50 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS MILITARY AND EQUESTRIAN OBJECTS 1 Dagger362 Provenance: C.G. 3016E [7210] Length: blade 10b˝ (26.04 cm) Blade and 1a˝ (3.81 cm) ricasso; rectangular tang broken l˝ (1.43 cm) above shoulder; blade double edged and diamond sectioned. No evidence of decoration survives on the ricasso nor any mark on the blade, which is almost certainly steel. 2 Pommel Provenance: C.G. 3010D [7616]363 Diameter: 1l˝ (3.97 cm) Probably from broadsword; ball oval and heavy (9b oz. [262.24 g]); collar badly decayed and thus 362. In the late-16th and early-17th centuries daggers were commonly carried in sheaths either attached to or thrust behind the sword belt at a point close to the small of the back, the hilt projecting to the left and in reach of that hand. For this reason the weapon generally is termed a left-hand dagger and sometimes a main-gauche. Dueling exercises of the period called for a rapier in the right hand and a dagger in the left. In the listing of supplies sent to Southampton Hundred in 1618 to equip 35 men were “40 Swordes and Daggers” valued at £12 (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 96). It should not be concluded, however, that the discovery of a dagger in an archaeological excavation is evidence that the weapon’s owner had been to fencing school. On the contrary daggers were the “Saturday night specials” of the 17th century, carried by people who did not possess swords. In 1616 James I had declared illegal the carrying of “stylets” (stilettos) on the grounds that they encouraged breaches of the peace (James Mann, European Arms and Armour [1962], vol. I, p. xxxviii). Besides being offensive and defensive weapons, daggers could be used for slaughtering, eating, and any other use for which a sharply pointed blade seemed appropriate. Daggers were not listed in the 1624 muster at Martin’s Hundred, perhaps because they were not considered of military significance. However, each household was listed as having two or three swords—with the exception of William Harwood’s, which had 20 (Jester, pp. 43–44). For those unacquainted with contemporary terminology, it may be worth noting that 17thcentury inventory references to dags are not bladed weapons but a type of pistol. The term continued in use into the 18th century, primarily among the criminal classes (Bailey, “Cant. Dic” in The Universal Etymological English Dictionary [1737], n.p.). The ordinance of James I cited above referred not only to “stylets” but also to “pocket dags.” Although main-gauche means “left hand” and Sir James Mann, in his glossary to his catalogue of the arms and armour in the Wallace Collection, referred to “the left hand dagger or main-gauche” (Mann, vol. I, p. xxxviii), in the body of the catalog he classed those having open, quilloned hilts as “left-hand” daggers and those with cupped hilts manufactured en suite with rapiers in the Spanish style as “mains gauches” (Mann, vol. I, p. 410). Our arms consultant, the late Harold Peterson (Arms and Armor in Colonial America [1956], p. 90), noted that cross-hilted

the reconstruction somewhat conjectural. There appears to be a pronounced ridge at the collar’s midsection. Little of the sword’s rectangular tang survives, but there is enough to be sure that it is there, proving that the pommel came from a broken rather than a disassembled weapon.364 3 Guard Provenance: C.G. 3010D [7617] Width: surv. 3˝ (7.62 cm) From basket-hilted sword, of type sometimes described as “Irish”;365 lower right fragment; elements round sectioned. The terminating wrist-protecting bar ends in an expanded, shell-shaped pad (an un-

quillon daggers were known as poignards, quillon daggers being the modern generic name for a wide range of designs, the most common incorporating a cross guard and side ring. Blade profiles differed considerably, ranging from the thin, almost skewerlike blade of the example in the Colonial Williamsburg collection (Pt. I, Pl. 45) to the massive, diamond-sectioned blade of one found in the river Thames at Wandsworth, dating ca. 1600, and now in the Museum of London (Ivor Noël Hume, Treasure in the Thames [1956], p. 192, fig. XXVIII; Claude Blair, European & American Arms, c. 1100–1850 [1962], no. 215). The latter blade is more akin in shape, if not in size, to this example. However, in the absence of the latter’s quillon block, one can only speculate as to the character of its hilt. 363. The stratum also yielded other weaponry items: the matchlock mechanism (Fig. 49, no. 3) and a basket-hilt fragment (no. 3 below), and crossmends to context C.G. 1013G, which yielded shot of various sizes as well as fragments of armor (brigandine plates and part of a backplate). 364. There are five more pommels from the Martin’s Hundred sites (the Potter’s Pond: Fig. 57, no. 9; Site H: Fig. 63, no. 14; Site B: Fig. 72, no. 7; and Site A: Fig. 81, nos. 5–6), none of them paralleling this one. Closest is a lozenge-shaped example from Site A (Fig. 81, no. 6), which is lighter, more elongated, and possesses the capstan rivet common to so many hilts of this period. The collar, over which the end of the tang is spread (the rivet), is absent from this pommel. Trying to determine the character of a sword based only on its pommel is a dangerous game. If forced to do so, however, one might suggest a swept-hilted broadsword—for the following reasons: rapiers generally have more elongated and gracefully balustroidal pommels possessing nipplelike capstan rivets; while basket-hilted broad- and backswords usually have shallow, mushroom-shaped pommels (e.g., Figs. 57, no. 9; 63, no. 14; and 81, no. 5), with a screw securing the central vertical element of the guard. This pommel has no such hole. 365. Hilts having basket guards of this type have often been called “Irish,” though in the popular mind they equate with the Scottish Highlanders’ so-called claymore. The latter misnomer developed in England in the 18th century. However, in the 16th and 17th centuries the claymore was a two-handed weapon with a cross guard, appropriately called a “great

ARTIFACT CATALOG

usual feature among guards of this type), and a similar shell-like pad extends from the lateral bar to protect the knuckle of the right forefinger.366 4 Chape Provenance: C.G. 3134A [7618] Length: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) From sword scabbard; oval in plan; no surviving traces of wood or leather. A vestigial projection at the braised tip suggests that the chape may have terminated in a small decorative nipple that has rusted away.367

383

lower extremity, which secured the leather between front and back plates. The surviving plate is somewhat bag-shaped, and its exterior is vertically ridged, features which together simulate the character of the entire hanger. As a rule hangers were supported by a pair of these suspenders, whose loops passed over a hook or through holes at the lower edge of a buckle threaded onto the sword belt (see Fig. 72, no. 18). This suspender, however, is larger and may have served alone.369

5 Suspender Provenance: C.G. 3057B [7619]368 Length: surv. 1˝ (2.54 cm) From sword hanger; the front plate alone surviving and top hook broken, as is single rivet at front plate’s

6 Suspender Provenance: C.G. 3011J [7620] Length: surv. 1˝ (2.54 cm) From sword hanger; identification tentative. A flat disk is broken at its lower end (perhaps at the point where a rivet passed through it) as well as at its looping upper projection. This object is of comparable

sword,” in Scots Gaelic, claidheamh mór (Claude Blair, European and American Arms, c. 1100–1850 [1962], p. 6). Peterson called the basket-hilted weapons “horsemen’s swords” and stated that they “made their appearance in England as early as the Civil War” (Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 84). In reality they became popular much earlier and can be documented as being on their way to Virginia by 1609 (see Pt. I, Ill. 28). Although used in England by cavalry, in Virginia such weapons clearly were the most ubiquitous of munition swords and much more numerous than horses. The guards were made in two ways: either by cutting them out of sheet metal or from a collection of square- or round-sectioned rods bent and welded together, this fragment belonging to the latter. For further discussion, citing parallels, see Fig. 72, n. 527. 366. This feature of basket guards varied in elaboration from carefully sculptured shells to short, unadorned rods (e.g., Fig. 72, no. 8). 367. Two very similar chapes, neither with terminating buttons or nipples, were found in ca. 1645 contexts at Sandal Castle (Mayes et al., pp. 249 and 251, nos. 203–204). For a second Martin’s Hundred chape, though of different type, see Fig. 63, no. 16 and n. 464. 368. This post-Fort ditch cut across its interior and drew into it artifacts from the adjacent land surface and from the strata through which it cut. The section whence came the suspender ran ca. 13´ north of the Cattle Pond. 369. Very little published attention has been paid to the construction and evolution of sword belts in the 16th and 17th centuries. The most thorough review of any aspect of the subject was published in 1891 by Albert Hartshorne, an antiquary of diverse interests best known for his book Old English Glasses, which he published six years later. His work on sword belts focused primarily on the medieval period and ended by informing his readers that “The belts of the seventeenth century are illustrated with such accuracy of detail, and beauty of colour, in the pictures of the Flemish and Dutch Schools,—in the masterpieces by Rubens, Rembrandt, Van De Helst, Franz Hals, Flinck, and a multitude of other gifted men, that to pursue the subject any further on the present occasion would be alike inexpedient and tedious” (Hartshorne, “The Sword Belts of the Middle Ages” [1891], p. 340). In truth details of 17th-century sword belts (sometimes described then as “sword girdles”) are not easily studied in Dutch and Flemish paintings, for those parts that relate most directly to the swords and methods of anchoring them to the belts tend to be obscured by clothing, hands, and the hilts of the weapons themselves. Furthermore there may have been recognizable differences between English

and Continental designs, which may be determinable from the extended study of English as well as Continental portraits. In the majority of medieval renderings (mostly on funerary monuments) the sword is shown on a loose belt, anchored in some fashion to the right hip and drooping to the left thigh with the weight of the weapon and its scabbard. In Tudor and early Stuart paintings and monuments, however, a belt encircled the waist, and on it were two sliding suspenders akin to the copper-alloy example from Site B (Fig. 80, no. 4), one to the right of the belt closure and the other to the rear of the left hip. Attached to the latter by a hook was the sword hanger, from which extended a looping strap, whose other end was hooked to the second of the belt suspenders. This strap helped to tilt the sword so that its hilt was easily gripped and its scabbard chape was kept clear of the ground. Most of the necessary fittings (buckles, suspenders, clasps, and hooks) are depicted in well-known portraits of British soldiers and gentlemen, though not all the items are to be seen in any one picture. Among the most informative is the London National Portrait Gallery’s copy (no. 1612, artist unknown) of a 1571 portrait of Sir Richard Grenville, which shows both suspenders; the peanut-shaped, hooked belt closure; and the bifurcated hook mounting at the top of the hanger. An array of lighter fittings (probably in gold) are to be seen on the portrait of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (d. 1588), the picture undated and by an unknown artist (National Portrait Gallery, London, no. 447). Another portrait of the same sitter and in the same collection (no. 247) is more informative, for whereas the belt of the previous example is of dark leather, this one is light tan colored, making the golden fittings more readily visible. Furthermore the belt is wider, and the fittings consequently larger. In addition to the fittings mentioned above, some of the looping balance straps on sword belts were provided with a buckle half way along their length, by which to adjust the degree of scabbard tilt. Such a buckle is clearly visible on the second Dudley portrait, as is a rectangular buckle serving this purpose in the famous portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh and his son, dated 1602, again by an unidentified artist (National Portrait Gallery, London, no. 3914). The 1588 portrait of Henry Hastings, third Earl of Huntingdon, in the collection of the Tower of London shows an arrangement different to any of the above. The balance strap is hooked at the front, not by a separate suspender but to the central belt closure. The picture also exhibits a detail less, if at all, visible on the previously cited portraits, namely a figure-eight buckle with central tang (e.g., Fig. 81, no. 8) on the left side of the waist belt, which served to adjust it to the wearer’s size. Just as, much later, women’s corsets

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size and shape to a still-secured suspender from Site B (Fig. 72, no. 18). 7 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 3016A [7621] Length: est. frame 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Probably from sword belt; incomplete. The doubleloop frame is of figure-eight type, sometimes referred to as a double buckle.370 A folded sheet-iron grip survives and probably was secured to the leather strap by a single rivet.371 The grip was carefully cut to a shape comprising two lozenges separated by an angle or V. The remains of a small, nail-like tang or “acus” passes through the grip.

The arch extending below plate and expanding into triangular terminals, vertically grooved on exterior to complement shell-fronted leather loop at crown. The flattened terminals shrink into a square-sectioned arch, which passes behind the capping shell. The plate is oval in plan and comprises two vertically rectangular outer bars and two smaller, horizontally rectangular inner foot supports. A shod foot inserted into such a stirrup could have been as much as 4b˝ (10.80 cm) in width, big enough for a large, leatherbooted man but probably not for one wearing sabatons.372

8 Stirrup Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7622] Height: 6a˝ (16.51 cm)

were hooked at the front and semipermanently laced down the back, so sword belts were first buckle-adjusted to fit the individual and thereafter quickly donned and secured with a single hook and eye at the front. In addition to the functional fittings, sword belts in all the cited portraits were enriched with small, purely decorative studs, usually gold or gilded, in the shape of lozenges, peanuts, stars, or rosettes. On belts of the fanciest fellows, such as Henry, Prince of Wales (painted ca. 1610, National Portrait Gallery, London, no. 4515), the studs were set with gems. The lack of English middle-to-lower-class portraiture in the relevant period has deprived us of information concerning purely utilitarian sword belts. Although no small brass strap ornaments have been recovered from any of the Martin’s Hundred sites, a brass rosette ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) in diameter and having two rear tangs for anchoring to leather, found in a ca. 1645 context at Sandal Castle, England, may come from a sword belt—if not from a light horse harness strap (Mayes et al., pp. 232–33, fig. 1, no. 31). The term hanger relates to the combination of straps and fittings supporting a sword suspended from the belt or girdle. In Hamlet Shakespeare described six French rapiers and their “assigns,” the latter comprising “girdle, hangers and so: three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.” In the same period, however, hanger was used to describe a shortbladed sword; e.g., at a court held at Jamestown on February 20, 1625, Roger Stanley was accused of attacking Thomas Lecester with a hanger. “In striving wth him leyster took hold of his hanger and broke it of wthin a handfull of the hilte, and wth ye blade of ye hanger wch he kept in his hand, Cutt the said stanley one the arme, wch hanger was a back swoorde” (H. R. McIlwaine, ed., Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622–1632, 1670–1676 [1979], p. 95). This reference is valuable in that it establishes that the term hanger could be applied to swords of different types—in this case to one having a single-edged blade. In 1719 Daniel Defoe had Robinson Crusoe describe how he “made him a belt with a frog hanging on it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave

him a hatchet.” By the 1640s the waist-secured sword belt and hanger were being replaced by baldrics slung over the shoulder, to which was attached a short sleeve, into which the scabbard fitted. Lacking any balance strap to pitch the hilt forward, the sword hung vertically at the wearer’s side; in the British Army it continues to do so today. The vertically suspending sleeve came to be known as a frog; but the O.E.D.’s earliest reference to the term is that from Defoe cited above. 370. The type is paralleled at Site H (Fig. 63, no. 12). In his book on antiquities from the sea coast of Cheshire, the Reverend A. Hume (Ancient Meols:, p. 101) wrote extensively on the history of buckles, classifying those of figure-eight shape as “double buckles.” 371. Dr. Hume struggled to find a suitable term to describe this part of the buckle. “This metallic strap,” he wrote, “in connection with the leather, is sometimes called a ‘shank’ . . . [or] . . . a ‘tail,’ but is here denoted by the word ‘attachment’” (Hume, p. 92). My namesake’s erudition notwithstanding, that seems a weak decision, and instead I have chosen grip, in the belief that it better defines the component’s function. However, Geoff Egan and Francis Pritchard (Dress Accessories, c. 1150–c. 1450 [1991], p. 51) prefer to call them “sheet plates.” 372. There is no evidence that any Virginian colonist wore or possessed full armor, though it was still used by mounted officers in the late-16th century. A suit was made by William Pickering at Greenwich in 1610 for Prince Henry Stuart (A. Vesey D. Norman, Arms and Armour [1972], p. 54). By that time, however, and throughout the Civil War (1642–1649) officers generally wore three-quarter suits, i.e., with long tasses often terminating in poleyn at the knee, and commonly defined as “cuirassier armor.” However, there may have been exceptions; e.g., a woodcut portraying Prince Rupert in the midst of the Civil War shows him wearing greaves and sabatons (John Ellis, Cavalry: The History of Mounted Warfare [1978], p. 86). The presence in the Fort of a stirrup (and perhaps of saddle parts, Fig. 40, nos. 13–14) does not prove that anyone there possessed a horse, only that someone had a saddle. For a further review of this subject, see Fig. 81, n. 581.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 51

385

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Figure 51 The Fort And Barn (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMOR 1 Gorget lame373 Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7623] Width: at center 3˝ (7.62 cm) tapering to 2g˝ (7.30 cm) at the ends Steel;374 raised and rolled lower edge (probably over wire),375 but flattened at both ends. The plate is ornamented with an incuse panel f˝ (1.59 cm) wide, which fades away at points ca. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) from each end. Within the panel are five randomly spaced rivets to secure the lining, the three at the right showing evidence of secondary hammering. A sixth brass rivet 376 is located on the upper edge of the lame, in line with the last in the lower edge row. A matching rivet to the left undoubtedly existed, for these rivets were needed to anchor the gorget to the helmet, but such a hole is now obscured.377

3 Gorget lame Provenance: C.G. 3050C [7625] Width: 3˝ (7.62 cm) Steel; fragments; rolled edge (probably over wire), with three brass rivets surviving. 4 Backplate Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7626] Length: surv. 9f˝ (23.65 cm) Steel; lower left arm fragment; edge rolled over wire. The straight upper edge suggests that the plate had been deliberately cut to obtain metal for some purpose, and the absence of any shoulder contour indicates that it had been hammered flat. 5 Plate Provenance: C.G. 3011F [7627] Length: 2˝ (5.08 cm) Brass; perhaps from brigandine;378 pierced at one corner by brass rivet. To the left of the rivet is a single incised line and, to the left of that, the metal has been finely hammered.

2 Gorget lame Provenance: C.G. 3010E [7624] Length: surv. 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Steel; fragment; edge rolled over wire. There are the remains of two iron rivets, one having a very small head and securing an iron washer. The curvature of the lame is such that it is more likely to come from a close helmet or burgonet than to be part of an independent gorget (e.g., Fig. 57, no. 15).

6 Brigandine plate379 Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7628] Length: 2˝ (5.08 cm)

373. The term lame is applied to any overlapping plate forming part of a flexible defense, usually anchored one plate to another by means of rivet-secured leather strips concealed behind them. 374. The identification as steel here and hereafter is not reinforced by analysis, rust alone surviving. See Fig. 39, n. 283. 375. It was common practice to create a rolled edge by hammering the sheet metal over an iron wire matrix. The same technique was used in other metals, e.g., in the manufacture of copper-alloy sheet-metal warming pan lids and cooking skillets (e.g., Fig. 59, no. 3). When an edge was created without the wire, a flat fold generally resulted. In most of the examples illustrated here the edges are too rusted for the wire to be identified, but their roundness attests to its presence. 376. These rivets (and all others identified as brass) are entirely of copper alloy and are not brass-capped iron or steel rivets. 377. Gorget lames of this kind (along with nos. 2–3 below) were used only as collar appendages to closed helmets, burgonets, and, earlier, armets. As the close helmet from the adjacent well still retains its terminating frontal collar lame, it follows that this plate came from another closed or semi-closed helmet. It should be noted that the second close helmet (Fig. 55) lacks both its lower collar lames, and one might argue that this gorget belonged to it. Even if that were so, however, it would not explain the presence of the fragments from two others (nos. 2–3).

378. The identification of this plate as coming from a brigandine rests only on its similarity in shape to those of steel. The location of the single rivet at one corner and the unequivocal absence of others weighs heavily against this identification being correct. 379. For a demonstration of the way in which the small steel plates were assembled to create an armored vest, see Pt. I, Pl. 49. The foundation was usually of leather or canvas, to which the metal scales were riveted. They were covered by a skin of fabric, often silk or velvet, and the rivet heads protruded through it to give the vest a decorative yet military appearance. The back and front were laced together down the sides or, if the front was in two panels, buckled down the join. The shoulders also were secured with buckled straps. Some brigandines were made with arms of canvas or other matching fabrics, and a few were fitted with plated tassets constructed in the same manner as the vest itself. This type of armor was much used by the Spanish in the late15th century, when it was worn in conjunction with shirts of mail (Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, pp. 104–105). In the aftermath of the 1622 massacre the Virginia Company sent out a supply of military equipment obtained by royal gift from the Tower of London, and in it were at least 100 brigandines. The shipment also included mail shirts, jack coats, and skulls (helmets), all of which, according to the Commissioners of Ordnance, were “not only old and much de-

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Steel; slightly convex, two small rivets visible at top edge. 7 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 3013G [7629] Length: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Steel; less convex than no. 6 above, two rivets surviving along upper edge. cayed but with their age growne also altogether unfit and of no use for moderne service” (Richard Sackville, “Lord Treasurer’s Warrant Respecting Arms, July 29, 1622,” in “Lord Sackville’s Papers Respecting Virginia, 1615–1631,” American Historical Review, vol. XXVII [1922], p. 504). Peterson (Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 140), commenting on this supply, observed that brigandines had “not been used actively in Europe for 100 years.” However, the number of plates found on Virginian sites hints that they were more common than he supposed. The presence of these examples from the Fort, and many more from the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 57, nos. 12–14), indicates that such coats were available in Martin’s Hundred before the Indian attack and therefore were not part of the shipment of old armor from the Tower. Brigandines present a contemporary terminological problem, for there were two other kinds of fabric-and-plate-constructed vests: those made like brigandines but using larger steel plates, called plate coats; and others with generally square plates sewn between canvas, known as jacks or jack coats (see Fig. 64 and Pt. I, Ill. 32). Unfortunately these terms became confused; e.g., in the previously cited report from the Tower’s Commissioners of Ordnance, the listing included “Plate Cotes or Jackes of Plate.” When, however, the Virginia Company sought this armor it listed “Briggandines 100” and “Plate cotes 40,” with no reference to jacks (Sackville, p. 503). However, another version of the same document reads “Brigandynes als Plate Coates 100 and Jacks of plate 40,” clearly the same items, but one using the term “jack” and the other not (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 665). When the equipment was being assembled for delivery to the Company, the list included “Briggandines alias Plate Coates 280” (Sackville, p. 505). If the attribution of this last document to August 1622 is correct, the number of brigandines supplied to the Virginia Company was raised from 100 to 280. The answer to the question of whether or not “briggandines alias Plate Coates” can be documented as being in service in Virginia prior to the postmassacre shipment may depend on one’s reading of the list of supplies shipped from Bristol to Berkeley Hundred in September 1620. It included “9 corslets” worth 10s. each, and “4 coates of plate” at the same valuation (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 390). In Martin’s Hundred the terminological muddle is expanded by the 1625 muster listing of “Coates of Steele,” three of them in the possession of William Harwood and one in the home of Ellis Emerson. Before accepting those as riveted brigandinelike defenses, one has to be aware that in another household (the Addams-Leake menage) there was a “Coat of plate” (Jester, pp. 43–44). 380. This feature was exposed in the preliminary stripping that resulted in the discovery of the watchtower. The Excavation Register described it as comprising “compact fill of small metal (iron) pieces. Cut into natural. Top partially disturbed by machine.” Subsequent excavation revealed the feature to be a posthole 7˝ (17.78 cm) in diameter and 5˝ (12.70 cm) deep. The nature of the soil fill was not recorded, and there was no evidence of separation between the construction fill and an after-destruction mold. Consequently one cannot be sure whether the mail got into the hole when the Fort was going up or coming down. On balance, however, the small size of the hole points to post-Fort deposition or to the product of a change in the character of the watchtower in the course of its life.

387

8 Mail links Provenance: C.G. 3004A [7630]380 Diameter: link ca. n˝ (2.06 cm) Iron and brass;381 both of round-sectioned wire flattened at ends and riveted.382

381. The brass links are in an advanced state of decay, and therefore their metallurgical identification is presumed rather than proven. They are, however, of copper or a copper alloy and therefore significantly different from those of iron to which they are attached. The presence of brass rings attached to the iron links of this mail points to mail of sufficient quality to be worth decorating. On the other hand the round wire rings are thin (perhaps emphasized as a result of decay), a factor pointing to their having come from a relatively light garment. Rows of ornamental brass rings occur at or close to the edges of a variety of garments, from separate collars and sleeves to capes and complete shirts. At one time thought to be Oriental in origin, several important examples are now considered to be German, made in the 15th and 16th centuries (Mann, vol. I, pp. 4–5; Dufty, pl. CXXVI, d). Because mail has relatively few stylistic characteristics, it is extremely hard to determine either its date or its origin. Nevertheless the possibility that these fragments come from a German garment cannot be ruled out. 382. As a rule of thumb it has been said that medieval mail rings were fashioned from flattened wire while those of the 16th and later centuries were made from round-sectioned wire swaged flat at the ends to receive the rivet (Mayes et al., p. 266). Like all such rules, however, this has its exceptions. There are German shirts using flat-sectioned wire as late as ca. 1550 and others using round wire as early as the 14th century (Cyril Stanley Smith, “Methods of Making Chain Mail (14th to 18th Centuries): A Metallographic Note,” Technology and Culture, vol. I [1959], pp. 63–64). It is important to note that in the postmedieval period not all mail makers riveted each ring. In some shirts half were welded closed and threaded onto their open-ended neighbors, a technique that greatly speeded a singularly tedious process. However, according to Claude Blair (European Armour, circa 1066 to circa 1700 [1958], p. 20), in Europe this method of construction had been employed earlier but was out of fashion by the beginning of the 15th century. Although found in collections posing as European, mail made in this way is likely to date from the 18th century and to be of Turkish or Persian origin (C. Smith, “Methods of Making Chain Mail,” pp. 63–64). The shirt in the Colonial Williamsburg collection has both riveted and welded links, but as far as can be determined, these fragments are all riveted. The 1625 muster showed that in Martin’s Hundred, William Harwood had “Coats of Male, 10”; Emerson had two; and the household of John Jackson had one (Jester, pp. 43–44). In all, the muster tabulated 276 shirts of mail throughout the colony, a figure which leaves one wondering what had become of 124 of the 400 “Jerkins or Shirtes of Maile” sent out from the Tower, which reached Jamestown in December 1622 (Sackville, p. 505). The discrepancy may have been considerably greater, for the Abigail also carried “a Noble Guift of the Lo: St Iohn of Basinge (vizt) 60 Cots of Male” (Kingsbury, vol. II, p. 135). In 1625, according to the muster, there were 77 coats of mail “Belonging to James Citty” and more “dispersed in the Cunttrie” (Jester, p. 27). The discrepancies between the muster and the inventory of the royal gift of 1622 is not limited to mail, however (see Phillip A. Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century [1964 (1910)], vol. II, 33).

388

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

9 Mail links Provenance: C.G. 3004A [7631] Diameter: link ca. o˝ (2.38 cm) Iron; round-sectioned wire, flattened at ends and riveted. Although these links are slightly larger than those of no. 8 above, they are almost certainly from the same garment. 10 Breastplate Provenance: C.G. 3016E [7632] Length: surv. 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Steel; right side fragment; heavily rolled edge beneath right arm, almost certainly shaped over wire. The thickness of the plate identifies it as coming from a breastplate rather than a backplate. 11 Cheekpiece Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7633] Width: surv. 3c˝ (9.53 cm) Steel; chin fragment from burgonet (see no. 11A).383 The plate has a small everted collar and a large-headed iron rivet at the corner, protruding behind to a length of j˝ (0.79 cm) and terminating in a small washer. The rivet anchored a strap used to tie the cheekpieces beneath the wearer’s chin. Both the cheek and neck edges are folded. 12 Upper cannon384 Provenance: C.G. 3011K [7634] Height: 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Steel; fragments; decorated with squared and notched cordon hammered from behind to create beaded ornament b˝ (0.64 cm) from one edge. The cylinder has been flattened and bent. In the fold close to the plain edge is an internal rivet having a head e˝ (0.95 cm) in diameter. A second and similar internal rivet occurs 3c˝ (9.53 cm) to the right, and another in the midsection and half way up the plate, 3d˝ (7.94 cm) from the first.

383. The fragment is important not only because it provides the sole evidence for burgonets in Martin’s Hundred, but also because it comes from a very angular and unusual cheek element. 384. The term cannon is used by some armor authorities to define the tubular plates used to protect the upper and lower arm (Mann, vol. I, p. xxxvi). However, others call the upper arm plate the rerebrace, while others often include the upper cannon with the shoulder-protecting pauldron, and the lower cannon becomes the vambrace (Blair, European Armour, p. 210). See Pt. I, Ill. 29. 385. This being the only artifact found in situ within the Barn, and not deposited until the building ceased to exist, renders its identification as armor tenuous at best. 386. Armor with scallop-edged plates was by no means com-

13 Lame Provenance: C.G. 3374A [7635]385 Width: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Steel; fragment; perhaps part of cannon. The plate is very fragmentary but appears to have one scalloped edge.386 14 Lame Provenance: C.G. 3016C [7636] Length: 12m˝ (32.23 cm) Steel; from garde-rein or tasset; sharply angled at one end and tapering slightly toward other. The latter’s corners are clipped. At a point 3˝ (7.62 cm) from the left end and on the lower edge are a pair of rivet holes (a feature paralleled on no. 15 below and on a garde-rein lame from the Potter’s Pond [Fig. 57, no. 17]). The right 1c˝ (4.45 cm) of the lame are folded under (but shown flat in the figure) on the line of two vertical rivet holes.387 15 Lame Provenance: C.G. 3012C [7637] Height: max. 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Steel; fragment; having characteristics similar to no. 14 above; straight cut along both longitudinal edges, close to one of which, in the midsection of the fragment, are a pair of flat-headed rivets. There is another, similar rivet on the same edge to the right of the fragment, suggesting that paired rivets may have been distributed as they are on Fig. 57, no. 17. The lame tapers 2a–2e˝ (6.35–6.03 cm) in a surviving length of 7a˝ (19.05 cm). 16 Tasset hook plate Provenance: C.G. 1013G [7638] Width: plate 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Brass plate and remains of iron (steel?) hook. Three of four brass rivets survive, one retaining an iron washer a˝ (1.27 cm) in diameter at the back. A

mon in the 17th century. Those that survive are usually considered to be Italian or East European and to date from the last third of the 16th century (Dufty, pl. CXV). However, in England in 1629–1630, Peter Paul Rubens painted a threequarter-length portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel, wearing armor whose pauldrons and vambrace plates are scalloped (William Gaunt, Court Painting in England from Tudor to Victorian Times [1980], p. 90). The identification of the excavated fragment is tentative, there being no rivets or holes to indicate to what it had been attached. 387. Although the placement of the paired rivet holes points to an affinity between this lame and Fig. 57, no. 17, it by no means follows that both are from garde-reins. Indeed the narrowness of this specimen, coupled with its tapered profile, is more suggestive of a late-16th-century-style tasset.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

389

similar washer secures the round-headed iron post on which the hook pivoted. There is a rectangular hole in the center of the plate, through which an eye attached to the breastplate projected, and through which the hook passed to anchor the tasset. The

plate is marked by an incised groove parallel to one edge, and the off-set hook mooring takes the form of a pierced disk having sharply angled wings at either side.388

388. Hooks of this type were attached to the skirts of pikemen’s breastplates, two to a side. A central pierced post passed up through the rectangular hole, and through another attached to the upper end of a brass hinge riveted to the tasset. With the latter thus anchored to the post, the steel hook swung forward, its pointed end passing through the side of the aforesaid post. The type is well represented in the collection of the Tower of London (Dufty, pl. LXIV). Norman considers armor with latches of this kind to be Dutch, and cites two paintings in the Reichmuseum at Amsterdam: The Corporalship of Captain A. Joncheyn, dated 1606 (c. 387), and the Company of Matthijs Willemsz Raephorst, by Nicholas Eliasz Pickenoy in 1630 (c. 383). That similar armor was worn by English officers is demonstrat-

ed by two paintings attributed to Daniel Mytens, a Dutch artist who had emigrated to London ca. 1618. The pictures are portraits of Sir William Lovelace and Sir Henry Payton, the former wearing his armor and the latter shown with it lying beside him. This last clearly shows hooks of the Martin’s Hundred type in their latched and unlatched positions. Both portraits are said to have been painted in 1623, before Lovelace and Payton departed for military service in the Netherlands, the former killed at the siege of Grolle in Holland five years later. Whether the armor shown by Mytens is of English or Netherlandish manufacture remains uncertain, but it clearly provides dating precedent for the presence of such a hook in Wolstenholme Towne prior to 1622.

390

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 52

391

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 52 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMOR 1 Backplate Provenance: C.G. 3050F [7639]389 Length: through center of back, including garde-rein 16a˝ (41.92 cm) Steel; left side eroded but right intact; edges “rolled” at collar and right arm, but condition of plate prevents determining whether or not metal rolled over wire or merely folded. The plate is well made, being shaped to the contours of a wearer’s shoulder. The end of the leather strip survives at the right shoulder and is secured by two iron rivets passing through a pair of diamond-shaped brass wash-

ers.390 Part of the right-side leather waist strap also survives, secured by two rivets but without washers. Attached to the everted lower edge of the backplate by iron rivets are two deep, convex, and overlapping lames of a garde-rein.391 Due to the metal’s advanced state of decay it is impossible to be sure how many rivets connected the garde-rein to the backplate, and whether they secured it rigidly to the plate or indirectly by means of flexible leather straps. One rivet head is visible at the extreme right, another is suspected at the midsection of the right lame, and a third is identified by a curiously unrusted hole where with

389. The plate was lying with its exterior face down in the organic silt, but with its left side against the natural marl stratum at the side of the well shaft—a juxtaposition that increased the corrosion along the armor’s left edge. Since the plate was in very fragile condition and its position was such that it obstructed the removal of wood that had to be extracted before the steel frame could be constructed around the helmet, I concluded that the backplate had to be written off or removed by less careful means than it would have been afforded had the helmet not been in the way. Consequently we cleaned off the upper surface as best we could by undercutting the silt on which the overlying helmet rested, then reinforced the metal with screen wire and glue and finally a thick coating of plaster of Paris. (For a fuller discussion of our developing retrieval techniques, see I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” pp. 158–160.) Although the plaster reinforcement enabled us to extract the backplate without any further damage, it has since prevented us from either conserving or studying the interior face of the armor. 390. Fragments of three more backplates have been recovered from Martin’s Hundred excavations (the Potter’s Pond: Fig. 56; Site A: Fig. 81, no. 1; and another from the as-yet unpublished Site J), all with iron rivets and diamond-shaped brass washers at the shoulders. Norman has noted that he has not seen such washers on English armor and suggests that the Martin’s Hundred plates may be Dutch. 391. Also called a culet, this rump defense is an unusual feature for run-of-the-mill 17th-century pikemen’s armor, whose rear protection (according to some authorities) rarely extended beyond the narrow skirt of the backplate (Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 134, pl. 150; see also Fig. 56). However, another garde-rein lame, of no less ample proportion, was found in the Potter’s Pond (Fig. 57, no. 17) and a smaller but comparable fragment in the Fort’s Cattle Pond (Fig. 51, no. 15). In the 16th century garde-reins generally comprised three rows of lames, the lowest terminating in a rolled edge (e.g., Mann, pl. 15, no. A30). In the 17th century, as Norman noted when he examined the Martin’s Hundred discoveries, garde-reins usually were associated with three-quarter length equestrian suits, i.e., cuirassiers’ armor. Blair (European Armour, p. 147), writing about backplates of the first half of the 17th century, noted that they were “rather short

a

narrow

flange instead of a culet, although a very large laminated culet, usually detachable, came back into fashion on cuirassier armor in the second decade of the century.” Such a large garde-rein is to be seen in a most unusual but undated painting in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Pt. I, Pl. 50). By the Dutch artist Gerard Terborch (1617–1687), it shows a weary cuirassier riding away, wearing a three-quarter armor over a buff coat, the garde-rein so large that it appears to project over the rear of his saddle. If, however, the garde-rein lames identify this backplate as belonging to a cuirassier armor, and at the same time its unusual brass washers create fraternal associations with plates from the Potter’s Pond and Sites A and J, one may be tempted to conclude that all those found belonged to armor for mounted soldiers, and even that most of the plate armor from Martin’s Hundred was of “officer” quality. Tempting though that conclusion might be, the truth is that backplates with attached garde-reins were not limited to cuirassiers’ armor, for the De Gheyn illustrations of pike drill (e.g., Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 97, pl. 108) show the men in armor possessing two rows of garde-rein lames quite as large and convex as those still attached to the backplate from the Fort. Indeed documentation exists to prove that, as late as 1628/9, suits whose listed components identify them as being of pikemen’s scope were being shipped to America—complete with “culets.” A likely supplier of armor to the Martin’s Hundred Society and its individual shareholders was Thomas Stevens of Buttolph Lane, London, who in February 1619/20 supplied Smith’s Hundred with “23 Armors att 17s p [er] peece, and 2 Armors better than ordinary for Mr Middleton & his Sone at 25s p[er] peece” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 262). Eight years later (March 1628/9), in providing similarly priced armor to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Stevens was more specific (Shurtleff, vol. I, p. 31): 20 armes, viz., coslett, brest, back, culet, gorgett, tases, & hed peece to ech, varnished all black, wth lethers & buckles, at 17s ech armour, exceping 4, wch are to bee wth close head peeces, & theis 4 armours at 24, a peece, to be dd [delivered] all by the 20th of this monthe; wr of 1 left nowe for a sample.

392

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

the lames overlap.392 There is no evidence of rivet holes along the lames’ lower edges to secure a sec-

ond, single or double lame, but the surviving pair lacks a finished (folded or rolled) edge.

Even if one dismisses De Gheyn’s pictorial evidence as Flemish and inadmissible, it is hard to ignore the Stevens bill for supplying pikemen’s armor with culets as late as 1628/9, or to overlook the helmet-hook thesis propounded in n. 388 above. On balance there seems sufficient evidence to give credence to the possibility that this backplate comes from such a suite—its archaeological proximity to the close helmet notwithstanding. 392. The empty rivet hole is difficult to explain in purely archaeological terms, for the condition of the backplate is such that any empty rivet holes that may have existed when the armor was discarded would long since have filled with rust. Alternatively, if a flush-headed rivet had occupied the hole un-

til the plate was found, it would have been far too rusted to have popped loose in the course of excavation. If, however, the hole had been occupied by something larger, it is quite possible that in freeing the armor from beneath the helmet, something could have broken off or pulled out. Blair (European Armour, p. 145) has noted the following: “At all times the backplate was generally equipped with a hook on which the helmet was hung when not required.” That hook was attached to the projecting waist-level edge and, perhaps in examples having covering garde-reins, were anchored to those in a similar location, i.e., where the empty hole remains on this example. See also Pt. I, pp. 149–150.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figures 53 and 54

393

394

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figures 53 and 54 The Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMOR 1 Close helmet Provenance: C.G. 3050E [7187] Height: ca. through center in open position 13a˝ (34.29 cm) Steel; skull with high comb, bevor, single-element visor, visor prop, and gorget lame. Due to its almost totally rusted condition, there is no knowing whether the skull was made in one or two pieces. When found, the visor was almost down and the bevor unlatched and forward, as it must be when donning or removing the helmet (Fig. 53). When in their closed positions, it is estimated that the helmet would appear as shown in Fig. 54. In the latter rendering another significant change has been made: the right side of the gorget lame has been reconstructed to match the left both in its width and rivet placement. It would appear, however, that the damage to the lame was deliberate, for the two brass edge rivets on that side have been moved up to serve the same lining-retention purpose in the adapted configuration.393 A rear collar lame matching the gorget is missing, but brass rivets394 that held its straps in place sur-

vive at the neck. Two smaller brass rivets are positioned close together at the nape of the skull’s collar, and these may be a lower terminal mounting for a plume holder. However, no further traces of such an embellishment have been identified on the skull itself. The single element visor pivots on large-headed rivets, which also attach the bevor to the skull. The upper edge of the visor rises into a central peak, as though to complement the skull’s crest. It is not contoured to embrace the curvature of the comb, as does the visor of the second helmet (Fig. 55), because the fore-edge slope of the comb is almost straight, thus allowing the visor to slide along rather than around it. There are three breaths arranged in triangles on either side of the visor’s nasal ridge, and its sight appears to be a single slot slightly everted at the lower edge, with a shallow bill above projecting to an oblique angle at its center. Though not shown in the figure, this bill is bent down (Pt. I, Pl. 56), thus obscuring any junction (if such there was) between sights for the left and right eyes.395

393. The deliberate cutting away of the gorget lame and realigning of its rivets may be explained by a need for greater freedom of movement in a right-turning or head-tilting direction—as would be necessary if someone wearing a close helmet needed to tuck his head down into his shoulder to aim a musket. One might counter that no one in his right mind would wear a closed helmet while firing a musket—but it might equally be argued that it made no sense to wear such a helmet in Virginia. That helmeted cavalry (mounted infantry) did aim calivers from the saddle (as opposed to arquebusiers, who held their weapons at arm’s length) is proved by early-17th-century Dutch illustrations to J. J. Wallhausen’s Instructions of the Principles and Foundation of Cavalry (Frederick Wilkinson, The World’s Great Guns [1977], p. 54).

ells xvs; one pike head vjd; fyve C, of brasse rivettes, xviijd; for canvis to lappe thinge in for cariage xxd. 395. The visor’s construction has been the subject of considerable controversy. Experts on English armor insist that in close helmets the wearer’s face was protected by three elements: the visor, covering the mouth and nose; the lower bevor, the jaw and lower cheeks; and the upper bevor, the brow. The visor and upper bevor often divided along the line of the sights. In this case, however, the functions of the upper bevor are combined in the visor. Because the upper edge of the sight (or sights) has a projecting bill, allegedly employing more metal than could be displaced by cutting the slot, critics have contended that the face-covering plates divided along the line of the sight to create a conventional visor and upper bevor relationship. The condition of the visor and its bill is such that it is not possible to determine how the latter was attached, but x-ray photography left no doubt that the helmet combined upper bevor and visor, a conclusion dramatically confirmed when a second close helmet was discovered in the Potter’s Pond and found to possess a similarly constructed visor (Fig. 55). In the latter instance, however, the x-ray pictures showed that the bill was made from a strip of metal divided at its fore edge, passed through the sight, and riveted to the interior upper edge. No such rivets have been detected on the first visor. However, Luther Sowers of North Carolina, a skilled reproducer of 17thcentury armor, has stated that the visor is of sufficient thickness for the small bill to have been hammered out from the metal displaced by cutting the slight (see n. 397 below).

394. Several authorities have suggested that the rivets are iron and only capped with brass. Although this was common practice, x-ray photography has left no doubt that this helmet’s collar rivets are brass throughout. Fortunately Norman subsequently provided much-needed supportive documentation, citing the Shuttleworth Accounts for July 1621 (Shuttleworth Accounts [1621], vol. XLI, p. 249–50). The reference clearly shows that at that date armorer John Harmer was able to provide 500 brass rivets. It reads as follows: to Jo: Harmer, armo’rer, for fyve muskettes with restes and mouldes (at xiijs with the rest and mouldes, iijlixs; one other rest and mould, xiid; 2 French pistolls furnished, xxxs; one long elbowe gantlett, vjs; six head peeces (at 3s) xviijs one sworde with belt vijs; fyve suites of brasse buck-

ARTIFACT CATALOG

395

The bevor also appears to be made in one piece, but as the visor cannot be moved and the condition of the interior had to be stabilized rather than probed, the cheek-edge contours cannot be determined. It was kept closed by a thick hook attached to the right side, which latched through a projecting eye on the skull. Much more difficult to interpret is the visor prop, whose shape survives intact but whose operation defies explanation. It appears to be anchored to the right side of the bevor by one or perhaps two rivets and to fold outwards to follow the jut

of the visor. Shortly thereafter it tapers down to a knob (or screw?), then expands again and changes its plane to present a notched edge to the cheek.396 Dating for the helmet remains uncertain. Harold L. Peterson thought that the skull (on the evidence of its high comb) was of Elizabethan date, ca. 1580, but that it had been fitted with a later visor. Other authorities, while accepting that this could be so, see no reason why all the parts may not be contemporary and made in the early seventeenth century.397

396. Blair (European Armour, p. 133) has stated that “All forms of visored helmet from the beginning of the 16th century onwards are fitted either with spring-catches, pivot hooks and staples, or screws to lock the various movable parts in the closed position. In addition, there is usually a forked support, pivoted at the bottom, to hold the visor open; on a few helmets, this is replaced by a spring-operated lug that projects through the skull and catches under the edge of the raised visor.” It would appear that this helmet possessed neither device but rather a sophisticated (perhaps spring-secured) prop secured in a permanently vertical position. No parallels for such a device have yet been found. 397. Dating for the helmet’s manufacture (or assembling from miscellaneous parts) is dependent upon agreement that the

type exists. Its apparent absence from British armor collections had made consultants reluctant to offer anything specific. Nevertheless there are numerous helmets having upper bevors incorporated into one-piece visors in the collection of the Landeszeughaus in Graz, Austria, the majority of its armor assembled for the defense of the Styrian province in the first year of the 17th century (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 66). Norman has examined this helmet and agrees that the visor is made in one piece, but questions whether it would have been possible to draw out the bill from the metal displaced by cutting the sights. He also subscribes to the view that the skull is older than the visor and may date from ca. 1580–1590, but is not prepared to identify it as English.

396

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 55

ARTIFACT CATALOG

397

Figure 55 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMOR 1–4 Close helmet Provenance: C.G. 3113G [7203] Height: gorget lame to top of crest 11˝ (27.94 cm) Steel; skull with shallow comb, bevor, single-element visor, and single neck and gorget lames. Due to the helmet’s almost totally rusted condition, there is no knowing whether the skull was made in one or two pieces, though more often than not the skulls of close helmets and burgonets of this period were made in two pieces joined at the comb, the rolled ridge of one side lapping over the other. A hook at the right side of the bevor, latching into a corresponding ring projecting from the skull, kept the helmet closed; however, there is no evidence of any visor support. Both bevor and visor pivot on large-headed rivets. Although this helmet parallels the example found in the Fort well (Figs. 53–54) insofar that both incorporate their upper bevors into the visor, in most other respects they are significantly different. Unlike the gently curving, profiled visor of the Fort helmet, this one is more angular; and unlike the former, with its three breaths at either side, this has a ring of ten holes around an eleventh, a detail having a pronounced visual impact on the visor’s appearance. The sight takes the form of a single slot, the lower edge slightly everted; the bill is in two pieces (on the

Fort helmet it is in one), leaving a V-shaped gap at the bridge of the nose (Fig. 55, no. 2; Pt. I, Pl. 57). The two bill plates are folded at right angles, inserted through the sight and secured with iron rivets. At the visor’s upper edge a short concavo-convex projection mirrors the forward edge of the skull’s comb and allows the visor to ride over it. The helmet lay on its side in the ground and had been crushed by the weight of the overburden, producing the somewhat froglike appearance evident in Fig. 55, no. 3, wherein the visor is shown as found. In nos. 1 and 4 it is drawn lowered and raised.398 In no. 4 the brow edge of the skull and the upper edge of the bevor are conjecturally reconstructed, the rusted condition of the helmet rendering any movement of the visor impossible. Only two of the collar lames are present, both attached and lined by means of wholly brass rivets. Because so little is known about munition armor of this type and period, one hesitates to comment on the relative quality of the two Wolstenholme helmets.399 However, the lightness and angularity of this specimen suggests that it was less well built than that from the Fort. The question of whether either or both are of English manufacture is equally debatable.400

398. This interpretation was made possible by means of a cardboard model. 399. In 1619/20 armor purchased from armorer Thomas Stevens of Buttolph’s Lane, London, for shipment to Smith’s Hundred in Virginia was priced at 17s., a suite comprising body armor with tassets, culet (garde-rein), and “head piece,” but without arm or leg protection. Two armors in that shipment were priced 8s. higher and were described as “better then ordinary” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 262). It is safe to conclude that the latter armor included “close head peeces,” for Stevens was to send a comparably priced shipment to Massachusetts in 1628/9, the 17s. suites as described above and four others, with helmets thus described, priced at 24s. per suite (Shurtleff, vol. I, p. 31). Although Stevens noted that the 25s. suites sent to Virginia were “better than ordinary,” there is no way of knowing whether the improvement was in the quality of workmanship or simply that there were additional components. On balance the latter interpretation seems the most reasonable, the price difference being relatively modest. Hints of superior quality among the armor elements from Martin’s Hundred come not so much from the close helmets but from the couter from Site B (Fig. 72, no. 1) and the upper cannon fragments from

the Fort (Fig. 51, no. 12). 400. There is a current fashion (perhaps legitimate) for seeing much erstwhile “English” armor as Dutch. This presumes, however, that armor sold by English armorers like Thomas Stevens was imported. In the absence of documentation this remains theoretical at best. Nevertheless it must be noted that Norman has suggested that backplates having straps riveted under diamond-shaped brass washers are Dutch, a detail exhibited by all the backplates found in Martin’s Hundred. If this assumption is correct, one might deduce that the helmets, too, are Dutch. On first examining this helmet on November 28, 1978, Norman was of the opinion that it is “a northern European type.” Earlier, after examining photographs, he wrote as follows: “My colleague, Russell Robinson . . . can only say that in his opinion it is either English or Flemish, ca. 1620.” He went on to cite an 1881 catalog “which shows a design something like yours, in that it has a one-piece visor. This was said to be English ca. 1630-45 . . . no reason given.” Norman (pers. comm., Dec. 6, 1977) concluded by saying that “although I can offer no proof that your helmet is English, there is no reason why it should not be, and a strong probability that it is.”

398

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 56

ARTIFACT CATALOG

399

Figure 56 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMOR 1 Backplate Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7640]401 Length: ca. through center back 15a˝ (39.38 cm) Steel; fragmentary neck, shoulder, arm, and skirt elements, sufficient to determine the character of the whole. The edges are rolled at the neck and arms,

but not at the sides. Pairs of iron rivets with diamondshaped brass washers secured the shoulder straps, and single iron rivets with similar washers anchored the waist straps at left and right. So little of the skirt survives that it is impossible to know whether this backplate was fitted with a garde-rein.402

401. Although the four backplate fragments were found in approximately the same spot, they were not articulated and so must have been broken apart before entering the ground. The largest piece lay at a depth 1´6˝ below grade, and the others at ca. 2´2˝. The elevations thus were approximately the same as that of the helmet, the top of whose skull was encountered 1´6˝ below grade but 6´ to the south. Nevertheless the presence of a close helmet in the same stratum as the backplate is curiously, if not significantly, akin to the discovery of armor in the Fort well. 402. This backplate is broadly similar to the example from the Fort well (Fig. 52), but differs in that the shoulder strap rivets of the latter are located closer to the neck, and in having brass washers for the waist straps, whereas the surviving strap on the right side of the Fort plate has no such washer. Part of a third backplate was found at Site A (Fig. 81, no. 1) and, while its shoulder rivets and brass washers parallel this example in their relationship to the neck, they are set closer to the arm edges. These positioning variations may perhaps be dismissed as insignificant, much more evidence being needed before suggesting that they identify the products of different armorers working in different places or at different dates. The question of whether or not this plate had been fitted with garde-rein (culet) lames merits attention—if their presence identifies the backplate as coming from an armor more elaborate than that of a pikeman. For the arguments for and against, see Fig. 52, n. 391. It may be significant that an unequivocal identifiable garde-rein lame (Fig. 57, no. 17) was found in the same Potter’s Pond stratum as the backplate fragments, and thus may have belonged to it. As previously noted, having examined the Martin’s Hundred armor, Norman has suggested that the presence of brass washers on the four fragmentary backplates indicates that they are of Dutch origin (Fig. 52, n. 390). One may reasonably ask why settlers on an English plantation should be equipped with Continental armor. There is evidence, however, that much for-

eign armor was in use in England in the early-17th century, and Norman and others have suggested that English armorers not only made armor but augmented their stocks with secondhand as well as renovated and imported pieces. It is possible, therefore, that the armorer supplying the Gift of God’s Martin’s Hundred settlers put together kits drawn from whatever he had in stock. That in England in the early-17th century, parish armor was made up from whatever happened to be available, is demonstrated by the surviving collection of such armor at Mendlesham, Suffolk (Blair, European Armour, p. 119), which includes a mixture of Continental and English elements, some dating back to the 15th century. Although the foregoing arguments and evidence are persuasive, the fact that four out of four—all the backplates from Martin’s Hundred sites—are of the same brass-washered type suggests that the Martin’s Hundred armor, rather than being haphazardly assembled from a variety of sources, was purchased from a single supplier drawing on a single source, be it a Dutch exporter or an anomalous English manufacturer. Alain Outlaw, laboratory director for the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, reported on November 26, 1984, that in all the Center’s excavations on 17th-century sites, only two have yielded fragments of backplates: the Governor’s Land, James City County, and “Causey’s Care,” Charles City County. The fragments represent one plate from each site, neither of them retaining the shoulder rivets. In addition, however, finds from “Causey’s Care” included one separated, diamond-shaped brass washer of backplate type (44.CC.178/16A), this from a context of the second quarter of the 17th century. That discovery indicates that backplates having straps anchored by means of iron rivets and brass washers were not peculiar to Martin’s Hundred and so cannot be used as evidence to support the “Dutch connection” thesis at Wolstenholme Towne. The find also raises further questions about the rarity of brass washers on armor and the claim that they are Dutch rather than English.

400

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 57

ARTIFACT CATALOG

401

Figure 57 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS ARMS AND ARMOR 1 Musket barrel Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7202]403 Length: surv. 28d˝ (71.46 cm) Matchlock; missing threaded breech block and (if of musket length) perhaps as much as 18˝ (45.72 cm) of muzzle. The barrel is octagonal throughout its length, tapering from 1a˝ (3.81 cm) at the breech to c˝ (1.91 cm) at the surviving muzzle end. At the breech the wall measures j˝ (0.79 cm) thick but tapers to barely d˝ (0.32 cm) at the muzzle. The thinness of the latter’s wall raises the possibility that this was a very short-barreled weapon.404 The ignition hole lies c˝ (1.91 cm) forward from the breech, and the tang of the broken-away priming pan remains in

its slot, which reaches to the breech.405 One-eighth inch (0.32 cm) forward from the latter and occupying the barrel facet immediately above the ignition hole is a vertical slot, which originally seated the flash guard. On the facet above, 1a˝ (3.81 cm) forward from the breech, is the remains of a square iron insert representing the mounting for a rear sight. This is unusual, in that rear sights for matchlocks are usually mounted as much as 5a˝ (13.97 cm) from the breech. On the facet below the priming pan there is a short and flat projection set into the barrel at a point 3c˝ (9.53 cm) from the breech, which is assumed to be the remnant of a tang that helped anchor barrel to stock.406 Another possible insert into

403. The gun barrel was found in the same stratum as the potter’s blunger, less than 4’ from it and close to several ceramic wasters. 404. Citing War Office records, Blackmore has demonstrated that in 1601 the average matchlock musket had a barrel 4´ (121.92 cm) long, while a caliver’s was 1´ (30.48 cm) shorter. He further states that caliver was synonymous with the term harquebush, and that it came with both matchlock and snaphaunce mechanisms (Blackmore, pp. 17–18). While this may well be true, there is documentation to indicate that (a) the caliver’s barrel was longer than that of the harquebush, and (b) the term caliver was not applied to weapons fitted with the more sophisticated snaphaunce ignition systems. Writing in the mid17th century, Holme described the caliver as follows:

long, a good case can be made for identifying it as coming from a harquebush or haque. 405. The loss of the pan raises questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. As Holme pointed out, on matchlocks “The pan, in these kind of locks the pan is allwayes fixed to the muskett barrell” (Holme, The Academy of Armory, p. 135). Being mortised and welded into their barrels, they were not prone to part without considerable assistance. On the other hand the pan did project beyond the stock and could break off if the gun were dropped onto a hard surface. If, as is evident in this case, the barrel was removed from its stock and put to another purpose—such as a pestle for grinding cullet used in making ceramic glaze—the user may have found it convenient to be rid of the projection. However, the discovery of pans separated from their barrels in the Fort and Barn vicinity prompted the thesis that they had been deliberately struck from their barrels in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre, to prevent abandoned muskets from being of any use to the Indians (see Fig. 49, nos. 11–12 and n. 353). Two such pans were found in the topsoil overlying and east of the Company Compound (Fig. 57, nos. 4–5), and the same explanation has also been proposed to explain their presence. One may, therefore, detect a lack of consistency in putting forward a more prosaic explanation when the barrel rather than the pan presents evidence of similar separation. Were it not that the Potter’s Pond barrel had been put to a postseparation and anomalous use, one might well have claimed that this, too, was a relic of deliberate deactivation by the retreating colonists. If, however, that was the right explanation for the loss of the gun’s pan (and perhaps also the breech block), it would follow that the barrel was put to its secondary use after the survivors returned and reestablished themselves on the Company Compound site—a supposition for which there is no structural or other archaeological evidence. 406. This explanation lacks documentation. When set correctly into the stock, this tang would have projected outward at a ca. 45° angle and not vertically downward, as are the lugs on later barrels. These generally are pierced to receive a pin driven through both sides of the stock, a locking device impossible at the angle presented by the projection from this barrel.

kind of Gun something larger than a carbine, and lesser than a muskett. It is fired by a match lock; that is, a lock with a cock to hold a match in, with an handle to pull it down to the pan, by forceing the said handle, up to the stock of the barrell; the bute end of the stock of the calever is bent downe-wards. This kind of Gun ws much used by the soulders in Queene Elizabeths tyme, In Tyrons warrs or Rebellion in Ireland: but never generally used since, but by some perticular persons and now it is an Instrument little knowne. Holme went on to confuse the barrel-length issue by noting that “A carbine, is an horsemans gun about a yard or more long in the barrell.” He also described a “Harquebuse or Haquebut” (elsewhere abbreviated to “Haque”) as “a hand gun of about three quarters of a yard long,” adding that “of these there are the halfe of demy Haque” (Holme, The Academy of Armory, p. 134). As for the snaphaunce, Holme had this to say: “A snaphaunch Lock is the generall name for all fire Locks” (Holme, The Academy of Armory, p. 135). Today, among firearm historians, the term is used to identify a flint-fired mechanism having its steel separate from the pan cover. The foregoing evidence indicates that (a) the caliver and carbine had barrels of about the same length, (b) snaphaunces could be of any length, and (c) a harquebush barrel measured ca. 27˝ (68.58 cm). This barrel being ca. 28d˝ (71.44 cm)

402

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

the barrel, rectangular in shape, is visible on the uppermost facet a˝ (1.27 cm) back from the existing muzzle, and thus close to the position normally occupied by the front sight were the barrel more or less complete.407 The barrel was found packed with small lead pellets having an average diameter of 3.5 mm, many of them markedly misshapen, and in many cases melted and fused to the wall by intense heat. The sectional drawing is derived from x-ray photographs of the barrel’s interior. What appears to be a small iron wedge is visible inside the breech. It may have served to secure a wooden plug driven into the tube to replace the threaded steel block and keep the lead pellets in place.408 2 Musket barrel Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7641] Length: surv. 33n˝ (85.91 cm) Ignition system unknown; octagonal throughout its surviving length, but otherwise retaining no identifying details. The muzzle, though eroded, may be complete. At the lost breech end, however, the wall is broken for a distance of 3a˝ (8.89 cm). The condition of the fracture is not such that the damage can be ascribed to an explosion of the breech, though

407. Front sights on early muskets were usually set 2a–3c˝ (6.35–9.53 cm) from the muzzle. If that were true of this gun, one might deduce that its barrel originally measured close to 31˝ (78.74 cm) or 32˝ (81.28 cm)—still ca. 4˝ (10.16 cm) short of the standard caliver length. 408. The presence of the lead pellets within the old musket barrel presented one of Martin’s Hundred’s most intriguing enigmas. When mentioned in National Geographic (I. Noël Hume, “First Look at a Lost Virginia Settlement,” p. 757) that discovery drew more readers’ letters than any other, all of them suggesting that the gun had failed to discharge and, in the heat of battle with the Indians, one charge had been added on top of another. This was not the correct explanation—for several reasons: 1) the breech block had been removed and replaced with a wooden (?) plug before the lead was deposited in the barrel; 2) x-rays showed no spaces for powder separating the shot into layers or loadings; and 3) while inside the barrel the lead had been heated sufficiently to melt pieces touching the walls, clearly a temperature high enough to make any powder burn and explode. Unfortunately, eliminating a wrong explanation is easier than proving a right. On balance, however, there is reason to believe that the lead inside the barrel belonged to the potter and was similar in character to the raw lead used in mixing his glaze. That theory was based first on an early-17th-century pipkin fragment found in London, which contained an excess of glaze at one side of its interior base, wherein several beads of unmelted lead were suspended. Thus finding the gun barrel in association with the potter’s wasters and one of his tools (Fig. 59, no. 6) made such a construction at least worthy of consideration. Subsequently, at Site D, a locally made mug (Fig. 17, no. 2) was found containing a similar build up of glaze inside it, and suspended in the glaze were three pellets of lead the same size as those packed into the gun barrel.

that remains a possible explanation for damage otherwise difficult to create.409 3 Powder flask nozzle410 Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7211] Width: 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Tapering tube, with heavily rusted side lever and lateral spring atop rectangular iron box having single holes through each of its long sides for securing it to the wooden powder container (Pt. I, Pl. 42). From one of the two long sides extends a leaflike projection, whose presence would appear to be solely ornamental. From each of the iron box’s narrow sides projects an iron loop, one with a single wire ring linked through it. Although the tubular spout has a diameter of ca. 1˝ (2.54 cm) at its junction with the top of the box, the hole through the latter into the powder reservoir measures only b˝ (0.64 cm). The exterior spring and lever were originally connected to an interior plate, which covered and uncovered the small hole to fill the charge tube. The latter was fitted with an iron cap held in place by a spring-controlled lever, no traces of which survive. One of the side holes described above served not only to secure the metal top to the basically triangular wooden flask but also to hold one end of a flat iron bracket, which

Although one may, with reason, accept the lead as the potter’s raw material, doing so does not explain its presence in the gun barrel, nor can one readily accept the latter as a normal repository for his supply. So what was it doing there? Two explanations present themselves: 1) the potter needed to increase the weight of his grinding tool and so filled it with the heaviest material he had to hand, or 2) lead being in such short supply, he hid it in an old gun barrel to prevent it from being stolen and used for shot. 409. It was by no means unusual for improperly loaded muskets to explode; e.g., a marksman aboard the Mayflower in 1620, while shooting at a whale, “his Musket flew in peeces, both stocke and barrell, yet thankes be to God, neither he nor any man els was hurt with it, though many were there about” (George B. Cheever, ed., The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in New England, in 1620 [1848], p. 40). 410. Describing flasks of this type in the 1640s, Holme (The Academy of Armory, p. 142) wrote as follows: This was the fashion of the Flaske in Queene Elizabeth raigne when the Caliver was in use. Some writt it Flasque. The Body of it was made of wood not round but square, narrow at top and broad at the bottome . . . . The Parts of a Flaske The top of the charg, with it handle and spring to cover the mouth. The stop of the charg, with the pin it turns upon, and spring. The body of the flask, made either of Horn or wood. The Rings and eyes to which they were fastned and string by which it is hung. The garnish, Iron plats and roses fixed to the edges of the wood, to keep the ioynts together. The string and tassells by which it is hung to the souldiers side.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

anchored the flask to the musketeer’s belt (Fig. 59, no. 9).411 4 Matchlock pan Provenance: C.G. 3106 [7642] Length: 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Block thin and rectangular; concavity more or less rectangular (but rounded at corners) and parallel to barrel; floor very slightly tilted to encourage powder to gravitate toward touch hole. Though eroded at its edges, the aperture seems to have been square cut and is located in the midsection of the barrel-flanking wall. The pan retains its post, and wrapped around it are the remains of the flash guard. Although the post is not offset onto a semicircular projection, as occurs on some well-made pans, the separation is suggested by a V-shaped notch cut into the block immediately in front of the post (e.g., Fig. 49, no. 12). Part of the projecting mortise that anchored pan to the barrel also survives.412 5 Matchlock pan Provenance: C.G. 3088 [7643] Length: 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Block rectangular and thicker at back than front; concavity rectangular, semicircular in bottom and open to barrel along its full width. The bolster or bed, into which the post was seated, is unusually wide, occupying a third of the block’s width. The post is broken off flush to the surface, but a substantial part of the anchoring mortise survives. 6 Battery or steel spring Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7644] Length: surv. 2h˝ (5.24 cm) From snaphaunce lock. An expanded hole abutting the broken, lower ornamental terminal served to anchor one end of the bridle.413 A small lug project411. Quoting Ordnance Office records for 1601 (WO/1752), Blackmore (pp. 17–18) notes that a listing of arms shipped to the English forces in Ireland included 200 matchlock muskets with bandolier powder containers, 500 calivers with similar bandoliers, and 200 “Snaphance peeces” of the same barrel length and bore as the calivers, but supplied with “Horne Flaskes and Touch Boxes.” It would seem, therefore, that powder flasks were seen as a more refined and less cumbersome means of loading the relatively sophisticated snaphaunce muskets. That was not universally accepted practice, however, for Jacob De Gheyn’s illustrated manual of the exercise of arms shows a soldier holding a caliver and equipped with a powder flask rather than with a bandolier and its “Twelve Apostles.” Whereas the latter included one charger or box fitted with a pouring spout and containing fine, pan-priming powder (e.g., Fig. 49, no. 22), the large powder flasks only measured the charge powder. Although it cannot always be assumed that the discovery of a powder flask meant the presence of a gun having a snaphaunce-style ignition system, the evidence does point toward a gun lighter and shorter than the standard matchlock. However, as explained in n. 404 above, short guns did not necessarily mean sophisticated weaponry, and in 1625 Gervaise Markham’s treatise on Soldiers Accidence (1625, n.p.) noted that in choosing one’s troops “the squarest and broadest will be fit

403

ing from the back of the lower spring leaf (not visible in the figure) is pierced by a small hole, through which a pin secured the spring to the lock plate. 7 Buffer Provenance: C.G. 3093A [7645] Length: 1l˝ (3.97 cm) From snaphaunce lock; with ornamental disk terminal and decorated with single incised line directly behind concavity against which the cock rested. A hole through the block seated a screw anchoring it to the lock plate, and behind it a round-sectioned lug projected into the plate to prevent the buffer from rocking. 8 Charge cap Provenance: C.G. 3110C [7646] Width: int. c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; from musketeer’s bandolier. 414 Vertical mold marks are sharply visible beneath the loops, as is a mold-created thickening at the mouth or lower edge. The cap is poorly made, being somewhat misshapen and thus ovoid rather than round at the top. 9 Sword pommel Provenance: C.G. 3110D [7647] Width: 1m˝ (4.29 cm) Diameter: base ca. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Subspherical; flattened at base. The modified rectangular tang hole tapers from its maximum width of a˝ (1.27 cm) at the base to j˝ (0.79 cm) at the top. The type occurs in association with basket guards on both back- and broadswords.415 10 Ferrule Provenance: C.G. 3110D [7648] Height: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Believed to be from a pike; slightly tapering collar,

to carry muskets and the least and nimblest may be turned to the Harquebush” (see n. 404). In John Smith’s 1608 tabulation of the Men and Armour for Gloucestershire (p. 1), he noted that the parenthetical abbreviation “(ca.)” “sheweth the man to bee of a lower stature fitt to serve with a Calyver.” 412. For other separated matchlock pans, see Fig. 49, nos. 11–12. 413. For the construction of a snaphaunce mechanism, see Pt. I, Ill. 25. 414. For charger caps of the same type, see Fig. 49, nos. 19–21, and n. 359. 415. In addition to examples from Sites H (Fig. 63, no. 14) and A (Fig. 81, no. 5), two parallels are forthcoming from other Virginian sites. One is provided by an incomplete backsword (J7044) from a refuse pit at Jamestown, having a terminal date no later than ca. 1650. The National Park Service’s published date for the sword is 1600–1625 (Cotter and Hudson, pp. 151 and 178, pl. 76). The other comes from excavations at the site known as The Maine, on the Governor’s Land, James City County (GL.121A). This is another basket-hilted weapon (identified by the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology as a broadsword) and recovered from a context attributable on historical evidence to ca. 1618–1625 (Outlaw, pp. 201–202, no. 189).

404

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

with diameters of 1˝ (2.54 cm) at base and 1d˝ (2.86 cm) at top.416 11 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7649] Length: 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Figure-eight or double-loop type; perhaps from belt or harness strap; frame rounded at “free” end and square at strap end, the latter enclosed within a roll of sheet iron, over which the leather strap folded. Two punctures, perhaps created with an awl, are visible on the upper surface of the roll. These were not decorative, for the roll was concealed under the leather and served only to help the buckle pivot.417 In profile the frame is slightly V-shaped, both ends rising away from the round-sectioned, lateral bar. This last is narrower at one side than at the other, perhaps occasioned by wear from the now-missing tang.

The earliest tightly documented date for this pommel shape is provided by a basket hilt from the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture at Bermuda (Pt. I, Ill. 28; A. G. Credland, “Some Swords of the English Civil War with Notes on the Origins of the Basket-hilt,” Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, vol. X [1982], pp. 202–203). However, the heavily encrusted profile leaves the details in doubt. For a further discussion of the Sea Venture sword evidence, see Fig. 72, no. 8. A similarly shaped pommel, though capped by a button and encrusted with silver, is part of the hilt from a broadsword having a Soligen blade dated 1611. The hilt, however, is assumed to be English (J. F. Hayward, “English Swords 1600–1650,” Arms and Armor Annual, vol. I, [1973], pp. 144 and 146, fig. 5). Yet another example of this subspherical pommel form is a relic of the English Civil War’s Battle of Gainsborough in 1643, the hilt anomalous in that the guard is unusually tall and allows its knuckle guard and flanking rods to enclose the pommel (Credland, pp. 197–198 and pl. LV). This specimen, like that from Jamestown, lacks the capstan button; instead the tang of the blade is burred over a washer. Another specimen (this in the author’s collection and possessing a button) occurs on a basket-hilted backsword possessing a Hounslow blade inscribed HOVN MEFACIT and thus indisputably English, dated post-1629, and probably attributable to the management era of Benjamin Stone (ca. 1630–1642). The foregoing evidence points to the subspherical pommel being common in the first 40 years of the 17th century, but suggests that the presence or absence of the button is of no dating assistance. 416. Although it can be argued that a ferrule of these proportions might have been used to bind the end of any pole of similar diameter to a pike, the fact remains that the Colonial Williamsburg Collection includes an original 17th-century English pike that possesses an iron ferrule closely paralleling (indeed, almost identical to) this example. That pikes were present at Martin’s Hundred (though not listed in the 1624/5 muster) is demonstrated by the recovery from Site A of a pike head (Fig. 81, no. 3) of similar type to that of the antique cited above. Among supplies to be shipped aboard the Margaret in 1619 for the use of Berkeley Hundred were “10. pyke heads” valued at 7s. 6d. (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 184). The same tabulation included 9s. “ffor the Ancient pyke staffe and tassell.” An ancient was a standard or ensign and cost the Berkeley backers the not-inconsiderable sum of 13s. 4d. That pike parts were stored separately is indicated by the reference in John Smith’s

12 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 3110C [7650] Width: 2i˝ (5.56 cm) Steel; slightly convex and angled slightly inward at side edges; originally secured with five rivets along top edge. Of the four rivets surviving, that at the left is the largest and that at the right the smallest. However, these size variations may be the product of rusting and decay.418 13 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 3110D [7651]419 Width: 2n˝ (7.14 cm) Steel; long and slightly tapering to left, the latter’s upper corner missing but perhaps deliberately clipped. Four rivets survive along the upper edge, as well as an unusually located rivet hole toward the bottom right corner. There appears to have been no rivet to the left of the last now visible.

history (Edward Arber, ed., Travels and Works of Captain John Smith [1910], vol. II, p. 441) to when, in 1608, the people in the Fort were accused of going off with “Pike-heads, shot, Powder, or anything they could steal from their fellowes.” Holme, describing military equipment in the 1640s, stated that “The [pike] shaft, for millitary service, is reputed 16 or 18 foot long or there about, which is sufficinet for defence, and as much as a foote man can well manage.” He also (Holme, The Academy of Armory, p. 113) identified the butt end of the shaft as “The foot, the bottome of the spear which souldiers rest on the ground,” adding: “The sockett, an Iron or brass hoop set on the foot of the pike to secure it from bruising.” Thus in Holme’s terminology the ferrule should be described as a socket. The full-length pike had little application in fighting Indians, being intended primarily as a defense against cavalry—in short, for fighting European battles and, in Virginia, to defend against the Spaniards. George Wyatt, father of Governor Sir Francis Wyatt of Virginia, wrote to his son following the 1622 Indian uprising, advocating that “eache Cittie” should be defended by “one Company stronge at the least of 120, whereof Musquetirs 40, Calivers 60, Pikes and Bils 20” (George Wyatt, The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire of Boxley Abbey in the County of Kent [1968], p. 114). The fact that pike heads rather than entire pikes were sent to Berkeley Hundred may indicate that they would be attached to shafts of whatever length seemed appropriate. If so, they may have become spears or javelins, with shafts less than half the length of a standard pike. 417. Figure-eight buckles usually were anchored to the strap at the central bar (e.g., Figs. 63, nos. 10–12; and 72, nos. 22 and 24). This one differs in being secured by one end, as is evidenced by the sheet iron roll. The latter is common on squareframed buckles and well represented prior to 1646 at Sandal Castle (Mayes et al., pp. 248–249, nos. 186–187 and 192–197). The author rightly notes that the square-framed type was commonly used on harness. This buckle, however, is relatively light and sufficiently delicately shaped to come from a belt. Another, less elongated example was found at Site B (Fig. 72, no. 23); see Egan and Pritchard, p. 51, for a good parallel. 418. For details of brigandine construction, see Fig. 51, n. 379. 419. Sixty-two plates and 115 fragments were recovered from this sloping stratum, suggesting that part of an articulated brigandine had lain in the water at the pond’s edge, the plates breaking away and sliding downward as the fabric or leather base garment rotted.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

14 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 3110D [7652] Width: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Steel; edge plate from garment’s short skirt; remains of three rivets visible at upper edge and two more below, toward lower sloping edge. The lower corners are deliberately rounded. From the same large group as no. 13 above.420 15 Gorget Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7653] Width: est. 10g˝ (27.62 cm) Steel; incomplete; rolled at neck and lower edge, latter without lining-retention rivets. A circular hole at the right shoulder received a post or high-standing rivet from the rear collar element, while a hole at the left shoulder in a matching location marks the position of a large-headed rivet attached to the rear plate, on which the throat-protecting armor pivoted.421 16 Lame Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7654] Length: surv. 5n˝ (14.76 cm) 420. See Fig. 51, n. 379. Two plates of comparable shape and riveting were found at Sandal Castle and are defined as coming from “a shirt of plates,” with a deposition date of 1645. However, they are seen as the end of a medieval tradition and attributed to ca. 1550 (Mayes et al., pp. 262 and 266, fig. 12, nos. 42–43). It is possible, however, that such old plates were reused in a standard late Tudor brigandine. 421. This is the simplest type of throat-protecting gorget, capable of being worn beneath a breastplate or separately over a buffcoat. Most of those shown in contemporary paintings are decorated with copper-alloy rivets, which secure both leather or fabric lining and ornamental picadills like those in the example in the Colonial Williamsburg collection (Pt. I, Pl. 51 and Ill. 33). An example without brass rivets and with similar rolled edges (but with steel studs at the neck) was brilliantly depicted by Rembrandt Van Rijn in a painting described as Bust of an Old Man, now in the J. Paul Getty Collection, attributed to a date ca. 1630 (Burton B. Fredericksen, Masterpieces of Painting in the J. Paul Getty Museum [1980], no. 35). The painting clearly shows the large-headed pivotal rivet at the left shoulder. In the late Tudor period elaborately chased gorgets were made en suite with equally ornamental parade armor. An example in the Tower of London collection, dated ca. 1610, is proportionately similar to this specimen (Dufty, pl. XXVII). On occasion, however, gorgets extended as low as the breastbone. One such example, formerly in the Hever Castle Collection, had belonged to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, who was Treasurer of the Virginia Company in 1610. A portrait of the Earl wearing the heavily picadilled, Flemish gorget was in the collection of the Duke of Portland and is illustrated in a sale catalog (J. F. Hayward, The Hever Castle Collection, Arms and Armour [1983], p. 47). Two incomplete gorgets, lacking lining-securing rivets but apparently with decorative “rope” notching along the rolled necks and outer edges, have been recovered from The Maine, in the Governor’s Land Archaeological District of Virginia. They are claimed to be English and ascribed to a deposition date ca. 1618–1630 (Outlaw, p. 192, fig. 32, nos. 138–139). 422. Garde-reins varied considerably in length, from a single

405

Steel; from garde-rein or tasset; incomplete; tapering in the manner of Fig. 51, no. 14, with one rivet hole at surviving lower left corner. This last may be one of a pair similar to those of the cited parallel. 17 Lame Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7655] Length: surv. 10a˝ (26.67 cm) Width: max. 4˝ (10.16 cm) Steel; from garde-rein; incomplete at narrow or left end; three pairs of iron rivets spaced along lower edge, and traces of two single rivets close to left and right extremities of upper edge. The lower rivet pairing is paralleled on a lame fragment from the Fort (Fig. 51, no. 15), and the lame’s size and shape by the still-attached garde-rein on the backplate from the Fort’s well (Fig. 52).422 18 Helmet Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7656] Length: surv. 5˝ (12.70 cm) Steel; lower side and rim fragment. It is deduced to be part of a siege helmet of cabasset type, akin to an almost complete example found ca. three miles upstream from Wolstenholme Towne.423 pair of lames attached to the backplate to an articulated protection for most of the buttocks extending to as many as six rows. A fine example of the latter is provided by a North Italian cuirassier armor in the Wallace Collection, made between 1620 and 1635 (Mann, vol. I, pl. 46). Another, more modest example in the same collection has only three lames and is cataloged as 16th-century Italian (Mann, vol. I, pl. 83). In this example the lames are continuous strips extending from hip to hip, not divided at the center of the back as is the Fort well specimen (Fig. 52). Rump defenses are not common pikemen’s armor, presumably because the wearers were expected to face only the front and deserved everything that was coming to them if they turned and fled. As a rule, therefore, garde-rein lames are associated with cavalry (cuirassier’s) armor of the kind so well depicted in Gerard Terborch’s (1617–87) painting Cavalier in the Saddle, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The number of apparent garde-rein fragments from Site C features suggests that, although they may have started life for cavalry use, they were worn in Martin’s Hundred by anyone who needed armor. Indeed they may have been deliberately detached and discarded to lighten the cuirass. 423. This fragment’s identification is based on its curvature, which seems to preclude it from being part of a breastplate. Were the piece smaller and the curve less determinable, the metal’s thickness and weight would readily lead one to the later conclusion. The so-called siege helmet cited as a likely parallel was found in 1943 on property known as Camp Wallace, a modern military establishment located on the north bank of the James River east of College Creek, ca. four miles down river from Jamestown Island. The helmet was identified by Peterson, its unusual thickness suggesting that it was made to be worn by sappers and suchlike military personnel, who had to work under the guns of an entrenched enemy (Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 115, pl. 126). A lead bale seal found in the same midden as the helmet bears the crowned initials of James I (1603–1625) and thus hints at the date of deposition (Floyd Painter, “The Helmet Site, “ Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. X [1956], n.p.).

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19 Phalera424 Provenance: C.G. 3110D [7657] Width: 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Steel; protective scale used to cover leather shoulder straps securing breast- and backplates of cuirass. Scalloped at the lower edge and slightly upturned,

this is a terminal phalera. A decorative transverse groove simulates a division between two scales, each pierced by a pair of copper-alloy rivets, the upper pair retaining their circular iron washers.

424. The term phalera is most often used to describe decorative metal plates attached to Classical-era armor or horse harness. These plates, however, were both decorative and practical, but for want of a better term for this object, this one may serve. Straps reinforced with scalelike plates were commonly used on cuirasses whose shoulders were unprotected by pauldrons (e.g., pikemen’s armor). The latter, however, tended to be larger and less articulated than those attached to light armor of better quality (Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 135, pl. 151). The Potter’s Pond example comes from light armor in the manner of those painted by William Dobson (1611–1646) of cavaliers in the English Civil War era, e.g., the portraits of

Colonel Richard Neville and of Sir Thomas Chicheley (Malcolm Rogers, William Dobson 1611–46 [1983], pp. 32 and 47, nos. 17 and 20). In both instances, however, the phalerae are entirely of yellow metal, in contrast to this specimen, which is of steel with brass rivets. More helpful in its dating, though less clearly depicted, is a comparable shoulder strap shown in Daniel Mytens’ ca. 1623 portrait of Sir William Lovelace (in the Wake Collection at Courteenhall, England), which demonstrates that scale-covered straps were in use in time for an example to be in Martin’s Hundred prior to the 1622 Indian attack. For further discussion of armor in Myten’s paintings, see Fig. 51, n. 388.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 58

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Figure 58 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS AGRICULTURAL TOOLS 1 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 3113G [7658] Width: 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Divided at upper edge to seat wooden blade; flanged at sides to grip blade’s edges. Neither of the sides extends to its original height. The blade’s cutting edge was somewhat concave, perhaps evidence of heavy usage.425 2 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7659] Width: 7b˝ (18.42 cm) Divided at upper edge to seat wooden blade, both side extensions missing, but the type comparable to no. 1 above. The blade’s cutting edge is slightly concave, perhaps indicative of wear.

faint trace of a stamped maker’s mark immediately in front of the eye can be read as a bell followed by an L, or perhaps as A L. Though damaged at its cutting edge, largely due to decay, this tool could have seen more service than it did.426 4 Broad hoe Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7661] Width: surv. blade 5d˝ (13. cm) Eye and upper blade. The socket is tall (3˝ [7.62 cm] in height), and rather than extending into wedge-shaped spine, as was common in the eighteenth century, it was hammered into a concave weld with the blade, resulting in a very thin and weak blade at its most vulnerable point.427 There is no trace of a maker’s mark.

3 Broad hoe Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7660] Width: est. 9a˝ (24.13 cm) Blade fan-shaped, lacking shoulders common to such tools in the eighteenth century; eye shallow (1f˝ [4.13 cm] in height), made separately and welded to blade without any reinforcing spine. The

5 Weeding hoe428 Provenance: C.G. 3113B [7662] Width: surv. 4f˝ (11.75 cm) Incomplete blade; thickening to junction with lost eye; stamped with maker’s mark, which appears to be a stamped rosette having an incuse center.

425. For further discussion of spades, see Figs. 39, nn. 284 and 286; and 65, no. 477. 426. The number of hoes from the excavated Martin’s Hundred sites is as follows: Fort—2 broad; Company Compound—2 broad, 1 weeding; Site H—1 Dutch; Site B—1 broad; and Site A—2 broad, 2 smaller, 1 weeding, 1 uncertain form. From this slender listing statisticians might deduce that Site A was more agriculturally oriented than the others, a conclusion supported by the evidence of the structural features and their interpreted usage. 427. Martin’s Hundred hoes were prone to break close to their sockets, a failure encouraged, perhaps, by their lack of a reinforcing spine. For other examples, see Figs. 39, nos. 5–6; and 73, no. 5. 428. This blade is most closely paralleled by an intact example from Site A (Fig. 82, no. 3), its width 4a˝ (4.43 cm). Identification as a “weeding” hoe is tentative. Contemporary import listings give five names: broad, hilling, narrow, small,

and weeding. The majority of them occur in the inventory of supplies sent out aboard the Margaret from Bristol in September 1619, comprising “2. small hoes” for 3s. 4d, and “31 weedinge howes at .14d and 15. holinge howes at .12d made in the Forest of Deane” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 186). This is a curious listing, for the prices seem to be backwards, if, as is generally believed, hilling hoes equate with broad hoes and are the largest, small hoes are medium sized, and weeding hoes are the smallest. An invoice of goods sent out aboard the Marmaduke in September 1623 lists two varieties (presumably using less specific terminology) “Three broad hoes” and “Three narrowe hoes,” but fails to list their values, leaving one to speculate as to how narrow a narrow hoe was (ibid., vol. IV, p. 278). The importance of weeding hoes is indicated by the fact that in 1620 the ship Supply left Bristol with 40 of them (and none of any other type) valued at “liijs iiijd” or ca. 16d. (1s. 4d.) each, making them 2d. more expensive than those sent from the same town a year earlier (ibid., vol. III, p. 387).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 59

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Figure 59 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS AND COPPER-ALLOY TOOLS AND UTENSILS 1 Frying Pan429 Provenance: C.G. 3113G [7199] Width: 12f˝ (32.07 cm) Iron; pan oval; sloping sides ranging in height from 2˝ (5.08 cm) at front to 3˝ (7.62 cm) at junction with remains of flat lug of same thickness as bowl and to which handle attached. Handles for utensils of this type were fashioned from light bar iron and terminated in a curled, tail-like loop for suspension.

Cast iron; shoulder fragment; from large pot having a diameter of up to 14˝ (33.56 cm).

2 Cauldron430 Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7663] Width: of surv. fragment 3l˝ (9.05 cm)

3 Skillet Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7200] Diameter: max. rim 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Sheet brass or related copper alloy; bowl fashioned from two pieces; rim slightly oval (perhaps as result of ground pressure), everted and rolled over iron wire; bottom somewhat convex.431 Three strap-profiled iron legs were riveted to the sides, one of them secured with three rivets arranged in a triangle and paired horizontally at the top, at which point the metal was bent at a right angle and extended into a

429. Although utensils of this type are generally identified as frying pans, they were used for a variety of purposes, as was demonstrated by Adriaen van Ostade in his ca. 1642 etching The Port Butcher, where a woman is depicted using such a pan to catch the blood of a slaughtered hog. A similar subject, in which the long-handled pan is more clearly drawn, is to be seen in Cornelis Dusart’s November, Pig Killers, a mezzotint of the late17th century (Linda A. Stone-Ferrier, ed., Dutch Prints of Daily Life: Mirrors of Life or Masks of Morals? [1983], pp. 176–177, fig. 36, no. 48). Perhaps the best rendering of such a pan is to be found in Jean-Baptiste Chardin’s 1738 painting L’Ecureuse (The Scullery Maid), in which she is shown scrubbing it out (perhaps with sand) over a table made from an upturned and cut-down barrel (Jeffrey P. Brain, Tunica Treasure [1979], p. 172). Documentary evidence suggesting that one is right to describe these long-handled utensils as frying pans is provided by John Smith, who reported that in 1608, during an expedition to the Patowomak (Potomac), the colonists found fish “lyinge so thicke with their heads above water, as for want of nets (our barge driving amongst them) we attempted to catch them with a frying pan: but we found it a bad instrument to catch fish with” (Arber, vol. II, p. 418). Only a utensil with a very long handle would even suggest itself as a means of leaning over the side of a boat to catch fish. Being made of sheet iron and having no ornamental features, these pans were likely to have short lives and had no opportunity to survive as decorative antiques. The thinness of the metal not only made them fragile, but ensured that few lasted long in the ground. Consequently virtually nothing is known about their datable characteristics; indeed the little available evidence suggests that few if any evolutionary changes occurred between the 17th and 18th centuries. A complete handle, 30˝ (76.22 cm) in length with part of the bowl surviving, was found in excavations at Mathews Manor, a plantation on the James and Warwick Rivers several miles east of Martin’s Hundred, in a context of the mid-17th century (unpublished, W.S. 230B). Two pans with incomplete handles have been found at the Joseph Pettit Site, the Governor’s Land Archaeological District, James City County,

Virginia, both in a context of ca. 1690 (unpublished). Three comparable frying pans (reported as “skillets”) are represented in the Tunica Collection, from a mid-18th-century Indian burial site in Wilkinson County, Louisiana, their handles ca. 29–35˝ (73.66–88.92 cm) in length (Brain, p. 140, no. 1-221). However, these examples differ from this pan in that those whose pans are sufficiently intact to interpret are round, whereas this one is ovoid. 430. The term cauldron is used here to describe a vessel most often loosely listed in early inventories as an “iron pot,” but specifically those having three feet and two ear-shaped handles to receive a pair of suspending pothooks. The supplies sent to Virginia aboard the Margaret in 1619 included both “4.iron pots” and “a kettle waighinge .22ii di and for an iron band to it.” The iron pots were valued at 30s. and the single large kettle was priced at 34s., both representing a considerable investment (Kingsbury, vol. III, pp. 182–183). The significance, however, is not in the relative costs of iron pots and kettles, but that both occur in the same inventory and therefore identify different types of vessels. Holme’s sketches for his Academy of Armory (Harleian MS 2027), which are thought to date from the 1640s, include a convex-bottomed vessel, without feet and suspended from a pair of hinged pothooks, identified as “a kettle.” Holme’s kettle is similar to one found in an Indian grave of the mid-17th century on the island of Conanicut in Narragansett Bay (William S. Simmons, Cautantowwit’s House: An Indian Burial Ground on the Island of Conanicut in Narragansett Bay [1970], p. 80, fig. 47). It is reasonable to conclude that kettles lacked feet and were made from sheet iron, copper, or copper alloy, sometimes reinforced with iron bands, and that they possessed lug handles enabling them to be suspended from pothooks. Iron pots, on the other hand, were cast and had feet. 431. The bowl’s proportions are paralleled by a small kettle from burial no. 8 in the Indian cemetery on Conanicut Island, in use ca. 1620–1660 (Simmons, p. 96, fig. 63). That example has a rim diameter of 5m˝ (14.45 cm) and a height of 3j˝ (8.41 cm), in comparison with this skillet bowl’s 6b˝ (15.88 cm) diameter and 3a˝ (8.89 cm) height.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

projecting handle. The other legs were placed proportionally forward to balance the vessel, one attached with two vertical rivets and the other with one. All three legs and the handle have been broken off.432 4 Frame Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7664) Diameter: ring ext. 5e” (13.65 cm) Iron; of uncertain purpose; ring or collar, to which are welded two posts, one 2˝ (5.08 cm) and other 2c˝ (6.99 cm) in length. These posts or legs evert and were flattened into trefoil (?)-shaped feet, each of which had been secured to metal or wood by a pair of large-headed rivets driven from the ring side. On the short leg, however, one of these rivets had been replaced by a nail inserted from the opposite direction. The nail head stands ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) above the foot, suggesting that distance may represent the thickness of the material to which the object was attached. Were it not for that evidence, however, one would deduce that the iron had been attached to something much thinner, for the three original rivets only stand b˝ (0.64 cm) in height. 432. No parallel has been found for this skillet type, a variant of a more versatile, two-part utensil that had a copper-alloy bowl seated within an iron collar, to which legs and a handle were attached (Lindsay, fig. 122). One such iron stand was found in a context of the 1630s at Mathews Manor. It might be tempting to deduce that one of the legs of this skillet became broken and the others were wrenched off to enable the bowl to be seated in a separate stand. That is unlikely, however, for, in breaking off the handle/leg, one of the three rivets tore through the side of the bowl, leaving a hole that was never repaired. 433. For information relating to the history of poking irons, see Fig. 43, n. 315. The specimen from the Fort (Fig. 43, no. 6) is 1˝ (2.54 cm) in diameter, whereas this example is of the a˝ (1.27 cm)-diameter variety. Its 6f˝ (16.83 cm)-long tube is paralleled by what appears to be another poking iron of a different type from Site A (Fig. 88, no. 4). 434. The O.E.D. suggests that the word blunger is of 19th-century origin, as is the verb to blunge, meaning mixing clay and water. However, the terminology of the potting industry is not well documented, and it is possible that the usage is much older. In 1686 Robert Plot, in his Topographical Study of Staffordshire (cited in Llewellynn Jewitt, Ceramic Art of Great Britain, vol. I [1878], p. 97), described how the clay was stirred into a waterfilled pit and then transferred to a beating board “where with a long Spatula that beat it till it be well mix’t.” Diderot’s Encyclopedia, under the heading “Fayancerie” (pl. V, fig. 78), shows a small-bladed iron spade with a long wooden handle and the timber-sided pit in which the clay was mixed. Although the spade’s blade shape is similar to that of the Martin’s Hundred tool, it has no perforations. Lindsay (p. 34, fig. 167) illustrates a very similar-looking object, which he describes as a fish slice, made of cast brass and “a common type in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century kitchens.” Although his example is almost exactly the same length as the excavated example, Lindsay’s is complete whereas the Martin’s Hundred tool was attached to a substantial wooden handle fitted into the 1˝ (2.54 cm) diameter socket. The tool is also extremely heavy and furnished with a sharp cutting edge. All in all, it appears to have nothing to do with lifting fish from a kettle, but would have served admirably for chopping

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5 Poking or goffering iron433 Provenance: C.G. 313F [7665] Length: 9d˝ (23.18 cm) Sheet steel; tapering tube having average diameter of a˝ (1.27 cm), overlying copper-alloy collar, through which passes tang and long interior rod, the latter revealed by x-ray photography. The tang is square sectioned and nail-like, and presumably secured a wooden handle. 6 Slice or blunger434 Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7193] Length: 18f˝ (47.31 cm) Iron; heavy, lapped-socket shaft; rectangular in section; extending to flat spatula blade pierced by 17 holes in five rows; used for chopping and mixing a potter’s clay in his blunging pit. 7 Bill435 Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7201] Length: 13b˝ (33.66 cm) Iron; blade rectangular, with slight prow at end of spine and projecting beak at end of cutting edge; clay in the blunging pit and stirring it in the water, the holes reducing water resistance when being used as a mixing paddle. That it was made for this purpose seems unlikely for, Lindsay notwithstanding, slices were used for a wide variety of purposes. The O.E.D. defines a slice as “A spatula used for stirring and mixing compounds,” a description which admirably fits a blunger. However, it also applied to tools for other uses. In medieval and later kitchens frying pans and slices often occurred together in inventories; e.g., 1459: “j. fryeyng panne, j. sclyse” (James Gairdner, ed., The Paston Letters, 1422–1509 [1872–1875], vol. 1, p. 490) and in 1529 “A fryinge pan, and a slyce” (John Skelton, “The Tunnying of Elynour Rummying,” Poetical Works of John Skelton [1843 (1529)], p. 409). If the frying pans were of the long-handled variety (e.g., Fig. 59, no. 1), it follows that moving the meat around in them called for a slice with an equally long handle. According to the O.E.D., as early as 1465 a slice could also mean a fire shovel, and in 1750 they were used by smiths to stir and move their coals. This raises the possibility that this slice could have been used by the potter both as a blunger and as a tool to stoke his kiln. 435. Bills with blades of this type were all-purpose agricultural tools, described by Chambers (Supplement [1753]) as being “an edged Tool used by Husbandmen in lopping Trees, &c.” Bradley (ed., Dictionaire Oeconomique: or The Family Dictionary [1725]) had identified two varieties: “an edge Tool at the end of a Stale or Handle; if it be short, then they call it a Handlebill, but if long, a Hedge-bill.” The 1619 listing of supplies sent out aboard the Margaret included “2. bill hooks” valued at 1s. 6d. (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 181). The bill hook, however, would seem to have had its beaklike projection extended into a more obvious hook, which could be used to grip brush and tree limbs and to pull them towards the husbandman. Although long-handled bills were often used as weapons by hastily armed civilians, the military bill, while derived from the agricultural tool, had characteristics of its own and more closely resembled a halberd. The still-rectangular blade had a well-developed hook at the front balanced by a spike at the back, as well as a long spike projecting from the spine (Mann, vol. II, pl. 151). These military weapons were commonly referred to as “Brown

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socket lapped and seating a shaft or handle 1e˝ (3.49 cm) in diameter. 8 Handle Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7666] Width: 13˝ (33.02 cm) Iron; crescent-shaped; ends everted and looped back, one almost closed and the other U-shaped and retaining part of iron eye for mounting to bucket or kettle. The bail-type handle tapers in width from a˝ (1.27 cm) at its midsection to b˝ (0.64 cm) at its terminals.436 9 Hanger bar Provenance: C.G. 3083A [7667] Length: 7˝ (17.78 cm) Iron; probably from a wooden powder flask (e.g., Fig. 57, no. 3) or perhaps a pistol; bar tapering before expanding into slightly upturned, spatulated

bills.” An unrecorded number of them had been included in the military supplies sent from the Tower of London after the 1622 massacre: “50 browne Bills diverted to Bermuda out of his Mats Princely Guift” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 99). The origin of the agricultural bill with its beaklike projection (the detail which distinguishes it from a cleaver, e.g., Fig. 43, no. 4) may have been clouded by the publication of an example found at the 1st-century- A . D . Romano-British site of Camulodunum (see Fig. 39, n. 284) and attributed to that period by subsequent writers (e.g., Rees, p. 67, fig. 27b), though there is reason to suspect that it is of 17th-century date. Another, found in London and having a more pronounced hook than this example, was published as a “Bill-hook, iron, of ordinary form” and attributed to the 16th century (Frank Lambert, ed., Catalogue of the Collection of London Antiquities in the Guildhall Museum [1908], pl. C.12, and p. 288, no. 29). Other agricultural bills have been found in 17th-century contexts in Virginia, one in poor condition at Pasbehegh, in the Governor’s Land Archeological District, attributable to the 1620s, and another at Mathews Manor (Denbigh Plantation),

“open” end. At the opposite end the metal is stepped down, expanded, flattened, and pierced to receive a screw or rivet anchoring it to the box. The stepping created an offset to accommodate the thickness of a belt between bar and box. 10 Tool Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7668] Length: 16n˝ (42.72 cm) Iron; of uncertain purpose. A bar c˝ (1.91 cm) wide and b˝ (0.64 cm) thick had been shaped into a round-sectioned spike at one end and tapered to a˝ (1.27 cm) width at the other. The object shows no evidence of wear, nor is it pierced for attachment. The spike might have been covered by a wooden handle, and had the sides or edges revealed any traces of serration, the object could easily have been interpreted as a large, if narrow, file.

in a deposit of ca. 1660, neither as yet published. Like the slice from the same deposit, this bill was in good condition when discarded or lost, and one wonders whether perhaps these (and other items from the Fort’s Cattle Pond) were thrown into the water in the aftermath of the 1622 massacre, when survivors chose to dispose of equipment that they could not carry away rather than let it fall into Indian hands. 436. This object poses still-unresolved interpretive questions. The vertical mounting had broken from the bucket or kettle close to the point of contact with the rim, presumably leaving the nailed or riveted lower end still attached to the vessel. To break the mounting in this way would have required considerable force, yet the eye remained hooked to the bail handle, not at the closed end but at the open U, from which it could easily have been separated. A handle of this type was found in a pre1645 context at Basing House, Hampshire, both its bucket mounts or escutcheons still attached, though differing in shape from each other (Moorhouse, pt. 2, pp. 44 and 46, fig. 20, no. 64).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 60

413

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 60 The Company Compound and Environs (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 FERROUS, COPPER-ALLOY, AND LEAD SMALL FINDS 1 Book clasp437 Provenance: C.G. 3075A [7669] Length: 2˝ (5.08 cm) Yellow copper alloy; thin, rectangular plate, terminating at lower extremity in a broken, gently curled hook. The plate was originally attached to a leather strap by rivets or tacks, and is decorated with a random distribution of circular punch marks, probably applied with the same tool used to strike the holes needed to house the rivets. 2 Collar Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7670] Diameter: 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Yellow copper alloy; thin band now oval in shape, but probably originally circular, within which on either side were a pair of narrow, vertical bars of same material, each secured with a pair of “brass” rivets mounted one above the other. Of these strip attach437. In the 16th and early-17th centuries clasps were commonly used on books bound between thin boards covered with vellum, leather, and sometimes costly fabrics. Although today one thinks of clasps being used in combination with locks to preserve the confidentiality of “dear diaries,” in earlier times the clasps served a more mundane purpose, discouraging wooden covers from warping and splaying, as well as keeping dirt from creeping between the pages. Since the majority of early printed books were religious in character, these brass, copper, and occasionally silver-gilt clasps are sometimes referred to as “bible clasps.” However, they were also used on secular books. In addition to ornamented clasps, board-covered books were often embellished and reinforced with decorated metal corners and ornamental central bosses, lightly nailed through the wood. Although normally associated with books of the 16th century, one corner enriched with a raised boss was found in a mid17th-century context at Site J. Two clasps of different design and sturdier construction were found in excavations at Mathews Manor, one of them in a context attributed to ca. 1650 (W.S. 4, and 12). In England a clasp recovered from a 1645 context at Sandal Castle (Mayes et al., pp. 235–236, fig. 2, no. 113) is almost exactly paralleled by one found in Amsterdam attributed to the late-16th or early17th century (Jan Baart et al., Opgravingen in Amsterdam [1972], pp. 402–403, fig. 753). Another of rather similar character has been found in excavations at Southampton, England, and is described as being of “bronze” and attributed to ca. 1630–1640 (Platt and Coleman-Smith, pp. 267–8, fig. 245, no. 1881). It seems, therefore, that books secured with clasps were relatively common in the first half of the 17th century, and that it is difficult to be sure whether such fittings are of English or Dutch manufacture. No conclusions can be drawn from the presence of a single book clasp in the Company Compound any more than they can from the absence of such artifacts from other Martin’s Hundred sites. As clasps came in pairs and comprised two ele-

ments only one survives. One and one-half inches (3.81 cm) to the left and close to the top edge there appear to be the remains of two more small rivets, here inserted horizontally rather than vertically. The collar’s exterior is decorated with a diamond-shaped checker pattern of incised lines, each containing an impressed circle (of varying diameters) embellished within with incised cross hatching. As the checker pattern and circles extend off both sides of the strip, it is reasonable to deduce that the decoration was stamped onto sheets, which were subsequently cut to size. A slight everting of the lower edge may be the product of shear blades. The band is brazed at its joint, and it is immediately beside this weakest point that one of the vertical strips is riveted. This object evidently is not complete, the riveted posts either anchoring it to something else or vice versa.438 The purpose of the pair of horizontal rivets has not been identified.

ments (the hook plate and the eye), and as no excavation yet published has reported finding a set in situ, there is nothing to suggest that books were lightly regarded or deliberately discarded. On the contrary the inference must be that the volumes were retained after their clasps were broken and thrown away. Little is known about the number or scope of books that people of different social standings would have possessed in Virginia at this time. The few books listed in inventories are predominantly religious or relate to husbandry: e.g., in 1619 George Thorpe at Berkeley Hundred ordered “2. church bibles, 2. common prayer books, 3. books of the practise of piety [and] 3. books of the playne man’s path way” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 178). In the following year he purchased “markhams [Gervaise Markham] works of husbandry & huswifry bound togeather” (Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 389). Earlier, in 1608, when the settlement within the Jamestown palisades was destroyed by fire, John Smith reported that “Good Master Hunt our Preacher lost all his Library” but gave no hint as to its scope or size (Arber, vol. II, p. 407). 438. It is reasonable to deduce that this object’s function was both ornamental and practical, but that neither the quality of material nor decoration was high. Two possibilities present themselves: 1) that it is the side from the lid of a small box, or 2) that it is a mounting from a drinking vessel. The first possibility presumes that the riveted posts turned inward and secured a top of some other material such as shell. But several factors argue against that proposition. The quality of the decoration and the fact that the collar is of copper alloy rather than silver or silver-gilt makes it unlikely that this object would have been used in combination with a material usually associated with craftsmanship of a higher level. In addition the collar shows no evidence of having been hinged or riveted to another material, yet by itself it is too insubstantial to have been pressure secured.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

3 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7671] Length: surv. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Latten, but no tinning surviving; pear-shaped bowl; no rat tail or other reinforcement; stamped with fleurde-lis mark at neck of bowl close to junction with lost handle.439 The fore edge of the bowl is badly decayed, perhaps having been worn thin by usage, and there is evidence of metal loss through wear along the left edge, thus increasing the pear-shaped character of the bowl. 4 Weight Provenance: C.G. 3110A [7672] Height: g˝ (2.22 cm) Weight: 1 oz. (28.35 g) Lead; for bottom fishing;440 cast in conical form, with flattened, hexagonal sides and flattened lug terminal, the latter perhaps created cold by pinching. A small suspension hole has been pierced through it from both sides. Later the top edge was hammered to create a notch (perhaps to secure the line), which, in turn, created a convex intrusion into the upper edge of the hole.

The possibility that the collar may come from a drinking vessel is a little more persuasive. However, it presumes that the slightly inverted upper (or lower?) edge is the product of later bending. Although in the 16th and 17th centuries drinking vessels of stoneware, maple wood, leather, coconut, and even ostrich egg shells were reinforced at the rim and lip with metal mounts of a diameter akin to that of this collar, such mounts were usually of silver or silver-gilt and folded sharply over to create a comfortable lip. The excavated collar did not do that. It may, however, come not from the lip but from a lower band encircling a beaker or drinking horn and have been attached to the rim collar by brass strips resembling suspenders, to keep it from slipping down the tapering vessel. The London wine trade exhibition of 1933 included a drinking horn having a silver-gilt body band of similar proportions, to which feet were riveted (Andre Simon, Wine Trade Loan Exhibition of Drinking Vessels [1933], p. 31, pl. XXVIII, no. 63). The mounts were attributed to ca. 1490, though the mouth collar identifies the horn as a gift to Christ’s Hospital in 1602. The same exhibition included examples of eggs and other vessels secured and enriched with the strap-connected mounts (Simon, pls. XXXI, XXXIV–XXXVIII). 439. Most latten and other English spoon marks are contained within circles, but the fleur-de-lis is an occasional exception, occurring with and without a crown. A seal-topped spoon with the latter mark closely paralleling the excavated example was in the collection of the late F. G. Hilton Price (Old Base Metal Spoons [1908], p. 37), who attributed it to the early-17th century. The lis mark is not necessarily indicative of English manufacture, for it also occurred on Dutch spoons (Baart et al., p. 317, no. 598), though the cited example is within a diamond (a common form decorating the stems of Dutch tobacco pipes), stamped on the handle rather than the bowl, and attributed to the late-14th or early-15th century. Netherlandish latten spoons were more persistently round-bowled than were the English, which became pear-shaped by the 16th century and remained

415

5 Sprue Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7673] Length: 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Lead; from bullet mold for casting at least six balls; spacing between each post (center to center) ca. a˝ (1.27 cm), suggesting a ball diameter of ca. e˝ (0.95 cm).441 6 Strip Provenance: C.G. 3113A [7674]442 Width: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Lead; folded on itself four times, perhaps being readied for the crucible. Gripped between the folds was a small, flat drop, almost certainly salvaged from the bench after a previous pouring and inserted either to make sure that it was not wasted or to create a unit weighing 2 oz. (56.70 g). Without the extra drop the weight was 1.8 oz. (51.03 g). Neither piece exhibited any deliberate markings. 7 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3106 [7675] Length: surv. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Steel; badly decayed blade, bolster, and shank fragment.

thus until the second half of the 17th century, when they became more egg-shaped. 440. The identification of this object as a weight for bottom fishing rather than any other purpose is based on several supportive factors but not on direct evidence. That the weight was not intended for comparative weighing is indicated by the absence of any identifying markings. The issuing of lead measuring weights was carefully controlled, and those that survive are not only stamped with the mark of the plumbers’ company but disc-shaped. Fishing weights were of three kinds: those for nets, for trot lines, and for bottom fishing. Net sinkers generally were oval and provided with a lateral hole of sufficient diameter to contain the thick edge cord. Trot line sinkers were similarly shaped, though of smaller size, and wrapped around (or cast to contain) a much lighter line. An excellent example of a trot line’s kit of hooks and sinkers was found in a 17th-century context at Flowerdew Hundred, Virginia (as yet unpublished). This weight, however, closely resembles modern bottom and surf fishing examples, having its hole at one end, to be tied to the line rather than to be threaded onto it. Although the obvious interpretation of this weight’s presence in the Company Compound is that it was there to be of use to a fisherman (as was the hook [Fig. 60, no. 14] found in the filling of the nearby “massacre victim’s grave”), it is important to remember that the same area was being used by the potter, who needed lead for his glaze (see Fig. 57, n. 408; and n. 442 below). 441. For part of a five-ball bullet mold, see Fig. 81, no. 13. Because lead was scarce and of such importance to the colonists, it is possible that this sprue belonged to the potter’s supply (see n. 440 above). 442. This rolled lump of lead comes from the same stratum as the fishing weight (no. 4 above) and serves to reinforce the proposition that all the lead items related to the potting operation.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

8 Knife Provenance: C.G. 3107 [7676]443 Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Steel; badly decayed, faceted bolster fragment. 9 Strap end Provenance: C.G. 3126 [7677] Length: plate without ring 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Ferrous metal; almost certainly from sword belt; surface damascened with gold wire in hatched pattern (see enlarged detail). The plate terminates in a light ferrous ring and originally folded over it, doubling back to grip the leather, which was secured by a single, still-surviving rivet. Although unstratified, there is no doubt that this type of sword belt linkage is characteristic of the late sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. 10 Ring Provenance: C.G. 3113D [7678] Diameter: ext. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Iron; badly decayed and of uncertain purpose. There appears to be wear from sustained abrasion at a single point on the inside, suggesting that the ring was attached to a chain. 11 Lock Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7679] Width: 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Iron; outer ward from trunk or furniture lock; elevated oval-shaped plate, with attached semicircular ward; latter secured by tongue welded to backplate. The tongue may have seated a central post, on which a hollow-shafted key rotated. The backplate’s surviving side support was everted, to be riveted or welded to the front plate. It is important to note that the backplate has no hole to receive the nose of the key, which on large plate locks normally projects through and beyond the outer ward cover.444 It is this feature

443. Scattered through the plow zone in a 150 ft.2 area beginning ca. 50´ northwest of the Company Compound, and lying between it and the Fort, were a small number of 17th–19th-century artifacts, among them two early knife fragments (Fig. 60, nos. 7–8) and a matchlock flash pan (Fig. 57, no. 4). It is possible that these objects come from a structure whose foundations had not survived in the ground. 444. E.g., Fig. 40, no. 2; I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 248. 445. For an outer ward plate of this general type, see Figs. 79, no. 5; and 85, no. 3. For keys with the appropriate web-to-nose relationship, see Figs. 40, nos. 7–8; and 85, nos. 10–12. 446. There were two varieties of stock locks: those whose mechanism was mounted on an iron plate, called plate stock locks; and those whose parts were set individually into the stock, known as plain stock locks (I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 248, fig. 77b). On both types a shoulder or collar projecting from the shaft dictated how far into the lock the key was to be inserted. On plain stock-lock keys that collar was located immediately behind the vertical slot in the web, but on plate stocklocks it was set behind the entire web. There being no such col-

that suggests that the lock belonged to furniture, a trunk, or a chest rather than to a door.445 12 Key Provenance: C.G. 3093A [7680] Length: surv. 2i˝ (5.56 cm) Iron; from trunk, furniture, or padlock; solid shank with remains of web; thickened and squared into unusually heavy bolster below junction with bow. The ends of the latter turn back into the loop at their junction with the shaft (e.g., Fig. 40, nos. 5–7). 13 Key Provenance: C.G. 3334A [7681] Length: web 1˝ (2.54 cm) Iron; for plate stock-lock;446 web and shaft end; web in cross of Lorraine style; shaft tapering to button. 14 Fish hook Provenance: C.G. 3092B [7682] Length: 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Iron; with single barb and spatula-shaped terminal for attachment to line.447 15 Nail448 Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7683] Length: surv. 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Iron; rose head; spatula point. 16 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3222A [7684] Length: 2k˝ (6.19 cm) Iron; flat head; pointed tip; metal well preserved, probably as a result of contact with burned wood. 17 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3183A [7685] Length: 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Iron; rose head; pointed tip.

lar surviving on this fragment, it follows that the key came from a plate stock lock. 447. Several large hooks have been found on 17th-century sites in Virginia and are usually ascribed to the catching of ocean cod, or the sturgeon that were then so plentiful in the James River (Outlaw, pp. 211–212, nos. 231–232). Although the early colonists attempted to fish with everything from swords to frying pans, sturgeon were usually caught in nets (John Wharton, The Bounty of the Chesapeake: Fishing in Colonial Virginia [1957], p. 7). Of the hooks found in Virginia, the majority appear to have been spatula ended rather than looped into an eye in the modern manner. However, comparable hooks recovered from 17th-century contexts in Holland are more often bent into an eye (Baart et al., pp. 428–429); but there is as yet insufficient evidence to point to a nationally identifying characteristic. See also Pt. I, p. 184; I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred (1982), p. 209. 448. Nos. 15–26 are representative of the nail types, sizes, and conditions recovered from the vicinity of the Company Compound.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

18 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3110E [7686] Length: 2i˝ (5.56 cm) Iron; rose head; shank more rectangular in section than most nails from this area; pointed tip. The nail had been clenched after passing through wood 1a˝ (3.81 cm) thick. 19 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3222A [7687] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Iron; rose head; pointed tip; metal in almost mint condition, as is no. 16 above, which comes from the same context. At a point 1˝ (2.54 cm) from the head the shaft is bent and curiously twisted. 20 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3092C [7688] Length: 1n˝ (4.60 cm) Iron; rose head; pointed tip. Though shown straight, this nail is curved, probably as the result of being drawn from the wood. 21 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3111D [7689] Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Iron; flat head, with central ridge; tip pointed and clenched after passing through wood 1d˝ (2.86 cm) thick.

417

23 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7691] Length: 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Iron; small rose head; tip pointed. 24 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7692] Length: 1i˝ (3.02 cm) Iron; vestigial rose head; tip pointed; bend suggesting nail was drawn from wood before being discarded. This, however, may have been the product of sloppy clenching after the nail had passed through wood g˝ (2.22 cm) thick.449 25 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3113F [7693] Length: 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Iron; flat head; pointed tip; clenched after passing through g˝ (2.22 cm)-thick wood (see no. 24 above). 26 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7694] Length: g˝ (2.22 cm) Iron; vestigial rose head; shank rectangular in section and broad for its length; pointed tip; clenched after passing through wood or leather a˝ (1.27 cm) thick.450

22 Nail Provenance: C.G. 3112H [7690] Length: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Iron; rose head; pointed tip.

449. The similarity in clenched length and find location between this nail and no. 25 below suggests that both may have come from the same object. 450. The size and clenching of this specimen tempts one to as-

sociate it with the hobnails found in the shoe or clog from Site H (Fig. 68b, nos. 1–27). However, they differ significantly in that the head of this example is of rose type, whereas those from the shoe are predominantly ball shaped.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 61

ARTIFACT CATALOG

419

Figure 61 The Company Compound (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 (nos. 1–5); and John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 (nos. 6–8) LEAD SEALS 1 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7192] Diameter: n˝ (2.06 cm) The pine cone emblem of the city of Augsburg on the back,451 partially encircled by a tressure of ten arcs, the junctures of eight terminating in trefoils. The cone is collared by a circlet ornamented with eight diamonds, and capped by a device resembling a thick fleur-de-lis. The cone is slightly irregular and flattened on its right side, and might be thought to be from a different die than the one used for no. 2 below.452 The tressure is encircled by a thin line in relief

and, beyond it, by another beaded circle. The front of the seal is decorated with a large Germanic A in relief, with a small dot within the letter and four small rings above, below, and on either side of it, the whole encircled by a thin line in relief and, beyond that, by a beaded circle similar to that on the back.

451. Cloth seals of this type were cast to create two elements: a flan, from which a slightly tapering lug or rivet projected; and a collar of similar diameter, the two joined by a thin ribbon of lead. In use this last was folded to enable the lug to pass through the collar, having first been thrust through a hole in a strip of the fabric. Thus anchored to the fabric, the lug was crushed between a pair of pincers, the faces of whose anvils bore incuse lettering, numbers, or decoration (sometimes all three), which was simultaneously impressed in relief onto one or both sides of the seal. For our purposes the flan, from which the lug projected, is defined as the back, and the collar the front. These distinctions had no significance, however; the person applying the seal sometimes held the pincers one way and sometimes the other. Thus, e.g., while nos. 1–2, 4–5, and 7 have the Augsburg cone on their backs, nos. 3 and 6 have it on the front. Geoff Egan, co-author of an invaluable introduction to the history and usage of cloth seals (Walter Endrei and Geoff Egan, “The Sealing of Cloth in Europe, with Special Reference to the English Evidence,” Textile History, vol. XIII [1982], pp. 47–75), was the first to identify the cone device on these seals as being the emblem of Augsburg, Germany, and to state that the seals came from a coarse cotton and flax fabric known as fustian (Geoff Egan, Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum [1994], pp. 12 and 106). The name is derived from a medieval suburb of Cairo named Fostat, from which the fabric was first imported into Europe. Later the raw cotton was shipped to Venice, and from there to Swabia, south Germany, which became the center of the fustian weavers, who exported their products through factories in Antwerp. Although the Martin’s Hundred seals seem to be the only Augsburg specimens recovered anywhere from tightly datable archaeological contexts, Augsburg seals are the most common European types encountered in England. To the modern viewer neither the cone nor the Germanic “A” directly declare their Augsburg association, but Egan’s researches led to a seal found in Bicester, England, which has the pine cone on the front and an ox passant on the back, with the legend AVGSBVRG above it. Although Egan has suggested that the ox on the Bicester and other examples found in England may be a mark of quality, he has been unable to explain the A present on all eight Martin’s Hundred specimens. It seems likely, however, that it is

simply the initial letter of Augsburg; e.g., the arms of Augsburg’s Guild of Bakers features a pretzel in the shape of an A (Carl-Alexander von Volborth, Heraldry, Customs, Rules, and Styles [1981], p. 184). A possible but less likely alternative is that the seals were applied by the Stabian weavers’ factors in their warehouses at Antwerp. Although Egan made no reference to seals bearing both the cone and the Germanic A being found in England, I have one in my collection of seals from the Thames at Queenhithe. The dies, however, are unequivocally different. The A lacks the central dot and has no inner border ring, while the cone lacks any border, its lis-style top is smaller, and its scales are less well shaped (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 59). 452. Although the majority of the Martin’s Hundred seals are well-enough preserved to reveal minor variations, the differences are not sufficiently consistent to be identified as die variants. Differences in pressure from the pincers and the cleanliness of the anvil faces, coupled with changes resulting from the spreading of the compressed lug, all tend to suggest die variations that may not be valid. Were one dealing only with the pine cone device, a fair case could be made for separating those with a weak and flattened right side from others more bulbous in character. However, when such changes are seen in relationship to minute differences in the sides, the permutations are inconsistent; whereas if different sets of pincers were employed, the anvil varieties should pair up. But they do not. The fact that the dies are essentially the same, and that nos. 1–5 come from the Potter’s Pond and nos. 6–8 from the adjacent Site H, has been used to draw fundamental conclusions demanding the most careful scrutiny. Finding five seals in the Pond led us to deduce that fustian was imported into Martin’s Hundred in quantities greater than would be needed by a single family, and that it was stored in and dispensed from the longhouse, one of whose doors opened into the fenced area where the seals were found. It was on the basis of that reasoning that this area of Site C became known to us as the Company Compound. When, much later, three more identical seals were found in pits at Site H, we concluded that both a dating and an administrative relationship had existed between the two sites, prompting us to designate Site H as “The Suburb” of Wolstenholme Towne. While that interpretation may, in fact, be valid, its reasoning contains a dis-

2 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 3113A [7190] Diameter: c˝ (1.91 cm) As above; but cone slightly more bulbous and its scales less clearly defined.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

3 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 3110A [7191] Diameter: c˝ (1.91 cm) As no. 1 above; but the A on the back and the cone on the front, the latter almost totally destroyed by experimental and poorly controlled conservation. 4 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 3113E [7695] Diameter: c˝ (1.91 cm) As no. 1 above; back only, without ribbon. 5 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 3113C [7696] Length: surv. 1o˝ (3.33 cm) Front collar with remains of the A, with ribbon still attached. It is not part of no. 4 above.

turbing flaw. Had we excavated Site H first, the discovery of three seals there might well have prompted us to conclude that the “Company’s” supply of fustian was stored there rather than on Site C, and we probably would have continued to so claim had not the other five seals been found in the Potter’s Pond. There is evidence that in 1620 fabrics were being shipped from England to supply the particular plantations with material for clothing. The inventory of supplies being sent to Berkeley Plantation in that year included “57 yards of dyed holmes fustian at 18d, the yard for 20 doublets” at a total of £4 5s. 6d.

6 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 4085B [7697] Diameter: c˝ (1.91 cm) As no. 3 above; back, with half the ribbon surviving. 7 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7698] Diameter: c˝ (1.91 cm) As no. 1 above; back only; badly decayed. 8 Cloth seal Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7699] Diameter: n˝ (2.06 cm) As no. 1 above; back, with part of ribbon remaining; devices very soft.

(Kingsbury, vol. III, p. 358). But seals do not necessarily imply fabric; they may equally well spell lead. It is possible, therefore, that along with the folded waste lead (Fig. 60, no. 6) and the shot-filled gun barrel (Fig. 57, no. 1), all eight seals and seal fragments represent lead intended to be melted into glaze by the potter. Rather than having been removed in Virginia from imported lengths of fabric, they may have been bought from a London or Bristol cloth merchant or tailor and exported to America as lead primarily intended for melting into firearm projectiles.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 62

421

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 62 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS ARMOR AND OTHER OBJECTS 1 Tasset lame Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7700] Height: 2k˝ (6.19 cm) Folded at lower edge and straight cut at left. There is a brass lining rivet immediately above the folded edge, secured at the back with a circular ferrous washer, with two more rivets above and to the right of it. The latter secured the linking strap, the lower rivet capped with a diamond-shaped ferrous washer, the upper broken flush with the surface of the plate.453 2 Tasset lame Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7701] Height: surv. 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Rolled and folded at lower edge, with brass lining rivet immediately above it. No. 5 below was found in close proximity to this plate and may be part of it.

originally secured external leather straps, by which the tasset was buckled to the breastplate skirt. Neither upper nor lower edges are rolled, a feature normal at the top, but not at the bottom if the tasset was no larger. That it had been longer is proved by the presence along the lower edge of one ferrous rivet (in the center) and a rivet hole at the right. No trace of the necessary third rivet is visible at the left, and it is possible (as the figure suggests), though by no means certain, that there has been metal loss at the lower left-hand corner of the plate. Because the lower edge is not rolled, the adjacent rivets cannot be read as lining anchors. Instead it is reasonable to see them as having secured back straps linking the upper tasset element to another, perhaps of similar proportions.454

3 Tasset Provenance: C.G. 4065E [7702] Height: 6a˝ (16.51 cm) Rolled and folded at left and right edges; hammered to create three simulated lames. Above the top ridge are three ferrous rivets capped on the outside by large, more or less rectangular washers that

4 Tasset lame Provenance: C.G. 4065G [7703] Height: max. surv. 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Of narrow form; probably from upper thigh of three-quarter armor. Complete save at its widest end, the lame has no rolled edges. There are brass rivets close to each end at the upper edge, and the remains of three pairs of flat-headed, ferrous rivets along the lower edge and visible only at the back.455

453. Only the lower-edge lame of the average multiple-lamed tasset had two exposed, strap-securing rivets; see also no. 5 below. The prevalence of solid copper-alloy (brass?) rivets on so many of these armor fragments (nos. 1–3 and 5) either gives the lie to the popular belief that on all but the best armor such rivets were only brass-capped iron or points to the Site H armor as being of superior quality. Even if the latter were true, however, it would be rash to try to draw conclusions relating to wealth or social status. Several of the fragments suggest that they have been cut up for reuse and so may represent nothing more significant than scrap metal. 454. Though by no means the most striking of Martin’s Hundred’s armor survivals, this tasset may well be the most interesting and, at the same time, enigmatic of these artifacts. In the early-17th century the multiple-lamed tassets of the previous century were giving way to cheaper, more easily made and maintained thigh protection fashioned from single sheets of steel hammered to simulate the older and more flexible variety. These new “tin tray” tassets were usually hammered to suggest six lames and covered most of the calf. They were used throughout Britain and Europe by pikemen, only the cavalry retaining the multiple-lamed leg protection that reached to the knee. At the same time, however, Milanese armorers were producing half suits with short tassets made from single plates, which covered only the thigh, some with and others without multiple-lame simulation (Hayward, The Hever Castle Collection, pp. 50–53 and 60–63, nos. 49, 50, 54, and 55). Short tassets had

been popular in England in the late Elizabethan era: e.g., those of George Clifford, third Earl of Northumberland (Norman, p. 60, fig. 84). It is important to note that whereas all these examples of single plate and short tassets were secured to the skirt by three straps and buckles to each side, the pikeman’s larger thigh and calf protectors were attached by only two devices, sometimes straps but often hooks of the type represented by Fig. 51, no. 16. This tasset has three strap rivets, and its curvature and size are reminiscent of the Milanese examples cited above. However, it differs in that it lacks a lower, rolled edge and, therefore, is not complete. Instead it has rivet holes along that edge, suggesting that it may have been attached to a second plate comprising three more simulated lames, and thus represents a compromise between the rigidity of the “tin tray” tasset and the flexibility of the multiple-lamed varieties. British armor authorities are not enthusiastic about that interpretation, however, there being no recorded examples of such an intermediate step in tasset evolution. A more acceptable alternative is that the plate originally extended far enough to incorporate a fourth mock lame, became damaged, and was trimmed off and new edge rivets driven to secure the lining. See also Pt. I, p. 151. 455. This is the most complete of any of the Martin’s Hundred tasset lames and is informative in that it exhibits both the visible copper-alloy rivets and the hidden ferrous pairs behind. The latter differ from other paired rivets on Martin’s Hundred

ARTIFACT CATALOG

5 Tasset lame Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7704] Height: surv. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Probably part of no. 2 above. The fragment exhibits a pair of vertically placed brass rivets, one capped behind by a circular ferrous washer. Two exposed brass washers generally occurred only on terminal lames (see no. 1 above) or immediately above the knee.456 6 Tasset? Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7705] Height: surv. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Possible fragment from single-element pikeman’s tasset; folded flat at one edge, with remains of small brass rivet shank adjacent to it. The exterior has been hammered to create an incuse lateral groove similar to those exhibited by nos. 7–8 below. 7 Tasset? Provenance: C.G. 4052C [7706] Length: surv. 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Possible corner fragment from single-element pikeman’s tasset; plate without folded edges; hammered on back to create raised cordons on front, paralleling edges, j˝ (0.79 cm) from one and 1˝ (2.54 cm) from other. Similar hammered lines are exhibited by nos. 6 above and 8 below. 8 Tasset? Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7707] Height: surv. 3i˝ (8.10 cm) Possible fragments from a single-element pikeman’s tasset; hammered on back to create at least one pair of parallel ridges or cordons on front. There is also a suggestion of similarly raised lines at the vertical flanking edges, though these may be the product of cutting the sheet into a strip for some other use. Found beside no. 7 above, they are almost certainly from the same object.

lames (e.g., Figs. 51, no. 15; and 57, no. 17) in that the cited examples have rounded heads and therefore were not covered by other plates. The extreme narrowness of this lame suggests that it comes from a point high on the leg of a three-quarter armor of the kind (though not the quality) represented by the Earl of Southampton’s suite, sold from the Hever Castle Collection in 1983 (Hayward, The Hever Castle Collection, pp. 44–45, no. 47). 456. Ibid. 457. Teniers painted several versions of this subject, but the cit-

423

9 Armor? Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7708] Width: 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Now-rectangular plate with single rivet hole at lower edge (as illustrated), and above it, toward top, a pair of ferrous rivets securing small ferrous strip that may be a repair. The somewhat sloping right edge is partially rolled under, perhaps to create a finished edge or, alternatively, as the result of cutting down from a larger plate. Another hole above and to the right of the repair may have housed another rivet, pairing with the one at the lower edge. Though now flat, it is possible that this is part of an upper or lower cannon. 10 Burgonet cheekpiece Provenance: C.G. 4112A [7709] Length: surv. 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Lower left fragment; shoulder edge rolled and flattened; clipped at corner. There is a large-headed ferrous rivet on the inside of the clipped corner, to which the chin strap had been attached. The type is unusual in that it had no collar, but it is closely paralleled by an example shown in the left foreground of David Teniers the Younger’s painting known as The Guardroom.457 11 Knife Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7710] Length: surv. 5l˝ (14.13 cm) Originally thought to have been a visor prop from a close helmet, this object may be a surgical instrument. The upper, spatula-shaped end is thick on one edge and sharp at the other, suggesting that it had been a blade. Little remains of the other extremity, but it has been carefully flattened and may have extended into another blade.458

ed picture is in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland. (Stephen Vincent Grancsay, Arms and Armor in Paintings by David Teniers the Younger [1946], pp. 22–40). 458. Instruments rather similar in appearance were illustrated by Elizabethan surgeon William Clowes (1544–1604) in his 1596 treatise on surgery (F. N. L. Poynter, ed., The Selected Writings of William Clowes, 1544–1604 [1948], pp. 145 and 149, pls. VI and VII).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 63

ARTIFACT CATALOG

425

Figure 63 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS, PEWTER, AND LEAD MILITARY SMALL FINDS 1 Strap end Provenance: C.G. 4081 [7711] Length: surv. 1m˝ (4.29 cm) Probably from sword hanger of type found at Site B (Fig. 72, no. 18); two welded oval plates; from top of one a hook projects to pass through hole in belt plate. A now barely visible rivet passed from one plate to the other, securing the leather gripped between them. One or both of the plates terminated in a decorative nipple at its lower extremity, a feature paralleled by Fig. 72, no. 18. 2 Strap end Provenance: C.G. 4095 [7712] Length: plate 1m˝ (4.29 cm) Similar in shape to no. 1 above. It differs, however, in that the two plates extend into a loop wrapping around a ring, indicating that the fastening comes from a belt rather than from a sword hanger. The rear plate is incomplete, but the large, leather-securing rivet survives. 3 Sword hanger fastening Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7713] Length: extended 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Two peanut-shaped strap ends, their hooks attached through pierced plate projecting from suspension loop. Each strap end was anchored to the leather by a single rivet. The fastening is illustrated both as found and as it would have hung when its parts were in their correct position (no. 3A). 4 Strap end Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7714] Length: 1l˝ (3.97 cm) Plates acorn-shaped; much more delicate than nos. 1–3 above. Above the plates the welded metal extends into a small knop separating them from the hook. The leather-securing rivet is carefully centered in the smaller of the two acorn elements. Although this fastening has a hook rather than the closed loop, its delicacy suggests that it comes from a sword belt 459. The type of sword hanger to which these buckles (nos. 5–9) may have belonged seems to have been either a 17th-century development of the lighter belts of the Elizabethan era or a more substantial support for a backsword, a heavier weapon than the rapier or narrow-bladed broadsword shown in most British portraits. 460. The type is paralleled (similarly broken) by an example from the Fort; for dating and related information, see Fig. 50,

rather than the heavy hanger variety represented by nos. 1 and 3. 5 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7715] Length: 1}˝ (2.78 cm) Figure-eight double-loop type; frame slightly convexo-concave along its length; bar without tang; probably from multiple-strap sword hanger of the kind shown in no. 5A.459 6 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115H [7716] Length: 1˝ (2.54 cm) As no. 5 above. 7 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7717] Length: 1h˝ (2.70 cm) As nos. 5–6 above. 8 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7718] Length: 1d˝ (2.86 cm) As nos. 5–7 above. 9 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4078A [7719] Length: 1h˝ (2.70 cm) As nos. 5–8 above. 10 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7720] Length: 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Rectangular frame; laterally convexo-concave; round-sectioned wire tang or pin wrapped around central bar, along with remains of sheet-plate grip that secured buckle to strap.460 11 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4115F [7721]461 Length: ca. o˝ (2.38 cm) no. 7, nn. 370–371. The alternative terminology used here follows that advocated by Egan and Pritchard (p. 51). 461. There is no indication that this buckle was part of the woman’s clothing. The deposit had probably broken away from the ash tip (C.G. 4115J) from the north. In addition to the buckle, the deposit included tobacco pipe–stem fragments, nails, daub, oyster shells, and a piece of flint.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Square frame; rounded at corners and very slightly waisted; light central bar; thin wire tang; thin sheetplate grip around bar and anchored to leather strap by single rivet. 12 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4065E [7722] Length: est. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Oval, slightly waisted into figure-eight form; surviving end round-sectioned, much thicker than frame’s sides. Traces of a wire tang adhere to the crossbar, as does part of one of the leather-securing plates, this last unusual in that it was pierced by two rivets. 13 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 4109B [7723] Length: 1i˝ (3.02 cm) Round-sectioned oval single loop; angled frame longitudinally convexo-concave; cross bar crudely welded to rear surface. 14 Sword pommel Provenance: C.G. 4093A [7724] Diameter: 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Subspherical; flattened at 1b˝ (3.18 cm)-diameter base. The tang hole is e˝ (0.95 cm) square and retains a fragment of the tang, which is burred over at the crown in the absence of a capstan button.462

462. This subspherical pommel type is paralleled by others from the Potter’s Pond (for dating details, see Fig. 57, no. 9, n. 415) and Site A (Fig. 81, no. 5). 463. This may well be a fanciful identification. Neither the positioning of the halved disc nor the thickness of the lateral bar are exactly paralleled by other Martin’s Hundred basket-type guards. 464. There are only two chapes from Martin’s Hundred sites, the other from a rapier or light broadsword found in the Fort (Fig. 50, no. 4). Parallels for the latter come from Sandal Castle (ca. 1645) and from the Governor’s Land site, Virginia. No ferrous parallels have yet been found for this type, though squat examples in copper alloys have been found in London. The characteristically square shape, with its button terminal, is well known in the 16th century (J. B. Ward-Perkins, Medieval Catalog [1940], p. 285, fig. 87, VI), but had its origins much earlier, occurring as it does on the 1327 tomb brass of Sir John D’Abernon, Jr., at Stoke D’Abernon, Surrey (ibid., pp. 282–4, no. 5). It may be significant that this was not the only military item found within the south end of the dwelling. See no. 18 below. 465. Francis Markham, writing in 1622, gave a listing of commands for loading and firing a musket, no. 10 of which ordered “Draw out your scouring stick” (Wilkinson, The World’s Great Guns, p. 30). Although the name suggests that the primary function of the scouring stick was to scour, the tool was referred to by Holme (ca. 1642) as “The rod, or ramer or scourer,” suggesting perhaps that by his time the ramming function (coupled with the use of wads) was becoming more important (Holme, The Academy of Armory, bk. III, ch. XVIII, p. 135). The O.E.D. suggests that the term ramrod was first used ca. 1797. Scourers were carried by every musketeer. They were threaded onto the aft end of the rammer and used to remove powder scale generated by crudely mixed gunpowder, which clogged the barrel and prevented the flash from reaching the charge.

15 Guard [?] Provenance: C.G. 4130B [7725] Length: surv. 1m˝ (4.29 cm) Possibly from basket-hilted sword (e.g., Fig. 50, no. 3); small lower fragment with part of forefinger-protecting disc terminal.463 16 Chape Provenance: C.G. 4086A [7726] Width: 1d˝ (2.86 cm) From sword scabbard; relatively heavy, square-ended internally; flat oval in profile; terminating externally in button or nipple. The shape suggests that the scabbard had housed a back- or broadsword.464 17 Can Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7727] Height: 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Sheet iron; fragmentary small canister or box, with copper-alloy skin on inside; folded or with applied iron collar internally at rim. It is not possible to determine whether the can was circular or oval. Purpose unknown. 18 Scourer465 Provenance: C.G. 4086A [7728] Length: 2i˝ (5.56 cm)

There are two scourers from the Beeston Castle excavations, one threaded and the other not. Also recovered was another of the musketeer’s essentials, the threaded worm, a tool absent from the Martin’s Hundred sites (P. Ellis, Beeston Castle, pp. 157–158, nos. 29–31). Although few English examples survive scourers of many sizes remain in the collection of the Landeszeughaus in Graz, Austria (I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” pp. 66–67; Martin’s Hundred, pp. 272 and 305). They have also been found on the Governor’s Land site, Virginia (Outlaw, fig. 35, nos. 168 and 184). The scourer was not carried attached to the scouring stick, but in the musketeer’s bullet bag. At a date between 1625 and 1637 Gervase Markham published The Muster-Master, and in it described the contents of the “bagg, wherein is Mould, worme, screwe, scourer and Bullets” (Gervaise Markham, “The MusterMaster,” Camden Miscellany, 4th ser., vol. 14 [1975], p. 63). As Markham indicated, in addition to the scouring attachment the musketeer’s kit also included a worm for extracting wads from failed charges. The use of the scouring stick and its attachments was best explained by Edward Davies’ 1619 treatise, England’s Trainings (Harold L. Peterson, “Tilbehor Til Skydevaben for 1800,” Vaabenhistoriske Aarboger, vol. XIIa [1965], p. 41): neither must he want his necessarie tooles, as a scowrer, tirebale and worme, having every one a vice to turne into the end of the scouring sticke, so that if thorough wet weather, or any other accident, his peece will not be discharged, the skillful souldier may with his tireball pull out his bullet with the worme, the paper and wet powder, and with his scourer make his peece cleane within. His scourer must be trimmed on the end with a linen cloth of sufficient substance, therewith to make clean the cannon of his peece within. The end of his scouring sticke ought to have a round end of bone of just bugnesse with the mouth of his peece, therewithall at his pleasure, to ramme

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Oval-ended central blade, flanked by two flanged blades of similar form to create an interrupted disc (ca. c˝ [1.91 cm] diameter) to fit the bore of the musket barrel for which it was intended. All three blades are shouldered at their lower extremity and extend into a rectangular shaft, which becomes square at the point where it converts into a fiveturned screw. 19 Pan cover Provenance: C.G. 4101A [7729] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) From snaphaunce lock; rectangular plate (cover) and central housing, into which is pinned flat pivoting bar with hole at nether extremity, through which bar was screwed to plate. The housing extends into an unusually long tail. This cover is also unusual in that the cover plate lacks the usual rising edge, which normally protects the fore edge of the housing block to the full width of the cover (see no. 20 below).466 20 Pan cover Provenance: C.G. 4074A [7730] Length: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) From snaphaunce lock; differing from no. 19 above in rectangular cover’s rising edge extending outward from sloping face of housing block (Pt. I, Ill. 25). 21 Spring Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7731] Length: surv. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Thick loop extending into equally strong leaves. First thought to be a frizzen spring from a very heavy snaphaunce lock, this interpretation has since been discarded without replacing it with anything better. However, the possibility exists that the object is a cotter pin for a chest handle, but the leaves seem too thick to have been easily folded.467

in powder and paper, or instead of paper, such softe haire as they stuff saddles withall, the danger whereof is not like; but this the souldier must use when time permits. No worms have as yet been found in Virginian excavations, but when they are discovered they will resemble a corkscrew having only two twists to the steel rod. The term tireball or tirebale is not clear in Davies’ context. The O.E.D. defines it as “an instrument for extracting the charge from a muzzle-loading firearm” and cites William Garrard’s The art of warre (1591) as its earliest reference, to wit: “The carefull souldier may with his Tyreboll pull out hys bullet.” The dictionary gives as a secondary definition “A bullet-forceps.” However, there is a difference between extracting the charge and pulling out the bullet. Consequently Davies’ punctuation might usefully be amended as follows: “may with his tireball pull out the bullet, with the worme the paper and wet powder.” It should be noted that in the 19th century the scourer was described as a jag, the O.E.D. giving 1844 as its earliest usage, and this term is commonly used by modern writers.

427

22 Bandolier flask lid Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7732] Height: n˝ (2.06 cm) Pewter; cast in three-piece mold leaving vertical mold marks up sides beneath projecting loops. A round sprue mark is visible in the midsection of one of the two vertical lines. A wide ridge or mold mark encircles the mouth, and the top is slightly recessed. This is one of the best preserved examples from Martin’s Hundred and clearly shows that it has always been round at the mouth and slightly oval at the top.468 23 Bandolier flask lid Provenance: C.G. 4076B [7733] Height: f˝ (1.59 cm) Pewter; shorter than no. 22 above; mold and sprue marks at sides opposite rather than under suspension loops. The top or crown is circular, and the loops had been lost in antiquity. 24 Bandolier flask lid Provenance: C.G. 4075A [7734] Height: c˝ (1.91 cm) Pewter; akin to no. 22 above; but mold marks slightly to one side of loops and sprue mark oval. The crown is unique to the Martin’s Hundred group in that it has a small nipple at its center. 25 Cylinder Provenance: C.G. 4093A [7735] Length: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Diameter: exterior g˝ (2.22 cm); interior f˝ (1.59 cm) Lead; mold marks up opposite sides, one end slightly thickened and spreading, apparently bottom of mold. The top is thinner and clearly coincided with the top of the mold. In short the object is com-

466. The mechanical operation of a snaphaunce pan cover is illustrated in Pt. I, Ill. 25. This pivoting bar is very thin, raising doubts as to the ability of the traverse bar to engage it. On the other hand there is no indication of a second hole, into which the bar could have hooked, unless an area of metal loss at one edge took out the hole. The damage occurs at approximately the point where the bar would have made contact. For other Martin’s Hundred snaphaunce parts, see Figs. 49, nos. 14–16; and 81, nos. 14. 467. A spring very similar in size (length 2f˝ [6.67 cm]) is in the pre-1645 collection from Basing House, Hampshire, described as being “made from a strip of spring steel 5/16 in. wide hollowed out at the juncture to form an eye which would locate over a pivot” (Moorhouse, pt. 2, vol. II, pp. 44 and 46, fig. 20, no. 65). Though much decayed, the eye of the Martin’s Hundred spring also has a “hollowed-out” appearance. 468. For other Martin’s Hundred bandolier flask caps, see Fig. 49, nos. 19–22, and n. 359 for data on the flasks and boxes; also Pt. I, p. 143, n. 7.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

plete as cast. It also is identical to, and seemingly from the same mold, as no. 26 below.469

From scissor-type mold; one hemispherical cup, producing balls ca. m˝ (1.75 cm) in diameter.470

26 Cylinder Provenance: C.G. 4081A [7736] Length: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Lead; identical to no. 25 above; but squashed and scored, probably by plowshare.

28 Lead shot Provenance: C.G. 1450A From topsoil scatter; but comparable to small shot from the Fort and pellets found in the Potter’s Pond musket barrel (Pt. I, Pl. 69).

27 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 4101A [7737] Length: surv. 1˝ (2.54 cm)

469. It has been suggested that these tubes might be bandolier flasks, to accompany the lead or pewter caps. That pewter flasks did occur in America is demonstrated by the contents of burial no. 5 in the Narragansett Indian cemetery (Simmons, pp. 85–86 and fig. 53). However, their weight makes that extremely unlikely. From another Narragansett Indian grave (burial no. 15) in North Kingston, Rhode Island, have come four cast lead cylinders, shorter than these examples and with an exterior diameter of only a˝ (1.27 cm). Although much smaller, these examples seem to bear some relationship to those from Martin’s Hundred, in that they reportedly are complete castings and “not cut from a longer rod of metal.” Found with a round musket ball, the excavators suggested that the cylinders might have

substituted for .60 caliber ammunition (William A. Turnbaugh, The Material Culture of RI-1000, a Mid-17th-Century Narragansett Indian Burial Site in North Kingstown, Rhode Island [1984], p. 99). However, the idea of shot with a hole through it to let the exploding gasses escape makes only marginal sense. It seems more likely that the Rhode Island cylinders were net sinkers. If true, it is possible that these cylinders were intended to be threaded onto the edge of an ocean-trawling seine. 470. This bullet mold fragment is almost exactly paralleled by another cup from the Fort (Fig. 49, no. 18). For more complete examples from Site B, see Fig. 72, nos. 11–13.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 64

429

430

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 64 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS ARMOR PLATES 1 Brigandine plate (?) Provenance: C.G. 4057B [7738] Length: surv. 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Rectangular fragment; complete only at lower and right edges, their junction rounded in manner of lower tasset plate. The remains of what may have been a rivet is visible at the fractured left edge. The metal is thicker and heavier than is that of most brigandine plates, thus raising doubts as to the validity of the identification.471 2 Brigandine plate (?) Provenance: C.G. 4121A [7739] Length: surv. 1i˝ (3.02 cm) Rectangular fragment; complete on all but left edge; slightly thicker than average brigandine plate. In the absence of visible rivets, the possibility exists that it is really part of a snaphaunce’s pan cover (e.g., Fig. 63, no. 19).

4 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 4113A [7741] Length: surv. 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Top, bottom, and right edges surviving; one iron rivet close to top. A pair of round holes in the midsection of the plate may be the result of corrosion or might have been drilled to reuse it in a jack coat. 5 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 4080A [7742] Length: surv. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Original edges surviving at top and bottom; one iron rivet close to upper edge. 6 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 5051C [7743] Length: surv. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Intact at top, bottom, and left edges, perhaps deliberately broken at right; one rivet visible at upper edge.

3 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 4056 [7740] Length: surv. g˝ (2.22 cm) Complete on all but left side; corners gently rounded; one iron rivet surviving at upper right corner.

7 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7744]472 Width: 1l˝ (3.97 cm) Apparently deliberately clipped at all four corners; single thread hole somewhat off center.473

471. For information on brigandines and their plates, see Fig. 51, n. 379; for additional examples, see Figs. 57, nos. 12–13; and 72, no. 6; also I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 271. 472. Site H was alone in yielding jack plates, 82 in all. Although the 1625 Muster postdated the massacre, it may be worth noting that of the seven households listed in Martin’s Hundred, two possessed “Coats of Steele” (William Harwood with three, and Ellis Emerson with one), while one (Addams/Leak) had a “Coat of plate” (Jester, pp. 43–44). Lyon G. Tyler’s edition of John Smith’s 1608 True Relation &c. provides the following: “Arriving at Weramocomoco, being jealous of the intent of this politick salvage; to discover this intent the better, I with 20. shot armed in Jacks, went a shore.” To which Tyler added a footnote: “I.e., twenty armed men clad in jacks—coats made of thick leather” (Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606–1625 [1946 (1907)], p. 53). He would appear to have been mistaken, for at least as early as 1633 leather jerkins substituting for plate armor were called buff coats. The waters are further muddied by the fact that the Studley/Todkill contribution to Captain John Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1966 [1624]) tells it differently: “Arriving at Werowocomoco, Newports conceit of this great Savage bred many doubts and suspitions of trecheries, which Smith to make appeare needlesse, with twentie men well appointed, undertooke to enounter the worst that could happen.” In this version, therefore, there is no reference to jacks

or, for that matter, to Captain Newport. There is, however, no reason to doubt the 1608 reference, which indicates that the first settlers were well supplied with jacks, perhaps more uniformly so than when the muster inventory was taken in 1624/5. 473. Jack coats were made from generally square steel plates, clipped at the corners and pierced by a single central hole, through which they were sewn between the canvas layers of a quilted vest, as shown in Pt. I, Ill. 32. There were three types of flexible garments involving a combination of leather, velvet, or canvas and a multitude of small steel plates or scales: brigandines, jack coats, and coats of steel. The difference between them and the contemporary terminological confusion between one type and another is laid out in Fig. 51, n. 379. In sum, however, it is fair to say that brigandine plates were rectangular and secured with rivets, that jack coat plates were as described above, and that plates from coats of plate were similar but employed larger plates (e.g., Mayes et al., pp. 262 and 266, fig. 12, nos. 42–43). To unsimplify the foregoing simplification, Blair (European Armour, p. 139) has added yet another plated vest variety called a “pennyplate coat,” which occurs in 16th-century inventories and he describes as “a variant of the jack and as being composed of small, overlapping iron discs each held by a central rivet to a canvas backing.” Blair would appear to be suggesting, therefore, that jack plates could be secured with rivets, albeit (perhaps) central rivets.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

8 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7745] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Clipped at one corner; central thread hole heavily punched through (probably with nail) so that metal creates collar around hole on back. 9 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7746] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Clipped at all corners; round central thread hole. 10 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7747] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Somewhat convexo-concave; clipped at three intact corners, one of them thickened and burred in cutting process; round central thread hole burred on under, concave side. 11 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7748] Width: 1jG (3.33 cm) Rectangular; lightly clipped at corners; one edge somewhat dished; unusually small thread hole at center. 12 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065C [7749] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Clipped at all four corners; one side slightly sloping; central hole round and of median size. 13 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7750] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Roughly clipped at all four corners; thread hole large and off center. 14 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4084 [7751] Width: 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Two corners slightly decayed but all apparently clipped; metal slightly thicker in center than at edges; thread hole small and centrally struck. 15 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7752] Width: 1b˝ (3.18 cm)

474. The largest number of jack plates yet discovered in England comes from Beeston Castle. They have been thoroughly studied by armor expert Ian Eaves, late of the Tower of London. In discussing plates having secondary holes (in addition to the central sewing hole in each) he urges readers to “Note additional smaller rivet-holes from earlier use” (P. Ellis, Beeston Castle, pp. 162–163, no. 6). Two joining Beeston Castle plates have groups of four and three small holes close to one edge and arranged in a triangle, as is the case with this one. The author is reluctant to accept Eaves’ explanation and thinks

431

Unevenly cropped at all four corners; one edge slightly dished; thread hole somewhat off center. 16 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4077C [7753] Width: 1i˝ (3.02 cm) Heavily clipped at one corner and less so at others; plate smaller than most, with thread hole to match. 17 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4052A [7754] Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Rectangular plate; much thicker at top edge than others, thinnest in middle; surviving three corners lightly clipped; central thread hole round and large. Three punched holes are grouped close to the top left corner.474 18 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4082A [7755] Width: surv. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Fragmentary; surviving corner not clipped; unique among Site H plates in that it has single small hole drilled close to each of two remaining edges in addition to central thread hole. 19 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4091A [7756] Width: surv. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Fragmentary; unusual in having hole b˝ (0.64 cm) closer to surviving edge, in addition to usual central thread hole. 20 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7757] Width: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Corners clipped to varying degrees; plate thicker toward most heavily cut corner; trimmed shank of copper-alloy rivet j˝ (0.79 cm) from that edge, clear evidence that plate cut from old armor.475 It possesses the usual central thread hole and another e˝ (0.95 cm) from it, which may be the product of corrosion. 21 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4052A [7758] Width: surv. 1n˝ (4.60 cm) Fragmentary; of large size and perhaps hexagonal form; one corner conventionally clipped, but one op-

it likely that the three-hole combinations were in some way related to jack coat construction. 475. The steel squares needed for jacks were often obtained by cutting up old plate armor, as was the case at the Tower of London in 1575, when the Master of the Armouries gave the order to convert obsolete pieces from its stores into 1,500 jacks “for sea service” (Dufty, p. 8). Such conversions are most readily identifiable when the jack plate exhibits the remains of brass rivets, as do nos. 20–21. See also Pt. I, p. 152.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

posite cut back to such a degree as to resemble an additional side. There is a very small thread hole, evidently far off center, toward the surviving clipped corner. More significant (as evidence of prior use) are the shanks of two small copper-alloy rivets located b˝ (0.64 cm) from the hole. 22 Jack plate or lame fragment Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7759] Width: surv. 1c˝ (3.18 cm) From tasset or gorget lame; folded edge fragment; circular hole immediately adjacent to fold. This hole may have been drilled or punched to enable the metal to be used as a jack plate. Alternatively it may represent the location of a lost lining rivet, in which case the fragment ended its life as a lame. 23 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7760] Width: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Fragmentary; of large size; two surviving edges set at 67° angle; thread hole located more or less at the center of surviving plate. It is possible that in a former life this jack coat element had formed part of a coat of plate.476 24 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7761] Width: 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Complete; three sides at right angles and one oblique; one corner clipped; slightly convexo-concave; small thread hole at center. 25 Jack plate Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7762] Width: 1k˝ (3.65 cm)

476. For a parallel, see Mayes et al., pp. 262 and 266, fig. 12, nos. 42–43.

Metal in poor condition; apparently folded and hammered, creating plate much heavier than most; surviving corners not clipped; central thread hole somewhat irregular in passing through both layers. 26 Jack plate (?) Provenance: C.G. 4052C [7763] Width: surv. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Fragment; with carefully rounded projection; pierced by hole similar to those at centers of conventional jack plates. It is possible that this came originally from the edge of a piece of plate armor or perhaps from the cheek of a burgonet (see no. 28 below). 27 Lame Provenance: C.G. 4082A [7764] Width: o˝ (2.38 cm) From unidentified lame (or perhaps single plate gorget); edge fragment; pierced by large copper-alloy rivet. 28 Cheekpiece (?) Provenance: C.G. 4057A [7765] Width: surv. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Small fragment; curving edge around large-headed copper-alloy rivet; perhaps akin to no. 26 above. 29 Rivet Provenance: C.G. 4087A [7766] Width: surv. c˝ (1.91 cm) Copper alloy; anchoring two thin ferrous plates; presumably armor, but too small to identify.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 65

433

434

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 65 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS TOOLS 1 Spade nosing Provenance: C.G. 4065D [7767] Height: surv. 9c˝ (24.77 cm) Blade round ended; reinforced at surviving side by rectangular strap secured with four iron rivets. The presumption is that the lost side was similarly reinforced, and that the blade was entirely of iron, terminating in a socket for the wooden handle.477 Whether the reinforcement represents a repair or whether it was a recognized method of giving strength to an always-weak blade remains uncertain. However, contemporary illustrations of round-ended digging spades do not exhibit this feature. 2 Spade nosing Provenance: C.G. 4078A [7768] Height: surv. 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Side fragment; divided and U-shaped, to seat edge of wooden blade. Though shown in an appropriate juxtaposition to no. 3 below, this fragment is not thought to come from the same tool.

477. This “modern” all-metal blade type appears in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1565 drawing depicting the activities of spring (H. Arthur Klein, ed., Graphic Worlds of Peter Bruegel the Elder [1963], p. 97). In it three spades (and a shovel?) are visible, all entirely metal bladed and socketed. However, the only example to be seen in its entirety is square ended. That Breugel was also familiar with shod wooden spades is demonstrated in his 1559 Prudentia, which shows the round-edged blade but not the handle (Klein, Graphic Worlds of Peter Bruegel the Elder, p. 237). Researchers using the readily available Breugel engravings are advised to check their details against the original drawings and paintings: e.g., in the case of the engraved Prudentia its spade shoe differs in its character from the artist’s original drawing in his Prudencia (Philippe RobertsJones et al., Breugel Une dynastie de peintres [1980], p. 94, no. 31). The same is true of his companion picture Justicia, which shows a man having his hand severed by a cleaver on a butcher’s block; in the engraving the cleaver has become a narrow-bladed knife. Spades having wholly ferrous blades similar to those in Breugel’s Spring, their edges both square (or rather concave) and rounded, are shown in Anthony Huxley’s An Illustrated History of Gardening ([1978], p. 115) and attributed to “A gardener’s armory illustrated in 1649.” Nevertheless these ironbladed spades seem to have been the exception rather than the rule. Although numerous examples of spade nosings or shoes have been found on 17th-century sites in Virginia and England, I am aware of no published example of the fully metal variety. Although no round-ended shoes have been found on the Martin’s Hundred sites, two well preserved specimens have been recovered from the ca. 1645 forge site at Sandal Castle (Mayes et al., pp. 242–3, fig. 5, nos. 50–51). Though much

3 Spade nosing Provenance: C.G. 4065D [7769] Width: surv. 7f˝ (19.37 cm) Edge fragment; side unusually flaring to rounded corner. 4 Spade nosing (?) Provenance: C.G. 4078A [7770] Width: surv. 7d˝ (18.10 cm) Only clue to fragment’s purpose is way in which metal wrought to curve at corner. 5 Dutch hoe Provenance: C.G. 4065C [7771] Width: 8c˝ (22.23 cm) Socket missing; both arms and blade heavy, latter’s corners exhibiting damage attributed to usage rather than subsequent decay. 6 Trowel Provenance: C.G. 4065A [7772] Length: blade 5c˝ (14.61 cm)

heavier than the 17th-century shoes, both rounded- and straight-edged shoes have been recovered from the A.D. 4th century bottom of the stone fort ditch at Richborough, Kent (J. P. Bushe-Fox, Fourth Report on the Excavations at the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent [1949], p. 153, and pl. LIX, no. 320; Rees, p. 58). Although there are earlier English depictions of straightedged shod spades, the oldest English rendering of the rounded shoe may be that in Thomas Hyll’s 1577 The Gardener’s Labyrinth (Huxley, p. 159). Among Holme’s sketches for his Academy of Armory, attributed to the 1640s, are both a shod spade and “a spade-iron, or a shooe for a spade,” both round edged (Harleian MS 2027). Then, too, Evelyn’s 1659 drawings for his unpublished Elysium Britanicum show two spades, both with shoes or nosings, one more or less square and the other rounded, like those depicted by Holme (A. Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener, p. 60, fig. 39). By the beginning of the 18th century, after a history of more than 1,500 years, the shod wooden spade seems to have been succeeded by the fully ferrous blade. Thus Noel Chomel’s Dictionnaire Oeconomique ([1725], s.v. spades) offered only one description of a spade: “an Iron-Instrument near Eight or Nine Inches broad, and about a Foot long, pretty thin at the lower part and a little thicker at the upper, at the place where there is a hole, which they call the socket, into which hole they put an handle near three Inches thick and three Foot long.” Nevertheless Holme made it clear that spades with entirely ferrous blades were in use in England much earlier (see Fig. 39, n. 284). The question, therefore, is whether this fragment, weak though it must have been, comes from such a tool. For a related discussion of straight-edged spade shoes, see Fig. 39, nn. 284 and 286.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Triangular blade; rattail extension to shank weld reinforcing blade. The shank is rectangular in section and, rather than rising vertically, as is usual on trowels of this type, it first folds forward. The tip of the tang appears to have been broken, leaving doubts as to whether it tapered to a point and remained within the wooden handle or protruded and was hammered over a cap or washer.478 7 Hedging bill Provenance: C.G. 4115H [7773] Length: surv. 7d˝ (18.10 cm) Broken forward of socket; blade very heavy for size; slightly hooked at nose; substantial dorsal tine.479 8 Axe Provenance: (blade) C.G. 4143A [7213]; (poll) C.G. 4115A [7213A]480 Length: poll to edge 8l˝ (21.75 cm) Blade triangular and slightly flaring; edge rounded.481 The socket was crudely fashioned by drawing out the tail of the blade and wrapping it around to create the eye before welding the end to the blade’s right cheek. Some care has been taken to lighten the sides while retaining weight at the poll. Nevertheless a side-welded axe was always weak and likely to fracture if struck sideways, and this example had broken at that point. The right side of the blade bears the rectangular stamp of the maker—his initials P.P. The circumstances of this object’s burial leave little doubt that it occurred after the Indian attack, but how long after remains speculative.

435

Edge fragment; impossible to determine blade’s original dimensions; ca. six teeth to the inch, each now slightly under d˝ (0.32 cm) in length. 10 File Provenance: C.G. 4127 [7775] Length: surv. 10b˝ (26.04 cm) Round-backed and serrated; sides tapering to sharp cutting edge; tang complete, but other end missing. The tightness of the serrations suggests that this was a blacksmith’s rather than a woodworker’s tool. It could also have been used for sharpening saws. 11 Pot crane Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7776] Length: surv. 6l˝ (16.67 cm) Trammel fragment; deep-toothed and surprisingly thin vertical member, drawn out at surviving end into suspension hook; strap welded above it, creating hook to secure and guide companion bar, to which pivoting link fastened. 12 Trap spring Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7777] Length: surv. 3f˝ (9.21 cm) Rectangular and thickened eye; drawn out into flat bar with triple fullering grooves to combine springiness with strength. The fragment might have served as shown in no. 12A.482

9 Saw blade Provenance: C.G. 4076B [7774] Length: 3f˝ (9.21 cm)

478. Pointing trowels like this were used to decorate pargeted walls at Mathews Manor (I. Noël Hume, Historical Archaeology, p. 230, fig. 33b). Evelyn (Elysium Britannicum [1659]) considered such trowels to be garden tools. 479. See Evelyn, no. 36, in Audrey Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardner (1974), p. 61, no. 36. 480. The poll of this ax was found in a rubbish pit (C.G. 4143A) and the blade in the filling of “Granny’s grave” (C.G. 4115A). 481. The ax terminology used here is drawn primarily from Mercer’s Ancient Carpenters’ Tools, wherein the blade is called the bit; the socket the eye, whose drawn-down sides are called the lip; a thickened, hammerlike back being defined as the poll; and the handle the helve. Most of these terms are still used, although modern writers prefer blade to bit, and refer to the

drawn-down sides as ears and not lips. In addition the sides of the bit or blade are called its faces. The number of axes from Martin’s Hundred is in marked contrast to the almost contemporary sites at the Governor’s Land, where none are reported as having been found. 482. The trap reconstructed in Fig. 65, no. 12A is of a standard, single-spring type of long but undefined antiquity. A dualspring version of the same system was drawn and published by L. Mascall in A Booke of Fishing with Hook and Line . . . Another of Sundrie Engines and Trappes . . . (1590) , quoted by Carl P. Russell, Firearms, Traps, and Tools of the Mountain Men (1967), p. 103. The square openings at the end of the springs were there called hoops; thus: “When the two shutting hoopes are opened abroade and holde down . . . which springes are made of good steele.”

436

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 66

ARTIFACT CATALOG

437

Figure 66 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS KNIVES, PEWTER SPOON, AND OTHER FERROUS TOOLS 1 Knife Provenance: C.G. 4110A [7778] Length: fragment 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Ferrous metal; blade fragment, shoulder, and part of flat tang; tang with two surviving holes to receive rivets securing bone handle plates. For an example of this handle type and a discussion of knife-handle evolution, see Fig. 44, no. 5 and n. 321. As a general rule, flat-tanged table knives have blades that are wider and shorter than those with nail-like tangs. 2 Knife Provenance: C.G. 4093A [7779] Length: fragment 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Ferrous metal; blade fragment and part of flat tang; tang pierced by two holes for securing handle plates. This example exhibits no shoulders, but, as the specimen is in an advanced stage of decay, it is possible that the shoulders have flaked away. 3 Knife Provenance: C.G. 4082A [7780] Length: fragment 2j˝ (5.87 cm) Ferrous metal; blade fragment, bolster, and incomplete tang; no evidence of bolster decoration. 4 Knife (?) Provenance: C.G. 4072A [7781] Length: 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Iron; solid handle, balustroidal and terminating in double collar below bulbous knop with central teat. Another collar separates the handle from what little remains of the blade, which appears slightly dished on one side. No parallel has been found for this elaborate handle type, but it is possible that it comes from a specialized knife, such as a surgical scalpel.483 5 Knife (?) Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7782] Width: c˝ (1.91 cm)

483. A. Somers Cocks and Claude Blair, Masterpieces of Cutlery and the Art of Eating (1979), p. xii, pl. 4 ; Poynter, pls. VI–VII, instruments from the surgeon’s chest. 484. Conventional wisdom has it that round-ended table knife blades did not come into use in England until the belated introduction of the fork in the mid-17th century (Hayward, English Cutlery, pl. IX, a–b). Although spatula-ended knife blades were used for serving as early as the Middle Ages, this example is of regular table-knife proportions (Cocks and Blair, pp. xii and 4).

Ferrous metal; possible rounded end from tableknife blade. Alternatively it may be the end of a flat tang in the style of nos. 1–2 above. Weighing against that interpretation is the fragment’s thinness and absence of any rivet hole.484 6 Currier’s knife (?) Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7783] Length: fragment 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Ferrous metal; Incomplete blade; concavity believed caused in part by decay. 7 Currier’s knife Provenance: C.G. 4111B [7784] Length: fragment 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Ferrous metal; Of conventional shape; incomplete blade; see Fig. 44, no. 10 and n. 322 for parallels and supportive data. 8 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7785] Length: 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Pewter; handle; hexagonal in section; trace of slipped terminal.485 9 Carpenter’s gouge Provenance: C.G. 4065 [7786] Length: 6f˝ (16.83 cm) Ferrous metal; Short, square-sectioned, and pointed tang within expanded handle stop; blade widening to rounded and dished cutting edge. Another of the same type was found in the Fort (Fig. 44, no. 12).486 10 Carpenter’s gouge Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7787] Length: 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Ferrous metal; short, square-sectioned, and pointed tang (perhaps incomplete) above expanded handle stop. The shaft widens only slightly and is longitu-

485. Spoons with hexagonal stems and slipped terminals were common through much of the 17th century. An example in silver bearing the date letter for 1610 was sold at Phillips in London on September 6, 1991 (Spoons 1399–1901 [1991], p. 15, no. 26 and pl. VI. 486. An almost exact parallel was found in excavations at Basing House, Hampshire, and presumably was in use there prior to its destruction in 1645 (Moorhouse, pt. 2, p. 44, no. 68 and fig. 20).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

dinally dished, increasingly so toward the still-narrow cutting edge. 11 Compass487 Provenance: C.G. 4115A [7788] Length: surv. 4m˝ (11.91 cm)488

487. For a discussion of the use of the term compass rather than today’s more commonly used dividers, see Fig. 44, n. 327. 488. Because many years have elapsed since the objects were drawn, several of the most fragile have continued to decay, re-

Ferrous metal; Similar to pair from the Fort (Fig. 44, no. 15); one arm fitted with two slots, other with two interlocking plates at pivot. This example seems less well made and possesses a very crudely hammered pivotal rivet.

sulting in metal loss that could not be remedied by reconservation. Consequently the measurements are not always the same as those used by the original artist. In this instance the longest compass arm is shorter by b˝ (0.64 cm).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 67

439

440

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 67 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS LOCKS AND RELATED HARDWARE 1 Key Provenance: C.G. 4078 [7789]489 Length: surv. 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Incomplete; solid shaft; Z-shaped web; heavy bolster at junction of eye and shaft, ornamented at lower end by pair of cordons. 2 Key Provenance: C.G. 4077 [7790] Length: surv. 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Incomplete; solid shaft thickening at bow; decoration, if any, now lost. 3 Key Provenance: C.G. 4080A [7791] Length: surv. 1o˝ (4.92 cm) Fragment; tubular shaft, to insert over lock post; flat, rectangular web, clipped at fore edge and incised with single notch. This large key evidently operated a lock whose mechanism was of modest complexity. 4 Plate stock lock Provenance: C.G. 4058C [7792] Width: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Fragment; keyhole collar and welded ends of first ward attachments. 5 Keyhole plate Provenance: C.G. 4086A [7793] Width: greatest surv. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Incomplete. The small, casket-sized keyhole is not square to the plate’s surviving edges, nor is it deliberately askew, to conform to a diamond-shaped mounting. No nail holes are visible. The inference must be that this is a discarded fragment deliberately cut down from a larger plate. 6 Lock bolt Provenance: C.G. 4065C [7794] Length: bolt 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Mounted to remains of plate; insufficient surviving to determine type. The bolt has a notch at its rear 489. See Fig. 69, no. 10, for a thimble from the same female’s grave. 490. For a complete barrel padlock, see Fig. 40, no. 1; for a better preserved example of the spring bolt, see Fig. 79, no. 6. 491. For a possible hasp interpretation, see Fig. 85, nos. 1–2; for plate lock usage, see Fig. 85, no. 3. 492. Similar handles were found at Site A (Fig. 79, nos. 23–24)

and two widely-spaced tallons, and remains attached to the plate by one U-shaped bracket. 7 Lock bolt Provenance: C.G. 4143A [7795] Length: surv. 5k˝ (13.81 cm) Probably from large stock lock; incomplete; forward upper notch survives. The head is heavy and f˝ (1.59 cm) thick. 8 Barrel padlock Provenance: C.G. 4404A [7796] Diameter: 1˝ (2.54 cm) Fragment; spring plate; ends of two springs,one horizontal and other vertical; horizontal spring attached to barrel’s perforated hasp or shackle. It follows, therefore, that this device was broken out of the lock rather than having been separated and lost.490 9 Lock fragment Provenance: C.G. 4081A [7797] Width: 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Small piece of plate, with attached U-shaped loop or bracket, which could be part of hinged hasp or guide for plate lock bolt.491 10 Bail handle Provenance: C.G. 4093A [7798] Length: grip 4g˝ (12.38 cm) For chest, trunk, or coffin; rectangular in section, much expanded in center of grip; terminals Zshaped, one more flattened and expanded than other. One incomplete cotter pin survives.492 11 Handle (?) Provenance: C.G. 4129A [7799] Length: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Incomplete; rectangular in section, somewhat expanded in grip; hammered very flat toward incomplete terminal. If this was indeed a handle, it is surprisingly shallow; when lifted, it would not have projected far enough to provide a secure grip.493 and also at Mathews Manor (later Denbigh Plantation), further down the James River (W.S. 27, 199, 230A), there initially dated post-ca. 1650. That dating is now thought to be too late. 493. In the 18th century handles of this length occur on the lids of leather-covered boxes, but usually have depth (grip clearance) of c˝ (1.91 cm) This example would have extended no more than a˝ (1.27 cm)—not an impossible distance, but short enough to be questioned.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

12 Pintle housing (?) Provenance: C.G. 4089A [7800] Length: surv. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Incomplete; narrow rectangular strip welded to create eye-shaped loop, which might be driven into wood of small box.494 13 Strap hinge Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7801] Length: surv. 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Fragment; pierced by one small nail hole; broken or cut at both ends. 14 Reinforcement strap Provenance: C.G. 4065D [7802] Length: 7g˝ (20.00 cm) Wide and spatula shaped at one end; tapering to narrow bar; bent almost double when found but illustrated as originally intended. One slightly clenched nail survives at the expanded end and appears to have been attached to wood b˝ (0.64 cm) thick. This was one of three nails arranged in a triangular pattern. At the opposite end another incomplete (?) nail survives to a length of j˝ (0.79 cm), suggesting that the wood was of uniform thickness. Possibly an ornamental strap from the lid of a trunk. 15 Tenterhook495 Provenance: C.G. 4115E [7803] Length: surv. 1˝ (2.54 cm) Clenched (?), having passed through wood no more than a˝ (1.27 cm) thick. 16 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7804] Length: surv. 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Incomplete. 17 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7805] Length: 1a˝ (3.81 cm)

441

19 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7807] Length: after clenching 1˝ (2.54 cm) Clenched to pass through wood no more than a˝ (1.27 cm) thick. 20 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7808] Length: surv. 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Wood spike incomplete. 21 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4096A [7809] Length: surv. o˝ (2.38 cm) Incomplete. 22 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4005J [7810] Length: surv. f˝ (1.59 cm) Incomplete. 23 Staple Provenance: C.G. 4087 [7811] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Squared at corners; rectangular in section; tips incomplete. 24 Bolt Provenance: C.G. 4122 [7812] Length: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Diameter: shaft a˝ (1.27 cm) Heavy; threaded below a˝ (1.27 cm) collar; hexagonal head ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) thick. 25 Nut or washer Provenance: C.G. 4085B [7813] Width: max. g˝ (2.22 cm) Thickness: i˝ (0.48 cm) Diameter: bolt or nut ca. j˝ (0.79 cm) Heavy; apparent traces of single thread; chamfered at two opposite sides.

18 Tenterhook Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7806] Length: 1h˝ (2.70 cm)

494. The pivoting pintle eye is normally part of a strap hinge. A possible alternative identification for this object may be that it served as a post for a bail handle. It would, however, require that the handle have straight ends rather than the bent and expanded terminals to be seen on no. 10 above. 495. Tenterhooks were most commonly used for stretching dyed fabrics over wooden frames. Such frames could be (and in this context probably were) employed to stretch hides. It would be a mistake to assume that tenterhooks were used only for tenters. They also served to support and hold taut fabric wall hangings, which were secured on all four sides by these hooks; e.g., the reconstructed hall of 15th-century Barley Hall, York.

Tenterhooks were also used as roofing nails (Martin Biddle, ed., Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester [1990], pp. 224–225). All but one of the recovered hooks were found in the domestic (kitchen?) waste dumped into Pit V before “Granny” sought refuge there. It seems likely, therefore, that the hooks had remained imbedded in wood used in the kitchen fire and were thrown out when the ashes were removed. No. 21 below was not found in Pit V. Its discovery south of the dwelling might be used as evidence that a tenter had been broken up there before pieces of it were used in the kitchen fire.

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Figure 68A

ARTIFACT CATALOG

443

Figure 68A John Boyse Homestead (Site H) ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS NAILS 496 1 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7814] Length: 4b˝ (10.80 cm) Flat head; straight point.

7 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7820] Length: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Rose head; finely fashioned shank; flattened point.

2 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7815] Length: 3l˝ (9.05 cm) Convex head; straight point.

8 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4112D [7821] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Rose head; straight point.

3 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4081A [7816] Length: 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Rose head (?); straight point clenched and rolled, but shown straightened in the figure.

9 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4111B [7822] Length: surv. 1i˝ (3.02 cm) Flat or vestigial rose head; point incomplete but probably straight.

4 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4050 [7817] Length: 3˝ (7.62 cm) Head flat; straight point.

10 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7823] Length: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Rose head; flat point.

5 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4112B [7818] Length: 3˝ (7.62 cm) Small, rectangular flat head; spatula point.

11 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4052C [7824] Length: 2˝ (5.08 cm) Rose head; flat point.

6 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7819] Length: 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Large, thin rose head, with secondary strike flattening apex; straight point.

12 Nail Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7825] Length: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Rose head; straight point.

496. The illustrated examples are only representative of the many uncovered in the Site H excavations, most of which were too decayed to be preserved.

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Figure 68B

ARTIFACT CATALOG

445

Figure 68B John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622, Multiple Grave 497 FERROUS NAILS, CLOTHING EYE, AND LEAD MUSKET BALLS 1–27 Nails Provenance: C.G. 4060B [8561] Length: longest (no. 25) g˝ (2.22 cm) From shoe or boot; mostly incomplete; most with convex heads; nos. 2, 21, and 25 apparently clenched through multiple sole layers to a thickness of ca. e˝ (0.95 cm).498

From hook and eye; of small size; fragmentary.499 29–31 Musket balls Provenance: C.G. 1091A–B [8563, 8564, 8565] Diameters: unknown These figures are “stand-ins” for now-missing objects.500

28 Eye Provenance: C.G. 4060B [8562] Width: ca. e˝ (0.95 cm)

497. This feature proved crucial to the identification of Site H as the home of John Boyse, his wife, and his servants. The remains of leather were observed around one skeletal foot, and in consequence the clay matrix was taken to the laboratory for x-ray photography and more precisely controlled excavation. All finds from the grave can safely be said to have been deposited very shortly after March 22, 1622. 498. For the positioning of the nails, see Pt. I, Pl. 14. The thickness of the sole suggested by the clenched nails points to a heavy shoe, but not to a boot of industrial thickness—in short, to a laborer’s or field-working servant’s footwear. A dark stain visible in the photograph suggests that this may have been a boot of knee length. 499. By comparison with other eyes from Martin’s Hundred sites (Figs. 45, no. 5; 80, nos. 9–10; and 89, no. 42) this example is very light and made from much thinner wire. One might be tempted to associate it with female attire were it not for the

fact that John Boyse lost four male servants in the Indian attack of 1622. The contents of the grave were in an extremely poor state of preservation, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that other metal fastenings had been present, either decayed away or were missed during excavation. 500. When the feature (C.G. 1091A and B) was found in 1971 it was sectioned and its southern half removed; the contents were described as follows: “It contained musket balls, a sherd of brown stoneware and the remains of what appeared to be tree branches. It is possible that this feature had been used for a hunting blind sometime in the seventeenth century.” A flattened musket ball was found in the grave backfill and two more at the level of the human remains. Traces of a leather belt were identified in 1980 close to the line of the 1971 backfill, and it is possible that these balls were in a bag at one of the victims’ waists.

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Figure 68C

ARTIFACT CATALOG

447

Figure 68C John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 FERROUS HEAD BAND OR EAR IRON 1 Head band Provenance: C.G. 4115F [8578] Length: 13a˝ (34.29 cm) Band section: b x h˝ (0.64 x 0.16 cm) Diameter: ball j˝ (0.79 cm) Rectangular-sectioned rod or wire; twisted close to one end, terminating in lead or pewter ball at other. The band almost certainly had been made with ball terminals at both ends, but this example had either been shortened to fit the dead woman’s small head or, being bent away from the head, the left terminal may have been lost in excavation. Found in contact with “Granny’s” skull, with its knob-terminated end below her right ear, the band

passed behind the nape of the neck and was twisted into a loop behind each ear. The loops served to secure a pinned cap. Part of a brass pin remains attached at the temple level while another was found at the nape of the neck. The band was first thought to have been one over which hair was rolled in the latesixteenth and very early-seventeenth centuries, a head-dressing treatment usually indicative of gentry status. Further research demonstrated that simple springs were used to secure fabric caps throughout much of the seventeenth century and were worn as often by servants as by their employers.501

501. This cap-securing band is shown along with a brass wire example from the collection of the Museum of London (A27910), found in Blomfield Street in 1925. The latter, however, is of the type that went across the crown of the head rather

than gripping it at the back of the neck. For additional data regarding head bands (ear irons), see Pt. I, p. 179 and n. 27, and Pl. 77.

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Figure 69

ARTIFACT CATALOG

449

Figure 69 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 COPPER-ALLOY, GLASS, AND PEWTER OBJECTS 1 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7826] Length: 1˝ (2.54 cm) Brass; tube of unusual delicacy, probably the partner to no. 2 below.502 2 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7827]503 Length: 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Brass; tube similar to no. 1 above. 3 Tack Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7828] Length: a˝ (1.27 cm) Cast brass; perhaps from box or wooden weapon part; probably associated with no. 4 below. 4 Tack Provenance: C.G. 4115J [7829]504 Length: e˝ (0.95 cm) Cast brass; head woefully off center. 5 Tack Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7830] Length: b˝ (0.64 cm)505 Cast brass; head almost twice as large as those of nos. 3–4 above; shaft thinner and shorter. The short-

502. For a discussion of aiglets, their use and sizes, see Fig. 18, n. 143. 503. It is tempting to associate this pair (?) of aiglets with the clothing of “Granny,” but the stratigraphy argues against such a conclusion. They come from layer D, a stratum of trash-strewn brown loam separated from the skeleton by a predominantly clay layer (E) 6˝ thick. However, another copper-alloy aiglet (much decayed and no longer surviving) was found just below the skeleton’s rib cage (C.G. 4115F). 504. These tacks come from a layer of white domestic ash thrown into the pit from the northeast side and presumed to represent pit usage prior to the March 1622 attack. 505. When first described, this tack was measured at e˝ (0.95 cm) in length. See Fig. 66, n. 488. 506. The terminology used here is derived from Jeffrey Brain’s classification of the 186,200 18th-century beads from Louisiana’s Tunica Treasure (Brain, pp. 98–133). Although this was an aboriginal/French site, it is evident that small opaque glass beads cannot be closely dated. This example belongs to Brain’s Type IIA and is classed as small. His size categories are as follows: less than 2 mm—very small, 2–4 mm— small, 4–6 mm—medium, 6–10 mm—large, and above 10 mm—very large.

ness, however, may result in part from decay and conservation treatment. 6 Bead Provenance: C.G. 4097B [8504] Diameter: ~˝ (0.40 cm) Opaque drawn glass; metal greenish gray; oval when strung, but round in pierced section. Enlarged in figure.506 7 Ear Provenance: C.G. 4054A [7831] Height: 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Cast bronze (?); mounting for copper or brass kettle bail; shaped to accommodate externally rolled rim; secured by two rivets. The holes for the latter are slightly countersunk.507 8 Chafing dish Provenance: C.G. 4078A [7832] Width: max. 2d˝ (5.39 cm) Bell metal (?); heart-shaped handle; oval in section but flat on broad faces (Pt. I, Ill. 37). The handle shows clear evidence of postcasting filing on both flat surfaces.508 9 Chafing dish Provenance: C.G. 4086A [8560] Width: fragment 1k˝ (3.65 cm)

507. Little information is available about 17th-century copperalloy kettles, but kettles are well represented in the ca. 1731–1764 Tunica Treasure from Louisiana (Brain, pp. 164–179) and from a mid-18th-century portage site on Minnesota’s Granite River. 508. The handle comes from a well-known but hitherto incorrectly dated chafing dish type (J. M. Lewis, “Some Types of Metal Chafing-dish.” Antiquaries Journal, vol. LIII, pt. I, [1973], p. 61, type B1) tentatively attributed to the late-15th or early16th century. There is an intact example (one handle missing) in the National Museum of Wales and another in the museum at Bury St. Edmunds, together suggesting a wide distribution range for the type. Yet another (lacking both handles) is in the antiques collection of Colonial Williamsburg (cat. no. 1989342). A similar handle, with its ear still attached, was found in excavations at Oyster Street, Portsmouth (Russell Fox and K. J. Barton, “Excavations at Oyster Street, Portsmouth, Hampshire, 1968–71,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. XX [1986], pp. 231–32, fig. 154, no. 4 [drawn upside down]), reportedly from a late16th-century level. How this handle came free of its metal ear, without itself being broken, remains a mystery. The evidence of all surviving chafing dishes of this type points to the handles and the ears being lost together.

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Cast bell metal (?); base fragment; of the same type as no. 8 above.509 For the placement of this fragment, see Pt. I, Ill. 37. 10 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 4078C [7835]510 Height: n˝ (2.06 cm) Brass; conical wall extending into conical crown; decorated above lip, neither thickened nor folded, with band of cruciform motifs enclosed by ribbons of rouletting. The needle-gripping indentations are essentially round, but impressed more heavily to the left.511 11 Thimble Provenance: C.G. 4103A [7834]512 Height: f˝ (1.59 cm) Iron (steel?) lined with brass; cobbler’s or sailmaker’s; short, open-ended cylinder, much thicker and heavier than no. 10 above. The indentations appear to have been diamond-shaped, as indicated in the figure—which is somewhat reconstructive. No seventeenth-century parallels have been found for steel and brass thimbles.513 12 Bottle neck Provenance: C.G. 4110A [7836] Height: surv. 1˝ (2.54 cm) Pewter; screw-threaded mount for case bottle cap. For a bottle of the type whose straight, struck-off neck was designed to receive such a mounting, see Fig. 36, no. 5.514

Pewter; one incomplete side; hollow cast. The size and shape are consistent with the lower decorative elements of both seal-top and apostle spoons, but being hollow rather than solid this cannot be the correct identification. It is much more likely to be the base of a knop handle from the lid of a pewter drinking vessel. Generally called “James I flagons,” this rare, yet well-known class of English pewter was made from the 1580s to ca. 1640.515 14 Document seal Provenance: C.G. 4115D [7833] Diameter: matrix a˝ (1.27 cm) Brass; with balustroidal shank and broken bow, latter probably originally of trefoil form. The expanded and slightly oval matrix exhibits an incuse bird to right and over its back a wavy line flanked by dots. The bird’s long neck and oversized beak suggest that it is intended to be either a swan or a pelican. It is tempting, though probably unwise, to see a connection between this emblem and the bird-decorated slipwares from Site B (Fig. 22), and to suggest that the bird may have been chosen as the sign for the Martin’s Hundred enterprise. In truth this seal was a “dime store” item that could have been bought from any stationary supplier and would have been used by someone who did not aspire to a family crest or arms.516 Nevertheless it can be interpreted as archaeological evidence of literacy at Site H—which, if the latter’s identification as the home of John Boyse is correct, is less than surprising.

13 Finial Provenance: C.G. 4080A [7837] Diameter: base ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) 509. The fragment is bent, suggesting that the chafing dish may have been broken up as scrap metal. 510. Female’s grave. This thimble was carried on the woman’s person at the time of her burial. There is, however, no firm evidence that she was a victim of the 1622 attack, but only that she was buried in haste. See also Fig. 67, no. 1. 511. For a general discussion of thimble evolution, see Fig. 45, nos. 1–3, n. 330. An example found in a 17th-century context in the Oyster Street excavations at Portsmouth exhibits a variant of the border decoration present on this example and may perhaps be indicating that this is a diagnostically 17th-century feature (Fox and Barton, p. 237, no. 4). For a summary of what little is known about thimble evolution, see Charmain Woodfield, “Finds from the Free Grammar School at the Whitefriars, Coventry, c. 1545–c. 1557/58,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. XV (1981), p. 157, n. 74. Note, however, that the citation draws on supposedly 17th-century examples from Jamestown, the author unaware that very few artifacts from that site can be ascribed to unequivocally secure 17th-centry contexts. 512. Although the rest of the artifacts from this stratum are consistently of the Site H period, a fragment of 18th-century bottle glass was recovered from layer B below it. 513. Short, open-ended thimbles, sometimes described as “sewing rings,” are known from 17th-century contexts (Woodfield, “Finds from the Free Grammar School at the Whitefriars, Coventry, c. 1545–c. 1557/58,” pp. 98, and 96, fig. 6, 108).

514. For a bottle with this type of pewter neck, recovered from the 1628 wreck of the Swedish Wasa, see I. Noël Hume, “New Clues to an Old Mystery” (1982), p. 68. 515. For examples of these straight-sided flagons, see Hornsby, pp. 106–107, nos. 642 and 646 right. 516. Simple matrices of this character were sometimes linked together in groups of four. An example found in Norwich comprises: (a) a bird very similar to those on the Site B bowls, (b) a crowned heart pierced by crossed arrow, (c) a fleur-de-lis, and (d) something that might be a pine cone. In studying these multiple seal matrices, Gwynne Oakley (Old England: A Pictorial Museum [1845], pp. 180–183) has tabulated the numerical breakdown of the known specimens. They read, in part, as follows: hearts crowned and/or pierced, 10; lions, 8; birds, 13 (including pelicans, 3); stags, 6; flowers and plants, 10; ships and anchors, 6; sun and stars, 3; crowns, 2; arrows, 2; horn, 1. In short, at least on the basis of this study, birds are the most common devices found on cheap brass seals. Among seals surviving on documents in the Ferrar Papers bearing the signatures of people associated with the Virginia Company are a wheatsheaf used by Captain Thomas Nuce and a spread-winged bird by J. Dickenson (Kingsbury, vol. III, facing p. 92). One might easily be suborned into claiming that the latter was Jane Dickens or Dickenson of Martin’s Hundred, who was one of the 1622 hostages later released into the reportedly cruel hands of Dr. John Pott. But as the context of the seal-attached document is not cited by Kingsbury, that remains unacceptable speculation.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 70

451

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Figure 70 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), ca. 1619–1622 (nos. 1–4 and 6–10); and the Fort (Site C), ca. 1620–1622 (no. 5) IRON-NICKEL-ALLOY BUTTONS 1 Button Provenance: C.G. 4099B [7838]517 Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) Relief-decorated convex face and flat back; copperalloy eye inserted while button still soft and in mold. The decoration comprises a central element of a four-petalled flower around a dot. Outward from the flower extend eight alternating short and long trefoils, the latter perhaps intended to be tulips. Beyond the ornament the button’s face terminates in a pair of convex cordons.518 2 Button Provenance: C.G. 4101A [7839] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1, but more convex. 3 Button Provenance: C.G. 4097A [7840] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1. 4 Button Provenance: C.G. 4097A [7841] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1 5 Button Provenance: C.G. 3023C [7842] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) 517. Although none of the nine Site H buttons were found in sealed 17th-century contexts, all coming from layers either modern or disturbed in the latter part of the 18th century, it is important to recognize they all come from the south half of the fortified homestead area. A strong argument can therefore be made that, when lost into the ground, they were either attached to a single garment or in some box or bag that kept them together. One may reasonably speculate that they were worn by one of the four servants found buried together in that same area. Measurements for the button diameters are all given as a˝ (1.27 cm), but there are minor variations depending on which way one measures across their backs. What matters is that they are all sufficiently alike to be related one to another. By comparison with the those published by Baart et al. (see n. 518 below), these specimens are small. While he shows examples of that diameter, many more measure 1.5 cm (0.59˝). 518. All of these buttons but no. 5 below are likely to have come from a single garment and are paralleled by examples illustrated by Baart et al. (pp. 186–191), where most are described as being of nickel-copper alloys. Baart’s most pertinent

Differs from no. 1 in that apex element comprises seven petals (rather than four) around central dot. In all other respects this button is comparable to the other nine.519 6 Button Provenance: C.G. 4096A [7843] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1. 7 Button Provenance: C.G. 4106A [7844] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1. 8 Button Provenance: C.G. 4056 [7845] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1. 9 Button Provenance: C.G. 4086A [7846] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1. 10 Button Provenance: C.G. 4051C [7847] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 1.

parallel is provided by a leather jerkin worn by legal scholar Hugo Grotius when escaping from the fortress of Gorcum on March 22, 1621, exactly a year before these buttons are believed to have been deposited (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, pp. 314–317; “New Clues to an Old Mystery,” p. 76). These buttons are sufficiently like those found in Holland to make a Netherlandish source possible, but without a comparative metallurgical analysis such an identification remains speculation. That Dutch molds were used by English button casters is an equally credible proposition. 519. This button, from within the Fort, is included with the nine from Site H to demonstrate a similarity of occupancy. The same point is made by including Site H’s Augsburg bale seals (Fig. 61, nos. 6–8) with those from the Company Compound. Because this button’s design is slightly different in its central element, it cannot be construed to have come from the same garment as those from Site H. Nevertheless minor variations among generally similar buttons would not be unexpected, even if they came from contiguous molds.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 71

453

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 71 Site D, ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS 1 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 989 [7848]520 Length: surv. 3˝ (7.62 cm) Single-bullet mold of scissor type; handles flat sectioned and incomplete, semicircular and tapered pouring hole in each half of mold. It cast a ball ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) in diameter.521 2 Links Provenance: C.G. 3501C [7849] Diameter: link ave. f˝ (1.59 cm) Probably from mail; but large and heavy. Of the four links remaining, only two are complete, and neither is in a condition to show precisely how it is secured. However, in each the round-sectioned wire has been flattened at one side, presumably to receive a rivet. 3 Handle Provenance: C.G. 3501C [7850] Length: surv. 5˝ (12.70 cm)

520. Site D was poorly defined and its artifacts came almost exclusively from one large pit. This was found during field testing in 1970, hence the out-of-sequence Excavation Register number for the bullet mold (C.G. 989). Most of the feature was excavated in 1979 and comprised four sealed strata: A, B, C, and D.

Of bail type; suitable for box, trunk, or coffin. The S-shaped terminals are incomplete, but both ends retain parts of the split cotter pins used to anchor the handle and allow the bail to rise and fall. Rectangular in section throughout, the handle would not have moved easily within the loops of its anchor. 4 Handle Provenance: C.G. 3501B [7851] Length: surv. 4b˝ (10.80 cm) Of bail type; incomplete; possibly partner to no. 3 above; square in section and retaining part of one split cotter pin. 5 File Provenance: C.G. 3500 [7852] Length: surv. 8a˝ (21.59 cm) Tapering and rectangular in section; angled scoring on all four sides. The tool had been slightly bent in its mid-section in antiquity or through plowing, but has been illustrated as straight.

521. Bullet molds of similar type were found at Site B (Fig. 72, nos. 11–12). For an example of a multiple ball mold, see Fig. 81, no. 13.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 72

455

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 72 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 FERROUS ARMOR, WEAPONS, AND ACCOUTREMENTS 1 Couter or elbow cop Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7184]522 Width: max. 7h˝ (17.94 cm) Height: max. 5h˝ (12.86 cm); at inner elbow 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Probably from half suit of English armor; surface retaining traces of bluing. The elbow unit is decorated with “rope” notching at its upper and lower edges and also along its median ridge. Additional ornament is provided by incuse lines running parallel to the edges at top and bottom. A 2a˝ (6.35 cm) section extends from the inner elbow along the inside and is made from a separate plate, secured at both ends with two flat-headed ferrous rivets. Two more rivets (one missing) had secured an interior linkage strap on the outer side.523 2 Gorget Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7853] Width: fragment 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Of type worn behind cuirass with half or greater armor suits, serving to secure pauldrons to shoulders; fragment. The fragment retains one upper rivet, which held a strap linking it to an upper gorget lame, and another lower on the fragment, backed by a washer. The plate’s principal feature is the rivet-secured buckle, through which the pauldron strap had been threaded. Only the loop of the buckle’s tang survives. The plate is of sixteenth-century character. 3 Washer Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7854] Height: n˝ (2.06 cm)

522. This pit (Site B, Pit A) was the site’s principal source of closely attributable artifacts, having a broken slipware (waster?) dish at its bottom dated 1631 (Fig. 22, no. 1; Pt. I, Pl. 68). Ceramic sherds from across the site crossmend to others found in the pit. Differing Excavation Register numbers for the pit relate to (a) the sequence of filling, and (b) the fact that it was profiled as an exercise in arbitrarily grouping the many tobacco-pipe fragments for stem-hole analysis. 523. The best preserved piece of plate armor from Martin’s Hundred, the couter’s decoration resembles that of one worn by the future Charles II in Sir Anthony van Dyck’s 1641 portrait (I. Noël Hume, Martin’s Hundred, p. 125). The painted elbow defense differs in that it is not closed around the inner arm. The royal suit is of Greenwich manufacture, and British armor authorities do not consider the Site B couter to be of that quality. Nevertheless its decoration and the fact that it comes from a suit supplied with arm defenses indicates that it had belonged to someone possessing better-than-average (in Virginian terms)

Copper alloy (brass); of type used to secure cuirass straps; diamond shape.524 4 Mail links Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7854]525 Diameter: link ave. e˝ (0.95 cm) Part of heavily rusted fragment of perhaps ca. 100 links; links somewhat oval, flattened at ends, and riveted. 5 Mail links Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7186] Diameter: link aver. l˝ (1.43 cm) Smaller fragment than no. 4 above; links larger and lighter. 6 Brigandine plate Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7855] Length: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Rectangular; slightly concavo-convex, suggesting that it came from part of a jerkin close to the side. The plate had four rivets at its upper edge, of which three survive. 7 Sword pommel Provenance: C.G. 2091B [7856] Height: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Oval in section; flat at top and bottom.526 8 Sword guard Provenance: C.G. 2105C [7209] Height: 5˝ (12.70 cm) Length: blade tang aperture c˝ (1.91 cm)

armor. 524. See Fig. 56. 525. The top two layers of Pit A were numbered as layers within the excavation unit (2076A and B), but when the feature was fully defined it was given a separate number (2115). 526. Pommels of this simple, medieval type were used on most sword types from rapiers to backswords, and there is no telling how this example was used. The pommel’s weight provided balance for the sword, and thus it might offset the weight of a long and thin blade or that of one that was shorter but wider. The absence of a button at the top can be construed either as an early characteristic or the mark of a poor-quality weapon. A paired sword and dagger in the Wallace Collection (Mann, vol. II, pp. 292–293, pl. 126, no. 575) is attributed to Solengen, ca. 1610, but differs in that the oval-sectioned pommel is capped by a prominent button.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Basket type;527 square-sectioned wire construction; two central oval panels notched at sides. The under guard, flanking the blade or ricasso, ends in a pair of square-cut rods. 9 Backsword Provenance: (a) C.G. 2099A; (b) C.G. 2103A; (c) C.G. 2146A [7857] Lengths: (a) 3e˝ (8.57 cm); (b) 4a˝ (11.43 cm); (c) 4b˝ (10.80 cm) Fragments: (a) tang junction (modified ricasso); (b) mid-section piece; and (c) blade tip. A double groove (popularly known as a blood channel) runs the length of the blade. All are believed to be from the same weapon and are so cataloged. 10 Halberd blade528 Provenance: C.G. 2099A [7858] Height: 10g˝ (27.62 cm) Slightly rounded at corners; blade much lighter and uniformly thinner than that of average broad axe (e.g., Fig. 83, no. 6). 11 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 2114B [7859] Length: surv. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Of scissor type; flat handles casting ball ca. k˝ (1.11 cm) in diameter.529 12 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 2063 [7860] Length: surv. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Of scissor type; generally comparable to no. 13 below, but with smaller pouring channel, measuring i˝ (0.48 cm) in diameter. The mold had been bent at right angles to the handle, but this postusage feature has been omitted from the figure. 13 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 2105B [7861]530 Length: 5o˝ (15.08 cm)

527. This is the most common of munition-quality back- and broadsword guards and has been found both at Jamestown and at the Governor’s Land site (Cotter and Hudson, p. 178, pl. 76, [a backsword incorrectly captioned as a broadsword]; Outlaw, p. 201, fig. 36, no. 189 [also a backsword called a broadsword]; Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, p. 86, pl. 93 bottom left). This basket type had a long life. It was present aboard the Sea Venture, lost at Bermuda in 1609 (Wingood, p. 151, fig. 3). An example with a Hounslow blade of ca. 1636 is in the Noël Hume collection, and others have been found in English Civil War contexts at Sandal Castle (Mayes et al., p. 265, fig. 12, no. 19; Butler, p. 47, fig. C) and at Basing House (Moorhouse, pt. 2, p. 54, pl. 3A). 528. In the absence of any fluke or spike, this identification is tentative. Lacking also the shaft, additional nomenclatic doubts are raised by possible confusion between the blades of halberds and those of battle axes. In 1590 Sir John Smythe referred to “halberds or battle-axes with short points, long edges, and short staves” (John Smythe, Certain Discourses Military [1964], p.

457

Of scissor type; one side surviving; casting ball l˝ (1.43 cm) in diameter. One end of the pivoting rivet survives. A semicircular indentation in one edge of the mold indicates a pouring channel b˝ (0.64 cm) in diameter. The hole being larger than that of no. 12 above, these are not two halves of the same mold, although both cast balls of the same size. This mold is important in that it appears to be complete to its full length and therefore demonstrates the lightness of the handles that extended from nos. 11–12 above and Fig. 71, no. 1. 14 Snaphaunce plate Provenance: C.G. 2115E [7862] Length: surv. 5f˝ (14.29 cm) Incomplete; decorative buffer still attached (for construction details, see Pt. I, Ill. 25). The holes through the plate, reading from left to right, served the following purposes: seer spring, cock, pan retainer, stock-securing bolt, mainspring screw, batter and top bridle screw, pan cover screw, main spring forward screw, lower bridle screw, battery spring post, and forward stock bolt. The deep notch in the upper edge of the plate seated the pan, and the indentation behind it (on the inside or back of the plate—lower illustration) is a recess to receive the head of the pan cover push rod. The plate is somewhat bent and appears to have been cut immediately behind the cock. Neither feature would have occurred in normal musket usage and so may point to gunsmithing activity on the site.531 15 Snaphaunce lock Provenance: C.G. 2132C [7863] Length: 9b˝ (23.50 cm) Largely intact, though missing main spring, battery, bridle, and battery spring. The pan’s disc terminal is externally convex and 1d˝ (2.86 cm) in diameter.532 Because snaphaunce mechanisms were used on relatively superior weapons, it is unusual to find this

45). 529. See also Fig. 71, no. 1. 530. This feature proved to be rich in artifacts, some crossmending to those from Pit A (ca. 1631), and was subsequently defined as Pit B, although it continued to exhibit what could have been either a post- or roothole within it. 531. As A. Noël Hume’s historical study (“History of Martin’s Hundred”) suggests, there may have been a connection between the John Jackson of Martin’s Hundred and gunsmith John Jackson of Jamestown. The presence of reworked gun parts on Site B, bog iron in Pit B, and the furnacelike shape of Pit A all point to activity of that kind. 532. The fate of this lock is hard to explain. The absence of key internal and external parts makes it clear that it had been cannibalized before being discarded, and yet the survival of a stock-securing nail suggests that it was attached to wood up to that time.

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example to have been secured to the stock (at least at its forward end) by a nail, part of which survives, rather than a screwed bolt. 16 Tubular sight Provenance: C.G. 2100D [7864] Length: 3e˝ (8.57 cm) For firearm; possibly from arquebus or fowler. The tube is open on its underside (attached to gun barrel) to a length of 2c˝ (6.99 cm) and decorated at its eye aperture with two cordons above a ridge or collar. Such sights were normally found only on firearms of above munition quality. 17 Muzzle end of firearm (musket?) barrel Provenance: C.G. 2098A [7865] Length: 3j˝ (8.41 cm) Diameter: boref˝ (1.59 cm) Octagonal; of relatively light construction, being h˝ (0.16 cm) thick. Traces of a stock-securing tang ca. k˝ (1.11 cm) in length are to be seen 1m˝ (4.29 cm) from the muzzle. There is no evidence of a forward sight. 18 Belt buckle or slider for sword hanger Provenance: C.G. 2158 [7866] Height: with hooked pendants 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Cut from single square plate; two rectangular vertical slots, through which belt threaded; plate expands at bottom edge into pair of pierced semicircles, from which are suspended a pair of lozenge-shaped pendants. These terminate in ornamental nipplelike projections and are pierced by single rivets, which secured them to the top of the leather hanger. This may be termed a munition-quality suspension, in that the hanger could not be unhooked from the belt as, for example, it could from the copper-alloy buckle of Fig. 80, no. 4. See also Fig. 63, no. 5A. 19 Buckle pendant for sword hanger Provenance: C.G. 2082B [7867] Length: surv. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) More elongated than no. 18 above; terminating in double drop, the first (or upper) of which carries leather-securing rivet. A second rivet may exist toward the top of the pendant but is obscured by corrosion (see no. 20 below). 20 Buckle pendant for sword hanger Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7868] Length: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Larger than no. 19 above; but with similar second projection beyond main oval, through which lower rivet passes. Toward the neck of the oval proper is a second rivet. Between these two rivets the plate is pierced by three small, countersunk holes arranged in a triangle. Too small to receive leather-securing rivets, these may have seated brass or precious metal ornamental studs. The hook at the top appears to be

complete, and, though short, it may have closely abutted the missing rear pendant plate. 21 Belt attachment Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7869] Length: 1b˝ (3.18 cm), plus a˝ (1.27 cm) ring Terminating in closed loop and ring. This delicate object retains only part of its back plate, but evidently was similar in function to nos. 19–20 above. This specimen, however, is much lighter and bag-shaped, with a pair of flanking ears. Although much decayed, there appear to be traces of chasing in a scroll or foliate design on its outer surface. This object is too light to come from a sword hanger but could perhaps have suspended its matching dagger. 22 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7874] Length: with strap plate 2i˝ (5.56 cm); tang 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Of large size; folded and double-riveted strap plate wrapped around tang bar. One loop of the frame is flattened and curved, while the other is square-ended, rectangular in section, and covered by a sheetiron tube, which served as a roller to increase tension on a strap ca. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) in width. It is unlikely that so heavy a strap would have been used on a belt, but may have come from a baldrick, horse harness, or have served to reinforce a trunk. 23 Strap-end buckle Provenance: C.G. 2121A [7871] Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Of type similar to no. 22 above; but smaller. Neither tang nor strap plate survives, but the square end of the frame retains a tubular roller and would have anchored a strap ca. g˝ (2.22 cm) in width. 24 Strap-end buckle Provenance: C.G. 2104A [7872] Length: with strap plate 1o˝ (4.92 cm) Similar to no. 23 above; complete; strap plate wrapped around tang bar and secured to leather by two rivets. A roller encircles the frame’s square end and the 1˝ (2.54 cm) tang bends over it. 25 Strap-end buckle Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7873] Length: 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Of very light wire construction; strap plate wrapped around one side of the frame; originally attached to 1˝ (2.54 cm) strap by two rivets. 26 Buckle or hanger suspension slide Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7874] Length: with loop 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Fashioned from light wire; ring welded and hammered to frame, originally extending across it in manner of tang bar. This object may have provided the hook linkage for a dagger hanger.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 73

459

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 73 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–40 FERROUS TOOLS 1 Felling ax Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7875] Length: poll to edge 6a˝ (16.51 cm) Of small size; but with expanded, broad-ax-shaped blade; ears well shaped; poll, for ax of this size, relatively thick. A maker’s mark in the form of three Is had been applied to the right side of the blade. This ax was in almost pristine condition when found, and could have been used were it not for the fact that the poll had split.533 2 Ax Provenance: C.G. 2101A and 2137A [7876] Length: surv. blade 5k˝ (13.81 cm) Narrow blade; broken at socket, but illustrated fragment possibly part of it. There is a now-illegible maker’s mark stamped on the right side of the blade that may have involved two initials. Axes of this weight and blade width probably were used for splitting rather than felling. The likelihood that the socket had been deliberately cut off suggests that this example may have been blacksmith’s waste or raw material.534

4 Ax Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7878] Length: surv. 3˝ (7.62 cm) Socket fragment; evidently cut and partially reworked; one clear hammer blow impression on exterior. It is not certain whether the fragment represents the left side of the eye and part of a c˝ (1.91 cm) poll or whether it was the right side of the eye and its junction with a blade that failed to weld to it. Either way this evidently is a relic of blacksmithing activity. 5 Hoe Provenance: C.G. 2107B [7879]536 Width: blade fragment 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Socket and upper blade; rest of blade evidently cut off by blacksmith. The socket is forward angled, flattened at its welded junction with the blade, and no maker’s mark is to be seen on what remains of it. The angle of the shoulders suggests that this was a hoe of similar character to one from Site A (Fig. 82, no. 2). However, it differs in that the neck is wider, flatter, and the sides of the socket squared and wider apart.

3 Ax Provenance: C.G. 2080A [7877] Length: surv. 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Left side of socket; no poll. This was evidently a very large specimen but probably of weak construction. Unlike the other large ax from Martin’s Hundred (Fig. 83, no. 6), which also suffered from being weak in the socket, the blade of this example was straight on its upper edge and on the same plane as the eye, while the lower edge of the blade angled outward.535 Like many other metal items from the site, this socket fragment may have been blacksmith’s waste or raw material.

6 File Provenance: C.G. 2132C [7880]537 Length: surv. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Rectangular midsection fragment; diagonally crossgrooved on both wide surfaces; diagonally grooved on sides.538

533. This ax is closely paralleled by one from the Site H (Fig. 65, no. 8), but differs in that the maker’s mark is not the same. The presence of part of the latter ax in “Granny’s grave” fill leaves no doubt that it was deposited after March 22, 1622, but how long after remains uncertain. 534. A close shape parallel is provided by an example from Site A’s Pit V (Fig. 83, no. 4). 535. This was typical of “trade axes” (Mercer, p. 2). However, it was a type long used in Europe and owed its origins to the “bearded” axes common in England in the later medieval centuries (Wheeler, Medieval Catalogue, pp. 62–63, fig. 14, nos. 1–2). If such axes were used in trade with the Virginian

Indians, as probably they were, the shape was purely coincidental. 536. Artifacts from this layer crossmend to others found in Pit A, thus pointing to a deposition date ca., but not before, 1631. 537. This file fragment was found in a small, tapering hole whose fill included a well-preserved snaphaunce gun lock (Fig. 72, no. 15). 538. An almost complete parallel was found at Site H (Fig. 65, no. 10) and another from Site D (Fig. 71, no. 5). 539. Ceramics from this layer crossmend to others from Pit A, demonstrating that the awl was deposited no earlier than 1631.

7 Awl Provenance: C.G. 2113A [7881]539 Length: surv. 4m˝ (11.91 cm) Round-sectioned through most of length, but possibly hexagonal at slightly expanded top. The point is missing, which is the feature that would distinguish

ARTIFACT CATALOG

between the carpenter’s brad awl (chisel-pointed) and the scratch and piercing awls (round-pointed) used both by carpenters and shoemakers. The degree of taper advocates the latter, although there is no reason why a carpenter would not use such a tool as a nail hole starter. There is no evidence that the tool was wooden hafted, at least in the usual brad awl form.540 However, the hint of faceting extending 1˝ (2.54 cm) from the top and the decay that is most evident in that section together suggest that the tool may have had a lateral wooden handle in the manner of a gimlet.541 8 Spoon or gimlet bit Provenance: C.G. 2103B [7882]542 Length: surv. 3l˝ (9.05 cm) Blade concavo-convex in section. The end is missing, but the surviving fragment suggests that the

540. Mercer, p. 177, fig. 160. 541. Mercer, p. 203, fig. 178. 542. Ceramics from this layer crossmend to others from Pit A, providing a depositional terminus post quem of 1631 for this tool.

461

dished blade ended in a spiral, thus identifying it as a gimlet bit; if it ended in an edge that simply closed the concavity, giving the blade the appearance of an elongated spoon, then a spoon bit it was. 543 The shank is oval in section, flattened, and expands into the standard grip for securing within a carpenter’s brace. 9 Gouge Provenance: C.G. 2129B [7883] Length: surv. 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Blade concavo-convex toward rounded cutting edge; shank round sectioned above but becoming square toward square collar; above collar incomplete tang continues square sectioned.544 There is a close parallel from Site H (Fig. 66, no. 10).

543. Another tool of this general shape was found in the Fort (Fig. 44, no. 13), but here again the crucial identifying detail had been lost. 544. Mercer, p. 167, fig. 152F.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 74

ARTIFACT CATALOG

463

Figure 74 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 FERROUS KITCHEN WARES AND METALWORKING WASTE 1 Gridiron Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7884] Length: surv., excluding width section 8l˝ (21.75 cm)545 Grill bar; bent and incomplete; but similar in character to example from Site A (Fig. 87, no. 1).546 2 Bar Provenance: C.G. 2104B [7885] Length: surv. 4i˝ (10.64 cm) Of uncertain purpose; but carefully fashioned and evidently from object of some importance and complexity. Complete at its rounded and pierced end, the surviving fragment is i˝ (0.48 cm) for half its length and then narrows uniformly from both sides to 1j˝ (3.33 cm) for the remainder. At the rounded end, one side is cut back to that same thickness, presumably to enable another element to snugly abut it. There is a single hole at the rounded end, and two more through the thick section, one occupied by a very small nail. Yet another hole occurs in the thinner section, but that may be the result of corrosion. Initial identification as part of a gridiron is almost certainly wrong. 3 Leg (?) Provenance: C.G. 2087D [7886] Length: surv. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Or perhaps handle fragment; from kitchen equipment of uncertain character. The metal is wrought and not cast, and appears to have been trimmed at either end. Approximately rectangular in section, a round-sectioned rod or lug has been broken from one side. This is likely to have been a metalworker’s scrap iron. 4 Foot Provenance: C.G. 2088A [7887] Length: surv. 2c˝ (6.99 cm) Probably from andiron; rectangular in section; flaring toward ground surface. Probably scrap metal.

545. The six or eight grill bars for gridirons of this type are cut from the same flat bar as serves for the handle. The outer pair were short and ornamentally curled (not present on the Amsterdam specimen cited in n. 546 below), and the others bent first at right angles to the handle (as in this example) to create the width and then turned at right angles yet again to provide the length. The ends of the six bars are then welded to the fore-edge crossbar, whose ends turn down to provide the front feet. It is not possible to be sure whether this bar is one of

5 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 2103B [7888] Width: fragment 4b˝ (10.80 cm) Cast iron; wall fragment; pronounced V-shaped lateral mold ridge and recess above it, representing broken base for round-sectioned ear-shaped handle. A large vessel, perhaps in excess of 18˝ (45.72 cm) at its girth. 6 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 2153A [7889] Width: fragment 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Cast iron; wall fragment; lateral mold ridge, but much less pronounced than that of no. 5 above. 7 Cauldron Provenance: C.G. 2149A [7890] Width: handle 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Cast iron; round-sectioned handle; fragment of vessel rim attached. 8 Spit rack (?) Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7891] Length: surv. 4f˝ (11.75 cm) Fragment; strap bent, with rolled, springlike secondary strap within curve to secure spit or other fireplace-spanning rod. A nail hole above the curve may indicate that the strap was attached to either wood or brickwork, raising unanswered questions regarding the way in which it was mounted. It is possible, therefore, that the rack was attached to a wall and served to hold spare spits rather than being part of the actual fireplace unit. 9 File Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7892] Length: surv. 6b˝ (15.88 cm) Converted into hook; good quality; file flat on one side and convex on other; tapering, rectangular-sectioned tang impressed with maker’s mark, which appears to be a lis. It is unlikely that the file could have

an inner or outer pair, though its width/length of only 2b˝ (6.35 cm) suggests the former. 546. No closer dating parallel can be found than this specimen’s ca. 1631 context. Gridirons of this type are among the most common of kitchen tools and appear in several Dutch and Flemish paintings. For an intact example from Amsterdam, see Baart et al., p. 293, fig. 566, there attributed to the early16th century.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

been reshaped cold, and so provides important evidence of metalworking at Site B. 10 Hook Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7893] Length: surv. 6e˝ (16.19 cm) Rectangular in section; thinned at short end and cut at long, latter evidently incomplete. 11 Strap Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7894] Length: 12b˝ (31.12 cm) Width: 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Possibly used as pot hanger; S-configuration; cut at both ends. 12 Strap Provenance: C.G. 2107A [7895] Length: 10f˝ (26.99 cm) Possibly originally binding or wire; crudely bent, but perhaps reused for suspension; nail holes close to both ends.

547. This fragment is almost exactly paralleled by one from the Governor’s Land site (Outlaw, pp. 180, fig. 85; and 182), the only difference being that the terminal knop is more mushroom shaped before rising to its conical apex. Particularly significant is the exactly paralleling groove. So alike are these ex-

13 Handle Provenance: C.G. 2113A [7896] Length: grip 3b˝ (8.26 cm) From object of unknown purpose; concave at thick end, as though attached to something rounded; beaten at other to sharp edge. It is possible that this is a handle from/for a breech block for a small artillery piece (e.g., a falconet) of the swivel-mounted type thought to have been installed at the Fort. 14 Terminal Provenance: C.G. 2091E [7897] Length: surv. 2a˝ (5.72 cm) Almost certainly from fireplace shovel or poker; conical and flattened at apex; shaft round sectioned, possessing incised groove b˝ (0.64 cm) above fractured end.547 Possible scrap metal intended for reworking on the site.

amples that one can argue with conviction that they are products of the same blacksmithing workshop and, as such, are evidence of the occupational connection between the Martin’s Hundred and Governor’s Land sites.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 75

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Figure 75 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 FERROUS DECORATED TABLE KNIVES 1 Knife Provenance: C.G. 2156 [7898] Length: surv. 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Short bladed, with weak heel; broadens slightly toward obtuse point; remains of rectangular-sectioned tang project from back of ovoid bolster. The bolster is encrusted with silver ornamentation, its design created from hammered wire to create ovals, wherein dartlike elements flank a rectangle of silver. In separate flanking panels, created by hammered or notched wire running laterally to the blade, are silver rosettes, around which, and in the corners of each panel, are small silver studs. This specimen is identical to no. 2 below, suggesting that they were a pair of marriage knives;548 therefore it is reasonable to conclude that no. 2’s complete tang is comparable to the original length of this specimen. However, it does not necessarily follow that the blades were of similarly comparable length. No trace of a cutler’s mark on the blade. 2 Knife Provenance: C.G. 2112B [7899] Length: surv. 3g˝ (9.84 cm) Of type and decoration identical to no. 1 above; but tang intact and incomplete blade slightly wider.549 Although sufficient of the blade survives for a cutler’s mark to be present, none is to be seen. 3 Knife Provenance: C.G. 2089B [7900] Length: surv. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) 548. It was customary in the early-17th century, in England and the rest of Europe, for a bridegroom to give his bride a pair of decorated knives sheathed in an equally ornamental case, which could hang on cord from her girdle. A pair similarly decorated in silver, in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, are dated on their bolsters to 1623 (Cocks and Blair, p. 8, no. 24A). A single knife in the Victoria and Albert Museum (M.2686-1931) has somewhat similar silver encrustation on its bolster and is attributed to a date ca. 1630 (Hayward, English Cutlery, p. 14, pl. VIIa). Although dated examples of ferrous bolsters damascened in gold or encrusted with silver occur as early as 1611, it appears that decorating segmented handles in this way was largely confined to the first half of the 17th century; see also n. 549 below. 549. I have been unable to find any published examples of 17th-century knives in museum collections with blades as short as that of no. 1 above. It is possible, therefore, that that example had broken and been cut down and reshaped, rendering it narrower in the process. Although it is tempting to deduce that these identical knives were a gift from John Jackson to his

Possible quill knife; of small size; bolster elongated; little of blade and tang surviving. The bolster is encrusted with silver in rectangular panels, containing thin strips of silver set in the form of disarticulated arcs combined with stamped silver rosettes and trefoils. Although the bolster is essentially ovoid in section, it is weakly facetted, the upper and lower sides ornamented with widely spaced silver studs that serve to visually tie the two broad panels of decoration together. It is likely that the identically decorated handle butt no. 4 below is part of this knife. Insufficient blade survives for its shape to be determined, while the condition of the tang fragment prevents a certain identification of its original cross section. 4 Knife Provenance: C.G. 2099B [7901]550 Length: 1˝ (2.54 cm) Handle haft or butt; decoration same as that of no. 3 above; almost certainly part of no. 3. The haft is hollow to receive the bolster-secured tang. Knives of this period were often fitted with a butt cap of another metal, but in this instance the iron is hammered into cap shape and decorated with the same silver dots, rosettes, and arc as were used on its sides.551 5 Knife Provenance: C.G. 2103B [7902] Length: surv. 3l˝ (9.05 cm) Heeled blade and rectangular-sectioned tang incomplete; bolster decorated in gold. The broad- and narrow-facetted bolster is decorated on both broad bride, Anne, prior to 1621, the presence of so much metalworking debris on Site B could indicate that these were old knives brought there as scrap or for failed improvements. Further support for the latter thesis is provided by nos. 3–4. 550. The widely separated find locations for these two parts of the same knife are hard to explain in any way other than that the knife handle had been taken apart and the pieces set aside for scrap. That possibility has a bearing on the significance of the marriage knives (nos. 1–2 above); see n. 549. 551. The spread butt-cap shape of this example is one well represented among knives dating from the first 30 years of the 17th century. It occurs on the pair of 1623 marriage knives cited in n. 548 and on another set made by one or the other of two London makers, who began work in 1611 and 1633 (Cocks and Blair, p. 11, pl. 1). On the basis of published examples, it seems likely that the long and narrow bolster, usually in tandem with a long and narrow blade, is a late-16th-century characteristic found on both English and Italian knives (e.g., Cocks and Blair, nos. 18 and 129).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

467

sides with panels created from hammered gold wire. The field within each panel contains three starlike devices made up from three strands of gold. Between four of the six points, in facing pairs, are single rosette-shaped studs of gold, while on the center line

between the stars are three rectangular gold bars. Beyond the gold-enclosed panels at the blade and tang ends of the bolster are terminating gold lines of similar character to those enclosing the panels.552

552. It should be noted that these early-17th-century decorated knives all had nail-like tangs, which fitted either within hollowed bone hafts or served to secure the components of multielemented handles. However, in excavations at Sandal Castle, Yorkshire, whose life ended with its destruction in 1646, the majority of the recovered knives had flat tangs pierced to secure riveted bone side plates (Mayes et al., pp. 242 and 244, fig. 6, nos. 68–83). In the absence of much more closely datable archaeological evidence from other English sites, it is impossible to be certain whether this handle difference is indicative of a dating or regional characteristic, or of nothing at all. At Basing

House, Hampshire, whose life also came to an abrupt end in 1645 in the aftermath of the English Civil War, the recovered table knives are all of the Site B, tanged variety (Moorhouse, pt. 2, pp. 36–37, fig. 17, nos. 1–11). Excavations at the Governor’s Land, Virginia, whose occupation is tentatively thought to have ended by 1625 or 1630 at the latest (and which seems to have been home to the first Martin’s Hundred settlers in 1619), yielded ten table knives, none of them decorated and all of them with nail-like tangs (Outlaw, pp. 180–181, fig. 28, nos. 65–74).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 76

ARTIFACT CATALOG

469

Figure 76 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 553 FERROUS CUTLERY 1 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7903] Length: surv. 8b˝ (20.96 cm) Blade incomplete and unmarked; short, hexagonal bolster decorated at upper edge with two incised lines; tapering, rectangular tang survives to full length of 2f˝ (6.67 cm). 2 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2151A [7904] Length: surv. 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Blade; round-section bolstered; tang fragment. 3 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2124A [7904] Length: surv. 4i˝ (10.64 cm) Blade fragment; oval bolster; pistol-gripped bone handle, secured to flat tang by two iron rivets.554 4 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2257A [7906] Length: surv. 5j˝ (13.49 cm) Blade complete and unusually short; hexagonal bolster disproportionately long; thin, rectangular tang probably incomplete; no visible cutler’s mark. 5 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7907] Length: surv. 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Blade fragment; probably akin to no. 4 above. 6 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2121A [7908] Length: surv. 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Blade; oval (hexagonal?) bolster; tang fragment. 7 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7909] Length: surv. 5l˝ (14.13 cm) Blade very narrow; delicately expanding, oval-sectioned bolster; remains of rectangular-sectioned tang. The bolster’s handle edge is decorated with a pair of incised lines as no. 1 above. 553. The presence of the 13 knife fragments here illustrated, along with the five ornamented examples shown in Fig. 75, evidently have something significant to say about life and activity at Site B. In comparison the nearby Site A (Harwood Plantation) yielded only four, the Fort nine, the Company Compound two, and Site H (Boyse Homestead) five. The Site B knife evidence might be coupled with the weapon fragments and scrap iron derived from old tools to make an argument for the presence there of a ferrous-metal worker. 554. The knife’s flat tang and bone plate handle, though characteristic of later centuries, is paralleled by an example from the Fort (Fig. 44, no. 5), though no pistol-grip terminal sur-

8 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2070A [7910] Length: surv. 2o˝ (7.46 cm) Blade fragment; long, oval-sectioned bolster; remains of rectangular-sectioned tang. 9 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2115F [7911] Length: surv. 2b˝ (5.72 cm) Blade fragment; heavy octagonal bolster; remains of rectangular-sectioned tang. 10 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2061C [7912] Length: surv. 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Narrow blade fragment (perhaps as no. 7 above); long, tapered, oval-sectioned (originally hexagonal?) bolster; thin, rectangular-sectioned tang. 11 Knife Provenance: C.G. 22212A [7913] Length: surv. 3m˝ (9.37 cm) Possible penknife; narrow blade fragment; solid, one-piece ferrous handle, expanding toward butt and terminating in nipple. The handle is now oval in section, but may originally have been lightly faceted.555 12 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2062A [7914] Length: surv. 3c˝ (9.53 cm) Narrow blade fragment; apparently slightly ovoid bolster, with incised collar at junction with blade; square-sectioned tang disproportionately robust. 13 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 2129E [7915] Length: surv. 1o˝ (4.92 cm) Bolster, now oval in section but probably originally faceted; part of rectangular-sectioned tang.

vives. An as-yet-unpublished wooden pistol-grip handle from a large knife, found on an Inuit site on Baffin Island, has tentatively been associated with the Frobisher expeditions of 1566–1568. However, the handle might equally well (and more probably) be the product of much later trading. With that said, it should be noted that the pistol grip seems to have been popular in Continental Europe before becoming common in England and so might have reached Baffin Island through Basque fishermen in the mid-16th century. 555. This unusual knife type is paralleled by an example from a sealed deposit (Pit 10) on Site A (Fig. 88, no. 5).

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 77

ARTIFACT CATALOG

471

Figure 77 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 FERROUS SCISSORS 1 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 2115C and 2125A [7916]556 Length: surv. 6h˝ (15.40 cm) Pair; blades not found together; pivot snapped. The outer surfaces of both blades are beveled, and the shanks rectangular in section, each drawn out to create an eye loop, whose tail is welded at the inside or facing sides of the loops. The tips of the blades had been broken or cut off in antiquity, one slightly shorter than the other.

to take thumb and forefinger. The light shanks are beveled at the edges and decoratively notched at their junction with the blades, which are missing below the rivet.

2 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7917] Length: 6o˝ (17.62 cm) Pair; found together; one shank eye missing. The blades are externally beveled, and the surviving shank square-cut on its inner face but carefully rounded externally. A pair of incised lines decorates the junction of the blades with the handles, and each blade is stamped above the rivet with a cross pommelle. The surviving eye is well shaped and rolls inward as no. 1 above.

5 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 2147 [7920] Length: surv. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Shank and everted eye; similar to no. 4 above.

3 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 2105C [7918] Length: surv. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Handles and eyes; from small, quality pair; one loop much larger than other, presumably designed

556. The second part of this pair of scissors came from a “good” layer just below the topsoil in the excavation square immediately north of the well-dated Pit A (ca. 1631). Its presence might suggest that the content of the pit was deposited, at least in part, from that northerly direction. Although the excavation did not extend far in that direction, artifacts were becoming in-

4 Scissors Provenance: C.G. 2061A [7919] Length: surv. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Shank and everted eye; shank beveled on exterior face and flat internally.

6 Scissors (?) Provenance: C.G. 2163 [7921] Width: max. 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Oval eye or loop; possibly from scissors, but no clear junction with shank surviving. The variation in thickness from the rounded to the egg-shaped sides of the loop also argue against that identification. On the other hand the absence of internal wear usually associated with chain links and drop handles might be used to support it.

creasingly scarce and no major features were encountered. The presence of so many pairs of scissors and scissor parts on Site B, in comparison with their scarcity on other Martin’s Hundred sites, is sufficient to point to something or other— perhaps to a gunsmith who also repaired other weapons and tools.

472

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 78

ARTIFACT CATALOG

473

Figure 78 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 PEWTER AND COPPER-ALLOY SPOONS 1 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7922] Length: complete in present form 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Pewter; possibly of local manufacture; bowl deliberately cut away, leaving pair of tapering oval wings, each carefully twisted in opposite directions and thus resembling a propeller. Two very small tongues of metal remain between them, perhaps the residue from the scissor work employed to cut away the rest of the bowl. The spoon is very crudely cast, its stem being entirely flat on its upper face, three-sided behind, and vestigially slipped at the end. The only decoration is a stamped rosette at the top of the handle. It may or may not be coincidental that rosettes of this character occur on Virginian-made tobacco pipes of the same ware employed to make the spoon mold found on the adjacent Site A.557 2 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7923] Length: surv., from junction with bowl 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Pewter; handle fragment; almost certainly from same mold as no. 1 above.

557. See Fig. 88, no. 8. Very little is known about pewter spoon casting in the 17th century, the two matching mold fragments from Site A being the earliest evidence so far recorded. Until that example was found, the earliest datable specimen of Virginian spoon manufacturing was the handle found at Jamestown, bearing the mark of Joseph Copeland of Chuckatuck, dated 1676 (Cotter and Hudson, p. 189, pl. 87 right). The crudeness of that spoon’s stem is distinctly reminis-

3 Spoon (?) Provenance: C.G. 2113D [7924] Width: max. surv. 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Pewter; bowl fragment; cut at straight edge and rolled when found. Though now flat, the size and curvature are consistent with those found on standard, round-bowled and slipped-stemmed spoons of the first half of the seventeenth century.558 4 Spoon Provenance: C.G. 2099B [7925] Length: surv. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Copper-alloy; handle terminal of modified seal-top variety. The difference stems from the presence of a pointed nipple or button protruding from the top of the disk.559 Below it, the stem ornament comprises first a ball knop, then a collar followed by an inverted baluster, and below that two small collars. Though very crude, the terminal combination somewhat resembles a seal-top silver spoon attributed to ca. 1640.560

cent of the Martin’s Hundred examples. 558. For a fine range of silver spoons of the 16th and 17th centuries, see Spoons 1399–1901. 559. Because nothing of the stem survives, the possibility is real that this terminal comes from something other than a spoon. 560. Spoons 1399–1901, pl. XII, no. 64.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 79

ARTIFACT CATALOG

475

Figure 79 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 FERROUS LOCKS, HANDLES, AND NAILS 1 Key Provenance: C.G. 2123B [7926] Length: surv. 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Probably from quality box or cupboard lock; bow markedly heart shaped; shank solid; pair of ornamental collars behind web, another collar at junction with bow. The delicate web is incomplete. 2 Key Provenance: C.G. 2104A [7927] Length: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Bow and shank; bow generally heart shaped, but lacking extended dividing projections characteristic of no. 1 above. The upper shank is heavy and slightly balustroidal between two collars. The remaining shank is solid and possibly originally square sectioned. 3 Keyhole Provenance: C.G. 2076A [7928] Width: est. 2e˝ (6.03 cm) For stock lock; 561 incomplete; rectangular plate clipped at two surviving corners and pierced for nailing to stock; reinforced and ornamented with flaring, wrought-iron collar, secured by two ferrous rivets. 4 Lock plate Provenance: C.G. 2079F [7929] Width: surv., prior to reconservation 3i˝ (8.10 cm) Fragment (?), further fragmented in conservation. 5 Plate lock Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7930] Breadth: 7˝ (17.78 cm) Height: 5o˝ (15.08 cm) Probably from rounded-shaped trunk; plate slightly but deliberately concavo-convex. This lock is intact save for one or two tumblers and its keyhole cover, the pivot hole for which is to be seen at the plate’s upper edge. The keyhole itself expands at the bottom and extends into a sharply cut V. A round-sectioned and slightly tapered ward post behind the

561. For stock-lock diagram and nomenclature, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 245–247, fig. 77a; also Fig. 60, n. 446. 562. For an example of such bars, see Fig. 85, no. 4. Illustrated on the same page (no. 3) is a plate lock having a comparably shaped and decorated bar as its keyhole cover.

hole indicates that the key was hollow shanked. To the left of and above the key hole is the hasp slot, 1h˝ (2.70 cm) in length. The plate was attached first to the wood (probably leather-covered) by small nails more or less in the midsection of each edge. In addition there are large, rectangular nail holes at each corner, probably occupied by ornamental reinforcing bars extending vertically up both sides of the plate, their welded nails clenched through the wood on the inside.562 The lock’s mechanism is simple, comprising a spring bolt with two projecting lugs, secured to and moving within two U-shaped loops, and prevented from excessive forward movement by a keeper welded to the plate to the right of the keyhole. The remains of what may have been a tumbler spring projects below the inner plate and ends in a leaf-shaped terminal riveted to it. A second similarly secured and shaped terminal is attached to the lower edge of the interior mechanism plate, which is itself secured by two large rivets. 6 Bolt Provenance: C.G. 2192A [7931] Length: surv. 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Diameter: plate o˝ (2.38 cm) For barrel padlock; three springs, arranged in triangular pattern, riveted through plate.563 7 Bolt Provenance: C.G. 2079C [7932] Length: surv. 2c˝ (6.99 cm) From stock-lock type; butt end; deliberately bent at right-angle to itself (straightened in figure), presumably result of reshaping. The incomplete end shows evidence of being cut. 8 Hasp Provenance: C.G. 2106A [7933] Length: surv. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) From plate lock; fragment; rolled terminal and rectangular retaining “loop” for bolt ca. e˝ (0.95 cm) wide.564

563. For an intact barrel padlock from the Fort, see Fig. 40, no. 1; for further information on locks of this type, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 249, fig. 78. 564. For intact examples of comparable hasps, see Fig. 85, nos. 1–2.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

9 Hasp loop Provenance: C.G. 2103B [7934] Length: plate surv. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Of rectangular shape; attached to remains of rectangular plate pierced by two nail holes (two more probably missing with rest of plate), which attached to box or trunk. It would have been covered by a pierced hasp and secured with a padlock.565 10 Hasp Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7935] Length: surv. 2g˝ (7.30 cm) For use with padlock, in tandem with retaining loop akin to no. 9 above. The hasp has been cut below its hinge, and the curled terminal has been trimmed off. The slot is large and could have passed over a loop 1˝ (2.54 cm) wide. 11 Keeper Provenance: C.G. 2104A [7936] Length: surv. 2a˝ (6.35 cm) For lock bolt (?); originally attached to wood, with two or more nails passing through pad-shaped terminals. One nail survives and has been bent at right angles to the loop, but is shown straightened in the figure. 12 Butterfly hinge Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7937] Length: surv. 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Fragment (?); one end roughly chopped; other bifurcated and pierced by two small nail holes. Identification as a butterfly hinge is tentative because the metal is disproportionately heavy by comparison with the size of the nail holes used to anchor it to the wood. 13 Strap hinge Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7938] Length: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Fragment; pivot intact; both surviving arms pierced by nail holes. 14 Strap hinge Provenance: C.G. 2103A [7939] Length: surv. 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Fragment; pivot intact. The surviving arm has a small round nail hole a˝ (1.27 cm) from the pivot. Hinges of this size were more likely to have been used on light furniture or small boxes than as architectural hardware. 15 Strap hinge Provenance: C.G. 2075A [7940] Length: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Fragment; pivot and part of one arm.

565. For a pierced hasp of the type used in tandem with stapleshaped anchors of this type, see no. 10 below.

16 Strap or T-hinge Provenance: C.G. 2089B [7941] Length: surv. 2c˝ (6.99 cm) Fragment; broken at missing pivot and apparently chopped at opposite surviving end; probably scrap metal. Three large nail holes arranged in a triangle helped to secure the hinge at the pivoting point. 17 Hinge strap Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7942] Length: surv. 4g˝ (12.38 cm) Fragment; probably chopped at both ends; part of round nail hole survives at wider end. 18 Hinge Provenance: C.G. 2107B [7943] Length: surv., when extended 3f˝ (9.21 cm) Split-ring type; pair of round-sectioned loops drawn out, flattened, and clenched at ends. This was the simplest and cheapest form of hinge, but one that is often found on relatively sophisticated furniture items, such as Bible boxes and ornamented chests. The clenching suggests that this example was mounted at one end on wood ca. c˝ (1.91 cm) thick. 19 Pin Provenance: C.G. 2076A [7944] Length: surv. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Of uncertain purpose; two thin rods welded together; one matching end of each everted. As all ends are broken and missing, nothing more can be deduced. 20 Ring handle Provenance: C.G. 2079C [7945] Diameter: ring 2f˝ (6.67 cm) With clenched split-pin mount. The length of the pin before clenching suggests that the handle had been attached to wood ca. 1b˝ (3.18 cm) thick. The heavy ring’s section is e˝ (0.95 cm) in diameter. 21 Ring Provenance: C.G. 2082A [7946] Diameter: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Of uncertain purpose. 22 Ring Provenance: C.G. 2101A [7947] Diameter: 2e˝ (6.03 cm) Similar to ring of no. 20 above; but slightly smaller. 23 Handle Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7948] Length: surv. 7d˝ (18.10 cm) Bail type; rectangular in section, expanded in grip’s midsection; tapering to U-shaped pivots.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Handles of this type were used on trunks, chests, and coffins, and were attached with split and clenched pins similar to that accompanying no. 20 above. 24 Handle Provenance: C.G. 2142C [7949] Length: surv. 6a˝ (16.51 cm) Bail type; almost partner to no. 23 above. 25 Bolt Provenance: C.G. 2099B [7950] Length: 2i˝ (5.56 cm) Screw threaded; flattened and expanded “wing” head, pierced by a j˝ (0.79 cm) hole. Purpose unknown. 26 Nail566 Provenance: C.G. 2231 [7951] Length: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Incomplete; large flat head. 27 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2108B [7952] Length: surv. 3l˝ (9.05 cm) Incomplete; small, slightly domed head. 28 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2115D [7953] Length: 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Rose head; slightly flattened point. 29 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2114B [7954] Length: 4˝ (10.16 cm) Large, flat head (perhaps originally rose hammered); end pointed. 30 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2108 [7955] Length: 3a˝ (8.89 cm)

566. The illustrated examples (nos. 26–37) are only representative of the several hundred uncovered in the excavations at this

477

Small rose head; shank end slightly damaged but apparently pointed. 31 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2061C [7956] Length: 3e˝ (8.57 cm) Rose head; straight point. 32 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7957] Length: 3j˝ (8.41 cm) Rose head; flat point. 33 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7958] Length: 2k˝ (6.19 cm) Small, flat head; flattened point. 34 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2089B [7959] Length: 2j” (5.87 cm) Rose head; straight point. 35 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2076 [7960] Length: 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Rose head; straight point. 36 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7961] Length: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Relatively large rose head; straight point. 37 Nail Provenance: C.G. 2105D [7962] Length: 1j˝ (3.33 cm) Flat head; straight point.

site, many of which were too decayed to be preserved. For definitions and details of nail making, see Fig. 41, n. 304.

478

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 80

ARTIFACT CATALOG

479

Figure 80 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), ca. 1623–1640 MISCELLANEOUS METAL SMALL FINDS 1 Tinder Box Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7963] Width: 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Thin sheet copper alloy; lead-lined bottom shaped to box’s full outline; lid representing ca. two-thirds thereof, remaining third a hinged and ornamentally stamped strip across back. A tongue l˝ (1.43 cm) in height was secured to a luglike projection at the fore edge of the interior base with a drop of lead and has a round hole at its rounded top, which passed through a slot in the lid. A pivoting hook riveted to the lid passed through the tongue’s hole to secure it. The lid has a lug projection mirroring that of the base, and where intact the wall of the box adopts the same projecting configuration. The sides of the box are missing, but its completed height is provided by the length of the vertical tongue. The hinged back of the top is embossed with nowillegible lettering, medieval in character, while the lid itself is stamped with diagonal double rows of tooled dots and, between each pair, a row of rosettes. The second row, at a point at the back of the lid and in the center of the box’s width, has a stamped hand with a pointing forefinger. Boxes with the same decoration and hand stamp (possibly the symbol of the city of Antwerp) have been found aboard the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia, which was wrecked off the southwest coast of Australia in 1629.567 2 Plate Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7964] Length: 1i˝ (3.02 cm)

567. Stanbury, p. 23, figs. 3103 and 3131. Fig. 3103 lacks the stamped lettering behind the hinge but is of comparable size to the Site B specimen. However, 3131, though smaller, exhibits the lettering, and it is this box that contained the squares of linen that prompted Ms. Stanbury to identify these objects as patch boxes. Two more boxes with the same mark and decoration have been found in the River Thames at London and are now in the Museum of London’s collection. One of those boxes had had its back replaced with a thick piece of leather, to which the lid now hinges. Although one of the Batavia’s boxes contained small squares of linen and was therefore identified as a patch box, no convincing evidence in support of that purpose has yet been found. The notion that they were containers for rifle patches does not stand well, because rifled firearms were uncommon in the early-17th century. Furthermore the boxes are extremely fragile, and their hooked latches difficult to manipulate—neither an attribute helpful to hurried or harried

Copper alloy; of extreme thinness; almost identical in size and thickness to bottom of no. 3 below. 3 Box Provenance: C.G. 2115C [7965] Length: 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Depth: k˝ (1.11 cm) Copper alloy; rounded at one end; plain on one surface and pierced with 24 small holes in five rows. At the top two rows, where the box edge curves, two of the holes are incomplete, indicating that the plate was pierced before being attached to the box. All edges appear to have been brazed; consequently there is no apparent means of entering it. Perhaps, therefore, the perforated surface originally seated the bristles for a small brush. 4 Sword hanger buckle or slide Provenance: C.G. 2099B [7966] Height: with ring 1k˝ (3.65 cm) Copper alloy; figure-eight shape; ring below cross bar, to which forward retaining strap of hanger was attached (see Fig. 63, no. 5A). Triangular projections on either side of the frame, paralleling the direction of the belt, are ornamented with incuse diamonds flanked by incised dashes.568 5 Spur shank and rowel Provenance: C.G. 2099A [7967] Length: surv. 1d˝ (2.86 cm) Width: rowel 1˝ (2.54 cm) Copper alloy; gilded and silvered; rowel eightpointed, rotating on square-headed ferrous rivet.

hunters. More pertinent, therefore, may be the discovery of another, similar box in an Iroquois grave in up-state New York, containing a strike-a-light flint (Pt. I, Pl. 73; Collection of the Rochester Museum, Rochester, New York). It seems likely, therefore, that these objects were tinder boxes. Groping for an explanation for the “patches” found in the Batavia box, one might suggest that the pieces of fabric were impregnated with some combustible material and that these, therefore, were a form of tinder. This explanation is supported by the O.E.D., which defines tinder as “Any dry imflammable substance that readily takes fire from a spark and burns or smoulders; esp. that prepared from partially charred linen.” 568. For a fine and clear parallel for this sword-hanger buckle type, see Marcus Gheerhaerts the Younger’s portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (d. 1621) (Catalog for Littlecote House, vol. I, no. 844). The example shown is almost certainly gold. For further discussion of sword belts and their fittings, see Fig. 50., n. 369.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Copper alloy spurs are usually cast as one, but this shank is split at the heel end and exhibits the remains of an iron tongue, secured with one or perhaps two iron rivets. It is possible that the shank and rowel were originally part of a ferrous- heeled spur, or that this was a repair; neither explanation is convincing. An alternative might be that the shank was permanently attached to the heel of a boot reinforced with an iron mount sandwiched between leather. 6 Button Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7968] Diameter: a˝ (1.27 cm) Copper alloy; probably from doublet; molded in two pieces, seamed at girth; face decorated with tight spiral line expanding from center. The back has a single casting air hole and an eye fashioned from a loop of thin copper-alloy wire. For its size, the casting is relatively thick and heavy.569 7 Button Provenance: C.G. 2076B [7969] Diameter: ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) As no. 6 above; but 0.5 mm smaller, perhaps due to surface loss. Having both the same decoration and construction characteristics as the above, it may be concluded that both buttons are from the same source and probably the same garment. The eye loop is missing. 8 Button Provenance: C.G. 2080A [7970] Diameter: l˝ (1.43 cm) Black glass with remains of ferrous shank; mushroom shaped. An air bubble from casting has broken through at one side, but the button is otherwise solid.570 9 Eye Provenance: C.G. 2103A [7971] Length: c˝ (1.91 cm) Ferrous; from hook and eye combination; wire loop drawn out into everted secondary loops or eyes at each end for sewing to host fabric. Examples of these large eyes are present on buff coats in the midseventeenth-century Littlecote House collection.571 10 Eye Provenance: C.G. 2091A [7972] Length: m˝ (1.75 cm) As no. 9 above; but slightly smaller.

569. For a Dutch parallel, see Baart et al., p. 200, no. 356, attributed to the first quarter of the 17th century. 570. A rather similar black glass button was found near Jamestown, at the Governor’s Land site (Outlaw, p. 206, fig. 38,

11 Ring Provenance: C.G. 2113A [7973] Diameter: 1˝ (2.54 cm) Copper alloy; from window curtains or bed hangings; flattened on opposite surfaces. 12 Ring Provenance: C.G. 2115A [7974] Diameter: o˝ (2.38 cm) Similar to no. 11 above; but wire more ovoid in section. 13 Ring Provenance: C.G. 2161 [7975] Diameter: 1˝ (2.54 cm) As nos. 11–12 above; but slightly thicker and round in section. 14 Disc Provenance: C.G. 2115B [7976] Width: max. 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Lead with some cuprous content; concavo-convex; rolled when found. Purpose unknown. 15 Disc Provenance: C.G. 2098C [7977] Diameter: ca. 3a˝ (8.89 cm) Thin copper alloy; fragments; evidence of brazing around edge on underside. The top and bottom are determined by the direction from which two groups of three nail holes were driven. Though drawn side by side to save space, it is reasonable to deduce that the triangularly arranged holes were opposite to each other on the complete disc. The holes’ purpose is unknown and made the more obscure by the fact that one hole barely penetrates the metal while the other five are driven through with firmness. Thus the obvious conclusion, that all six served to secure the disc to a wooden object, is not warranted. Then again the evidence of brazing indicates that the nail-hole groupings are the product of secondary usage. 16 Jew’s harp Provenance: C.G. 2080A [7978] Length: surv. 1c˝ (4.45 cm) Ferrous rod; alternatively possible handle or hinge pivot; rectangular-sectioned fragment; complete at neither end.

no. 214). 571. Catalog for Littlecote House, vol. II, nos. 38 and 41; see Dufty, pl. CXV, b–c, for mid-17-century buff coats in the Tower of London collection.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 81

481

482

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 81 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS ARMOR, WEAPONS, AND EQUESTRIAN ITEMS 1 Backplate Provenance: C.G. 1737K [7979] Width: est. at shoulders 11b˝ (28.58 cm) Incomplete: neck, upper arm, and small of back fragments; neck fragment rolled at edges The iron rivets and diamond- and square-shaped copper-alloy washers, which anchored shoulder straps, survive on both sides. The plate is similar to that from the Company Compound (Fig. 56).572 2 Backplate Provenance: C.G. 1737K [7980] Width: surv. 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Lower back and skirt fragment; rivet with iron washer survives above skirt and anchored right waist strap. 3 Pike head Provenance: C.G. 1736B [7981] Length: surv. 5˝ (12.70 cm) Blade leaf-shaped and gently V-sectioned; cut at both ends. A double cordon ornaments the junction of blade and socket, the latter ridged at its point of damage. Part of the socket is missing, along with both langets.573 4 Brandistock blade Provenance: C. G. 1737K [7982] Length: surv. 10g˝ (27.62 cm) Incomplete; diamond-shaped in section; deliberately bent at broken end.574

572. This plate differs from the best preserved of the Martin’s Hundred backplates (Fig. 52) in that the Fort well specimen has its washer-secured straps much higher on the shoulders. 573. An intact pike, whose head closely matches the style and decoration of this example, was acquired by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for in-tandem exhibition in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum at Carter’s Grove. The antique dates from the period of the English Civil War and is reputed to be a relic of the Royalist retreat after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. 574. The blade is almost exactly paralleled by an antique purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for in-tandem exhibition in the Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum at Carter’s Grove. The antique is believed to be Italian and is— so far—the only known exact parallel for this fragment. The similarity was first noted by dealer Robin Wiggington of Stratford-Upon-Avon, from whom the antique was purchased. The cruciform blade profile is a rare shape, and the probability that the Martin’s Hundred brandistock is of Italian manufac-

5 Sword pommel Provenance: C.G. 1821A [7208] Diameter: 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Of bun shape; tang hole k˝ (1.1 cm) at greatest width; pommel recessed on grip side, in shape of square, to depth of i˝ (0.48 cm), suggesting grip’s wooden sleeve similarly shaped. The pommel’s crown is also recessed, in a triangle extending b˝ (0.64 cm) from the hole, perhaps as the result of hammering the tang in that direction in the absence of a button.575 6 Sword pommel and tang Provenance: C.G. 1737D [7983] Length: surv. 4d˝ (10.48 cm) Tang incomplete; pommel with pronounced tubular button and flaring collar at grip end; tang essentially square sectioned, tapering towards top. 7 Guard Provenance: C.G. 1776C [7984] Width: at quillons 8” (20.32 cm) From swept-hilt rapier; quillons round sectioned and expanded at ends, each separated from quillon block by single collar. The block is decorated with incuse scrolls, which with imagination might be seen as zoomorphic. The pas d’ânes extend into an oval back ring and forward into three swept bars, which join together as a single, now missing, knuckle bow. The blade tang would have measured ca. a x b˝ (1.27 x 0.64 cm) at the quillon block.

ture is enhanced by the existence of a comparably sectioned sword blade in the Wallace Collection, cited as Italian and dated to ca. 1490 (Mann, vol. II, p. 255 and pl. 110). The weapon, in its retracted position (Pt. I, Pl. 46), doubled as a symbolic pole-ax and was known as an “officer’s walking staff.” Its presence at Site A suggests that it may have been the property of Governor William Harwood. The fact that it was deliberately bent and broken while in its extended position has not been explained. If, however, there was a close working relationship between Sites A and B, the presence at the latter of much apparent scrap iron, including weapon parts, might be extended to suggest that the brandistock blade came in a supply of scrap iron from England and was never an intact weapon in Virginia. This, however, seems very unlikely. 575. The pommel type is well paralleled on the hilt of a backsword found on the Governor’s Land site (Outlaw, p. 201, fig. 36, no. 189), in tandem with a basket guard comparable to the example from Site B (Fig. 72, no. 8).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

8 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 1738B [7985] Length: buckle 1l˝ (3.97 cm) Possibly from sword belt; figure-eight form; tang and folded strap end plate attached to tang bar.576 9 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 1738B [7986] Length: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) As no. 8 above; but without tang or strap end plate. 10 Buckle Provenance: C.G. 1738B [7987] Length: est. 1a˝ (3.81 cm) As nos. 8–9 above; incomplete. 11 Sword hanger buckle or slide Provenance: C.G. 1736D [7988] Length: total 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Rectangular buckle; oval pendant leather grips hooked through U-shaped lugs below buckle.577 12 Sword hanger grip (?) Provenance: C.G. 1738B [7989] Diameter: disc 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Disc shaped; divided plate with rod projection, presumably originally extending into hook similar to those of no. 11 above. 13 Bullet mold Provenance: C.G. 1771A [7990] Length: surv. 9h˝ (23.02 cm) Of scissor type; for multiple (five-ball) casting; onehalf of mold; balls a˝ (1.27 cm) in diameter. Each concavity has its pouring hole. The handle, like the mold, is rectangular in section but now tapers to a point. Half a round-headed rivet survives at the pivot. The handle is offset at its junction with the mold, the handle end of which is V-shaped.578 14 Pan cover Provenance: C.G. 1729 [7991] Length: 2d˝ (5.40 cm) For snaphaunce lock; cover rectangular; arm recessed on underside to receive pivoting lever.579

576. This buckle was found in the same deposit with nos. 9–10 below and so may have been a supply item rather than coming directly from a sword belt. 577. For a close parallel, see Fig. 72, no. 18. 578. For other Martin’s Hundred examples, see Figs. 71, no. 1; and 72, nos. 11–13. 579. For a Martin’s Hundred parallel showing a comparable cover in position, see Fig. 72, no. 15. 580. In the 1625 muster William Harwood is shown to have been in possession of a “Peece of Ordnance, 1 wth all things thereto belonging; Shott, 300 lb.” (Jester, p. 43). It is conjectured that the gun was a saker, first mounted at the John Boyse

483

15 a–e Ball shot Provenance: (a) C.G. 1775A [7992]; (b) C.G. 1806A [7993]; (c) C.G. 1736A [7994]; (d) C.G. 1775A [7997]; (e) C.G. 1806E [7996] Diameter: (a) j˝ (0.79 cm); (b) a˝ (1.27 cm); (c) ca. f˝ (1.59 cm); (d) e˝ (0.95 cm); (e) j˝ (0.79 cm) Lead; of various sizes. No. 15a had been cast in a two-piece mold, the halves of which did not exactly coincide. No. 15c is flattened at one side, perhaps from impact, while the opposite side has been cut several times with a knife. 16 Artillery ball Provenance: C.G. 1737L [7175] Diameter: 3c˝ (9.53 cm) Solid shot; of saker bore; no mold-mark ridge surviving.580 17 Spur Provenance: C.G. 1737H [7997] Length: surv. 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Incomplete; very light, centrally located shank at heel, divided at break, indicating this is a rowel, not prick, spur. The surviving buckle terminal is of figure-eight type and light construction.581 18 Horseshoe Provenance: C.G. 1739F [7998] Width: 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Of small size; ground surface fullered at left and right but not at toe; three nail holes at left and four at right. The heels are slightly raised, and the whole surface slightly concave on the hoof side. At the internal fore edge of the bow there are several straight grooves, suggesting that the blacksmith had cut the iron to help create the curve. Nail holes suggest an average nail section of b x i˝ (0.64 x 0.48 cm).582 19 Horseshoe Provenance: C.G. 1739F [7999] Width: 4f˝ (11.75 cm) Of small size; much cruder than no. 18 above; no fullering on ground surface; four nail holes at left and three at right (right foot?). One of the nail holes

Homestead and moved to Site A by Harwood after the 1622 massacre. 581. This spur is one of the few equestrian items from the Martin’s Hundred sites and is best paralleled by two found in much later contexts at the Mathews Manor site (W.S. 23, post1650, and W.S. 232A, post-ca. 1661); see also Pt. I, p. 110, n. 71. 582. Because both Site A shoes were found in the same pit, and as one appears not to have been used, the presumption may be that neither was ever put to equestrian use. For additional data on horseshoe dating and terminology, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 237–239.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

is very narrow, suggesting that the shoe had never been used. The heels are thickened and downturned (i.e., towards the hoof). The evidence of cutting within the bow noted on no. 18 does not occur on this example. While this shoe is somewhat convex on its ground surface, it is less concave on the hoof side than no. 18. Nail holes suggest an average nail section of j x i˝ (0.79 x 0.48 cm).

20 Saddle reinforcement Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8000] Length: surv. 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Incomplete; pierced by two small nail holes and one larger.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 82

485

486

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 82 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS HOES AND SPADE 1 Broad hoe Provenance: C.G. 1737A [8001] Width: blade 10e˝ (26.35 cm) Relatively small socket (1m˝ [4.29 cm] in diameter); heavily reinforced at wedge-shaped junction with blade; no maker’s mark. The angle of the socket to the blade is pronounced and ensures that the tool was intended more for drawing toward the worker than for downward pounding.583 2 Narrow or grubbing hoe Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8002] Width: max. surv. 6g˝ (17.46 cm) Blade and socket characteristically heavy; socket long and less angled than that of no. 1 above; no maker’s mark. The absence of any wedge-shaped reinforcement at the junction of socket and blade is characteristic of the smaller hoes from Martin’s Hundred.584 3 Grubbing hoe585 Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8003] Width: blade 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Diameter: socket 1n˝ (4.60 cm) Almost triangular in shape; extremely thick and heavy at junction of socket and blade; no maker’s mark. Although the blade thickens to a slight ridge at its center, like no. 2 above, it lacks the spinal reinforcement characteristic of later hoes. Save for slight wear at one corner of the blade, the specimen is virtually in mint or still-usable condition.

Blade somewhat elongated and eroded at both corners; junction of blade and socket thick and strong, but like others from this site lacking triangular reinforcement. The socket is only slightly angled, and the tool has no maker’s mark. 5 Weeding hoe (?)586 Provenance: C.G. 1737E [8005] Width: max. surv. blade 5f˝ (14.29 cm) Very lightly constructed; blade thin; junction with socket markedly narrow. The socket is shorter than in the preceding examples. It has a diameter of 1-f˝ (4.13 cm), and while there is an incuse impression at its neck, there is no trace of a maker’s mark. 6 Socket Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8006] Width: int. socket 1g˝ (4.76 cm) From hoe of uncertain type; socket heavy yet short, in manner of no. 5 above. The two sides of the socket that normally are hammered together to create the junction and reinforcement for the blade are divided, suggesting that this may be a blacksmith’s waste product. 7 Spade shoe Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8007] Height: surv. 6d˝ (15.56 cm) Part of one arm, with oval projecting grips; between grips small nail hole to secure nosing to wood.587

4 Narrow hoe Provenance: C.G. 1739E [8004] Width: max. surv. blade 5e˝ (13.65 cm)

583. For a discussion of hoe types, usage, and documentation, see Fig. 58, nn. 426–428. 584. Round-shouldered hoe blades of this type were found in an associated “hoard” of such tools discovered at Green Spring Plantation (Louis Caywood, Excavations at Green Spring Plantation [1955], pl. IX), but all possess pronounced spinal reinforcements. Those examples would appear to date from the second half of the 17th century and so may be exhibiting a datable characteristic. 585. The term grubbing hoe is used here to describe a heavy yet narrow hoe of a kind used to chop out roots, as opposed to those intended for hilling and light weeding. A fragment from another hoe (Fig. 58, no. 5), having a blade of similar shape,

was found in the Company Compound, but lacking a socket it was impossible to estimate its weight and so is there called a weeding hoe. See also n. 586 below. 586. As noted in Fig. 58, n. 428, there is ambiguity about the definition of a weeding hoe. Indeed it is possible that the term is synonymous with Dutch hoe (e.g., Fig. 65, no. 5). In the present instance the lightness of the tool’s construction prompts it to be defined as a weeding hoe rather than as a narrow or small broad hoe. See also A. Noël Hume, Archaeology and the Colonial Gardener, pp. 75–76. 587. For a discussion of spade documentation, see Figs. 39, nn. 284 and 286; and 65, n. 477.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 83

487

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 83 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS TOOLS 1 Wedge Provenance: C.G. 1738A [8008] Length: 5f˝ (14.29 cm) Much used and burred at head, from which metal has broken away under impact. 2 Wedge Provenance: C.G. 1752 [8009] Length: 4a˝ (11.43 cm) Smaller and more tapered than no. 1 above; head exhibiting less stress. 3 Wedge Provenance: C.G. 1731 [1810] Length: 4˝ (10.16 cm) Short and burred to extremis. The expansion resulting from such heavy usage would have rendered this wedge useless for splitting wood. It must be assumed, therefore, that it was used in blacksmithing. 4 Felling ax Provenance: C.G. 1738A [8011] Length: 8c˝ (22.23 cm) More or less straight bit; no poll; eye’s lower lip only slightly everted. A diamond-shaped maker’s mark on the left side of the bit appears to contain two initials, the left indecipherable and the right an R, both under what may have been a crown. The slight crack in one flank of the eye may have caused this otherwise intact and usable tool to be discarded.

588. The type is closely paralleled by an example from Mathews Manor (W.S. 238) and provisionally attributed to post-ca. 1650. Though apparently trimmed at the bit’s lower back corner, the Mathews Manor specimen lacks the carefully treated corner of this example. 589. A comparable broad ax was found at Mathews Manor (W.S. 203), in a context provisionally attributed to post-ca. 1655, but differs in that it possesses a well-defined poll. However, as noted in the text, this specimen may originally have had a most substantial back to its eye. 590. Most draw knives associated with coopering have both handles at right angles to the blade, the latter generally convex at the cutting edge and proportionately concave at the spine. This combination is particularly suited to shaping the insides of barrel staves. In contrast this knife seems to have been designed to be secured with one hand while being drawn with the other. Nevertheless the fact that both it and the side ax (no. 5 above), a tool also employed in the cooper’s craft, were found on the floor of a structure believed to have been associated with the storage and packing of tobacco at least hints at both tools being relics of coopering at Site A. With that said, however, it must be allowed that there is persuasive contrary evidence. Under the heading Tonnelier

5 Side ax Provenance: C.G. 1771J [1812] Length: bit 10b˝ (26.04 cm) Flat on one side; eye and bit in same plane; long, ovoid socket tapering toward top; bit sharpened only on upper edge; no maker’s mark. The bit’s back has concave corners, while at least one of the corners of the cutting edge appears to have been deliberately clipped. A type often associated with coopering, but also employed in general carpentry work where one surface was to remain smooth.588 6 Broad ax Provenance: C.G. 1755E [8013] Width: bit 7g˝ (20.00 cm) Disproportionately thin eye; no poll. Broken at the back, it is possible that an ineffective attempt was made to repair the tool by bending the sides of the eye around the helve. A maker’s mark on the bit’s right side takes the form of three stamped circles, triangularly arranged.589 7 Draw knife Provenance: C.G. 1764H [8014] Length: blade 16˝ (40.64 cm) Concavo-convex in direction of cutting edge; rightangled handle tang at one end, straight tang at other.590 The latter retains a ferrous collar, whose interior diameter indicates that, at its union with the blade, the wooden handle was 1˝ (2.54 cm) wide.

(coopering) Diderot (pl. VII, nos. 15–16) shows only two types of draw knives, one having a convex cutting edge and the other’s almost straight, and both with their handles at right angles to the blade. However, in his essay on tanning (Tanneur), Diderot shows a draw knife having a concave blade similar to that of this example, but with both handles extending laterally from it. Diderot, pl. III, fig. 3, shows this tool being used to scrape a hide over a convex log. The currying process is also an aspect of leatherworking, and there Diderot (Corroyeur, pl. I, figs. A and 3) shows a specialized type of draw knife having one lateral handle and the other Tshaped and at right angles to a straight rather than curving blade. In sum, therefore, Diderot illustrates no knife whose handles and blade shape combination match this specimen, but on balance his evidence points more toward leatherworking than to coopering. Although there is no supporting evidence for leatherworking at Site A, there are skinners’ knives from the Fort (Fig. 44, no. 10) and from Site H (Fig. 66, no. 7). From the latter also came a collection of tenterhooks (Fig. 67, nos. 15–22), which, though normally associated with fulling, would have been equally applicable for stretching hides.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

8 Collar and tang Provenance: C.G. 1773D [8015] Length: in present shape 3f˝ (9.21 cm) Probably from lower handle of scythe. The collar has been hammered and flattened to an elongated ovoid form, perhaps turning it into a hand grip and the tang into an awl or a scriber.591

489

Rectangular in section; nail-heading crowns close to both ends. One crown is pierced to receive a nail rod measuring b x i˝ (0.64 x 0.48 cm) and the other to take a rod j x b˝ (0.79 x 0.64 cm). No such precise measurements apply to the underside of the anvil channels, which are roughly oval and ca. a˝ (1.27 cm) in diameter.592

9 Nailer’s anvil Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8016] Length: 14o˝ (37.94 cm)

591. An undistorted scythe handle tang was found at the contemporary Governor’s Land site (Outlaw, p. 183, fig. 29, no. 91). 592. Diderot (Cloutier, pl. II, fig. 15, Clouyere à clou) illustrates

an anvil of this type, but that has the pierced crown only at one end. Rather, therefore, than having one bar to shape the heads of two nail sizes, Diderot’s 18th-century nailer would have used a separate tool for each rod size.

490

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 84

ARTIFACT CATALOG

491

Figure 84 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS NAILS AND SPIKE 593 1 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8017] Length: 1a˝ (3.81 cm) Rose head; straight point. 2 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771B [8018] Length: 1g˝ (4.76 cm) Rose head; straight point. 3 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8019] Length: 2i˝ (5.56 cm) Flattened head; straight point. 4 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8020] Length: 2k˝ (6.19 cm) Rose head; spatula point.594 5 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8021] Length: 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Rose head; straight point.

593. The illustrated examples are merely a sized selection from well-sealed and stratified Site A contexts. Although no nail rods were found on Site A, a nailmaker’s anvil (Fig. 83, no. 9) is among the finds. The difference between nails and spikes is one of both bulk and length, but where nails cease to be nails and become spikes rests in the eye of the cataloger, and in this cataloger’s eye the break point comes at 3˝ (7.62 cm). However, that would not be so if the example was very thin. In 1627 Captain John Smith, in his A Sea Grammar, well illustrated the options

6 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8022] Length: 2m˝ (6.83 cm) Dished and vestigially rose-hammered head; straight point. 7 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1771B [8023] Length: 2i˝ (7.14 cm) Thin, flat head; straight point. 8 Nail Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8024] Length: 2g˝ (7.30 cm) Rose head; spatula point. 9 Spike Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8025] Length: 3d˝ (7.94 cm) Rose head; straight point.

when he wrote “It is strongly nailed with Spikes.” In the same treatise, Smith discussed what he called “iron sicke” [sickness] and specified “Bolts, Spikes, or Nails.” For a discussion of nail sizes and types in 17th-century usage, see Fig. 41, nn. 304–305. 594. Spatula-pointed nails are infinitely more common in later17th- and 18th-century contexts, but as examples from the Fort (Fig. 41, nos. 4–5) demonstrate, such nails were in use in Virginia in the first quarter of the 17th century.

492

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 85

ARTIFACT CATALOG

493

Figure 85 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS HASPS, LOCK, AND KEYS 1 Hasp Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8026] Length: surv. 4c˝ (12.07 cm) Hinged at mid-section; upper plate (nailed to lid) incomplete and too decayed to show placement of nail holes. The pivoting strap is somewhat unusual in that the eye, through which the bolt passes, is oval rather than rectangular, as is no. 2 below. The plate terminates in an everted scroll to facilitate lifting. 2 Hasp Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8027] Length: 4n˝ (12.22 cm) Eyed strap; plate markedly bulbous; rectangular eye large (interior m x e˝ [1.75 x 0.95 cm]) and riveted through plate resembling two nail heads on front surface. Like no. 1 above, as is usual on lock hasps of this type, the plate ends in an everted scroll. 3 Plate lock Provenance: C.G. 1773B [8028] Width: plate 5e˝ (13.65 cm) For trunk or chest; sides of plate gently concave; keyhole cover decorated at both ends with pattern of punched diamonds and raised dots (?).595 Note that the nail bar (no. 4 below) was found in the same stratum in the same pit and almost certainly belongs to this lock; it is decorated at both ends with comparable punched diamonds. The keyhole is somewhat eroded, but the adjacent, rectangular hasp eye slot is intact. The mechanism on the back of the plate is incomplete. A spring-retained bolt slides between two eyes, and the ward plate supports the post for a hollow-shafted key (e.g., no. 11 below). The wards comprise a collar around the post and an arc beyond it, both attached to the ward cover. A second arc is attached to the lock plate, creating the pattern to require a key with a triple-recessed web.596

and hidden within decorative, diamond-punched terminal. 5 Plate lock fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8030] Width: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Lock of small (e.g., Bible box) size; ward cover pierced at sides to permit passage of spring-secured bolt. Although no key post survives, the presence of a riveted diamond-shaped washer attached to the back of the ward cover suggests that a post may have extended from the rivet. The mechanism comprises an inner and outer semicircular ward, the former welded to the face plate and the latter to the ward plate. The face plate was originally cut to be concave at the sides, to give the lock a decorative, sculptured appearance. 6 Nailing bar Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8031] Length: 2h˝ (5.24 cm) For lock of size similar to no. 5 above; one nail; must have been inserted through predrilled hole in box and then clenched on inside. 7 Plate lock Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8032] Width: 3f˝ (9.21 cm) For chest or trunk; having elongated keyhole cover of matching proportions to flanking nailing bars. The spring-secured bolt moved between two eyes welded to the face plate, its forward movement arrested beyond the hasp eye slot by a welded buffer. A key post passed through the ward plate and was bent over against it on the outside. The mechanism comprises an inner and outer semicircular ward, the former welded to the face plate and the latter to the ward housing.

4 Nailing bar Provenance: C.G. 1773B [8029] Length: 4i˝ (10.64 cm) One incomplete nail (thin strap welded to bar), probably for no. 3 above; head skillfully hammered

8 Nailing bar Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8033] Length: surv. 2h˝ (5.24 cm)597 Almost certainly associated with no. 7 above; as nos. 4 and 6 above, nails ferrous strips welded to bar.

595. The dots, which do not occur on the presumably associated nail bar (no. 4 below), may well be rust bubbles. 596. For an introductory discussion of lock and key parts and construction, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp.

243–252. 597. The measurement is that taken at the time of writing; one end of the bar has been lost in the process of conservation or reconservation. See Fig. 66, n. 488.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

9 Key Provenance: C.G. 1736A [8034] Length: 6h˝ (15.40 cm) For stock lock; bow only vestigially heart shaped; shank solid; shoulder behind web; web a central slot, with back-to-back Es. 10 Key Provenance: C.G. 1755C [8035] Length: surv. 1n˝ (4.60 cm) Of unusual construction; bow missing; shaft much eroded; web made from sheet-metal strip wrapped around end of solid shank to create tube to seat lock’s post. The web is extremely crude, having two narrow slots on one side and one on the other. 11 Key Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8036] Length: 2l˝ (6.51 cm) Of superior quality; bow flattened and fully heart shaped; shank drilled to receive lock post; web of Sconfiguration. Below the junction with the bow, the shank expands into an elongated shoulder with a single cordon below and a bladed collar above.598

598. A key of this type is recorded from Basing House (Moorhouse, pt. 2, fig. 18, no. 24). Unfortunately, dating is too loose to be useful. Wrote Moorhouse (p. 36), “The keys . . . cannot in the present state of our knowledge be placed more closely than within the limits of the site, 1531–1645.” A somewhat comparable example, having a similarly bolstered collar but with the bow’s ends separated within the loop, was found at Mathews Manor, Virginia (W.S. 200) and provisionally dated post-ca. 1655.

12 Key Provenance: C.G. 1833A [8037] Length: surv. 2j˝ (5.87 cm) Too eroded to be sure whether or not shaft was hollow at web, or to be certain of web’s configuration. Originally of good quality, the key retains traces of a shoulder akin to that of no. 11 above, but differs in that the bow is more or less circular. Nevertheless the headlike character is partially preserved by the ends of the bow being hammered up into its loop. 13 Padlock Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8038] Width: 2a˝ (6.35 cm) Of heavy construction; basically heart shaped, with projecting collar plate atop box. The box extends downward into a keel whose shape is paralleled by the cover plate. A matching plate or strap reinforces the lock’s back. The proportionately heavy bail is rectangular in section. The mechanism is too corroded for its details to be determined.599

599. This padlock has been reproduced in Colonial Williamsburg’s blacksmith’s shop and is used on the reconstructed Fort’s watchtower door. Although that structure dates ca. 1620–1622, the lock comes from a pit whose ceramics crossmend into the top of the filled Barn/Cellar, pointing to a deposition date toward the end of the site’s occupancy, ca. 1635–1645. It is reasonable to deduce, however, that a lock of this type might well have been brought over by the premassacre Martin’s Hundred settlers.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 86

495

496

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 86 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS SHOVEL 1 Shovel Provenance: C.G. 1770B [8039] Length: surv. 15e˝ (39.05 cm) Household or industrial; blade crudely fashioned from sheet iron turned up unevenly at sides (max. height e˝ [0.95 cm]) and folded but not welded around back edge. An iron handle, rectangular in section, is welded to that rear blade wall. Averaging 1˝ (2.54 cm) in width, the handle extends, at an even thickness of b˝ (0.64 cm) for a distance of 9˝ (22.86 cm), at which point the underside is cut away to a thickness of only h˝ (0.16 cm). Damaged at that point, there is no knowing why the handle thinned,

though it may have been drawn into a looped tail for suspension. Deliberately set at a 20° angle, the handle evidently was designed to provide maximum thrust over a surface whose character and length might otherwise have chafed the user’s knuckles. This very roughly made tool is as yet unparalleled from any other Virginian site, and may have been a “one-off” product from a local blacksmith. Found at the closed end of the “cellared barn,” in a deposit of burned clay and wood ash filling an oval, ovenlike feature, the shovel may have been used in whatever operation occurred there.600

600. This shovel may have been paralleled by a rather similarly shaped iron tool found in excavations in Norwich, England. The latter’s “bowl” is complete and turns up at the fore edge rather than being flat to provide maximum pick-up. Because the fore edge of the Martin’s Hundred specimen is entirely wanting, there can be no certainty as to its shape. The Norwich example is described thusly: “Fire-pan with rectangular pan for hot ashes and a socket for a lost wooden handle” (Sue Margeson, ed., Norwich Households: The Medieval Finds from

Norwich Survey Excavations 1971–1978 [1993], pp. 87–88, fig. 54, no. 556). The purpose of the Norwich tool is believed to have been to carry hot ashes from one location to another. That the Martin’s Hundred shovel was found in a heavy concentration of ashes within a clay-lined and burned pit points to usage akin to that of the Norwich specimen, i.e., the transportation of embers from a nearby Harwood kitchen building to ignite the fire in the oval pit, which seems to have been a part of the “cave house” or store building at Site A.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 87

497

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 87 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS KITCHEN AND OTHER HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENT 1 Gridiron Provenance: C.G. 1737A [8040] Length: surv. 15c˝ (40.01 cm) Iron; made from single flattened bar, one end cut into eight rods, those at outsides shortened and shaped into scrolls. The inner six were then bent to left and right before extending to become the bars that were attached to a now-missing drilled crossstrip, whose ends turned down to provide the grid’s two front feet. The third was created by down-turning the handle end of the original bar, which thereafter was welded to a separate handle section. The latter is flat for half its length and then rounded to create a slightly bulbous grip, above which the metal narrows into an arc that almost certainly represents the remains of a suspension hook. It is similar to the example from the Fort (Fig. 43, no. 1),601 but possesses decorative everted scrolls at the junction of grid and handle. 2 Grill Provenance: C.G. 1771F [8041] Width: 9˝ (22.86 cm) Wrought-iron; ornamental; possibly part of a Scottish toaster;602 frame rectangular in section and carefully welded into matching scrolls of considerable elaboration. This is perhaps the most enigmatic metal artifact from Martin’s Hundred, and a wide variety of interpretations have been offered, ranging from a gong to some kind of ceremonial standard. Its condition was poor when found, and although its shape was revealed through careful conservation, the

601. For terminological and paralleling details, see Fig. 43, n. 311; for a grid bar from another example, see Fig. 74, no. 1. 602. Lindsay (p. 30, figs. 140–141) illustrates two wrought-iron scroll-ornamented toasters and attributes both to the 17th century, describing the type as “peculiar to Scotland [and] used for baking flat scones or bannocks, which were supported in a vertical position by the ornamental framework.” Both examples are much wider than these artifacts (22a and 24˝ [57.15 and 60.96 cm] respectively) and it is hard to explain the presence of a specifically Scottish cooking tool in a household that might have begun its life as that of the Devonian William Harwood. Nevertheless the general shape and construction of the Scottish toasters remain the closest parallel yet encountered. 603. Similarly decorated fireplate tongs occur in Netherlandish paintings, e.g., Jan Olis’s On Pleasure Bent, dated 1644 (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, no. 51.785; Miklós Mojzer, Dutch Genre Paintings [1967], no. 16, n.p.). The basic tongs design continued through the 18th century, although the long, spatulalike grip would be replaced by a pair of disks. Lindsay (fig. 77) illus-

metal remained unstable and continued to spall. In consequence any hope of determining how or where other scrolls or appendages were attached was lost. 3 Fireplace tong Provenance: C.G. 1737A [7171] Length: surv. 21a˝ (54.61 cm) One arm of hinged pair; embellished below prehinge arc with undulated copper-alloy (brass?) collar. This last is slightly flaring at both extremities and sharply bladed at its midsection. Although the collar evidently was original to the tongs, its ill-fitting top and bottom suggest that it may have been a stock item originally designed for some other ornamental purpose.603 The shaft is flat-oval in section above the flattened and spatula-shaped blade or grip, but becomes rectangular in section at the arc. The tool is broken at its weakest point, just below the lost pivot. The blade is ornamented with incuse decoration comprising a central line with two more radiating from it to create a spearheadlike motif. At the lines’ convergence punched arcs straddle them but continue upward between them almost to the shoulder.604 4 Heater for goffering iron (?) Provenance: C.G. 1736A [8042] Length: 6f˝ (16.83 cm) Thick-walled tube, open at one end and tapering to blunt point at other. The object’s identification is at best tenuous, differing markedly as it does from the other two examples found in the Fort and adjacent Company Compound (Figs. 43, no. 6; and 59,

trated a transitional pair having comparable grips to this example but terminating also in a pair of disks or pads. He attributed that pair only to the 17th century. A close parallel for the copper-alloy collar was found at Basing House, Hampshire (1540–1645; Moorhouse, pt. 2, pp. 58–59, fig. 25, no. 153). Moorhouse describes it as “the top of the vertical bar of fire side irons” and cites an unillustrated “pair of brand irons,” adding that “This type is generally of 16th century date, but a bronze finial on the upright is secondary and probably of 17th-century date.” The Basing House finial is ca. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) in height while this specimen measures 2b˝ (5.72 cm) 604. Although the Olis painting cited in n. 603 above is described as a “party of men [and women] are seen in a . . . humble and simply furnished place,” these fireplace tongs were sufficiently ornamental to have been acceptable in the best houses in the colony and so are among the artifacts from Site A that point to the presence there of a person of consequence.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

no. 5). The suggestion being made here is that the tube was originally attached to a handle, and was fireheated and inserted within the shield of a standard goffering iron.605 The rough, scaling character of the tube’s exterior is consistent with that of oft-heated metal. 5 Handle Provenance: C.G. 1737K [8043] Length: surv. 5c˝ (14.61 cm) Of bail type; rectangular in section and slightly expanded at center of grip; one end missing and other incomplete. A single split cotter pin survives, its everted terminals indicating that the wood to which the handle was attached was thin.606 6 Handle Provenance: C.G. 1737C [8044] Length: surv. 6k˝ (16.35 cm) Of bail type; rectangular in section, lacking any central expansion; intact end terminates in flat disc. Part of one cotter pin remains. 7 Handle Provenance: C.G. 1713 [8045] Length: surv. 4i˝ (10.64 cm) Of bail type; rectangular in section and expanded in grip; both ends missing. It is possible that this example was discarded in manufacture. 8 Butterfly hinge Provenance: C.G. 1736D [8046] Width: max. 1f˝ (4.13 cm) Half surviving; wing pierced to take four small nails and divided into three loops around pivot, providing for missing wing to be attached by two. Hinges of this

605. For a discussion of goffering irons and poking sticks, see Fig. 43, n. 315. 606. Bail-type trunk handles were also found at the adjacent Site B (Fig. 79, nos. 23–24) and at the enigmatic Site D (Fig. 71, nos. 3–4). 607. For such a cupboard, see Fairbanks and Trent, vol. 2, p. 214, fig. 174, attributed to Massachusetts ca. 1660–1700; also Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury [1954], nos. 473–474 and 479, for more New England examples.

499

type were commonly used on the doors of small cupboards.607 9 Cocks’ head hinge Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8047] Length: 6n˝ (17.30 cm) Half surviving, with one terminal missing; wing pierced by five small nail holes and anchored around pivot with two straps, providing for missing wing to be attached by one. This was a quality hinge, albeit a common type, used on the doors of cupboards.608 10 Object of uncertain purpose Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8048] Length: 4g˝ (12.38 cm) Rectangular-sectioned rod; slotted above attachment to iron collar secured with lead. 11 Staple Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8049] Length: 4˝ (10.16 cm) Perhaps crudely made pintle for gate; rectangular in section; tapering towards both ends, one of which missing. 12 Spike609 Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8050] Length: surv. 4k˝ (11.27 cm) Head thick and square; shank incomplete and round sectioned. 13 Spike Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8051] Length: 4k˝ (11.27 cm) Head rectangular; shank rectangular in section.

608. A close excavated parallel is in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society (Fairbanks and Trent, vol. 2, p. 208, fig. 167, cited date 1658–1675). Others have been found at Jamestown (Cotter and Hudson, pl. 67 upper, no dating) and at Mathews Manor (W.S. 200, 204, and 232A), all attributed to dates in the mid-17th century. 609. Because this “spike” is round-sectioned and so thick in the head, the possibility exists that its now-missing lower extremity was threaded, and the object was a bolt.

500

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 88

ARTIFACT CATALOG

501

Figure 88 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 FERROUS CUTLERY AND MISCELLANEOUS SMALL FINDS 1 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8052] Length: surv. 5e˝ (13.65 cm) Ferrous metal; incomplete; straight blade, short bolster, and rectangular-sectioned tang; bolster encrusted with silver in groups of solid rectangles within panels of fine silver wire. The detailed drawing shows the bolster’s four sides. Although the blade tip is missing, it is possible that it was rounded rather than pointed.610 2 Knife Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8053] Length: surv. 3b˝ (8.26 cm) Ferrous metal; incomplete; blade wide and terminating in unusual, balustroidal bolster; tang rectangular in section and appears complete. 3 Knife handle Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8054] Length: 2f˝ (6.67 cm); tang tube 2˝ (5.08 cm) Bone; fragmentary; tang tube exhibits drilling rings, most pronounced at opening. The handle expands slightly at the butt and may have continued into a modified pistol grip.611 4 Table knife Provenance: C.G. 1773B [8055] Length: surv. 4j˝ (10.95 cm) Ferrous metal; incomplete; very narrow bolster, whose surface is too decayed for faceting (if any) to be determined. The blade widened at the shoulders and was thus more akin to no. 2 above than no. 1 above. 5 Knife handle Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8056] Length: surv. 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Ferrous metal; solid and expanding to elongated button at butt. This is an unusual knife type 610. For other precious metal–decorated table knives, see Fig. 75. 611. For a possible shape parallel, see Fig. 76, no. 3 and n. 554. 612. A close parallel comes from Site B (Fig. 76, no. 11). 613. A close parallel is illustrated in I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 268, fig. 87, no. 5, there attributed to the mid-17th century. 614. See Baart et al., pp. 300–301, type III, a form with a long life extending from the 15th century to the early-18th century. The handle form is closely paralleled by a fragment from the

(penknife), which might have been intended for sharpening quills.612 6 Scissor Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8057] Length: surv. 4e˝ (11.11 cm) Ferrous metal; fragmentary; part of small pair; handles likely to have been as long as blades; blades elongated V in section; pivot hole retains no rivet; nothing survives of eye.613 7 Spoon handle Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8058] Length: surv. 3o˝ (10.00 cm) Pewter; incomplete; once-faceted surface decayed. The terminal appears to have been slightly expanded and perhaps rounded, a characteristic more common on Dutch than English spoons.614 8 Spoon mold Provenance: C.G. 1738B and C [8058] Length: surv. 3h˝ (7.78 cm) Local clay; fragmentary. This unique object is represented by matching halves of mold for the bowl, neither of which is complete, one incuse and the other concave. The latter shaped the spoon’s back and is incised with multiple deep scratches, which might represent a bird or possibly an H with an A and other letters. Alternatively they may only represent damage caused by scraping metal from the used mold, although it is unlikely that it would grip within the bowl rather than at the edges.615 Besides being the earliest metalworking mold found in English America, the example is of importance in that the ware, with its orange-to-gray color and occasional mica inclusions, matches the local so-called aboriginal tobacco pipes found on colonial sites from the 1620s into the early eighteenth century.616

Fort (Fig. 45, no. 9). 615. Egan has noted that ceramic molds were generally used in the casting of copper alloys, while limestone was used in the casting of objects of tin, pewter, and iron. An example of stone used in the molding of pistol shot is represented among finds from a Civil War context at Pontefract Castle (Ian Roberts, Pontefract Castle [1990], p. 70). 616. These tobacco pipes were first discussed and illustrated in J. C. Harrington, “Tobacco Pipes from Jamestown,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, vol. V (1951), n.p.

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

9 Book clasp Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8060] Length: opened 2h˝ (5.24 cm) Copper alloy; two hinged elements, one part in approximate fleur-de-lis shape, pierced by three nail holes for attachment to book’s wood and leather cover. The other half folded down and passed over a post on the edge of the book’s back. The missing post had a small lateral hole through it, into which a hook (still attached to the plate) passed. It can be deduced, therefore, that the book was small, and, when shut, its pages created a mass no more than f˝ (1.59 cm) thick.617

10 “Smoker’s Companion” Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8061] Length: 5d˝ (13.02 cm) Ferrous; small, thin, half-round sectioned tongs for extracting ember from brazier; grip created by spring between handles. One of the handles terminates in a disk tamper e˝ (0.95 cm) in diameter, and the other in a disk-shaped blade of the same width, used for cleaning the interior of the pipe bowl. The cleaning blade has a small hole through it, presumably for attaching a thong or ribbon, from which to hang the tool.618

617. These elaborate and ornamental hinges were most often used on small religious volumes. For a 1648 French example with comparable cover-edge post type latches, see Frank Davis, “French Bindings and an Early Stubbs,” Country Life, vol. cxxix, no. 3340 (March 9, 1961), p. 498, fig. 1. For further discussion on book clasps, see Fig. 60, n. 437. 618. For an English parallel in a Civil War context, but of large

fireplace size, see Moorhouse, pt. 2, pp. 37 and 39, fig. 17, no. 20. The use of small ember tongs like these continued much later in the century, a good specimen, along with fragments of two others, having been recovered from a site in Maryland (L. T. Alexander, “Clay Pipes from the Buck Site in Maryland,” The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe, vol. II [1979], pp. 52 and 55, fig. 8, no. 6).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 89

503

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 89 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 COPPER-ALLOY PINS, TACKS, AND FASTENINGS, AND GLASS BEADS 1–4, 6–17 Pins Provenance: (1) C.G. 1736A [8062]; (2) C.G. 1736B [8603]; (3) C.G. 1737F [8064]; (4) C.G. 1773D [8065]; (6) C.G.1737H [8067]; (7) C.G. 1740A [8068]; (8) C.G. 1761B [8069]; (9) C.G. 1736B [8070]; (10) C.G. 1736B [8071]; (11) C.G. 1736B [8072]; (12) C.G. 1761B [8073]; (13) C.G. 1761A [8074]; (14) C.G. 1761B [8075]; (15) C.G. 1735A [8076]; (16) C.G. 1761B [8077]; (17) C.G. 1760B [8078] Ranging 1n–n˝ (4.60–2.06 cm) in length, all with twisted wire heads. Those well enough preserved to be studied appear to be spiraling to the left, a feature that some authorities consider to be a late (i.e., seventeenth-century) characteristic. Although some of the shanks project above the wire heads, all but one are essentially ball shaped. The exception is no. 5, which is discussed separately below. Of the 16 examples illustrated here, only no. 9 retains evidence of tinning. 5 Pin Provenance: C.G. 2009A [8066]619 Length: 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Shank thinned (ground?) to create neck, to which seemingly solid head added and hammered flat at crown. This is an extremely unusual pin type, and it may be significant that it was found in a grave, adhering to the cranium of a woman estimated to be ca. 30 years of age. The pin’s placement suggests that it served to fasten a jaw cloth in position. Unanswered are several questions: Were shroud pins made differ-

619. Although Grave 17 was dug between 1622 and ca. 1645 and dating is purely sequential, Grave 17 was cut by Grave 10 and so predates it, but by how long no one can say. 620. Among several hundred pins recovered by the writer from the foreshore of the Thames at London, only four examples exhibit characteristics comparable to this specimen, and all four come from the same sector of the shore east of Queenhithe Dock. However, all four are in more or less mint condition and show that their heads, though flat at the crown, are formed from twisted wire. This, therefore, raises doubts about the validity of concluding that this specimen’s head is solid. Its condition is such that one is reluctant to remove the oxidation that may conceal shallow grooves or the presence of the shaft being exposed at the flattened crown. Of the four London specimens, only two possess the narrowed neck of this pin. Nevertheless the fact that they exist proves that the Martin’s Hundred example is not an isolated anomaly. That pins were sometimes made with solid, albeit drilled-through heads is also

ently to those in general use? And is this pin of foreign origin, and therefore perhaps a clue to the deceased’s nationality?620 18–21, 24 Tacks Provenance: (18) C.G. 1771B [8079]; (19) C.G. 1740A [8080]; (20) C.G. 1771B [8081]; (21) C.G. 1771B [8082]; (24) C.G. 1767E [8085] Flat and concavo-convex heads; shanks square sectioned. The last is of a size and head appearance common on coffins and trunks of the eighteenth century, save that the head’s underside is flat and the {˝ (1.35 cm) shank poorly centered. 22 Tack Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8083] Length: shank a˝ (1.27 cm) Ornamental head stamped in shape of six-pointed star having raised dot within it; square-sectioned shank thick at junction with head and occupying most of underside. This is a rare type and evidently comes from a small object of considerable quality. 23 Tack Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8084]621 Length: shank a˝ (1.27 cm) Ornamental head, smaller than no. 22 above; decorated with edge beading around flat field. 25 Tack Provenance: C.G. 1761A [8086] Length: shank f˝ (1.59 cm) Ferrous; small, almost flat, vestigially rose head.

demonstrated among the Thames examples, but the sole specimen is much more “brassy” and the head is rendered octagonal, first by cutting and then by filing. The 2d˝ (5.40 cm) Thames pin may be of much earlier (perhaps 15th-century) date. At least one flat-headed pin has been found in Southampton, specifically in Cuckoo Lane. Unfortunately the pins from that context are not individually described and are only collectively dated, to 1550–1650 (Platt and ColemanSmith, vol. 2, pp. 264 and 266, fig. 244, nos. 1836 and 1838). For an essay on 17th-century pinmakers’ tools and techniques, see Holme, The Academy of Armory, pp. 265–267, where, unfortunately, he refers to illustrations that were never printed. 621. Pit 10 lies immediately north of the Barn/Cellar and contains crossmending artifacts. It is reasonable to deduce, therefore, that both were filled at the same time and toward the end of the site’s occupancy.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

26 Hook Provenance: C.G. 1739C [8087] Length: surv. 2c˝ (6.99 cm) Shaped but not sharp at tine end; broken at other. The object may have been some kind of hanger, but in the absence of any barb it cannot have been intended for fishing.622 27–28 Beads Provenance: (27) C.G. 1770E [8088]; (28) C.G. 1768A [8089] Diameter: (27) e˝ (0.95 cm); (28) b˝ (0.64 cm) Glass. For details, see Fig. 38, nos. 1–2. 29–32 Rings Provenance: (29) C.G. 1737A [8090]; (30) C.G. 1738B [8091]; (31) C.G. 1736B [8092]; (32) C.G. 1736D [8093] Diameter: ext. (29) 1˝ (2.54 cm); (30) o˝ (2.38 cm); (31) 1˝ (2.54 cm); (32) o˝ (2.38 cm) For bed or wall hangings, or perhaps for window covers; cast; oval in section. 33 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8094] Length: 1b˝ (3.18 cm) Rolled upon itself to create kidney-shaped profile; pronounced incuse seam at back.623 34 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 1761A [8095] Length: 1b˝ (3.18 cm) One side rolled at edge into S-shaped configuration; other side straight. Traces of leather (?) remain within this very crude example. 35 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8096] Length: surv. 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Fragment; in advanced state of decay; wrapped around end of well-preserved linen cord, perhaps drawstring for shirt or some such clothing.624 36–37 Aiglet Provenance: (36) C.G. 1778A [8097]; (37) C.G. 1736A [8098] Lengths: surv. (36) f˝ (1.59 cm); (37) l˝ (1.43 cm) Fragments.

622. That fish hooks were sometimes made from copper alloys is demonstrated by an example found in the Thames, in association with 18th-century pins and beads (I. Noël Hume, “Hooked on Archaeology,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal [1992], p. 32). 623. For for other examples, see Figs. 18, nos. 11–12; and 69, nos. 1–2. 624. The fibers from this aiglet, as well as those used to support the gold threads of nos. 38–39, were identified by Colonial Williamsburg textiles curator Linda Baumgarten. Five aiglets of different types found at the Governor’s Land site have been

505

38 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 1760B [8099] Length: surv. f˝ (1.59 cm) Fragment; wrapped around woven gold cord; gold wire in turn wound over linen threads. 39 Aiglet Provenance: C.G. 1771B [8100] Length: surv. f˝ (1.59 cm) Brass (?); outer casing not surviving; core of woven gold wound over fibers of linen. 40 Point Provenance: C.G. 1771D [7176] Length: surv. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Woven gold threads from end of ornamental lace (perhaps garter); twisted and glued to fit within nonsurviving aiglet.625 41–43 Hooks and eye Provenance: (41) C.G. 1735A [8101]; (42) C.G. 1778A [8102]; (43) C.G. 1778A [8103] Length: (41) hook 1d˝ (2.86 cm); (42) hook 1b˝ (3.18 cm), eye f˝ (1.59 cm); (43) hook 1h˝ (2.70 cm) Latten (tinned copper alloy, having appearance of silver); ornamental hooks constructed to provide loops or eyes, through which sewn to fabric. To construct them, two lengths of thick wire were folded on themselves and set one within the other, then secured to each other by the inner being folded over the outer at the apex of their respective U-bends. Both pairs were then everted at the anchoring end and rolled to create the sewing eyes. The inner of each pair terminates at the eye, but the outer continues downward below it and within lateral wrapping provided by separate and thinner wire. The long ends of the outer hook wire project sufficiently far below the wrapping to be rolled back on themselves, to create a single-strand eye otherwise matching the double-strand loop above the aforesaid wrapping. The eye (which was found linked to hook no. 42) was manufactured in the same way, but created its hook connector and sewing eyes from a single, doublebent length of wire of similar diameter to that of the hooks.626

published by Outlaw (pp. 206–207), one of which (no. 206) reportedly contained the remains of a linen lace. 625. Golden points hanging from apparently gold-threaded garters are frequently to be seen in contemporary paintings, e.g., Daniel Myten’s 1621 portrait of Sir Henry Paiton (I. Noël Hume, Digging for Carter’s Grove, p. 23, fig. 10; “First Look at a Lost Virginia Settlement,” p. 746). 626. Unfortunately small objects of this kind are rarely published, and few, if any, have been found in contexts as datable as those at Site A. For a discussion of such fastenings, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, pp. 255 and 85, fig. 20, no. 8.

506

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 90

ARTIFACT CATALOG

507

Figure 90 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), ca. 1623–1645 TURNED LEAD 1 H-sectioned window lead fragment627 Provenance: C.G. 1773B [7172] Length: surv. 1e˝ (3.49 cm) Embossed on spine with name “iohn Byshopp . . . .”628 2 H-sectioned window lead fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773B [7173] Length: surv. 2f˝ (6.67 cm) Embossed on spine with legend “. . . shopp of Exceter Gonner.”

Embossed on spine with series of retrograde E’s and inscription “Iohn Byshopp of Exceter Gonner,” followed by three vertically arranged dots and two more retrograde E’s. Spreading lead at the fragment’s midsection represents the remains of a soldered junction between quarrels.

3 H-sectioned window lead fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773B [7174] Length: surv. 3f˝ (9.21 cm)

4 H-sectioned window lead fragment Provenance: C.G. 1760D [8104] Length: surv. 3f˝ (9.21 cm) Embossed on spine with retrograde E’s identical to no. 3 above, with the date “1625” between lines of three vertical dots. The fragment terminates at one end in a cruciform lead block, which had secured three more lengths of turned lead.

627. The H-sectioned lead strips used to secure glass panes (called quarries) in the construction of casement windows are invariably—and incorrectly—referred to as cames. But, as Neve (p. 188) explained as long ago as 1736, “They [glaziers] call it Turn’d-lead, when the Came has pass’d thro’ the Vice, and is thereby made with a Groove on each side, to go on upon the Glass.” Neve noted (under his dictionary’s heading “Lead for Glass-work”) that while lead for quarry glass was usually ca. j˝ (0.79 cm) broad, for larger panes it came in a–1˝ (1.27–2.54 cm) widths. He also offered a description of cames under that heading, calling them “the small slender Rods of Cast-lead, of which the Glaziers make their turn’d Lead.” He added that such rods normally measured 12–14˝ (30.48–35.56 cm) in length. These fragments, therefore, are not cames but turned lead. The foregoing information is to be found in a seminal paper on casement windows by Isabel Davies, Window Glass in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg [1970], wherein she uses illustrations from Diderot to show how glaziers’ vises worked. What she did not know when her paper was published was that the Connecticut Historical Society possesses an original London vise, dated 1717, and inscribed as having been made there by Edward White on July 26 (Fairbanks, vol. 2, p. 206, no. 163). I do not know of an earlier example. 628. The full inscription, as nos. 2–4 attest, reads “: Iohn : Byshopp of Exceter Gonner : 1625 :.” No satisfactory explanation is yet forthcoming to explain why that information should be engraved in retrograde on the vise wheel, where it could not be read without the help of a mirror, and which could not be read at all once it was transferred to the spine of the turned lead. The inscription itself has aroused more popular speculation than any other Martin’s Hundred discovery, ranging all the way from claiming that John was Bishop of Exeter to his being an artilleryman. The truth, however, has been discovered by Mark Charles Fissel of Ball State University (“The Identity of John Biship, Gunner,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol. LXVIII [1990], p. 138–139). On January 11, 1631/2, Charles I reported to the Treasury that he had appointed John Bishopp to the post of royal “handgunmaker.” Along with making locks for guns, Bishopp also made bullet molds and so was used to making devices that did things to

lead. There is, however, no documentation to say that John Bishopp came from Exeter, but it is reasonable to deduce that, being a man of both skill and aspiration, at some time between 1625 and 1631 he moved from Devon to the metropolis. No fragments of cames or glazier’s sprue have been found on any Martin’s Hundred site, and therefore the question must be asked whether preassembled windows were imported to Site A, using glass mounted in lead turned by an Exeter glazier using a vise purchased from John Bishopp, or whether the vise itself was imported and used by, say, a glazier based at Jamestown, who visited the outlying plantations to provide his services. The latter proposition is supported by the discovery of a came fragment from the 17th-century site at Mathews Manor (W.S. 4, a context provisionally dated post-1650). The presence there of such undrawn lead can only be explained if the glazier took his vise to Mathews Manor to help in the construction or repair of its windows. This lead is the earliest-dated artifact from the Martin’s Hundred excavations and thus provided both the filling of the Barn/Cellar and Pit IX with their termini post quem. It is undeniable, however, that the dated fragment comes from the cellar and the others from the pit, and that there is no proof positive that both were impressed from the same wheel. The link, however, is provided by the retrograde E’s, which are the same on both the Byshopp and the 1625 fragments. This lead provided the first evidence that the spines of window lead might be inscribed and dated, and thus can be of value in determining the age of 17th- and 18th-century leaded windows in surviving houses. For further information on subsequently recorded examples of inscribed turned lead, see I. Noël Hume, “Martin’s Hundred, The Search Continues,” Colonial Williamsburg, vol. VII (1985), pp. 22–23; and Geoff Egan, Susan D. Hanna, and Barry Knight, “Marks on Milled Window Leads,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. XX (1986), pp. 303–309. Published in this last is a turned lead fragment found in excavations at St. Mary’s City, Maryland, inscribed “ABRAHAM * MOUNTFORD * WICEMAKER * TANTON 1661.” Another West of England example, this Somersetshire inscription leaves no doubt that the wordings relate to the vise makers and not to glaziers, and therefore have nothing to do with, say, taxation on windows or the quality of the lead.

508

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 91

ARTIFACT CATALOG

509

Figure 91 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), Massacre Victim’s Grave, March 23, 1622 629 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 630 1 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3092B [8115] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined631 Fragmentary; bowl small; rouletting close to mouth; heel round and unmarked.

3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3092F [8117] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl very small and globular; fine rouletting at mouth; heel round, shallow, and unmarked.

2 Bowl Provenance : C.G. 3092C [8116] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Fragmentary; showing signs of burning; bowl globular; constricted at rouletted band near mouth; heel stamped with incuse mark in form of spoked wheel.632

4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3092G [8118] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl’s back633 pronouncedly bulbous; rouletting at mouth; heel round, shallow, and unmarked.

629. Although the man was killed on March 22, it is likely that he remained unburied until the following day. 630. The majority of the pipes from Martin’s Hundred are of English manufacture, but there are sufficient possible Dutch intrusions to warrant the cautionary “and/or.” 631. Here and elsewhere where the stem hole survives but is distorted (as often happens when the wire breaks through into the bowl), the diameter is given as undetermined.

632. Here and throughout the pipes are drawn on a scale of 1:1, but the marks are enlarged to double their true size. Pipe authority David Higgins attributes this mark to London, ca. 1620–1650. 633. The terminology employed here and hereafter follows I. Noël Hume, A Guide to Artifacts, p. 297, the back being the bowl wall closest to the smoker.

510

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 92

ARTIFACT CATALOG

511

Figure 92 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), The Cattle Pond (“India Pit”), pre-ca. 1625 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011J [8119] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Rouletting at mouth and junction with stem; vestigial spur. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011J [8127] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl with bulbous back; fine rouletting below mouth; heel small, flat, and unmarked. Possibly Dutch. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3013G [8120] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Fine rouletting at mouth; heel large, round, and unmarked. 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3012H [8123] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl somewhat elongated; rouletting at mouth; heel similar to no. 3 above. 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011J [8122] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl heavily rouletted; heel broad and small, with no maker’s mark. 6 Bowl Provenance: C.G.3013F [8124] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Similar to no. 5 above; rouletting at mouth; heel flat.

Bowl upturned; rouletted below mouth; heel large, flat, and unmarked. 8 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3013F [8126] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Rouletted at mouth; heel large, flat, and unmarked. 9 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011F [8125] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl upturned; heavily rouletted at mouth; heel large, flat, and unmarked. 10 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 3016C [8268] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl forward thrusting and bulbous above heel; heel ovoid, seems to bear incuse mark of inverted TG.634 11 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011H [8269] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Front appearing similar to no. 10 above; heel incomplete, marked RB with a merchant’s device (?) between them.635 12 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 3013G [8270] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel small and marked with recessed grouping of five dots around a sixth.

7 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011F [8121] Stem-hole diameter: x˝

634. Higgins suggests that this is likely to be a product of north Devon, and that the initials may be those of Thamsyn Garland (1599–1636), the daughter of Peter Takell, who married Ambrose Garland, the earliest known Barnstaple pipemaker, in 1628. If this pipe is indeed a product of Thamsyn, and knowing that she bore a child as late as 1634, her usage of the mark would have been 1634–1636, pushing the usage of the Fort’s Cattle Pond later than is suggested by the other extensive but imprecise evidence.

635. Higgins attributes this mark to Richard Berryman of Bristol, fl. 1619–1652, who was working over a long period; see also Iain C. Walker, Clay Tobacco-Pipes, with Particular Reference to the Bristol Industry (1977), vol. C, p. 1408, fig. B. Pipes with this mark have also been found at Site A, Pit 2; five more from other parts of that site; and three from the Site B pit (e.g., Fig. 99, no. 3).

512

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 93

ARTIFACT CATALOG

513

Figure 93 Wolstenholme Towne (Site C), The Cattle Pond (“India Pit”), pre-ca. 1625 636 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND VIRGINIAN TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3013G [8128] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl bulbous; vestigial rouletting at mouth; heel small, circular, angled, and unmarked. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011E [8129] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl forward thrusting; rouletting around front of mouth; heel circular, well formed, but unmarked.637 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3013E [8130] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl’s front and back markedly bulbous and at forward angle away from horizontal stem; heavy rouletting at mouth; heel round and unmarked. 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011F [8131] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Similar to no. 2 above; but unmarked heel shallower and larger; light rouletting visible at broken mouth. 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011H [8132] Stem-hole diameter: w˝

636. Higgins states that, in his view, the shapes of these pipes suggest a date within the brackets ca. 1640–1680, and questions whether or not the Cattle Pond may have continued to be used much later than has been supposed. But with no evidence of rebuilding after the 1622 massacre, either within the Fort or anywhere else in Wolstenholme Towne, this theory is hard to accept. The shapes and sizes should be compared with the bowls from the Warwick, wrecked at Bermuda in 1619 (Pt. I, Ill. 40.)

Bowl incomplete, thick, and short; wide rouletting at mouth; heel large, shallow, and unmarked. 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011F [8133] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl narrow and forward thrusting; heavily constricted at mouth by deep rouletting; heel broad and unmarked. 7 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011H [8134] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl upturned; tight rouletting at mouth; heel large and unmarked. 8 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3011F [8135] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl forward leaning; fine rouletting around mouth; heel large, shallow, well defined, and marked with crowned “Tudor” rose. Dutch?638 9 Bowl639 Provenance: C.G. 3011J [8136] Buff-to-red clay; irregularly hand faceted; base flat. Virginian.640

637. For a shape parallel from Site D, Pit I, see Fig. 98. 638. Higgins considers this bowl and mark to be Dutch, ca. 1650–1680. 639. Here and elsewhere where nothing remains of the stem hole, the stem-hole diameter line is omitted. 640. For other locally made bowls of generally similar style, see Figs. 106, no. 4; and 110, no. 13.

514

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 94

ARTIFACT CATALOG

515

Figure 94 The Company Compound (Site C), Potter’s Pond, pre-March 22, 1622 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3110C [8137] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Light rouletting at mouth; heel incomplete but unmarked. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3113D [8138] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl similar to no. 1 above; small rouletting at mouth; heel standard and unmarked. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3113G [8141] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl forward thrusting and back somewhat bulbous; slight traces of rouletting; heel ovoid, drawn straight outward from stem, and unmarked. 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3113F [8142] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl narrow and forward thrusting; broad rouletting at mouth; heel small and sloping away from horizontal. 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3113F [8143] Stem-hole diameter: w˝

641. Higgins suggests that the mark might be read as a superimposed SI or IS and notes that a similar mark has been found in London in a ca. 1620–1640 context.

Bowl very bulbous at wall’s fore edge; traces of rouletting survive as light scar well below lip; heel vestigial and unmarked. 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 3113F [8144) Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl somewhat bulbous at back wall; mouth largely missing; heel small and unmarked. 7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3110D [8139] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Shape akin to no. 1 above; but back more bulbous; heel incomplete but marked with what may have been intended as a fleur-de-lis.641 8 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 3111G [8140] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel mark appears to be poorly applied rosette. 9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 3113D [8271] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Shape similar to no. 1 above; heel ovoid and stamped with starlike device.642

642. Higgins suggests that this shape and mark point to a London origin.

516

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 95

ARTIFACT CATALOG

517

Figure 95 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Pits I and V (“Granny’s Grave”), 1619–1622 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1–2 Bowl and stem Provenance: Pit I,643 C.G. 4061C and D [8167] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Stem length: 5b˝ (13.34 cm) Back of bowl humped below mouth; mouth constricted by tight band of rouletting; heel round, shallow, and unmarked. Although the stem ends in a rounded mouthpiece, it is possible, even likely, that it has been shortened and reworked. The only “complete” (?) pipe from Martin’s Hundred.644 3 Bowl Provenance: Pit I, C.G. 4061C [8168] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Fragment; bulbousness similar to no. 1 above; similar constriction from pressure of rouletting wheel. 4 Stem Provenance: Pit I, C.G. 4061A [8169] Stem-hole diameter: x˝

643. Although in the rest of this catalog the editorial policy has been to omit feature descriptions in the text and refer users to Excavation Register details in App. III, in the case of the pipes, where associations one to another have relevance to students of pipe chronology, the pit groups are included in the Provenance line. 644. The 1612 woodcut of The Roaring Girle (Pt. I, Ill. 38) shows a stem that may have been 9˝ (22.86 cm) in length, certainly longer than 5b˝ (13.34 cm). David Higgins doubts whether this supposed stem join is legitimate. His doctoral thesis, “The Interpretation and Regional Study of Clay Tobacco Pipes,” indicates that in the 1620s pipe length ranged 6a–9a˝

Fragment; but demonstrating that all readable fragments in Pit I have bores of same size. 5 Stem Provenance: Pit I, C.G. 4061C [8170] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Fragment; as no. 4 above. 6 Bowl Provenance: Pit V, C.G. 4115J [8145] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Fragment; of unusually small size for period; surface highly polished; diminutive rouletting at mouth’s edge; similar to no. 7 below. 7 Bowl Provenance: Pit V, C.G. 4115J [8146] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Identical in size, polish, and rouletting to no. 6 above; heel round but incomplete.645

(16.51–24.13 cm), and that by the end of the century 10a–15˝ (26.67–38.10 cm) was the norm. 645. The two pipes from Pit V (the grave of the second massacre victim) are similar in size and shape to that shown in Fig. 91, no. 3 (from the Company Compound, massacre victim’s grave), but differ in their very shiny surfaces. Later in the century pipes were offered for sale “glazed,” and it is possible that the surface polish is representative of that refinement. Higgins notes that comparably small pipes are most often encountered on West of England sites (Devon and Somerset) and that there are three examples in the Exeter Museum.

518

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 96

ARTIFACT CATALOG

519

Figure 96 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Pit V (“Granny’s Grave”), March 1622 646 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115F [8272] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl markedly bulbous high on back; mouth constricted by rouletting wheel; heel small, almost to point of being a spur, and unmarked. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115F [8273] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Slightly larger but otherwise similar to no. 1 above; principal difference angle of small, unmarked heel. 3 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8274] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Stem, at junction with lost bowl, impressed with double-S mark, letters separated by lightly applied dot. 4 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115J [8147] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Profile more vertical than most in group; mouth sharply pressed inward by rouletting wheel; heel incomplete and unmarked. 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115J [8148] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl markedly forward thrusting; heel shallow and similarly streamlined; sharp rouletting encircles and constricts mouth. 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115H [8149] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Standard bowl; pronounced rouletting at mouth; heel small and round.

8 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8151] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl angle more vertical than no. 7 above, less bulbous in back; rouletting encircles but does not change shape or diameter of mouth; heel short, large, round, shallow, and unmarked. 9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8152] Similar to no. 8 above; but wider in girth; heel incomplete and unmarked. 10 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8153] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Wider than nos. 8–9 above; slightly wider in mouth; but otherwise the same. 11 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8154] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined High hump at back; marked constriction of mouth by rouletting. These features suggest that this pipe may be by the same maker as Fig. 95, nos. 1–2. 12 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8155] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl bulbous at back; rouletting very fine; heel small, weak, and unmarked. 13 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8156] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl’s angle almost vertical, back humped close to mouth; rouletting very weak; heel round, unmarked, and shallow.

7 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115F [8150] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl bulbous at back, wider in mouth than most; rouletting very close to lip; heel round and unmarked.

14 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115D [8157] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl forward thrusting in manner of no. 7 above; but slightly taller and less bulbous at back; wide rouletting pronounced; heel small, round, and unmarked.

646. The widely ranging shape variations represented by the contents of Pit V, which cannot have had a life span of more

than three years, is important testimony to the difficulty of reliance on pipe-bowl characteristics as dating tools.

520

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

15 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4115A [8158] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl bulbous at back; mouth constricted by heavyhanded rouletting; heel round, shallow, and unmarked.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 97

521

522

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 97 John Boyse Homestead (Site H), Various Stratified Locations, ca. 1619–1622 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND LOCAL TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4122A [8159] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl damaged, but may have had lip cut away by rouletting wheel; heel of standard shape but marked as shown, perhaps with rouletting tool. 2 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 4075B [8160] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel broad and marked with stylized rosette. 3 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 4084A [8161] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Heel round and marked with variant of the rosette (six raised dots surrounding seventh). 4 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 4078A [8275] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Heel oval and bearing incuse mark that may read I (or J) C, with a merchant’s mark between them.647 5 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 4096A [8276] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel vestigial, incomplete, and bearing incuse mark WC.648 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: Pit II, C.G. 4143A [8162] Stem-hole diameter: y˝649 647. Although all examples of these marks from Martin’s Hundred look like a C, Higgins reads the mark as perhaps that of Thamsyn Garland of Barnstaple, ca. 1634–1636; see Fig. 92, n. 634. As in the case of the Fort’s Cattle Pond, there is no structural evidence of reoccupation at Site H after the 1622 massacre. 648. This mark is relatively common on Virginian sites, and Higgins notes that they are usually found with other pipes dating ca. 1620–1660. 649. The very large stem hole places this pipe in Harrington’s earliest group, of which he shows a 20% proportion in his 1620–1650 bracket. Unfortunately when he was doing his study he had no pre-1620 examples to tabulate. Nevertheless the large size of the stem hole may be construed to mitigate toward a date much earlier than the bowl size might otherwise suggest. For Harrington’s scale, see I. Noël Hume, A Guide To Artifacts, p. 298. Although there is as yet no evidence that Virginianmade pipes can be dated on the basis of their stem-hole diameters, when sufficient stem survives those measurements are in-

Ware buff-to-reddish; bowl incomplete and much larger than English examples, but nevertheless made in European manner; heel unmarked. Almost certainly Virginian.650 7 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: Pit II, C.G. 4143A [8163] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Similar to no. 6 above; but insufficiently complete to provide accurate description of type; heel unmarked. 8 Bowl Provenance: Pit II, C.G. 4143A [8164] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware as nos. 6–7 above; bowl wide mouthed; light rouletting had no impact on thick-walled bowl. Probably Virginian.651 9 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4140A [8165] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware red; small section with some paring or faceting. Indian? 10 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 4125A [8166] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware as no. 9 above. The absence of a heel suggests that the pipe was of Indian manufacture—although Indian pipes do occur with flat heels.

cluded for the benefit of future pundits of the pipe. 650. The clay has not been spectrographically analyzed, and therefore the Virginian attribution is only by presumption and the likelihood that, ca. 1622, the colonists were not trading pipes from other foreign sources. Higgins quite rightly notes that nos. 6–8 would be much later than 1622 by English evolutionary standards. But as they are of apparent local manufacture, it is necessary to keep an open mind. 651. The use of the rouletting wheel suggests that this poorly shaped pipe was the work of a craftsman who at least owned a European pipe-maker’s tool and, by extension, had some idea of how to proceed. These pipes, not being as uniform in color as those of supposed Indian manufacture, were at first thought to be later in date (mid-17th century?) and, having been found in Pit II, might be evidence of reoccupation at Site H after the 1622 massacre. There was, however, no other physical evidence to support that thesis. It seems wisest, therefore, to dismiss this group as evidence of poor local pipe making in the 1619–1622 period.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 98

523

524

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 98 Site D, Pit I, ca. 1620–1640 ENGLISH TOBACCO PIPE 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: Pit I, C.G. 3501D [8171] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl forward thrusting; lightly rouletted; heel circular, well formed, but unmarked.652

652. This pipe is the only closely datable artifact from the pit. For a parallel from the Fort’s Cattle Pond, see Fig. 98, no. 2.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 99

525

526

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 99 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Pit A, ca. 1631 653 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115B [8172] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl forward thrusting and slightly bulbous in back wall; even rouletting at mouth; heel circular, shallow, and marked with the initials SH, with dots above and below. This mark was reported on the heel of a “Sir Walter Ralegh” pipe found at Plymouth, England, believed to be Dutch.654 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115B [8173] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl bulbous at back; mouth restricted at back due to rouletting pressure; lip appears chamfered, a characteristic often thought to be Dutch; heel small, circular, and marked with stylized rose under threepointed crown. Several pipes from Plymouth bear this mark and are thought to be Dutch.655 3 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115A [8174] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl similar to no. 1 above; but heel more pronounced and marked R B, with dagger between initials and over a now-missing heart. This mark has been attributed to the factory of Richard Berryman of Bristol, in business 1619–1652.656 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2076A [8175] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl not unlike no. 2 above; but forward wall slightly more ogee in shape; tight rouletting con-

653. Because this pit exhibited several clearly defined strata that were relatively rich in pipe-stem fragments, the layers were bisected, each being treated as individual units with measurable numbers to which the Binford formula could be applied. The layers, from top to bottom, gave mean dates of 1621, 1617, 1616, and 1616, and a cumulative mean date of 1619. At the pit’s bottom lay a large fragment from a locally made slipware dish dated 1631 (Pt. I, Pl. 68), thus placing Binford’s median date 12 years before the pit’s filling actually began. See also Pt. I, pp. 190–191. 654. Oswald notes that the SH initials are given as a Dutch mark in William Bragges’ list of pipes in the British Museum (cited in Adrian Oswald, “Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth, Devon,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. III (1969), p. 138. 655. Ibid. Higgins confirms Oswald’s opinion regarding nos. 1–2, saying that they “certainly both are Dutch.”

stricts mouth; heel large, flat, and marked with relief fleur-de-lis, possibly dividing two illegible initials. 5 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115B [8177] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel pear-shaped, shallow, and marked with incuse heart.657 6 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115E [8178] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel marked with impressed gauntlet, which has been associated with a Somerset maker.658 7 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2076B [8176] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Stem somewhat constricted behind heel; heel marked with ligatured PL.659 8 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115A [8179] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel carefully marked with relief fleur-de-lis.660 9 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2076A [8180] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl incomplete, but enough survives to be sure that it fits the pattern for the period. It is interesting, however, for its sharply down-swept heel, which grows straight from the stem.

656. See Fig. 92, n. 635. 657. Higgins attributes this heart mark to ca. 1630–1660 and suggests a London source. 658. Adrian Oswald, Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist (1975), p. 63. Other pipes with this mark have been found at Mathews Manor on the Warwick River, and yet another variant comes from Site B (Fig. 101, no. 14). An association with the Gauntlett family of Wiltshire pipemakers seems an obvious interpretation. However, the dies vary considerably, and examples have been found as far apart as Devonshire and London. 659. Oswald, “Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth,” fig. 57, notes that a parallel for the Site B specimen is to be found at Plymouth. Higgins notes that he has seen examples bearing yellow glaze, suggesting that they may have been made in a potter’s kiln situated in Barnstaple. 660. This mark is paralleled from Pit 10 (Fig. 108, no. 3).

ARTIFACT CATALOG

10 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115B [8181] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl bulbous; rouletted very close to mouth; heel shallow and unmarked. 11 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115E [8182] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Bowl wider than no. 10 above; rouletting coarser; heel vestigial and unmarked. 12 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115A [8183] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl’s frontal wall similar to that of no. 10 above; incurving to rouletted band below mouth; heel small, oval, and unmarked. 13 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115A [8184] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bulbous bowl; heavy rouletting close to mouth; heel large, round, and unmarked.

527

14 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2115A [8185] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Bowl with weak frontal curve into heel; heavy rouletting below mouth bisected by horizontal line, perhaps caused by a second circumference of wheel; heel flat and unmarked. Not illustrated from Site B, Pit A, is a single heel fragment bearing the same WC mark as the intact bowl shown in Fig. 103, no. 4, which comes from Site A, Pit 1. Three more with this mark were found in less datable contexts at Site B. Of the 43 pipe bowls found in Pit A, six (13%) were marked, including two that are thought to be Dutch. As previously noted (n. 653 above), applying the Binford Formula to the 185 stem fragments from this pit provided a historically unacceptable mean date of 1619. No Virginian-made fragments were found there.

528

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 100

ARTIFACT CATALOG

529

Figure 100 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Pit A and Other Contexts, ca. 1623–1640 DUTCH AND ENGLISH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: Pit A, C.G. 2076A [8188] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl small; rouletted at mouth; lower stem cut and hatched to facilitate bonding into multiple-bowled pipe similar to no. 2 below. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2138 [8295]661 Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl similar to no. 1 above; underside of stem similarly scored. 3 Stem junction fragment Provenance: C.G. 2122 [8296]662 Stem-hole diameters: surv. u˝, v˝, and v˝” For pipe originally having five bowls, shown here in section and profile. 4 Junction fragment Provenance: Pit A, C.G. 2115A Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bulbous nodule wrapping around joined stems, from which emerged single mouthpiece stem. The ball is stamped with a multiplicity of hatched discs, which were decorative and also served to press the soft clay in and around the five stems.

661. This bowl was found far from the others. It comes from topsoil southwest of the house by the ravine. It is interesting to note that fragments of local slipware akin to the 1631 dish were also found in this area. How they came to be so separated remains unexplained. 662. From topsoil ca. 20´ northwest of Pit A. 663. Higgins recognizes that multiple-bowled pipes occur in Holland, but he notes that sufficient number of fragments have been found in England (Bath, Dudley Castle, Leicester, and London) to suggest an English source of manufacture. He notes that the only examples found in England and Holland

Boxed The complete pipe found at the Governor’s Land Site, its three-bowl junction wrapper stamped with the maker’s initials ED, the same mark being applied to the bowls’ heels. These stems, therefore, extended beyond the junctioning, whereas the fragments from Site B would appear to have been so tightly luted together that their heels had been removed as soon as they came out of the single pipe mold. The Governor’s Land pipe(s) provoked considerable interest and debate when first discovered and disagreement among the leading pipe researchers as to their origin. Dutch expert Don Duco has now clearly shown that the ED pipes are Dutch, and the presumption is that the Site B example also came from a Dutch source—though why remains a mystery.663 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: Hearth,664 C.G. 2154G [8198] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl gently curving in front wall, but somewhat bulbous in midsection of back; mouth constricted back and front by fine rouletting; heel round, shallow, and unmarked. A close parallel for this bowl is to be seen from Site H, Pit I (Fig. 95, no. 1).

that show how many bowls had been luted together are from Bath (7), London (4), and Haarlem (9). See Pt. I, p. 191, for a further discussion; also Outlaw, fig. 43 and related text. 664. This pipe is important, in that it was found in the clay construction bed of the hearth for the Site B dwelling and clearly dropped there before the clay became scorched. Although it is evident from the range of pipes present in Site B, Pit A, that bowl dating is far from an exact science, it can be said that this pipe does not preclude the house from having been built as early as 1622.

530

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 101

ARTIFACT CATALOG

531

Figure 101 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Various Locations, ca. 1623–1640 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2103A [8186] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl somewhat forward thrusting and bulbous at back’s midsection; mouth slightly constricted by carefully applied rouletting; heel vestigial, round, marked with incuse TG initials, with crude fleur-de-lis above and below.665 2 Heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2120A [8277] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Crudely marked with incuse WB, with dashed “fronds” above and below.666 3 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 2089B [8187]667 Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl slightly larger than no. 1 above; heel larger, flat, vestigial, and marked with raised initials WP, with five-pointed stars above and below, all within raised circle.668 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2100A [8278] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl larger than nos. 1–3 above; rouletting on surviving rim; heel proportionately large and round, and marked with raised device that may be a W followed by a clearly shaped C.669

665. A heel fragment with an apparently identical mark was found in excavations at Plymouth, England, and Oswald (“Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth,” p. 137, fig. 57, no. 62) attributed the style of the mark to both London and Bristol. He attributes the shape to ca. 1620–1640. A larger pipe with a different TG mark was found at Site A (Fig. 104, no. 3). For Higgins’s interpretation of this mark, see Fig. 92, no. 10, n. 634. 666. Higgins notes that examples have been found in London where four makers with WB initials were at work during the second quarter of the 17th century: William Batchelor, William Boreman, William Bankes, and William Brooker. 667. Found in the same deposit as nos. 7 and 11 below. 668. Higgins suggests a London origin for this pipe. 669. An example of this mark has been found at Hampton in a structural posthole, but lacks close dating (Edwards et al., pp. 282 and 285, fig. 56, no. 7). Oswald had suggested that the maker was William Collins of London, who died in 1686, but

5 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2108B [8279]670 Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel large and marked WC over an inverted V. 6 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2209B [8280] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl probably similar to no. 3 above; heel round and marked with small incuse rosette.671 7 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2089B [8195] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl small and shape uncertain; heel round and marked with stylized rosette or eglantine of five raised triangles around central dot.672 8 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2114B [8194] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl forward thrusting, incurving directly into heel; heel circular, flat, and marked with four incuse “triangles” creating a cross. 9 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2108B [8193] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl shape uncertain; heel oval and marked with incuse device that may be an I crossed to create a J.673

this clearly is too late for the Martin’s Hundred pipe. The mark occurs on other Virginian sites (e.g., Kingsmill and Pettus), information that adds nothing tangible. For Higgins’s comments on this mark, see Fig. 97, no. 5, n. 648. 670. Another variant of the WC initials was found in Site B’s Pit A (ca. 1631), see Fig. 97, no. 5. 671. Higgins notes that he considers this to be a “mid-seventeenth century bowl,” while adding that a similar mark has been found in the Thames, which he places ca. 1610–1640, a date much more in keeping with the presumed Martin’s Hundred archaeological dating. 672. This mark bears some resemblance to another from the Site C massacre victim’s grave, see Fig. 91, no. 2. Higgins suggests that this is a London pipe, an example having been found in the Thames. 673. A. Noël Hume’s draft text stated that Oswald identified this mark as an oak leaf, but her source is not cited. For a rather similar mark, see Fig. 94, no. 7.

532

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

10 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2147A [8192] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl shape uncertain; heel oval and marked similarly to no. 9 above.674 11 Heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2089B [8196] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Heel circular, without maker’s mark, but scratched with owner’s initials J (crossed I) R.675 12 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2104A [8189] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel oval, fore edge flows straight into bowl, slight tail turns to right; marked with hand that lacks lateral lines associated with marks described as gauntlet.676

674. Higgins notes that 16 examples of this mark have been found in Barnstaple excavations, strongly suggesting that these pipes are of north Devon origin. 675. Unfortunately there is no one recorded as living in Martin’s Hundred who had those initials.

13 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2103B [8190] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel larger than that of no. 12 above, possessing tail that turns to left, and marked with hand with fingers more widely spread. 14 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2116D [8191] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel round and impressed with gauntletted hand with thumb to left.677

676. For further information on the gauntlet mark, see Fig. 99, no. 6, n. 658. 677. Oswald attributes these gauntlet-marked pipes to Somerset and notes that there are many variations to the hand. For another example, from Site A, see Fig. 104, no. 4.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 102

533

534

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 102 Jackson/Ward Homestead (Site B), Various Locations, ca. 1623–1640 EUROPEAN AND VIRGINIAN TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2210 [8281] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Ware white to buff, with thin lines or hairs of red brown (ochre?) in mix, creating agatelike appearance;678 bowl shape almost certainly similar to no. 3 below; heel unmarked. 2 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2210 [8287] Stem-hole diameter: v˝679 Ware as no. 1 above. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2052D [8282] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware as nos. 1–2 above; bowl typical of ca. 1620–1640 form; somewhat constricted at lip by rouletting; heel slightly smaller in diameter than no. 1 and therefore not from same mold. 4 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2052D [8288] Stem-hole diameter: x˝680 Ware as nos. 1–3 above.

678. Higgins notes that these brown striations are on the surface and do not extend through the clay, as would be necessary to describe the ware as “agate.” In ceramic terminology surface decoration of this kind, which does not go through the mix, is usually referred to as marbleized. However, Higgins suggests that the apparent ornamentation may be accidental, perhaps as the result of root contact. 679. It is curious that these two fragments of a very rare pipe type are from the same excavation square and yet have very different bore diameters. 680. The large stem-hole diameter suggests that although the bowl and stem fragments were not found close together, the fact that they come from the edge of the ravine area west of the

5 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 2113D [8197] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ornamentally pinched, an elaboration most often encountered on Dutch pipes.681 6 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 2148A [8283] Ware reddish brown; gently carinated bowl form; stamped dots in chevrons between two horizontal rows. Virginian.682 7 Heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 2103B [8284] Ware red brown; base slightly spreading and impressed with dots to make initials RC. Virginian. 8 Bowl fragment Provenance: C.G. 2147A [8285] Ware red; square-cut, thick in sides, and thinned to create wide collar at mouth; base missing. Virginian.

dwelling may suggest that they are parts of the same pipe. 681. Note that another pinched stem, from Site A (Fig. 108, no. 5), is made from a coarse red-firing clay and likely to be of Virginian origin. Higgins notes that similar pinching occurs on English pipes. 682. There has been much debate as to whether or not these pipes were made by Indians for the colonists or by black slaves. The pipes come in a wide variety of shapes and decoration, some designs clearly European and others allegedly of African derivation. Nothing has been found at Martin’s Hundred to sway one toward this camp or that, although this author sees more native American influence than African in those that he has studied. See Pt. I, pp. 192–193 and n. 24.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 103

535

536

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 103 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 1, ca. 1623–1640 683 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8203] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Back bulbous, fore edge thrusting; mouth small and constricted by deep but faint rouletting; heel flat, shallow, and unmarked. 2 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8204] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Larger than no. 1 above; rouletting below mouth more pronounced but less constricting; heel round and unmarked. 3 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8199] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Weak fore-edge outline, running into heel; heel circular, very shallow, and marked with incuse RC, with foliate device above and below.684 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8200] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl slightly larger than no. 3 above; mouth finely rouletted; heel more pronounced than that of no. 2 above and marked WC in relief, with dots at tops of three of the strokes of the W.685 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8201] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Highly polished section of bowl’s back slightly bul-

683. Although the broad dating for the site is used here, it is to be noted that 50 stem fragments, using the Binford formula, provided a mean date of 1631. 684. Another pipe with a similar mark, but lacking the “accenting” stroke on the C, comes from Site A, Pit 9 (Fig. 107, no. 2). Although 15 examples of this mark have been found at Jamestown, Higgins notes that no examples of this mark have been found at the usual English export sites: York, Hull, London, Bristol, or the West Country. 685. Fifteen examples having this mark have been found at Site A and six more at Site B, one of the latter in Pit A, which has a terminus post quem of 1631. Nine more come from the Mathews Manor excavations, most of those in the filling of a ditch attributed to the second quarter of the 17th century. Others have been found at Littletown Quarter (ca. 1630–1650), the Pettus Plantation (ca. 1640–1690), and the Kingsmill Tenement (ca.

bous at girth; clear rouletting around mouth; heel shallow, flat, and marked H F under three-pointed crown and over dot-created rosette or eglantine. This pipe is thought to be Dutch.686 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8202] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl similar in form to no. 2 above; mouth expanded over deeply incised rouletting; heel shallow and marked RG, with raised circles above and below the G.687 Other examples of this mark were present in Pits 5 and 7 (Figs. 106, no. 1; and 109, no. 1). 7 Stem and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8205] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Heel circular and marked with incuse initials AN, with scroll-like devices above and below.688 8 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8207] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Rim missing; heel flat and marked with Catherinewheel device. 9 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1735A [8206] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Heel marked with stylized rosette or eglantine similar to Fig. 101, no. 7.689

1630–1650). This last information was kindly supplied by Alain Outlaw, curator for the Virginia Historic Landmark Commission (pers. comm., May 31, 1978). 686. A polished bowl of similar shape and with the same mark was found at Mathews Manor, along with bowls marked RC and WC, both of which are present in Site A, Pit 1. 687. A similarly shaped and marked bowl was found at Mathews Manor, in a large pit containing pipes marked RC and WC, both of which are present in Site A, Pit 1. 688. There is a pipe with the same mark in the collection of the Bristol Museum, England, but no find spot is recorded (Walker, vol. C, p. 1225). 689. Higgins notes that examples of this mark, as well as that of no. 8 above, have been found on pipes from London.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 104

537

538

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 104 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 2, ca. 1630–1640 690 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND LOCAL TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736C [8208] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl frontally bulbous; tight rouletting immediately under lip; heel round, shallow, and marked R B, with dagger between and heart below, all incuse.691 2 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736D [8209] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl small, close match for complete, pre-1622 pipe from Site H (Fig. 95, nos. 1–2); neat rouletting below mouth but no constriction; heel round, well defined, and marked with raised initials BC, with stylized fleur-de-lis or frond above and below.692

5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1918A [8286]695 Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Typical Dutch form; bowl narrow; mouth without rouletting; heel small and decorated on sides with five dots in relief around another, a device described as a “five-leaved rose.”696 6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736A [8212] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl large, with gently curving walls; very poorly applied rouletting below mouth; heel broad, vestigial, and unmarked.697

3 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1736A [8210] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Rouletted at mouth; heel vestigial, round, and marked with raised initials TG within raised circle.693

7 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G.1736B [8213] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Heel impressed with device identified as an oak leaf.698

4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736C [8211] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl with forward thrusting characteristic of pipes made in south England; rough rouletting close to mouth; heel circular, broad, and marked with gauntlet, thumb to left.694

8 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736B [8214] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Decorated in relief with leaves and flowers below collar with pendant, shieldlike objects embellished with lines and dots. Dutch.699

690. There is no certain dating for Pit 2 finer than the overall Site A bracketing. Using the Binford formula, the stem fragments from four layers within the pit yielded the following results:

Martin’s Hundred, but there is a specimen from the Kingsmill Tenement Site (ca. 1630–1650) and another from London, in association with artifacts dating ca. 1620–1660 (David Atkinson and Adrian Oswald, “London Clay Tobacco Pipes,” Journal of the Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., vol. XXXII [1969], fig. 9, group C). 694. Two more examples were found at Site B (Figs. 99, no. 6 and n. 658; and 101, no. 14). Like the other pipe bowls with this mark, an association with the Wiltshire Gauntlet family seems likely. 695. This pipe is not from Pit 2, but from a groundhog burrow leading in and out of it. The context therefore provides no reliable dating evidence. 696. Oswald, “Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth,” p. 140f, fig. 59, no. 76. 697. Higgins associates this shape with products of Devon and Somerset. 698. Oswald, “Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth.” See also Figs. 94, no. 7; and 101, nos. 9–10. 699. Oswald, “Marked Clay Pipes from Plymouth,” fig. 58, no. 74.

Stratum C.G. 1736A Stratum C.G. 1736B Stratum C.G. 1736C Stratum C.G. 1736D Total C.G. 1736A–D

47 stems 65 stems 32 stems 40 stems 184 stems

Mean date: 1619 Mean date: 1617 Mean date: 1619 Mean date: 1618 Mean date: 1618

Although the four groups showed remarkable consistency, the fact remains that the mean date for Site A would be one year before Martin’s Hundred was settled. 691. There is an identically marked pipe from Site B, Pit A, datable to ca. 1631 (Fig. 99, no. 3). Higgins ascribes these to Richard Berryman of Bristol, ca. 1619–1650; see also Fig. 92, n. 635. 692. This is the smallest marked pipe from Site A. Two parallels have been found at the Kingsmill Tenement Site (ca. 1630–1650), see Fig. 103, n. 685. There is an example in the author’s collection from the Thames at London, but Higgins notes that more have been found in Chester. 693. No parallel for this mark has been found elsewhere in

ARTIFACT CATALOG

9 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736A [8215] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Ware red; but European shape; without rouletting; heel so small as to be almost spurlike. Virginian (?). 10 Stem Provenance: C.G. 1736D [8216] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware red; stem with incised groove at junction with lost bowl. The opposite end has been ground to create a secondary mouthpiece, making the stem length ca. 2˝ (5.08 cm). Virginian (?).

539

11 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736D [8217] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Ware red brown; sides trimmed with knife to create rectangular cross-section; heel pronounced and European in character. Virginian (?). 12 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1736D [8218] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Ware red brown; sides heavily faceted with knife trimming; apparently heel-less. Virginian (?).

540

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 105

ARTIFACT CATALOG

541

Figure 105 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 3, ca. 1630–1640 700 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND VIRGINIAN TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8219] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl forward thrusting; carefully rouletted below mouth; heel round, shallow, irregularly shaped, and unmarked. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737C [8220] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl upturned; rouletted below mouth; heel pinched downward into spur and unmarked.701 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737K [8221] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl bulbous fore and aft; fine rouletting below mouth; heel round, shallow, well formed, and unmarked.702 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737A [8222] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Ware yellowish-to-pink firing; but of European shape; light rouletting below wide mouth; heel European style. Virginian (?).703 5 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1737J [8223] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware buff; upper portion chamfered with knife to create high carination; base flat, probably with defined heel. Virginian. 6 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8224] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware orange buff; bowl elongated and tubular, possibly merging into stem akin to Fig. 104, no. 12; no heel. Virginian.

Bowl conical; carinated below mouth decorated with three incised bands; lower body pared downward, creating wall of shallow facets; no evidence of heel. Virginian. 8 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8226] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Ware pink to buff; crudely shaped; bowl tall and conical, back punctuated in geometric design; stem twice-pierced, wire having failed to penetrate bowl on first attempt; heel shallow and cut into a square. Virginian. 9 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8227] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware pinkish buff; stem’s underside decorated with incised letter E, ends of serifs terminating in pairs of triangular dots. The stem’s junction with the bowl would seem to parallel that of no. 6 above, and on its upper surface the juncture is scored or rouletted with a line of small dots. Virginian.704 10 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737H [8228] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Identical to no. 9 above; but possibly lacking dotted (rouletted?) line at upper junction of stem and bowl. 11 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737B [8229] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Ware gray pink; wall ornamented with eight incised lines in groups of three, two, and three. Virginian.

7 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1737A [8234]

12 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1737A [8230] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware pale buff; tube markedly curved. Virginian (?).

700. Only 36 stem fragments of European, white-clay tobacco pipes were available from this pit complex for use with the Binford formula, these providing a median date of 1626.92. It is highly likely, however, that the depositional date for Pit 3 is several years later. 701. Higgins considers this pipe form to be “typical of the early Barnstaple products.” 702. Higgins believes that pipes of this size and shape date ca. 1650–1670. But the total absence of globular wine bottle frag-

ments from any of the Site A features makes such a conclusion hard to accept. 703. Higgins considers this to be an American “East Coast” product and notes the presence of a similar bowl from a St. Mary’s Cittie ditch, which has a terminus post quem of 1645. 704. For an identically marked fragment, see Fig. 110, no. 10, from the fill of Structure D’s cellar hole. The decorative line separating bowl from stem is also to be seen on a fragment from Pit 2 (Fig. 104, no. 10).

542

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 106

ARTIFACT CATALOG

543

Figure 106 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 5, ca. 1623–1640 705 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND VIRGINIAN TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8231] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Similar in size, shape, and mark to others from Pit 1 and Pit 7 (Figs. 103, no. 6;706 and 109, no. 1). 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8232] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware orange; bowl almost egg shaped; no rouletting at mouth, but thin scored line separates upper stem from bowl; heel vestigial and flat. Virginian. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738C [8225] Bowl incomplete; but enough survives to identify carination below mouth and scored line separating bowl from stem.707 Virginian. 4 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1738C [8225] Shape conical, with evidence of vertical paring, probably with knife.708 Virginian. 5 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8289] Ware red brown; incomplete; decorated with stamped half circles in two horizontal bands and another vertical row linking them. These pipes with incised decoration had their decorative punch holes filled with white, chalklike powder that emphasized the ornament. Virginian, almost certainly Indian.

705. It should be noted that Pit 5 yielded the largest group of locally made pipes from Martin’s Hundred, these being scattered through all levels, while the European, white-clay fragments were restricted to the top two layers (A and B). The 13 white-clay pipe-stem fragments from Pit 5 were too few to merit the use of the Binford formula. 706. Although the mark is essentially the same, the placement of the lower dot on Fig. 103, no. 6, suggests a die variation. 707. For a close parallel from Site A, Pit 3, see Fig. 104, no. 5.

6 Heel and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 738B [8235] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware red-brown; upper side of stem decorated with concentric circles of dots; heel impressed on underside with incuse cruciform device flanked by hatching. Virginian, almost certainly Indian. 7 Stem and mouthpiece fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8236] Stem-hole diameter: s˝ Ware pale buff; sides chamfered; mouthpiece rubbed to smooth surface.709 Virginian. 8 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8237] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Ware buff; stem ornamented with incuse hatching between horizontal rouletted bands. Beyond this device, toward the bowl, are the remains of a multipetalled rosette.710 Virginian. 9 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1738B [8238] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Ware blended buff and red brown, creating elaborate agate appearance;711 bowl end of stem decorated with band of hatching, flanked by horizontal rouletted lines akin to no. 8 above. Virginian.

708. For a close parallel, see Outlaw, pp. 220 and 218, fig. 42, no. 268; also Fig. 110, no. 13. 709. It is possible that this stem was related to a bowl similar to no. 4 above. 710. Two stem fragments with identical designs, but made from clays blended to produce an agate effect, were found in 1963 at Mathews Manor (unpublished). 711. There may be a relationship between this agate stem and Fig. 102, nos. 1–4.

544

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 107

ARTIFACT CATALOG

545

Figure 107 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 9, ca. 1630–1640 712 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8244] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Wall more bulbous at back than front; careful rouletting around mouth; heel round, shallow, and marked IB, with indeterminate foliate (?) devices above and below and surrounded by ring, all in relief. 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773B [8245] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl centrally bulbous at back, more forward thrusting than no. 1 above; rouletting larger and heavier; foot very similar, but bears incuse mark RC, with fanlike spray above and below.713 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8246] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl identical in shape to Pit 1 parallel (Fig. 103, no. 4); strip of rouletting running down one side away from collar; heel round, shallow, and initialed in relief WC, interlocking Vs of the W terminating in raised dots, with chevron device below and isolated dots below and above.714 The Pit 1 parallel had its mouth-girdling rouletting much more carefully applied with a finer wheel.

712. This was the only Site A pit to have been capped with 1´ of clay soon after its use (Pt. I, Ill. 53). Below the cap the several layers contained crossmends that clearly demonstrated that they had all been deposited at about the same time. Compared to the other Site A pits, this one yielded a large number of European pipes (41 bowls and 154 stem fragments), but not one example of the local red-clay variety. Over 40% of the recovered bowls were marked, an unusually high proportion for Virginian sites. The 154 stem fragments provided a Binford-formula mean date of 1627. 713. For a pipe from Pit I with similar initials and decorative devices, see Fig. 103, no. 3. The Pit I bowl differs in being smaller and having a serif projecting from the C to touch the encircling ring. Four comparably shaped and marked pipes were found at Mathews Manor (unpublished), three of them in association with others marked WC and EL, both of which marks are present in Pit 9. The fourth Mathews Manor example was recovered along with others marked WC and HI, and both of these marks are also present in Pit 9. It would be hard, therefore, to find two pits with more conclusive dating associations. With that said, however, it must be recognized that Higgins thinks that the group dates later than 1640. 714. See n. 713 above. Eight examples of the WC mark were found in Pit 9, while another came from Pit A (ca. 1631) at Site B. Nine more come from Mathews Manor, and similar marks

4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773B [8247] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Bowl of relatively slender form; lightly grooved or rouletted around mouth; heel growing directly out of fore edge and stamped with relief IH.715 Like the W of no. 3 above, the vertical elements of the H terminate in dots, while the single stroke of the I is made up from three linked dots. 5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773H [8248] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl more elongated than nos. 1–4 above and forward thrusting; rouletting below mouth reminiscent of no. 3 above, and same tool used to create two interlocking bands at junction of bowl and stem; stem’s surviving extremity is edge of impressed diamondshaped mark containing fleur-de-lis; heel small, shallow, and bearing in relief two Is with a five-pointed star between them and stylized crown above. Dutch.716 6 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8249] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl with pronouncedly bulbous back; mouth heavily rouletted; heel well formed, with incuse initials EL.717 have been found at the site of Littletown Quarter (ca. 1630–1650), the Pettus Plantation (ca. 1640–1690), and the Kingsmill Tenement (ca. 1630–1650). See also Fig. 103, n. 684. 715. See n. 713 above for linkage. 716. See D. R. Atkinson, “A Brief Guide for the Identification of Dutch Clay Tobacco Pipes Found in England,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, vol. VI (1972), fig. 78, no. 17. Higgins puts the date ca. 1630–1660. 717. See n. 713 above; also Fig. 108, no. 1, for another specimen from Site A, Pit 10. Note that although the two pipes are almost certainly from the same workshop, the E of the Pit 10 specimen is somewhat concave in its vertical stroke. Fourteen EL pipes were found in Pit 9, eight of them with trailing rouletting running down from the bowl and evidently the work of the same individual. No EL pipes were found at Site B, but others are recorded from Mathews Manor, the Pettus Site, and the Kingsmill Tenement, all loosely attributable to ca. 1630–1650— which is not a great deal of help. Walker (vol. C, p. 1456) attributed the EL mark to the Bristol factory of Edward Lewis (working 1631–1641) or to his widowed mother or even his own widow, Elizabeth Lewis, who continued the business for a further decade. The date of Edward Lewis I’s death is uncertain. Roger Price, Reg. Jackson, and Philomena Jackson (Bristol Clay Pipe Makers [1979], n.p.) suggest that he may have lived as late as 1652.

546

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

7 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773D [8250] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Decorated throughout most of surviving length with impressed diamonds containing fleur-de-lis. Dutch. 8 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8251] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Decorated with diamond-shaped stamps, each containing pattern comprising four long lines reaching to the center and each terminating there in a dot; between these lines, at the corners of the diamond, a pair of shorter lines. This stem has been reworked to create a rough new mouthpiece. Dutch. 9 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8252] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined

718. This bowl is approximately the same size and shape as the debatably complete pipe from Site H (Fig. 95, nos. 1–2).

Smallest from Pit 9, bulbous at fore edge; carefully rouletted around mouth; heel incomplete.718 10 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8253] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl bulbous fore and aft; heel merged into stem. 11 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1773C [8254] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Bowl bulbous; heel shallow, well defined, and unmarked. The bowl’s principal interest rests in the tooling of the rouletting below the mouth. The wheel’s course began vertically but ended at a slant, demonstrating that drawing a distinction between coarse and fine rouletting may be an unreliable guide to separating one tool or one pipe-maker from another.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 108

547

548

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 108 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 10, ca. 1630–1640 719 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND LOCAL TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8239] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl shape parallels the EL pipe from Pit 9 (Fig. 107, no. 6); but differs in fineness of rouletted band below mouth. But variations in rouletting size can result from the angle at which the wheel is applied.720 2 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8240] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Fragment shows beginning of slope toward bowl; at other end first of series of stamped diamonds containing four boxed fleur-de-lis.721 Dutch. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8241] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware pink-to-buff and very sandy; but bowl of European form; wide-mouthed and finely rouletted

719. There were too few European pipe stem fragments from Pit 10 for the Binford formula to be employed. 720. See Fig. 107, no. 11 and n. 717. 721. This fragment is almost, if not truly, identical to the bowl and stem fragment from the upper filling of Structure D’s cellar hole, suggesting that Pit 10 was a hollow being filled at the

below; heel small, round, and marked with single relief fleur-de-lis. Virginian?722 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8242] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware pale and sandy-colored; but bowl mold made of European form; rouletted band close to mouth composed of alternate groups of two diagonal crosses and five vertical bars, divided from each other by three dots. Virginian? 5 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1761B [8243] Stem-hole diameter: y˝ Ware buff; fragment pinched, similar in character to comparably impressed stems that can be either English or Dutch. Virginian?

same time that the building was abandoned. 722. The small number of stem fragments from the shallow Pit 10 included almost the same number of red-to-buff clay stem fragments as white. Note that this mark occurs on a specimen having whiter clay, which comes from Site B, Pit A (Fig. 99, no. 8) and therefore has a deposition date of ca. 1631.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 109

549

550

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 109 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Pit 7 and Other Contexts, ca. 1623–1645 ENGLISH AND LOCAL TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance : Pit 7, C.G. 1740A [8290] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl similar to marking parallels (Figs. 103, no. 6; and 106, no. 1); neatly rouletted below wide mouth; heel shallow, well-formed, and marked RG, with single dots above and below initials.723 2 Heel fragment Provenance : Pit 7, C.G. 1740A [8291] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Mark paralleling Fig. 101, no. 4.724 3 Bowl fragment Provenance: Pit 7, C.G. 1740A [8292] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined

723. A close parallel for this mark was found at Mathews Manor along with bowls marked RC and HF, both of which were among pipes found with the RG pipe from Pit 1, Site A (Fig. 103, nos. 3 and 5). The apparent difference in this drawing as opposed to the preceding parallels is due to variations in drafting technique.

Ware brown red; lower wall fragment; impressed with ladderlike motifs. Indian. 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance : topsoil, C.G. 1730 [8293] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl similar in shape to no. 1 above; but rouletting poorly applied, distorting back lip; heel round, well formed, and bears same mark as no. 2 above.725 5 Stem fragment Provenance: topsoil, C.G. 1750 [8294] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Ware red brown; impressed with triangle of pricked dots comprising one encircling row, to left of it two pairs of parallel lines creating chevron pattern. Indian.

724. See Fig. 101, n. 669. 725. Although unstratified, this specimen is important in that it is the only one of the three marked heels to retain its bowl profile. See also Fig. 101, no. 4.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Figure 110

551

552

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Figure 110 William Har wood and Thereafter (Site A), Structure D Cellar and Fill, ca. 1623–1640 726 ENGLISH AND/OR DUTCH AND LOCAL TOBACCO PIPES 1 Bowl and heel fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771A727 [8255] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl forward thrusting and slightly bulbous at back; heel round, growing directly out of fore edge, and marked with cross created with rouletting wheel.728 2 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771D [8256] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Bowl large and forward thrusting; evenly applied rouletting close to mouth and on upper side of stem, immediately in front of fracture diamond containing four fleur-de-lis, a cross between them, and an outer beaded border; heel relatively small, angled away from horizontal stem, and unmarked.729 Dutch. 3 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1770B [8257] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Smallest from this deposit; bowl’s fore edge markedly bulbous; fine rouletting close to slightly chamfered lip; heel shallow, well formed, and unmarked. 4 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771D [8258] Stem-hole diameter: v˝ Bowl with elongated bulbous walls; waisted below mouth due in part to rouletted band; heel round, well formed, and unmarked. Dutch?

726. A total of 161 stem fragments was found in the main filling of the cellar and provided a Binford-formula mean date of 1647. The Binford dating “is relatively close to the estimate obtained from the study of the pipe bowls as well as the ceramics and glass from the same deposit” (A. Noël Hume, “Tobacco Pipes Excavated at Martin’s Hundred, Virginia, 1976–1978” [1979], p. 25). In the light of continuing studies of all this material, coupled with the apparent evolution of Site A, a terminal date closer to 1640 seems reasonable. It should be remembered, too, that the Binford formula’s mean date for Site B, Pit A (ca. 1631) was off by 12 years; see Fig. 99, n. 653. On the other hand, Higgins’s interpretation of the pipe shapes goes much later, attributing nos. 1–2 and 5 to ca. 1660–1680. But had this been so, there would almost certainly have been globular wine bottle fragments in the fill. All that can be said with certainty is that the main deposit must date after 1625, that being the date

5 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8259] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Bowl forward thrusting, fore edge more bulbous than back; rouletting incomplete below mouth; heel large, relatively well formed, and unmarked. 6 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8260] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Ware white clay; tube pinched in manner often considered Dutch.730 7 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1760E [8261] Stem-hole diameter: w˝ Short stem section, bearing diamond-shaped stamp on upper surface comprising four fleur-de-lis with raised cross between them but no outer border in the manner of no. 2 above. Dutch. 8 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1771D [8262] Stem-hole diameter: x˝ Ware buff with dark inclusions; but bowl molded and relatively straight-sided; irregular band of rouletting below mouth; heel round and well formed. Virginian? 9 Bowl and stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1760B [8263] Stem-hole diameter: x˝

on the turned window lead. It is important to note that levels below the washed-in silting (e.g., C.G.1760F and 1764B; see Pt. I, Ill. 23), were deposited during the lifetime of the building (i.e., ca. 1623–1630), while those above the wash (largely level A) are attributable to ca. 1630–1645. 727. For a sectional view of the Structure D cellar and an identification of its layering, see Pt I, Ill. 23. 728. Although the width of the rouletting at the pipe’s mouth is very different from that of the cross on the heel, one should bear in mind the caveat cited in Fig. 107, no. 11. 729. See also Fig. 108, no. 2. 730. See also Fig. 108, no. 5. Note that the pinching had to have occurred while the wire remained within the stem.

ARTIFACT CATALOG

Bowl of apparently local manufacture but semiEuropean in shape; mouth slightly flaring above poorly applied rouletted band; heel small and also of European character. There is a clearly visible moldmark or seam running down the fore edge. 10 Stem fragment Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8264] Stem-hole diameter: v˝731 Ware pink-to-buff, but core blackened by reduction; ante cocturam E on underside. Virginian.732

553

midsection bands interrupted by triangular zones fore and aft. Virginian Indian. 12 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8266] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware as no. 11 above but heavily burned; bowl carinated at midsection and decorated there and below mouth with bands of pricked dots. Traces of another such band are visible at the junction with the lost stem. Virginian Indian.

11 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1760A [8265] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware orange; bowl shape characteristic of many assumed-to-be Virginian Indian products, generally conical and chamfered to create carination below mouth; walls decorated with bands of pricked dots,

13 Bowl Provenance: C.G. 1771A [8267] Stem-hole diameter: undetermined Ware red to black in core; conical shape; sides knife-chamfered; upper wall below mouth pared into carination.733

731. Note that the bore of this specimen is markedly different from those of the Pit 3 E pipes: y˝ and x˝. 732. This incised ornamental E is identical to two other exam-

ples from Pit 3; see Fig. 105, nos. 9–10. 733. For a parallel for this faceted bowl shape (but not the upper carination), see Fig. 106, no. 4.

APPENDIX I

Faunal Analyses Dr. Olsen is one of the pioneers in the study of faunal remains in historical archaeological contexts, and Colonial Williamsburg was fortunate to secure his services long before it became mandatory to have a “foodways” specialist as a consultant to virtually every excavation. On some occasions Dr. Olsen came to Williamsburg to study the faunal material and on others the bones were shipped to him. Lessons learned as the result of losing some of the material on the railroad discouraged curator Audrey Noël Hume from shipping some of the more fragile remains. Thus, for example, Dr. Olsen never saw the sharp-shinned hawk skeleton from Site B, Pit A, which is here described in an extract from a letter

from Dr. George E. Watson, Curator of Birds at the Smithsonian Institution. Because the material studied by Dr. Olsen was seen by him over several years, his approach to the material was not always consistent. Thus his study of bones from Site A (the first to be dug) is limited to a taxonomic listing, whereas his later reports are more discursive. It should be noted that the hoped-for detailed report on the human remains from Sites A, B, C, and H, which were to be provided by the Smithsonian Institution’s Dr. Lawrence C. Angel, had not gone beyond note stage at the time of his death.

Site A Stanley J. Olsen

Taxonomic List INDIGENOUS FAUNA CLASS OSTEICHTHYES Order Perciformes Family Carangidae Caranx hippos, cravalle jack Family Sciaenidae Pogonias cromis, black drum

1. Considered a Subfamily, under the Family Testudinidae, by some authors.

Family Sparidae Archosargus probatocephalus, sheepshead

CLASS REPTILIA Order Chelonia Family Chelydridae Chelydra serpentina, snapping turtle Family Emydidae1 Terrapene carolina, Eastern box turtle

CLASS AVES 2

2. Bird bones were too fragmentary for positive taxonomic assignment to either wild or domestic categories. Some may represent either the domestic goose, Anser sp., or the wild goose, Branta sp.

APPENDIX I

CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Cervidae Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Order Lagomorpha Family Leporidae Sylvilagus floridanus, Eastern cottontail Order Rodentia Family Sciuridae Marmota monax, woodchuck

INTRODUCED DOMESTICATES

555

ments. Both butcher knife cuts and chop marks are present on these bones. Found 3˝ below present surface. C.G. 1736 Chelydra serpentina, snapping turtle Right scapula. Terrapene carolina, Eastern box turtle Two carapace fragments. Anser/Branta spp., domestic or wild goose Distal end of carpometacarpus. Gallus gallus, domestic chicken Tarsometatarsus.

CLASS AVES Order Galliformes Family Phasianidae Gallus gallus, domestic chicken

CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Bovidae Bos taurus, domestic cattle Capra hircus, domestic goat Ovis aries, domestic sheep Family Suidae Sus scrofa, domestic pig

incertae sedis Because of the fragmentary or incomplete nature of much of the recovered bone, it was not possible to assign close taxonomic designations to all specimens. This was particularly true for animals that are morphologically quite similar, e.g., geese and swans or sheep and goats. Fragments of these animals are broadly listed as goose/swan or sheep/goat. Some elements were too fragmentary to allow assignment below the general category of “mammal, indeterminate.”

Marmota monax, woodchuck Tibia, humerus, and radius. Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Shaft of radius with butcher knife cut marks. Sylvilagus floridanus, Eastern cottontail Proximal end of left femur. Bos taurus, domestic cattle Distal shaft of right femur with butcher knife cut marks. Sus scrofa, domestic pig Miscellaneous teeth and fragment of mandible. Several individuals, one unusually large. C.G. 1737 Caranx hippos, cravalle jack Trunk vertebra. indet. teleost fish Vertebral centrum, rib, and spine. Gallus gallus, domestic chicken Two right tarsometatarsi. Marmota monax, woodchuck Fragmentary bones.

Faunal Occurrences by Provenience

Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Antler fragments of large individual, some with rodent gnaw marks.

C.G. 1735A Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Two individuals, determined from distal end of humerus, proximal end of metatarsal, and 3 molars.

Bos taurus, domestic cattle Several fragments, mostly immature individuals.

Bos taurus, domestic cattle Two individuals (young adults), determined by proximal end of right metatarsal and tibia shaft frag-

Sus scrofa, domestic pig Fragmentary teeth and several associated metacarpals or metatarsals of immature individuals (may indicate a meal of “pigs’ feet”).

556

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

C. G. 1738 Pogonias cromis, black drum 19 isolated teeth of large individual. Bos taurus, domestic cattle Numerous fragmentary bones, some burned or showing evidence of butchering, and three lower molars. Sus scrofa, domestic pig Several fragmentary teeth. C.G. 1755 Bos taurus, domestic cattle Fragments of mandible and some weathered limb material of an immature individual. C.G. 1760 Bos taurus, domestic cattle Numerous fragments of bones, some showing evidence of butchering or burning. C.G. 1761 indet. teleost fish Spine of single individual. Anser/Branta/Cygnus, goose/swan Partial left ulna. Gallus gallus, domestic chicken Partial sternum. Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Large “elk-sized” left P3, fragments of mandible, astragalus, humerus, and ribs with butcher knife marks. Bos taurus, domestic cattle Miscellaneous bone fragments, some with butchering marks. Capra hircus, domestic goat Horn core of scimitar-horned race of goat. Ovis/Capra, sheep/goat Fragments of limb bones and teeth. Sus scrofa, domestic pig Several individuals ranging in size from small through average to large, based on molar size. C.G. 1770A Bos taurus, domestic cattle 18 fragments of teeth.

3. Provenance descriptions are included when not provided in App. IV.

C.G. 1771 Bos taurus, domestic cattle Numerous fragments of bone, some butchered and some burned. C.G. 1771A Archosargus probatocephalus, sheepshead Fragmentary bones. Caranx hippos, cravalle jack Several fragments that compared well with a skeleton of a 41˝, 281 lb. specimen. Pogonias cromis, black drum Fragmentary bones. indet. teleost fish Fragmentary bones. Gallus gallus, domestic chicken Humerus with cut marks. indet. bird Fragment of bone. Bos taurus, domestic cattle Fragmentary bones of immature and adult individuals, some with butcher marks. Sus scrofa, domestic pig Maxilla with 5 teeth of average-sized individual. C.G. 1790 Bos taurus, domestic cattle 2 lower molars of a calf. C.G. 1802A Bos taurus, domestic cattle Metapodial of average individual with deep chop mark on condyle. Sus scrofa, domestic pig Fragment of mandible of large young adult. C.G. 1803A: posthole for Structure C, adjacent to 1802A, W wall.3 indet. teleost fish Spine. Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer Distal portion of left humerus. Ovis/Capra, sheep/goat Fragmentary humerus.

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APPENDIX I

C.G. 1811A: posthole for Structure C, SW corner. Sus scrofa, domestic pig One-half of deciduous M2.

General Summar y

C.G. 1816A: posthole for Structure A, center S boundary. Odocoileus virginianus, white-tailed deer 2 third phalanges and a calcaneum. C.G. 1816C Bos taurus, domestic cattle Distal portion of right tibia. C.G. 1826A Bos taurus, domestic cattle Several fragments of humerus, badly weathered. C.G. 1833A Bos taurus, domestic cattle Partial molar. C.G. 1867A Bos taurus, domestic cattle Humerus shaft of small individual and upper premolar.

Since the excavations at Carter’s Grove are not completed, perhaps it would be best at this point to add only brief comments on the bones that were determined from the proveniences listed above. All the fish identified are common to the area but are somewhat larger than those obtained today. They were most abundant in C.G. 1773B. The turtles were too fragmentary to add significantly to our knowledge of the subsistence behavior of the site’s occupants, but both the fish and turtles are accepted as probable food items. Osteological remains of birds are too fragmentary to discuss in any detail. The chickens all appear to be of a small “banty” race. The woodchuck remains may simply be intrusive due to the burrowing habits of this animal. One individual was in close proximity to a burrow indicated on the site plan. All the domestic animals recovered appear to lie on the smaller end of the size continuum when compared with the skeletons of modern farm breeds. The goat was of the “scimitar-horned” variety, which is the most common breed found in modern North American farmyards.

Site C Stanley J. Olsen Almost without exception the recovered bone from this site is exceedingly fragmented and incomplete, particularly the fish remains, so that close, specific determinations were not possible in many instances. Some fragments (ribs and long bone splinters) lacked specific determining characteristics so that they were listed to the closest taxonomic category. In most instances this resulted in a rather broad tabulation of “indeterminate” rather than a guessed determination of what is probably pig, cattle, or deer. More time was spent than would generally have been allotted in attempting to track down these elusive identifications because of the early nature of the site. A bit puzzling is the complete absence of bones of rabbits and birds, since these animals are generally quite common in other early colonial sites in North America. Of considerable importance is the recording of representatives of the earliest occurrences of domestic cattle and pigs in English settlements in North America. Few bones showed evidence of human alteration, butcher marks, or burning.

Taxonomic List CLASS OSTEICHTHYES Order Perciformes Family Carangidae ?Caranx hippos, cravalle jack Family Sciaenidae Pogonias cromis, drum

CLASS REPTILIA Order Chelonia Family Emydidae Terrapene carolina, Eastern box turtle

CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Bovidae Bos taurus, domestic cattle

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Family Cervidae Odocoileus virginiana, white-tailed deer Family Suidae Sus scrofa, domestic pig Order Carnivora Family Procyonidae Procyon lotor, raccoon

Fish

The bulk of the fragments from all proveniences throughout the site were of the white-tailed deer. All areas of the skeleton are represented, including several antler fragments. Most of the bones are from adults but a few were sub-adult. Several fragments were burned. A concentration of 21 fragments, representing all areas of the deer skeleton, were collected from C.G. 3011H.

Mammals, Introduced Domestic

A mere splinter of a questional rib of the cravalle jack (Caranx hippos), and a fragmented fin ray and a few scales of the drum (Porgonias cromis) are all that were recovered of fish remains. Fish are rather common in other colonial sites in the Williamsburg area.

Reptiles Plastron and carapace fragments of several individuals and two or three nearly complete carapaces were recovered of the Eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina). One of the shells had been burnt through at the midline, suggesting, perhaps, that it rested in hot coals or ashes while the animal was being cooked; or that it was used as a vessel to cook some other portion of a meal. This would have been a rather common animal in the area, as it is today.

Mammals, Indigenous Only two wild indigenous mammals are represented in the faunal collections. These are the raccoon (Procyon lotor) and the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Two complete metacarpals and right calcaneum, the latter with knife cuts on the tuber calcis, and a partial right mandible with the anterior dentition preserved are all that represent the raccoon.

Bones of domestic cattle (Bos taurus) were second in number only to those of the deer. Referring to Table 1 can be a bit misleading. Bos taurus, as indicated, may have been determined from a partial tooth or a mere fragment of bone rather than a substantial portion of the animal’s skeleton. This paucity of bone, however, does not alter the fact that this particular animal was present in the provenience indicated. Fragments of teeth indicate that both adult and immature cattle are represented. Nearly all areas of the skeleton are also represented by the fragments of bone. Two fragments of domestic pig (Sus scrofa) are of more than passing interest. One, a left upper canine, with the “short” proportions usually found in a typical confined, fully domestic animal (from C.G. 3011H), differed noticeably from a nearly complete large adult lower canine (from C.G. 3016F) that compared well with a feral pig from Florida. This longer “tusk” is typical of pigs fending for themselves in a semi-wild state. The few fragments of domestic pig bones and teeth indicate both large and small individuals as well as those that are adult or immature forms. Quite a few splinters and fragments had morphological features that allowed for a determination of artiodactyl, but not reliably enough to state with any certainty that they were of cattle, pig, or deer. These were tabulated as being “undetermined” rather than to list them as “guessed” genera or species.

Sites B, C, E, and H Stanley J. and Sandra L. Olsen The report that follows presents and interprets the data collected from Sites B, C, E, and H on Martin’s Hundred. The 11 bones from Site C should be added to the material previously analyzed from this site, but will be briefly discussed below. Where present such

taphonomic features as rodent and carnivore gnawing, root etching, and weathering were noted. The moist soil has caused much of the bone to be extremely friable, necessitating the application of hardening agents in some cases. The fragility and exfolia-

APPENDIX I

tion of bone from Martin’s Hundred has contributed to the problem of identification of the elements and assignment to taxonomic classifications. The material will be discussed by site and in taxonomic order under each site heading. Charts giving the number of bones assigned to each taxon by specific provenience unit within the sites are also included (Table 2).

Site B CLASS AVES Order Charadriiformes The proximal half of a humerus of a bird was found in C.G. 2076E. It was identified as a shore bird or related member of the order Charadriiformes (shore birds, gulls, auks, and their allies) on the basis of a limited comparative collection. With an extensive collection of Eastern water birds there is little doubt that this specimen could be further identified, at least to the family and possibly to the genus level. It resembles the greater yellowlegs (Totanus melanoleucus), but this is only tentative since all members of the order were not accessible for comparison. The proximity of Martin’s Hundred to the James River and Chesapeake Bay increases the number of shore birds available to the inhabitants. It is possible that these species were used to a minor extent for food.

CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Bovidae Bos taurus Five elements, representing at least two individuals, were identified as domestic cattle. No sexing or aging criteria were present. Two right scapulae from C.G. 2115B were chopped through the neck. The deep, transverse, V-shaped cuts in one of the scapulae show a slippage of the tool, probably an axe, as it struck its blow. Cuts of beef taken through the scapula transversely are referred to today as chuck steak (Tucker, Voegeli, and Wellington 1952:24, 33). Only bones of the upper portion of the fore and hind limbs were found at Site B, with portions of the skull and trunk completely lacking. Ovis/Capra Only three elements were positively classifiable as domestic sheep or goat. Postcranially the two genera are nearly indistinguishable, especially where small

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fragments are concerned. A proximal phalanx from C.G. 2115B with a partially fused distal epiphysis would have come, according to modern data for sheep (Silver 1963:252), from an individual ca. 13–16 months of age. This was the only aging data from Site B for sheep or goats. A left tibia fragment, one of two tibia found in C.G. 2115E, had been charred along the anterior crest, an area exposed even while the meat is on the bone, suggesting that a leg of lamb was roasted nearby. Family Cervidae Odocoileus virginianus Twelve elements belonging to white-tailed deer were collected. Table 3 displays the elements by provenience unit. Age determinations by dental eruption and wear were possible in two cases. At C.G. 2076B an isolated left fourth premolar showed only minimal wear, suggesting that it had erupted only a few months before. The age of the individual is therefore estimated to have been ca. 20–24 months, using data from Severinghaus (1949:210). A left mandible from C.G. 2115D contained P4 through M3 in place. The heavy wear on the third molar is indicative of an old adult of ca. 7–10 years (Severinghaus 1949:211–212, Harlow and DeFoor 1962:19). The occurrence of two left metatarsals from C.G. 2115 (A and F) gives evidence that at least two individual deer were utilized at Site B. This is supported by the dentition from C.G. 2076B and 2115D of a young and an old adult respectively. None of the limb bones appear to have been juvenile or younger. Apparently, adult deer were more commonly killed by these local colonists. Two bones, a left scapula and a right tibia from C.G. 2115E, were burned. A left radius had a diagonal cut 2˝ above the distal condyle, probably made when the forelimb was sectioned at the wrist during butchering. Family Suidae Sus scrofa Cranial and dental remains of domestic pig were relatively common at Site B, while limb elements were either absent or fragmented beyond recognition. Silver (1963:264–265) has shown that historic accounts of dental eruption in pigs from the late eighteenth century differ greatly from modern eruption schedules, with the historic records showing late eruption dates. Among modern breeds maturation varies greatly so that it may be more reliable to use the eighteenth century records for rough estimations for ages of pigs at the time of death at Martin’s Hundred. Because most of the teeth were in isolation rather than being in place in complete mandibles or maxillae with other teeth, aging is less secure in its accuracy.

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Table 4 shows the range of dentition found, the minimum ages of individuals as determined by age at eruption, and the extent of attrition on the occlusal surface. Lack of wear indicates that the tooth had not yet erupted or was newly erupted; light wear suggests that the tooth had been in use for a few to several months; and heavy wear means that the individual was considerably older than the age given for eruption. The amount of wear is highly variable between populations because of dietary differences, causing it to be an inexact measure of age. Using the eighteenth century data (Silver 1963) for aging criteria, all of the individuals represented were over one year of age. The absence of deciduous dentition may in part be owing to their fragile nature rather than to a total lack of juvenile deaths. The presence of an upper third molar with heavy wear indicates that some individuals were maintained for perhaps as much as four or five years or more. The average age of death appears to be 1–2.5 years, sufficient time for the pigs to grow to an adequate size for butchering, but prior to reaching maximum growth. In addition to dentition, several cranial and mandibular fragments were recovered. C.G. 21125A contained a right frontal of a juvenile. C.G. 2115B yielded a maxilla and a mandibular fragment, each with a first molar. A right mandible from C.G. 2125D exhibited a knife cut between the alveoli for the first and second premolars, indicating that the cheek was removed during the butchering process. Finally, C.G. 2115E produced a right paramastoid process from the occipital of the skull. Family indeterminate Five bone fragments were identified as belonging to even-toed ungulates, but could not be classified to a more specific taxonomic level. C.G. 2076B contained a cheek tooth root in an alveolus of either a maxilla or mandible and a small piece of left tibia. Both were from individuals that were about the size of a deer, sheep, or goat. C.G. 2115A also contained two fragments: a sheep-sized thoracic vertebra and a minute shaft fragment of a tibia. The vertebra was burned, perhaps as a result of cooking the thorax of the body. In C.G. 2115B a small metapodial fragment was recovered. These data are limited in their interpretive value because of the absence of distinguishing characteristics, but they assist in evaluating the relative importance of artiodactyls in the diet. None of the artiodactyl bones of indeterminate family were from individuals as large as elk or cattle, so that they must have been derived from sheep, goat, whitetailed deer, or possibly pig.

Order Carnivora Family Canidae Canis familiaris At C.G. 2115E a small portion of the diaphysis of a right radius of a domestic dog was collected. This bone had telltale indications of carnivore gnawing, perhaps made by other dogs in the area. Family Procyonidae Procyon lotor The partial right tibia of a raccoon was found in C.G. 2115E. Like the rib fragment described below, it had been charred. Raccoons may have been exploited for their meat and pelts, as well as possibly raised as pets. Raccoons prefer to be near wooded shores along streams, lakes, and marshes (Bailey 1946:133). Family indeterminate A left rib of a raccoon-sized carnivore was found in C.G. 2076B. The bone had been thoroughly burned, perhaps indicating that the animal had been cooked. Order Rodentia Family Sciuridae Marmota monax A single right rib fragment of a woodchuck was found. The occurrence of this species at Sites A, C, and H as well suggests that it was being captured either for its pelt, its meat, or both. The woodchuck is basically a terrestrial rodent, occurring in Virginia most frequently in the mountains, less often in the plateau, and only rarely in the Tidewater region (Bailey 1946:178). Because woodchucks or groundhogs have a strong preference for cultivated fields and do considerable damage to crops, they may have been exterminated as pests by the colonists during the spring and summer when the creatures are most active. Woodchucks hibernate in burrows during the winter. Order indeterminate Forty-six indeterminate mammal bone fragments were recovered. Of these, seven were derived from medium or large mammals and 21 from large mammals. Arbitrary size categories of small (fox-sized or smaller), medium (raccoon- to sheep-sized), and large (pig- to horse-sized) were used where possible in order to evaluate the relative quantities of different sizes of animals utilized as food resources.

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Eighteen of the fragments were recognizable as mammal bone, but could not be placed in a size group. Eight of the indeterminate mammal bones were charred, possibly from roasting meat over a fire. One long bone shaft fragment had a transverse knife cut across it, suggesting that meat had been removed.

CLASS INDETERMINATE One bone shaft fragment could be identified only as that of a bird or small mammal. This element, from C.G. 4019A, was burned.

Site H

Site C CLASS MAMMALIA Order Rodentia Family Sciuridae Marmota monax A nearly complete right mandible of a woodchuck was recovered from C.G. 3390A. The cheek teeth are well worn, indicating that the individual was a mature adult. This adds a new species to the list of fauna collected at Site C. Order indeterminate Ten bone fragments were derived from a large species of mammal, such as cattle or horse. Three of the fragments appear to have come from the diaphysis of a humerus, but the others were from indeterminate elements. All were heavily weathered, further inhibiting identification.

Site E CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Cervidaea Odocoileus virginianus The proximal end of a right radius of a white-tailed deer from C.G. 4019A had been burned. This supports other evidence in the Martin’s Hundred sites that deer was a common source of protein. The element was of adult size, though no estimate of age is possible based on epiphyseal fusion from the proximal radius. Order indeterminate One bone fragment from C.G. 4019A and two from C.G. 4019B were derived from indeterminate mammals, one of medium to large size, one large, and one of indeterminate body size. Two were burned and the third exhibited traces of butchering and carnivore gnawing.

Three hundred and five separate bone fragments plus a nearly complete dog burial were collected from Site H, and the range of taxa identified is quite large.

CLASS OSTEICHTHYES (requiring further comparison) Two hundred and fifteen miscellaneous bone fragments of fish were found at C.G. 4115J. Forty-nine of these could be identified as to element and indicate that whole fish, rather than fillets or heads, were discarded there. Our comparative collection did not contain representatives of this kind of fish, but an ichthyologist should be able to be far more exact in classifying these remains. C.G. 4115D contained one interoperculum, an element of the cranium, of an indeterminate fish. Similarly, a larger comparative collection for East Coast fish might enable more specific identification of this bone. Order Siluriformes Family Ictaluridae Ictalurus lacustris Three bones—a left ceratohyal, a right interopercle, and a trunk vertebra—were identified as being from channel catfish. This species was originally native to the streams of western Virginia that were members of the Ohio and Tennessee River watersheds, but has been successfully introduced into all of the major streams in Virginia (Shomon 1955:xx5). This species is prized as an excellent fish for human consumption. Its flavor and texture are said to compare to any freshwater fish in quality (Shomon 1955:46).

CLASS REPTILIA Order Chelonia Family Emydidae Terrapene carolina Eastern box turtle elements were found in three areas: a left hyoplastron from C.G. 4073A, two hyoplastron fragments from C.G. 4076A, and a neural fragment of the carapace from C.G. 4080A. The Eastern

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

box turtle inhabits most of the eastern United States and shows a preference for open woodland near streams and ponds. The hibernation period varies with the region, but is usually ca. October or November–April (Carr 1952:142). Because they may burrow quite deeply in loose soil, there is the risk that this species may be intrusive. In addition, the predilection children have for collecting and taming box turtles may also explain their appearance in the archaeological record. The presence of turtle remains in three separate areas of the site could also be explained as the refuse of a meal, though turtle may not have been a regular part of the colonists’ diet. Family Kinosternidae Kinosternon/Sternotherus A peripheral bone of a carapace of a mud or musk turtle was collected in C.G. 4076B. The common mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum) occurs along the Atlantic coastal plain and the adjacent Piedmont (Carr 1952:101). Its habitats are quite diverse, but the mud turtle seems to prefer shallow, slow-moving water, as in ponds, ditches, creeks, and estuaries (Carr 1952:101). An unusual feature of this species is its ability to inhabit brackish or even salt water. They hibernate in mud in the winter, but are accessible otherwise because of their habit of emerging partially or even completely onto dry land. The common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) is found over most of the eastern United States, preferring mainly permanent water. This species is extremely aquatic and may be difficult to locate and capture because of its habit of predominately remaining submerged. During the harsh winter months it hibernates in the muddy floor of shallow areas (Carr 1952:84–86). Mud and musk turtles are unlikely to have been used for human consumption, except in extreme cases, because of the presence of powerful musk glands, which produce a nauseating odor as a defensive device. The occurrence in the site of one or the other genus may have been either accidental, or the result of a child bringing one home as a pet. Though they may become quite tame, their aquatic nature necessitates special care and the presence of some form of permanent water source. Family indeterminate Seventeen fragments of turtle carapace and plastron were collected at C.G. 4076A from an individual measuring ca. 4–5˝ in total length. These pieces of shell were too small to be classified more specifically,

but their proximity to two hyoplastron fragments identified as Eastern box turtle suggests that they may have belonged to this species.

CLASS AVES Order Galliformes Family Odontophoridae Mealagris gallopavo Two turkey radius fragments were also found in C.G. 4115D, and may have belonged to the same individual as the indeterminate long bone described below. These three bones were the only specimens that could be positively identified as avian. It is likely that the people of Martin’s Hundred occasionally relied on turkeys as a source of protein, Turkeys occupy a wide variety of environments across the eastern United States, but prefer areas with sufficient vegetation for cover, adequate food and water, and mild winters (Schorger 1966:220). Hilly country gives them the advantage of being able to glide out of danger from predators. They are especially fond of inhabiting the shores of lakes or streams, possibly evading capture by skimming just over the water out of reach. Open woodlands are best for roosting, since thick brush affords their natural enemies cover while stalking the turkeys (Rutledge 1923:247). Order indeterminate A large long bone fragment, probably from a humerus or femur of a turkey-sized bird, came from C.G. 4115D.

CLASS MAMMALIA Order Artiodactyla Family Bovidae Bos taurus Little can be said about the occurrence of a fragment of a single right tibia from C.G. 4115D, except that it indicates that beef was probably eaten at Site H. ?Capra hirca One possible goat horn core and parietal was recovered in C.G. 4065D. Because this bone is very friable and badly eroded, it is not possible to be absolutely certain about the identification, but it com-

APPENDIX I

pares most closely with goat crania. Goats may or may not have been eaten by the colonists, but would have furnished milk and other dairy products. Ovis/Capra Only one element, from C.G. 4097A, was identified as either domestic sheep or goat. This small piece of the caudal border of a scapula was burned. In terms of their diet, the people of Martin’s Hundred apparently relied on sheep, and possibly goat, only to a small extent. Family Cervidae Odocoileus virginianus In all, five white-tailed deer bones were collected. A right frontal and parietal from an adult doe came from C.G. 4115D, indicating that females were not avoided in the hunt. Three forelimb bones—a left scapula from C.G. 4115J, a right humerus from C.G. 4115A, and a right metacarpal from C.G. 4143A— were found. In addition, a right tibia from the hind leg came from C.G. 4115E. The minimum number of individuals represented is one adult deer, and there is nothing to suggest that all of the remains from C.G. 4115 might not have come from the same individual. The scapula fragment is a middle section of the blade that has been hand sawed or cut transversely through from the cranial to the caudal border in two places. This cut of meat is referred to as a blade or 7bone chuck steak by modern butchers (Tucker, Voegeli, and Wellington 1952:32). The humerus has deep chop marks inflicted diagonally on the epicondyle, suggestive of the cut used by modern butchers to obtain a chuck or cross arm steak (Tucker, Voegeli, and Wellington 1952:38). These butcher marks indicate that the colonists butchered deer with cleavers and probably saws, in a manner comparable to modern sectioning of beef carcasses. Family Suidae Sus scrofa As at the other sites in Martin’s Hundred, pig remains are well distributed about Site H. The material is limited strictly to cranial, mandibular, and dental fragments, with no positive indication of postcranial remains. Table 5 shows the range of dentition recovered. Approximate ages can be estimated by noting the age of eruption and the amount of wear on the occlusal surface. Both are affected by diet and overall health of the individual, and the old data collected by Silver (1963:264–265) is probably more comparable to eruption dates for Martin’s Hundred pigs. The pigs appear to fall mainly between the age of one and three years. Deciduous teeth are completely lacking,

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but this may partly reflect their fragility. However old individuals are also absent in this collection, suggesting a slaughtering pattern of killing young adults. Probably very few pigs were maintained to senility. The lack of postcranial pig remains cannot be explained on the basis of taphonomy since their bones are denser than those of sheep, goat, and deer, which are present. Therefore, cultural practices might be responsible for the absence of postcranial elements of pigs. A maxillary fragment was collected in C.G. 4143A, a nasal bone and mandible came from C.G. 4069B, and an occipital and mandible fragment were derived from C.G. 4115E. One tooth, a lower left molar from C.G. 4143A, was charred, perhaps attributable to roasting of a hog’s head. Family indeterminate Five elements found could be classified only as artiodactyls. They are all from individuals smaller than a cow or elk and hence must have been derived from sheep, goat, deer, and, in some cases, possibly pig. C.G. 4075B yielded a maxillary fragment missing dentition. Pieces of molar, embedded in matrix and very fragmentary, were collected at C.G. 4143A. A small portion of a left humerus shaft and a distal epiphysis of a metapodial from an immature individual came from C.G. 4115E. Finally C.G. 4110C contained a badly weathered tibia shaft fragment. Breakage, weathering, root etching, and rodent gnawing prevented further identification of these elements. No evidence of roasting or butchering was present. Order Canivora Family Canidae Canis familiaris The remains of probably one domestic dog puppy came from C.G. 4115J. An articulated puppy burial was located in an ash lens near the burial of the middle-aged woman. It is uncertain whether the dog was definitely associated with the woman’s burial. The puppy was ca. 5 weeks–6 months of age, since the deciduous fourth premolar had erupted (5–8 weeks), but the three bones of the innominate had not yet fused at the acetabulum (6 months) (Silver 1963). It is not possible to ascertain whether the entire skeleton is present due to the fact that it is still partially embedded in matrix, but the head, trunk, and all four limbs are represented by elements. It appears, therefore, to be an intact burial. From C.G. 4051A came the palatine process of a left maxilla of a puppy. The premolar alveoli suggests that, again, the individual was ca. 5 weeks–6 months of age (Silver 1963:265). No adult dog remains were recovered from Site H.

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Order Lagomorpha Family Leporidae Sylvilagus sp. indet.

Order Rodentia Family Sciuridae Marmota monax

A cottontail was represented by three elements: a left femur from C.G. 4097A, a left maxilla from C.G. 4104A, and a right nasal from C.G. 4115J. The maxilla had adult dentition and the proximal epiphyses on the femur were fused. No juvenile bones were found. Butchering marks and evidence of roasting were not present, but this is not unusual even when rabbits were known to be utilized for food. Small mammals and birds may be sectioned with little need for utensils once they are thoroughly cooked, so butchering marks tend to be less common than on the bones of larger species. The eastern cottontail (S. floridanus) is widely distributed over the eastern half of the United States and occupies many diverse habitats, from the Canadian Life-zone to the Tropical Life-zone (Hall and Kelson 1959:259). Another Virginia species, the New England cottontail (S. transitionalis), is restricted to the Allegheny Mountains in the western third of the state. It prefers woods and brush at elevations above 3000´ (Paradiso 1969:63–64, Bailey 1946:282). The marsh rabbit (S. palustris) occurs in the southeastern part of Virginia in Princess Anne, Norfolk, and Westmoreland counties (Bailey 1946:283). Unlike the closely related species mentioned above, the marsh rabbit is very aquatic, relying on thick vegetation and water as its means of protection.

A right tibia of a woodchuck was found in C.G. 4080A. The preferred habitat of this species is the border of brushy woodlands and open fields near rivers, but rarely in dense woods (Paradiso 1969:71). As a fossorial rodent, their habit of burrowing to a depth of 5´ and a length of over 30´ means that it is possible that the woodchuck bone is an accidental intrusion. It may, however, have been hunted as a pest, for its pelt, or for its meat. This particular leg bone was gnawed by a carnivore, suggesting that the animal did not die in the burrow or, if so, that its remains later surfaced.

Order Perissodactyla Family Equidaae Equus caballus Only one horse bone was found in all of the faunal material from these sites, the shaft of a left tibia. No butcher marks or charring is present, and the isolated occurrence of this badly weathered bone suggests that it was from a skeleton that had been exposed on the ground surface for quite some time before the tibia was fortuitously buried.

Order indeterminate Twenty-six mammal bone fragments lacked sufficient diagnostic characteristics to be assigned to a particular taxonomic order. Fourteen of these were from mammals of indeterminate size, two from medium or large mammals, and ten from large mammals. Burned bones included one fragment from C.G. 4060X, one from C.G. 4074A, one from C.G 4088J, and two from C.G. 4143A. Weathering and root etching were important taphonomic factors contributing to the problem of identification.

CLASS INDETERMINATE Some charred pieces of bone from C.G. 4115J were so small and fragmentary that they could not be classified below the taxonomic level of kingdom. Because of their poor condition, these fragments provide little information about cultural utilization of animals. The fact that some of the structures of Site H were burned means that discarded bone may have become calcined accidentally in this manner rather than through the preparation of food.

APPENDIX I

565

A Bird Skeleton from Mar tin’s Hundred Site B and a Footprint on a Brick from Site A4 George E. Watson The bird bones from Carter’s Grove turn out to be the remains of a female Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus velox). They match very well with female skeletons from elsewhere in Virginia and New Jersey in our collection. They are larger than male bones from the same areas and markedly smaller than those of male Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperi). I have also compared them with the Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus) and Screech Owl (Otus asio), starting from the conclusion that they had to be from a small bird of prey. I have taken the liberty of mending the tarso-metatarsus, which was cleanly broken when I examined the skeleton in Williamsburg. It is a diagnostic bone (very long and slender in Accipiter) and had it been entire I should have pronounced it a Sharp-shin when I first looked at it.

Accipters, or bird hawks, are common forest birds of prey in eastern North America. I would expect that they would have been numerous at Carter’s Grove and probably even a pest for young poultry. The footprint cast looks to me to be that of a chicken rather than of a turkey—even a small female turkey would have had a larger foot than that of the cast. One cannot rule out a young turkey, however. The bird is about the same size as a Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), a cautious bird today, but abundant and perhaps bolder in colonial times. I can match the print well with small bantam-sized chicken feet here.5

Bibliography Bailey, John W. 1946 The Mammals of Virginia. Richmond, Virginia: Williams Printing Company. Carr, Archie 1952 Handbook of Turtles. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Hall, E. Raymond and Keith R. Kelson 1959 The Mammals of North America. New York: Ronald Press Company. Harlow, Richard and Marlin DeFoor 1962 “How to Age White-tailed Deer.” Florida Wildlife (Dec.):18–21. Paradiso, John L. 1969 Mammals of Maryland. North American Fauna no. 66. Washington, D.C.: Bureaus of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. Rutledge, A. H. 1923 “The Wild Turkey Stages a Comeback.” Independent III:246–247. 4. The skeleton is from C.G. 2115E (Pit A) and the footprint is on a locally made brick from C.G. 1755E (Pit 8).

Severinghaus, C. W. 1949 “Tooth Development and Wear as Criteria of Age in White-tailed Deer.” Journal of Wildlife Management 13(2):195–216. Schorger, A. W. 1966 The Wild Turkey. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. Shomon, J. J. 1855 Fishing and Fishlife in Virginia. Richmond, Virginia: Commonwealth of Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries. Silver, I. A. 1963 “The Ageing of Domestic Animals.” Pp. 250–268 in D. Brothwell and E. Higgs, eds., Science in Archaeology. New York: Basic Books. Tucker, H. Q.; M. M. Voegeli; and G. H. Wellington 1952 A Cross Sectional Muscle Nomenclature of the Beef Carcass. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State College Press. 5. Letter to INH, Nov. 16, 1977.

566

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

TABLE 1. Distribution of Odocoileus virginianus elements at Site B. Provenience (C.G.)

Elements

2061A 2076B

left ulna left P4 left femur right radius left metatarsal left radius left mandible left astragalus left scapula right tibia left metatarsal metatarsal, side indet.

2125A 2115B 2115D 2115E 2115F 2150A

TABLE 2. Aging by Dentition for Sus scrofa at Site B.

Tooth* Right I1 Left P1 Left P2 Left P4 Left M1 Left M1 Right M1 Right M2 Right M3

Modern eruption age** 12–17 months 3.5–6.5 years 12–16 months 12–16 months 4–6 months 4–6 months 4–6 months 7–13 months 17–22 months

Late 18th century eruption age** 2.5–3 years inconstant 2 years 2 years 1 year 1 year 1 year 1.5–2 years 3 years

Wear light light surface missing heavy light light light none heavy

* All are permanent teeth. ** Data from Silver 1963.

TABLE 3. Aging by Dentition for Sus scrofa at Site H.

Tooth* Right C1 Left P3 Left P3 to M1 P3 P4 M1 Left P4 to M2 P4 M1 M2 Left M2 Right M2 Right M2 Left M2 M3 (side indet.) Right M3 Left M3

Modern eruption age*

Late 18th century eruption age*

Wear

8–12 months 12–16 months

12 months 2 years

surface missing medium heavy

12–16 months 12–16 months 4–6 months

2 years 2 years 1 year

heavy heavy heavy

12–16 months 4–6 months 7–13 months 7–13 months 7–13 months 7–13 months 7–13 months 7–22 months 7–22 months 7–22 months

2 years 1 year 1.5–2 years 1.5–2 years 1.5–2 years 1.5–2 years 1.5–2 years 3 years 3 years 3 years

medium heavy medium heavy medium heavy none very light light medium heavy none very light medium

* Data from Silver 1963.

APPENDIX II

Index of Illustrated TobaccoPipe Marks1 MARK AN BC Catherine Wheel Cross Cross Crowned Rose E (Indian?) E (Indian?) E (Indian?) EL EL Gauntlet Gauntlet Gauntlet Gauntlet (or hand) Gauntlet (or hand) Heart HF(crowned) IB IH I (or J) I (or J) I (or J) I*I (crowned) I (or J) R (cut)

SITE A A A H B C A A A A A B B A B B B A A A B B A A B

FEATURE Pit 1 Pit 2 Pit 1 miscellaneous miscellaneous Pit B Pit 3 Pit 3 Structure D Pit 9 Pit 10 Pit A (ca. 1631) miscellaneous Pit 2 miscellaneous miscellaneous Pit A (ca. 1631) Pit 1 Pit 9 Pit 9 miscellaneous miscellaneous Pit 2 Pit 9 miscellaneous

1. All marks entered as “miscellaneous” are either unstratified or come from features other than pits. To determine the site sources for the miscellaneous items, the reader is referred to

FIGURE 103 104 103 97 101 93 105 105 110 107 108 99 101 104 101 101 99 103 107 107 101 101 104 107 101

NUMBER 7 2 9 1 8 8 9 10 10 6 1 6 14 4 12 13 5 5 1 4 9 10 7 5 11

the descriptions accompanying the illustrations and thence to Ap. III.

568

MARK IS? Lis Lis Lis Oak leaf? P(/L?) RB RB RB RC? RC RC RG RG RG Rosette2 Rosette Rosette Rosette Rosette Rosette Rosette Rosette Rosette/lis SH SS Star TG? TG TG WB WC? WC? WC? WC WC WC WP WC

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

SITE C B A B C B C A B H A A A A A H A H C C C B B B B H C C B A B B A A B A A B H

FEATURE Potter’s Pond Pit A (ca. 1631) Pit 10 Pit A (ca. 1631) Potter’s Pond Pit A (ca. 1631) Pit B Pit 2 Pit A (ca. 1631) miscellaneous Pit 1 Pit 9 Pit 1 Pit 7 Pit 5 miscellaneous Pit 1 miscellaneous Pit B Grave Potter’s Pond miscellaneous miscellaneous Pit A (ca. 1631) Pit A (ca. 1631) Pit V Potter’s Pond Pit B miscellaneous Pit 2 miscellaneous miscellaneous Pit 7 unstratified miscellaneous Pit 9 Pit 1 miscellaneous miscellaneous

2. The term “rosette” is here used to identify all manner of circular, petal-like stamps.

FIGURE 94 99 108 99 94 99 92 104 99 97 103 107 103 109 106 97 103 97 92 91 94 101 101 99 99 96 94 92 101 104 101 101 109 109 101 107 103 101 97

NUMBER 7 4 3 8 7 7 11 1 3 4 3 2 6 1 1 2 8 3 12 2 8 6 7 2 1 3 9 10 1 3 2 4 2 4 5 3 4 3 5

APPENDIX III

Cited Excavation Register Entries The following extracts from the Martin’s Hundred amended in the daily records. Such obvious errors as Excavation Register books include only those nummistaking an expected cellar for a rubbish pit have bers referred to in these volumes. They represent the been corrected, but after the lapse of more than a thinking of the several site supervisors on the day of decade it is likely that others survive. Those entries discovery—opinions that were subject to change as that were inadequate then must of necessity remain the excavation progressed, but which were not always so. 741A Site E: Sq. V-4E, 11 Pit A, S of dwelling. Partial excavation in preliminary test. Top fill. 741B Pit A, primary fill, crossmending to the above. 989 989A

Site D

Pit. Preliminary test. Same as 3502. Pit

1007A

Site C

Grading area W of the Fort.

1013G

Site C

Livestock Pond, a stratum of brown loam with charcoal flecks toward the center of the Pond in NW quadrant.

1091A

Site H: Sq. III-11H, 24, 19

Multiple grave. Preliminary test. Mixed brown loam with clay at bottom of grave.

1145A

Site C: Potter’s Pond

Preliminary test.

1601

Site A

Topsoil.

1713

Site A

Topsoil.

1729

Site A: Sq. IV-10Q

Topsoil.

1730

Site A: Sq. IV-8D

Topsoil.

1731

Site A: Sq. IV-10-S

Topsoil.

1735A 1735C

Site A: Sq. IV-8B, 13, 14, 18, 19

Soft brown loam 9˝ deep. Pit 1. Gray sandy loam in posthole adjacent to SW corner of 1735A. Entire hole 2´2˝ x 1´3˝, narrowing in SW corner to 7˝ x 7˝, where hole has flat bottom, 9˝ below natural. Rest may be root disturbance. No mold. Pit 1.

1736A

Site A: Sq. IV-8B, 12

Brown sandy loam, partially mixed with spoil from burrows. Pit 2.

570

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

1736B

Layer of gray loam heavily mottled with small yellow patches, lumps. Lies below 1736A. Pit 2. Layer of ashes, pink, gray, and black. Ca. 3˝ thick, below 1736B. Very cut up by burrows. Pit 2. Layer of ashy gray loam, ca. 6˝ deep. Below 1736C. Pit 2. Gray loam with charcoal flecks, fill of eastern “satellite” hole of 1736. Similar to 1736D and 1736F. 3˝ max. depth. Finds all from S side of feature. Pit 2.

1736C 1736D 1736G

Site A: Sq. IV-10-R

Special feature. Pit 3. Topsoil. Dark loam with large amount of wood ash. 18˝ deep or deeper, but may contain animal burrows. Pit 3. Burnt clay fragments in loam, with much ash. Thought to be 2 layers, but indistinguishable. Ca. 4˝ deep. Pit 3. Gray clayey loam. Fills depressions and in places is 9˝ deep, ave. 6˝ deep. Pit 3. Dark blackish loam. Contains some brick chips. ca. 6˝ deep. Pit 3. Gray clayey soil. Cesspit material? Max. 9˝ thick. Pit 3. Layer of buff colored sandy clayey soil. Perhaps siltation, possible deliberate fill. Below gray clay E, above gray clay F. 8˝ thick. Pit 3. Pit 3. Gray clay at bottom of feature, below 1737F, above silt. 3˝ thick. Sandy wash in lenses, covers bottom 9˝ of 1737 and up southern slope. Thick layer, but few artifacts. Pit 3. Gray sandy soil, with some ash flecks, around top edge of 1737, definitely below 1737A, probably below 1737B, above 1737H. In “shelf,” ca. 1˝ thick. Pit 3. Pit 3. Gray clayey loam. On N extension of 1737. Same as, and equals, 1737C. Below 1737C. Lt. gray clayey loam. Heavier than 1737K, and below it. Pit 3. Pit 3. Sandy dark loam, above 1737N. Same as 1737J?

Site A: Sq. IV-10S, 17, 18

Pit 5. Topsoil. Black ash and gray loam layer below 1738A lying on S side. ca. 1–4˝ deep. Continues on N side, but mixed with more loam, less ash and fewer artifacts. Reddened clay on W side suggests where timber originally dumped—burnt daub on S edge suggests a burned building. Pit 5. Orange clay lumps in a brown loam. Lies beneath 1738B. Thick on W side. Ca. 4˝ thick. Pit 5.

Site A: Sq. IV-10S, 11, 12, 16, 17

Gray clayey loam with some sandy patches. Lies below B, above D. Ca. 3˝ thick in E end only—not on section. Pit 6. Mixed silty soil. Below 1739D. Ca. 4˝ thick. Pit 6. Gray clayey loam, much ash, charcoal flecks, brick chips at bottom of pit. Ca. 4˝ max. Pit 6.

1740A

Site A: Sq. IV-10S, 11, 12, 16, 17

Mixed fill: brown loam with ash and charcoal. Pit 7.

1746B

Site A: Sq. IV-4A, 11

Single coffin (no. 6) to the W of the site.

1748B

Site A: Sq. IV-1K

The northerly of two coffins (no. 8) interred close together W of the Site A fences and parallel to the Structure D cellar.

1749C

Site A: Sq. IV-10S, 10, 15

Ashy brown loam, same as 1749A and B, in western depression. Pit 4. Sandy gray loam beneath 1749B and 1949C. Max. 5˝ thick. Little ash in it. Pit 4.

Site A: Sq. IV-8H and 25´ W half of VI-8E

Topsoil.

1737 1737A 1737B 1737C 1737D 1737E 1737F

1737G 1737H 1737J

1737K 1737L 1737M 1738A 1738B

1738C 1739C 1739E 1739F

1749E 1750

APPENDIX III

571

1752

Site A: Sq. IV-8F, IV-8G, IV-8E

Topsoil.

1755C

Site A: Sq. IV-8E, 2, 3, K22 and 23

Concentration of ash in gray loam, with thickest ash in S. Lies below 1755B. 3˝ thick, 6˝ max. Pit 8. Gray sandy soil with some ash flecks, numerous bricks and brickbats. Lies below 1755D. 3˝ thick. Pit 8.

Site A: Sq. IV-8, M17, 18, 12, 13

Brown loam, top of cellar pit, post-1625. NW quadrant. Structure D. Thin layer of ashy loam, lies below 1760A = 1771B on N side. 1˝ thick. NW quadrant. Layer of dirty, ashy loam, similar to 1760B. Both seem to represent tips of rubbish from the N. Ca. 1˝ thick. NW quadrant, Structure D cellar. Layer of gray clay with charcoal pieces. Lies beneath 1760D in center of pit. Lies below 1760F. NW quadrant, Structure D cellar. Thick deposit of mixed clay with loam and come charcoal flecks. Below 1760E. Sloping up along cellar edge is layer of erosion lying on erosion slope. NW quadrant, Structure D cellar.

Site A: Sq. IV-8, M22

Dark loam, ash flecked. 1˝ deep. Possible topsoil sloping in. Pit 10. Ashy loam, gray brown. 3˝ deep. Pit 10.

1764H

Site A: Sq. IV-8, M6, 2

Depression on S side against 1764F, 3˝ deep, below 1760E. Fill is actually similar to 1764E—green sandy, but with clay patch. It is cut into natural. 1´8˝ N–S. SE quadrant, Structure D cellar floor.

1767E

Site A: Sq. IV-8, D5

Postmold. Dark loam fill. Dimension at top 2´4˝ N–S and 9˝ E–W. S half 8˝ deep, N half 1´10˝ deep. Flat bottom, mixed clay. SE postmold for Structure C (Harwood dwelling?).

1768A

Site A: Sq. IV-8F, 21

Irregular feature, with number of glass fragments on surface. Brown loam, 2˝ thick, very shallow. Root system W of Structure B.

1770A

Site A: Sq. IV-8M, 2, 3, 7, 8

Top layer, brown loam. Same as 1760A and 1764A. SW quadrant, Structure D cellar. Charcoal deposit on S slope. Same as 1761C. Burnt clay lumps, and ashy loam. Below 1770A. SW quadrant, Structure D cellar. Mixed clay layer. Same as 1760F, lies above 1770D. Sloping up W slope. 2˝ thick. SW quadrant, Strcture D cellar. Thin layer of green sandy soil mixed with some clay. Cellar floor. Same as 1771F. SW quadrant, Structure D cellar.

Site A: Sq. IV-8, 11, 12, 16, 17

Brown loam top layer. Same as 1760A, 1764A, and 1770A. Fill of Structure D, NE quadrant. Post-1625. Ashy loam lying below 1771A, may actually be a part of 1771A “sequence.” NE quadrant, Structure D cellar. Ashy brown loam, same as 1760D. Below 1771C. 1˝ to 3˝ thick. NE quadrant, Structure D cellar. Mixed clay packing along Structure D cellar edge, NE quadrant. Green sandy soil with patches of clay 1–2˝ thick. Lies below 1771E and G. Same as 1770F. NE quadrant, Structure D cellar, cellar floor. Depression against E wall of Structure D cellar, below floor level. NE quadrant.

1755E 1760A 1760B 1760D

1760E

1760F

1761A 1761B

1770B

1770E 1770F 1771A 1771B 1771D 1771E 1771F

1771J

572

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

Site A: Sq. IV-8, H9 + 14

Mixed loam fill. Much rubbish. Has shells on top, especially in NE side. 1˝ thick. Pit 9. Pale gray ashy fill. Tipped from the W side. Does not go up E side, which is natural. Lies below 1773B. Pit 9. Brown loam, very soft with some ash mix. Lies along W side of pit. Single tip? Lies below 1773C. Pit 9. Not layer—but large earthenware alembic. Below 1773D and above 1773F. Not on section. Soil found within earthenware alembic. Pit 9. Gray ash, with some mortar specks. Lies below loam of 1773D. Dumped from NW. Pit 9. Gray ash with charcoal fragments, a series of several dumpings, one of pink ash, 1˝ thick.

1774A

Site A: Sq. IV-B, H20

Shallow depression overlying posthole/mold 1805A and B on E wall line of the Structure C extension (C2). Shallow cutting in square IV-8, H25: 6´ diameter, 2˝ deep. Mixed clay and loam cutting 2˝ deep with posthole in bottom 3´ in diameter, and 9˝ rectangular postmold.

1775A

Site A: Sq. IV-8, G15

Pit 3´9˝ in diameter. Brown loam 3˝ thick. Pit 8.

1776B

Site A: Sq. IV-10R-7

Dark brown ashy loam, lies below 1776A. Small pit adjacent to Pit 3. Small pit in Sq. IV-10R-7. N of 1737A: 2´6˝ in diameter. Brown loam with ash. Small feature adjacent to Pit 3, and cutting into breastwork slot at 1840A.

1778A

Site A: Sq. IV-8D-23

Ditch or trackway running E–W N of Structure G toward easterly ravine. 1´10˝ wide and varying in depth 2–4˝.

1781

Site A: Sq. VI-8A-25

Unstratified overlying midsection of E–W ditch N of Structure G.

1790

Site A: Sq. IV-105-4

Topsoil.

1802B

Site A: Sq. IV-8G-17

Postmold at SW corner of Structure C’s extension, filled with gray loam. Mold is square and the bottom of hole flat. 8˝ wide and 1´5˝ deep.

1803

Site A: Sq. IV-8G-22

Topsoil.

1806A

Site A: Sq. IV-8C-2

Postmold. Fill is gray loam, 11˝ wide E–W and 8˝ wide N–S. Bottom is flat and 1´9˝ deep. SW corner, Structure C. Root hole adjacent to Structure C.

1816C

Site A: Sq. IV-8C-17

Postmold for 1816D (Structure A), 1´ wide N–S and E–W. Black ash loam fill and containing most of a square glass bottle (Pt. I, Ill. 36, no. 1).

1821A

Site A: Sq. IV-8G-24

Postmold associated with 1821B. Rectangular 9a˝ wide E–W and 7˝ wide N–S. 2´2a˝ deep. Angled bottom. Secondary postmold for S wall line of Structure B.

1822E

Site A: Sq. IV-7C-3

E central posthole for Structure B. Gray loam, 7˝ deep, 1´2˝ E–W and 1´10˝ N–S.

1826A

Site A: Sq. IV-8B-21

Fenceline posthole, 6˝ wide at bottom and 3a˝ deep.

1833A

Site A: Sq. IV-8D-9

NW corner posthole for Structure G. Brown loam with some burnt clay chips, ash. 9˝ deep, 1´1˝ E–W, 11˝ N–S. Flat bottom.

1867A

Site A: Sq. IV-8H-13

Irregular shaped root hole with black loam fill, 2´3˝ N–S, 1´11˝ E–W. 8˝ deep.

1773B 1773C 1773D 1773E

1773F 1773H

1776C

1806E

APPENDIX III

573

1917A

Site A: Sq. IV-8, F16

Probably root hole adjacent to Fence 7 S of Structure H near E side of Slot C. Mixed loam and clay discovered while preparing area for filming.

1918A

Site A: Sq. IV-8-B12

Fill of rodent hole, immediately SW of Pit 2 (1736). Groundhog had burrowed out from the pit to create this feature.

2009A

Site A: Sq. IV-6S, 23

Grave N–S, head to W. 5´ long, 2´ wide, 7˝ deep. Mixed clay and loam fill. Grave 17. Female aged ca. 30. Cemetery at S end of site.

2050 2050B

Site B: Sq. X-4R-5

Surface topsoil in square 10´ W of Pit A (ca. 1631). Mixed brown and gray loam, appears lighter in color than the mottled gray but only slightly. W of Pit A.

2052B 2052D

Site B: Sq. X-2B-15

Ditch line stain cutting the square N–S, 1´4˝ wide, 3˝ deep. Irregular stain of dark loam in center of square, ca. 3´ long N–S and 2´ wide E–W.

2057A

Site B: Sq. X-2G-23, 18

Dark gray loam, 4–10˝ thick. Below topsoil in test trench to S of site.

2061A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-24

Dark loam, below top soil, 3–4˝ thick, brickbats throughout but in limited numbers. Kelso trench in SE corner, N of shed. Mottled gray loam below 2061A. Sealed stratum in area between house and Pit A (ca. 1631).

2062A

Site B: Sq. X-2B-21

Mottled light brown and dark brown loam. 3–6˝ thick below 2062 on E side. Near NE corner of house, the area partially disturbed by a later ditch.

2063

Site B: Sq. X-2B-6

Topsoil removed with dark brown loam, 5–7a˝ thick, pieces of burnt clay.

2070A

Site B: Sq. X-2B-8

Dark loam 2–5˝ thick. Sealed stratum below topsoil adjacent to SW corner of house.

2071A

Site B: Sq. X-4M-8, 13

Dark loam 4–8˝ thick, slope to E.

2075A

Site B: Sq. X-2D-20

Dark loam, 5˝ thick. Perimeter of excavation E of Pit B.

2076 2076A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-3

Topsoil over Pit A. Dark loam below top soil, some brickbats. Top of Pit A (ca. 1631) and to the square SE of the pit and N of Pit B. Feature appearing ca. 3˝ below surface, first signs of a feature this close to the surface. Top of Pit A (ca. 1631). SW of dwelling. Kelso test hole, dark fill, with traces of redeposited natural. Ca. 1´ x 1´ stake in hole. Pit A (ca. 1631) and scattered. Mixed brown and yellow loam in area of square around Pit A. Darker loam below D.

Site B: Sq. X-2B-14

Light gray, soil is very dry, almost dust, unlike soils in other areas. Soil needed to be moistened to work. 4–6˝ thick. W edge of site, immediately W of dwelling. Ditch is a continuation of the ditch in 2053, 2126, 2139, and 2138. Fill is dark loam, with very heavy root action within its interior. Ditch is 2´ wide.

Site B: Sq. X-2B-7

Black/brown loam with many brickbats, possible burned area in SE corner. Within the house in the vicinity of the burned hearth. Dark gray loam with brick chips, appears to lie below 2079A, in NW corner, less than 1˝ thick, may be a lens. Similar to 2079C but soil is lighter in color and not as many brick

2061C

2076B

2076C 2076D 2076E 2077A

2077B

2079C

2079F

574

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

chips. Sealed stratum within house in vicinity of burned hearth. 2080A

Site B: Sq. X-2B-12

Dark loam, 2˝ removed. Sealed stratum within area of dwelling.

2082A 2082B

Site B: Sq. X-2B-13

Dark loam below topsoil. Area including W wall line of house. Mixed gray and brown loam below topsoil.

2087D

Site B: Sq. X-2B-16

Possible feature S of 2087C, cut by the balk, dark fill. Top of house posthole.

2088A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-8

Dark loam, heavy concentration of artifacts in NE corner, no clear lines of definition to separate this area from other areas of the square. 4a˝ thick. Area with high artifact concentration S of shed, finds crossmending to Pit A (ca. 1631).

2089B

Site B: Sq. X-2C-23

Mottled gray and dark loam, below 2089A. Pieces of brickbats mixed in. Sealed stratum ca. 13´ S of Pit A (ca. 1631) and N of the shed.

2090A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-10

Dark loam below topsoil, 2a–4˝ thick. Top of Pit A.

2091A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-25

Dark loam, brick bats through out square, 1–3˝ thick. Northerly excavation square abutting 2103. Brown loam, light in color, with brickbats, 1˝ thick. Sealed stratum SE of dwelling. Mottled gray similar to 2091C, mottled yellow, excavated earlier, the yellow mottled is the same as the gray mottled in other squares and they have been combined here for clarity. Sealed stratum E of house and N of shed.

Site B: Sq. X-2C-9

Dark loam, 3–4˝ thick, large tree root intrusion in NW corner, some traces of yellow mottled clay in SW corner, dark loam in E. Mottled brown loam and yellow clay (redeposited natural) may be ditch that appears in 1062 and 2087 and cuts 2098C from the NW–SE not clearly visible. Possible ditch bottom in area S of the shed.

Site B: Sq. X-2C-13

Dark loam, below topsoil, 2a–3˝ thick, quantity of finds throughout entire area. Sealed stratum with finds crossmending to the ca. 1631 pit. Mottled light gray loam below 2099A. Sealed stratum in square 23´ S of Pit A and behind the shed.

Site B: Sq. X-2C-20

Dark loam below 1˝–1a˝ topsoil, 3–4˝ thick. Area disturbed by Kelso trench. Kelso test trench ER 1050 4´ x 12´+, mixed fill, E of the dwelling. Mottled gray loam below 2100B, some brick chips visible. Sealed stratum crossmending to the ca. 1631 pit. Mound of “yellow orange clay” sealed under 17th-century layers between the dwelling and the shed.

2101A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-15

Dark loam, Kelso test hole in NW corner. Sealed stratum within area of shed.

2102A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-14

Dark loam, tree disturbance on W side, 6–7˝ thick S of shed.

2103A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-19

Dark loam, 3–5˝ thick, below topsoil, some brickbats present. Sealed stratum immediately N of shed. Area between the shed and Pit A. Mottled gray loam below 2103A. Sealed stratum N of shed, finds crossmending to Pit A (ca. 1631).

Site B: Sq. X-2C-18

4–6˝ thick with some brickbats. Loam below topsoil; N of shed E of Pit B.

2091B 2091E

2098A

2098C

2099A

2099B 2100A 2100C 2100D 2100E

2103B 2104A

APPENDIX III

2104B

575

Mottled gray below 2104A. Sealed stratum in or adjacent to shed. Ca. 1631. Site B: Sq. X-2C-17

Mottled gray loam below 2105A. Posthole/treehole combination. Post- or treehole within Pit B, sealed by stratum yielding artifacts crossmending to ceramics from Pit A (ca. 1631), also basket sword guard and scissors (Pt. I, Ill. 72, no. 8). Extension to posthole? [2105C] or Pit B SE of 2105C—mixed buff fill with dark loam, unusually large quantity of quartzite in fill. Post- or treehole. Southern edge of Pit D.

2106A

Site B: Sq. X-2C-7

Dark loam below topsoil, concentration of artifacts on W side of square. Area S of shed and Pit B.

2107A 2107B

Site B: Sq. X-2C-12

Dark loam—below topsoil. Sealed stratum S of shed. Mottled gray loam below 2107A. Sealed stratum near SE corner of shed.

2108

Site B: Sq. X-2C-22

Removal of topsoil, ca. 1˝ thick. Topsoil N of Pit B and S of Pit A. Dark loam below topsoil, Kelso test trench in NW quadrant of square between Pits A and B. Mottled gray below 2108A. Heavy root disturbance. Sealed stratum N of Pit B.

2105B 2105C

2105D

2108A 2108B 2110A

Site B: Test trench. Sqs. X-2G-12, 7 Brown loam below topsoil, soil appears to be lighter in color than those to W. Possible relationship between the brown loam where we have finds and the dark brown found to N which appears to be unassociated with any rich archaeological features bearing artifacts? Sealed stratum in test trench to S of site.

2112B

Site B: Sq. X-2B-2

Dark loam with brickbats immediately S of the dwelling’s chimney on N edge of square—covered by balk. No defined shape. Heavy root action by two large trees on either side. Soil has more sand in it than the surrounding squares (2112 and 2111). Both have similar areas of dark loam and brickbats; see also 2079 and 2063.

2113A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-4

Dark loam, below topsoil some brickbats in SW corner. Sealed stratum in square immediately W of Pit A. Mixed brown and yellow loam, below dark loam. Sealed stratum immediately W of Pit A (ca. 1631).

2114B

Site B: Sq. X-4R-2

Mottled gray loam, root disturbance in SW corner, dark stain in center, possible root or feature? Area of mixed clay appearing in SE. Area of root disturbance. Immediately E of Pit A (ca. 1631).

2115A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-3

Dark loam fill in W portion of the pit. Corresponds to 2115B. Pit A (ca. 1631) Dark loam fill in pit—E side. 2115B = 2115A. Pit A (ca. 1631) and scattered. Light gray fill in pit, dated slipware plate (1631). The feature is spoonlike in shape with the spoon-bowl end a separate feature. Where the spoon bowl meets the handle the feature is divided. Pit A. Mixed clay fill below 2115B in E portion of pit. Does not lay below 2115C. Mixed domestic ash mixed with dark loam, lies below 2115C in W half of the pit. Pit filled ca. 1631.

2113D

2115B 2115C

2115D 2115E

576

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

2115F

Depression in the bottom of the pit, below 2115E, filled with ash. Pit A, filled ca. 1631.

2117A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-20

Dark loam under topsoil.

2120A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-7

Dark loam below topsoil, patch of mixed clay in SW corner. Possible Kelso hole.

2121A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-14

Dark loam below topsoil at northern extremity of the site.

2122

Site B: Sq. X-4R-10

Topsoil.

2123B

Site B: Sq. X-4R-9

Dark loam (cont.) below topsoil, ca. 3˝ thick. 2123A = 2122A and 2113A. Sealed stratum N of Pit A (ca. 1631).

2124A

Site B: Test trench in X-2A-11 and 12

Mixed brown and gray loam, quite sandy, below 2124 topsoil. Loam on W edge of trench very shallow. Bottom layer in test trench at edge of westerly ravine separating Sites A and B.

2125A

Site B: Sq. X-4R-8

Dark loam below topsoil 1–1c˝ thick. 2125A = 2076A, 2114A, 2113A, and 2120A. Pit A (ca. 1631).

2126

Site B: Sq. X-2B-19

Removal of topsoil W of dwelling. Area 3´6˝ E–W and 4´ N–S. Not removed in SE quadrant to stabilize tree. 1–1a˝ thick. Mottled gray loam below 2126A, 2a˝ thick. At site’s edge W of the dwelling.

Site B: Removal of balk between X-2B-16 (2087) and X-2B-11 (2086)

Mottled gray loam below topsoil E of dwelling and N of shed, ca. 3˝ thick. Ditch fill, dark loam. 2129E = 2087B and 2062B. Continuation of ditch in 2062, 2087, 2101, and 2090. Primary fill of ditch running NE–SE E of the house.

2132C

Site B: Removal of balk between X-2B-8 and X-2B-3

2–3a˝ thick. Dark loam filled rectangular stain in SE corner, possible posthole related to the hearth, and post structure to the N. A dark slot extends to the E where it lies below 2133B, possible root stain? extends to E from 2132C. 2´1˝ N–S, 1´8˝ E–W. Post- or roothole.

2134B

Site B: Sq. X-4Q-4

Lt. brown loam below 2134A. N of dwelling.

2137A

Site B: Sq. X-2B-1

Brown loam with brickbats similar to 2079B. Lies below the topsoil. Sealed stratum immediately SE of the dwelling. Pit A.

2138 2138A

Site B: Sq. X-2B-4

Topsoil. Dark brown loam below the topsoil, ca. 3˝ thick, soil is somewhat sandier than in most of the other squares. Immediately SW of and overlying the corner of the dwelling. Mottled gray brown soil. Very dry, close to large trees? 2˝ thick. Beneath 2138A. Sealed stratum at edge of site SW of the dwelling.

2142C

Site B: Sq. 2B-25

Ditch? Continuation of ditch in 2053 and 2126. Same ditch as in 2139 and 2138. Difficult to define because of root action. Ditch fill following edge of ravine at western edge of site and NW of house.

2146A

Site B: Removal of balk between 2076 and 2089

Dark loam, below topsoil, 2–4˝ thick. There appears to be a higher concentration of finds on E end of the balk.

2147

Site B: Removal of balk between 2104 and 2199

Topsoil 2–4˝ thick, balk is 3´ wide and 10´ long. Topsoil overshed. Dark loam 4–7˝ thick. Scissor handle present but not sure if it is in this layer or the bottom of topsoil.

Site B: Removal of balk between 2114 and 2108

Removal of dark loam under topsoil. Heavy root action.

2126B 2129B 2129E

2138B

2147A 2148A

APPENDIX III

2149

Site B: Removal of balk between 2107 and 2105

2149A

577

Topsoil at SE corner of the shed. Dark loam below topsoil (2149). Some heavy root action on E end. Ca. 4˝ thick. Sealed stratum S of Pit B.

2150A

Site B: Removal of balk between 2113 and 2061

Dark loam below toposil 3–6˝ thick.

2151A

Site B: Removal of balk between 2103 and 2102

Balk is 3´ N–S and 10´ E–W. Dark loam, lies below 2151 topsoil. Ca. 4–6˝ thick. 2151A = 2153A–2147A. Sealed stratum below topsoil within area of shed.

2152A

Site B: Removal of balk between 2050 and 2091

Dark loam fill, lies below 2152 topsoil. Ca. 3˝ thick. NE of dwelling.

2153A

Site B: Removal of balk between 2100 and 2101

Dark loam which lies below the topsoil 3–4˝ thick. Mound of clay on W edge of balk (see 2153C). Not completely removed on E side of clay. Sealed stratum E of house.

2154A

Site B: Hearth area

Decomposing brick, lies to the N of the burnt clay (2154B), extends 2´ on W and 1´8˝ on E. Scorched clay below the decomposing brick (2154A) caused by heat penetration through the brick.

2156

Site B: Sq. X-4R-6 (SW quad)

Removal of topsoil, area cut by heavy root action and soil very dry. Topsoil in quadrant 12´ NE of Pit A.

2158

Site B: Sq. X-4R-6 (SE corner)

See 2155. Removal of topsoil, ca. 3˝ thick. Heavy root action.

2161

Site B: Sq. X-4R-1 (NW quad)

Topsoil removed 1a–2˝. Topsoil toward extremity of excavated site E of Pit A.

2163

Site B: Sq. X-4R-1. (NE corner)

Removal of topsoil 2˝ thick. 2163 = 2161, 2162, and 2164. Topsoil at extremity of occupation area E of Pit A.

2170A

Site B

Square 30´ E of Pit A.

2178B

Site B: Removal of balk

Mottled gray and brown loam which lies below the dark loam. 2–4˝ thick. E of dwelling.

2192A

Site B: Test trench ca. 45´ N of 2191

Dark loam lies below the topsoil. Test trench is near westerly ravine edge at perimeter of Site B.

2201C

Site B

Scattered through several sealed strata

2209B

Site B

Tests cut on W edge of site.

2210 2210B

Site B: Sq. X-2B-10

Topsoil W of dwelling. Light brown loam over subsoil W of dwelling.

2212A

Site B: Balk X-2B-2/X-2F-22

Sealed stratum toward extremity of excavation S of house.

2231

Site B

Test trench N of site, tracing NW–SE main ditch line. Topsoil.

2257A

Site B: F-15/14

Test trench at southwestern extremity of the excavated area and adjacent to the westerly ravine, bottom stratum below topsoil.

3000

Site C: Sq. VII-5H

Machine-removed topsoil over and E of the Fort’s SE corner; unstratified.

3001

Site C: Sq. VII-5D

Topsoil overlying a 50´ grid area immediately to SE of the Fort.

3002

Site C: Sq. VII-5G

Topsoil in E half of the Fort; antiquity uncertain.

3003

Site C: Sq. VII-5C

Topsoil overlying and beyond the central section of the Fort’s E wall, and thus unstratified.

3004A

Site C: Sq. VII-H12

Small shallow? feature—ill-defined. Perhaps 8˝ x 4˝, lying 3´ from W end. Compact fill of small metal (iron) pieces. Cut

2154G

578

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

into natural. Top partially disturbed by machine. Watchtower posthole, the central hole on the N side interpreted as the location of the door post. 3005A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, H8

Top fill of EW slot, 11˝ wide, along N of square. Mixed loam at E edge of square, cut by possible posthole. “Slot” is 2˝ uneven depression, perhaps an eroded track? The track immediately outside the Fort’s SE gate adjacent to the watchtower. Fort gate posthole at SE corner, mixed fill of brown loam and clay to a depth of 13˝, flat bottom.

Site C: Sq. VII-5, H10

Ash filling of 9a˝ x 7˝ x 5˝ postmold inside the fort and W of the watchtower. Mixed clay and ash in posthole around 3006A.

Site C: Sq. VII-5, G22

Brown loam in NE quadrant of “India Pit,” mixed with yellow clay, under 3010A. Livestock Pond, mixed clay in NE quadrant overlying the well shaft and extending to the SW. 6˝ thick, heavy. Livestock Pond, dirty yellow clay in NE quadrant immediately W of the well and extending over its silting.

Site C: Sq. VII-5, G12

Gray loam with orange patches of marl and clay in center of “India Pit” alias Livestock Pond in center of pit, i.e., N corner of SW quadrant. Clay stratum in the Livestock Pond’s SW quadrant extending over the abandoned well. Livestock Pond, mixed clay in SW quadrant extending N to overlie the well. Livestock Pond, top stratum of black loam with ash to the center of SW quadrant. Livestock Pond approach, ashy top stratum at the approach edge to SW quadrant. Livestock Pond, a stratum of pink ash with brick chips and burned daub in the approach area within SW quadrant. Livestock Pond at the lowest level of its shallow approach, ashy primary stratum in the approach within SW quadrant. Livestock Pond, a stratum of brown loam with ash in the central area of SW quadrant overlying the well. Livestock Pond, disturbed primary clay in SW quadrant.

Site C: Sq. VII-5, H17

Grading in the area W of the Fort. Livestock Pond, upper stratum. Brown loam with yellow clay. 4˝ thick. Livestock Pond, thin stratum of dirty clay to the southern extremity of SE quadrant and overlying an equally thin primary silting. Thin layer of dirty clay below and to W of 3012E. Shallow trough containing a 3˝ stratum of black loam and ash linking the Livestock Pond approach to Pit A. Layer of brown loam 3˝ thick under 3012G at W side of quadrant. Brown loam in center of quadrant, 3–4˝ deep, loam with ash flecks and burnt red clay. Natural appearing clay with some charcoal and artifacts, lies below 3011H and J. May be material trodden into natural.

Site C: First quadrant W of Livestock Pond

Livestock Pond, a concavity of brown loam flecked with burned daub chips in the center of the pond-well feature, i.e., E corner of NW quadrant. Livestock Pond, a stratum of black loam with ash at the top level in NW quadrant.

3005C 3006A 3006B 3010B 3010D 3010E 3011A

3011B 3011C 3011E 3011F 3011G 3011H 3011J 3011K 3012 3012B 3012C

3012F 3012G 3012H 3012J 3012K 3013A

3013E

APPENDIX III

3013F

Livestock Pond, upper loam and ash stratum at the edge of NW quadrant. Livestock Pond, brown loam and ashy primary stratum in NW quadrant.

3013G 3016A

579

Site C: Sq. VII-5, H15; VII-5, H14, 19, 20

3016B

Pit 3, top black loam and ash stratum across most of the feature. Pit 3, 1–3˝ stratum of brown loam and yellow clay spreading across most of the feature. Pit 3, a stratum of ashy loam extending across the feature and containing many artifacts, both domestic and military. Pit 3, 2˝ stratum of loam with brick chips, ash, and many artifacts both military and domestic. Appears to run up the W side of the pit and incorporate the brick chips and daub seen there earlier. Pit 3, primary deposit. Layer of black loam with sandy patches. Lies below 3016E but extends to E side of main pit, not into E rectangular area. Pit 3, primary stratum of clay and black loam at E end of the feature.

3016C 3016E

3016F

3016G Site C: Sq. VII-5, G10

Storage pit (Pit 1) in Fort dwelling (Structure A), top 5˝ stratum of black loam and ash. Top layer of the above, black loam with ash.

3018B

Site C: Sq. VII-5C-8

Ditch bisecting the Fort from E–W at a point cutting across both parapet and palisade in the wall’s midsection (and thus postdating it); primary clay silt.

3022B

Site C: Sq. VII-5-G5

Posthole with sloping sides, 1´4˝ diameter at top, ashy gray loam fill, 1´1˝ deep.

3023C

Site C: Sq. VII-5-H10

Disturbed stratum overlying post-Wolstenholme ditch cutting through the dwelling within the Fort. Gray loam.

3044A

Site C: Sq. VIII-5-G2

Posthole, ashy loam with clay lumps. The hole 1´9˝ x 1´ 8˝ x 4˝.

3047A

Site C: Sq. VII-5-G2

Roothole, mixed loam fill. 1´10˝ N–S, 1´8˝ E–W, 10a˝ deep.

3050 3050A

Site C: Renumbering of E.R. units for suspected well Livestock Pond, top stratum of gray clay overlying the well shaft in NE quadrant. = 3010D Layer of heavy brown loam overlying well shaft. = 3010F A 1´8˝ layer of heavy yellow clay overlying the well shaft. =3010G Fort well; a mixed clay stratum ca. 8˝ in thickness and sealing the organic silt layer containing the backplate (3050F). Upper filling of well = 3010J. Fort well; gray silt immediately below the helmet, and through which protruded much wood and other plant remains = 3010L. Fort well, bottom stratum of natural marl with some silt pressed into it.

3017A 3017B

3050B 3050C 3050E

3050F

3050M 3057B

Site C: Sq. VII-5, C3

Filling of ditch cutting across E palisade and parapet step line and thus postdating the Fort.

3058A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, G24

E–W and N–S ditches postdating the Fort.

3061

Site C: Sq. VII-5, B

Topsoil over NE corner of the palisade.

3074

Site C: Sq. VII-7, N

Unstratified.

3075A

Site C: Trench running S from site to river

Dark loam with ash flecks in depression to SE of the Compound site and close to the cliff edge.

580

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

3078

Site C: Sq. VII-5, 7L

Unstratified.

3083A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, M20

Pit or treehole in SW corner of the Compound close to the same corner of the storehouse, a stratum of black loam comprising the pit’s only filling. Not layer, but find. A potsherd pressed into natural, S end of Potter’s Pond.

3084A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, M14

“Massacre Victim’s” grave. Top fill, silted gray loam, slopes down to W, ave. 4˝ deep.

3088

Site C: Sq. VII-7 H, E

Plowzone in N half of the Company Compound.

3092B

Site C: Sq. VII-7, H13

Top stratum of “massacre victim’s” grave, a filling of black ash and bricketage probably from the destruction of the nearby Company Compound longhouse. Fishhook in this layer (Ill. 60, no. 14). Fill in the “massacre victim’s” grave, 4˝ deep depression in the middle of the feature, containing tobacco-pipe fragments and a rim fragment from a thumb-decorated cauldron. Black loam below 3092B and C, 1´4˝ thick. Practically sterile. Mixed clay sloping into grave from W side. Below D and above F. Lens of mixed loam 2˝ thick as primary fill of “massacre victim’s” grave. Very early style pipe present (Ill. 91, no. 3). Clay fill over bones under 3092F.

3093A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, H11, 12

Potter’s Pond; upper loam stratum with charcoal flecks exposed after the removal of the plowzone.

3106

Site C: Sq. VII-5R

Plowzone NW of the Company Compound.

3107

Site C: Sq. VII-5S

Plowzone NE of the Company Compound.

3110A

Site C: N quadrant of Potter’s Pond Gray loam top stratum (below plowzone) to the Pond’s edge in NE quadrant. Potter’s Pond, mixed brown loam and clay in NE quadrant, in close association with another brigandine plate and a group of unglazed local potsherds. Potter’s Pond, brown silt on natural at NE edge of the feature and sloping down toward the middle. Potter’s Pond, brown silt with charcoal fragments in a pocket at the bottom and center of the feature and at the junction of the quadrants.

3083B

3092C

3092D 3092E 3092F 3092G

3110C

3110D 3110E

3111B 3111D 3111G

Site C: S quadrant of Potter’s Pond Gray silted loam, thick and sticky with clay, lies below 3111A. Brown silt reaching to the outer edge in SW quadrant. Company Compound’s Potter’s Pond, loam flecked with charcoal at the top westerly edge.

3112A 3112D 3112H

Site C: E quadrant of Potter’s Pond Gray loam over all. Brown silt below 3112C. Potter’s Pond, brown silt in a tail projecting beyond the main area of the feature at the edge of SE quadrant.

3113A

Site C: W quadrant of Potter’s Pond Gray loam below plowzone, toward the western edge of the Pond. Potter’s Pond, gray silt with charcoal lumps and many artifacts in the center of the Pond’s primary stratum. Potter’s Pond, a stratum of brown silt overlying the main artifactbearing layer in NW quadrant. Potter’s Pond, brown silt with charcoal over the primary deposit in NW quadrant. Potter’s Pond; the primary stratum of gray silt containing much charcoal and directly overlying natural subsoil; max. thickness 1´.

3113C 3113D 3113E 3113F

APPENDIX III

3113G

581

Potter’s Pond; bottom silting of NW quadrant.

3115F

Site C: Potter’s Pond

3122

Site C: Sq. VII-5L

Topsoil W of the Fort’s main gate.

3126

Site C: Sq. V-5K

Plowzone in 50´ square 50´ E of Fort.

3131A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, M9

Fort’s palisade slot, W end of the parapet step trench behind the S palisade immediately adjacent to the SW flanker, with filling of dark loam from 9–11˝ wide and less than 1˝ deep. Shallow, ashy-loam filled slot inside the Fort’s “cannon” flanker and believed to have been created by wood used to support a platform-bearing pile.

3133A

Site C: Sq. VII-5L 24

Ditch fill W of the Fort gate and postdating the palisade.

3134A

Site C: Sq. VII-5L 23

S end of ditch terminating outside the Fort’s main gate, apparently postdating the palisade.

3135A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, L22

Ditch outside the W wall of the Fort and postdating it, loam fill with charcoal and shell.

3136A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, M19

Rodent hole NE of the SW flanker.

3138A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, L19

Top of the clay fill at NE corner of the “bell post” pit outside the main gate. Contained fragment of the James I fireback (Pt. I, Ill. 40).

3158B

Site C

Palisade slot, parapet step trench behind the S palisade close to the Fort’s SW corner.

3161A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, M-21

Dark loam in SE corner. Dark fill. Some traces of ash. Rodent or treehole disturbance on the line of the S palisade and postdating it. Rodent disturbance in N part of square and adjacent to the E palisade.

3162A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, N-25

Posthole. Dark loam fill. 1´10˝ NE–SW, 1´4˝–1´2˝ NW–SE. Loam fill of posthole in the midsection of the Fort’s S palisade.

3164A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, F-17

1´6˝ wide. Gray loam fill. Ditch fill immediately N of the Fort dwelling, but postdating the palisade.

3166A

Site C

Ditch fill W of the Fort’s main dwelling, but the feature postdating the palisade.

3168A

Site C

3183A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, G-4

Fence postmold from a palisade surrounding the Company Compound, 8˝ x 10˝, 3a˝ deep, in line W of SW corner of the Company Compound’s longhouse, dark loam fill with traces of charcoal and burned clay.

3222A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, M-11

Postmold 9˝ x 8˝ x 9˝ deep, at SE corner of the Company Compound’s storehouse, dark loam with a large amount of charcoal and burned clay.

3255A

Site C: Sq. VII-7, G1, 2

Treehole within longhouse.

3268A

Site C: Sq. VII-5, L21

Ditch cutting E–W across the Fort and postdating it, at a point between the dwelling and the main gate.

3299A

Site C: 18th C. Drainage Ditch

Removal of ditch fill which was a grayish brown sandy loam. Width varies 1´2˝–1´10˝, 6–8˝ deep. Ditch continues over 160´ to S—only ca. 25´ has been excavated. Northernmost end of ditch slopes to surface therefore not visible in excavated area. SE of the Company Compound.

3131B

3161B

582

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

3300

Site C

Unstratified.

3303

Site C: Sq. IX-7, S2 and IX-7, S3

Unstratified

3334A

Site C: Grave 14

Mixed clay and dark loam fill from Grave 14 at the cliff’s edge.

3374A

Site C: Sq. IX-5, C7

Fill of dark gray loam with charcoal flecks in mold of central main post for the barn’s roof.

3375C

Site C: Sq. IX-5, C2

Ditch fill cutting through and postdating the remains of the Barn N of the Fort.

3500

Site D

Overall topsoil.

3501A 3501B 3501C 3501D

Site D: Sq. VIII-11, A6, 7, 12

Pit A, top layer Pit A, secondary fill of mixed silted clay. Pit A, lower stratum immediately above primary deposit. Pit A, primary layer of dark brown loam.

3502A

Site D: Sq. VIII-9, P8

Postmold.

4000

Site E

Overall topsoil.

4010A 4010E

Site E: Sq. V-E4, 11

Pit B, NE of dwelling. Upper fill included links of mail. Pit B, primary fill containing ash and wood-impressed daub, perhaps from the lining of a chimney.

4012A

Site E: Sq. V-E4, 11

Tree- or posthole

4019A

Site E: Sq. VII-4N, 13

Top of shallow Pit C, SW of dwelling.

4050 4050A

Site H: Woods testing

Woods testing prior to excavation. Erosion wash immediately NW of dwelling.

4051C

Site H: Test Trench

Disturbed stratum in test trench cutting across S end of the palisaded area immediately N of the S flanker.

4052A

Site H: Test Trench

Preliminary test trench toward the N end of the compound; dark brown plow-disturbed loam over subsoil. N test trench into W edge of woods, brown sandy loam over natural subsoil.

4054A

Site H: Test Trench

Slope W of ditch.

4056 4056A

Site H: Sq. III-11G

Area excavation SE of the Site H defenses; topsoil. Treehole outside W compound wall; primary deposit of dark gray loam at S end of feature containing many artifacts. See 4065. Pit III, a stratum of dark gray loam containing charcoal in 3˝ lens over the northern half of the feature.

Site H: Sq. III-11D, 10

Treehole within the compound and W of the E flanker; a stratum of gray loam overlying the feature. Treehole W of the E flanker, a stratum of black loam containing potsherds and one brigandine plate (?).

4058C

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 20

Top of Pit III. Brown sandy loam below 4058A. 4˝ deep, seals pit.

4060B

Site H: Sq. III-11H, 24, 19

Multiple grave. Mixed brown loam with clay at bottom of grave. Ca. 1˝ thick.

4061A

Site H: Sq.III-9, R-8

Hearth or kilnlike feature, circular deposit of black ashy loam in middle. Becomes Pit I. Gray loam flecked with black ash and chunks of daub, 2˝ thick lensing under 4061A. Pit I. Layer of yellow clay containing occasional daub fragments, ave. thickness 4˝, lensing under 4061B. Pit I.

4052C

4056D 4057A 4057B

4961B 4061C

APPENDIX III

583

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 20, 24, 25

Pit III, unstratified disturbance at top of pit. See also 4056A. Pit III, immediately NW of the compound, a deposit of dark gray loam heavy with black ash at S edge of the feature and extending into the natural subsoil. Pit III, a stratum of brown sandy loam with brick flecks across N half of the feature and immediately below the plow-disturbed topsoil. Pit III, a stratum of dark gray loam containing charcoal in 3˝ lens over N half of the feature. Tree hole immediately outside NW corner of the compound, a stratum of clay and loam with some ash occupying the center of the pit. Pit III. Pit III, concentration of black ash and daub in a lens at E side of pit, sealed by 4065E. Pit III, immediately NW of the compound, the primary deposit of clay and sandy gray brown loam.

4067A

Site H: Sq. III-11D, 25

Palisade posthole. Dark brown loam flecked with black ash and yellow clay inclusions.

4072A

Site H: Sq. III-9, R-4

Below topsoil S of Pits I and II and NE of Pit III. Dark brown loam with brick flecks and chips, 4–5˝ thick.

4073A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 20

Plow-disturbed brown loam under topsoil outside and overlying NW end of the dwelling.

4074A

Site H

Plow-disturbed brown loam under topsoil outside and overlying NW end of the dwelling.

4075A

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 16

Dark brown loam under topsoil in excavation square SW of Pit III. Light brown sandy loam with occasional brick chips, 1–3a˝ thick, under 4075A.

Site H: Test Square. Immediately S of 4075

Dark brown loam with occasional brick chips, 2–3˝ thick.

4065 4065A

4065C

4065D 4065E

4065F 4065G

4075B 4076A 4076B

Area excavation overlying and extending beyond the compound’s W wall, a stratum of light brown sandy loam immediately over natural subsoil.

4077 4077C

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 25

Topsoil over palisade line and W of dwelling. Becomes Pit IV. Pit IV in compound W of house, from W edge of primary fill of dark loam with occasional brick chips.

4078

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 17

Topsoil in woods W of the compound beside and overlying ditch, and N of female burial 4078C. Area excavation overlying burial 4078C (“Key Lady’s” Grave); 10˝ stratum of dark brown sandy loam immediately below the topsoil, but which, being close to the ravine, did not appear to have been disturbed by later plowing. “Key Lady’s” Grave (Grave III), only leg bones remain as the rest of the grave and bones have been plowed away. Possible slight depression in subsoil where missing part of grave may have been located. Dark gray clayey loam, 4˝ deep on E and 1a–2˝ on W.

4080A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 14

Area excavation exposing W wall slot of the dwelling; a plow-disturbed stratum of dark brown loam with brick chips. SE of Pit III. Roothole W of Boyse dwelling.

4081

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 22

Topsoil in woods W of the compound beside and overlying ditch, and N of female burial 4078C. Excavation square W of Pit III and N–S ditch and near ravine edge, plow-disturbed brown loam.

4078A

4078C

4081A

584

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARTIN’S HUNDRED

4082A

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 12

Area excavation S of Grave 4078C, plow-disturbed light brown loam over subsoil. N of Pit V, contaminated context.

4084

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 21

Area excavation immediately W of the artifact and jack plate-rich Pit III, plow-disturbed brown loam. Brown sandy loam with occasional brick fragments, under topsoil.

4085B

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 10

Brown sandy loam covering postmold at SW corner of the dwelling.

4086A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 9

S end of the Boyse house interior in the vicinity of the supposed hearth; dark brown sandy loam with occasional brick chips, plow-disturbed, overlying postholes.

4087 4087A

Site H: Sq. III-9Q, 2

Topsoil beyond ditch NW of Pit III. Area excavation W of Grave 4171B and beyond N–S ditch; a plow-disturbed stratum of dark brown sandy loam.

4089A

Site H: Sq. III-11F, 16

Stratum below topsoil overlying S flanker.

4091A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 5

Area excavation S of the dwelling and within the compound; stratum of plow-disturbed dark brown sandy loam.

4093A

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 7

Dark brown loam, plow-disturbed under topsoil, in excavation area overlying part of “Granny’s” Grave. N of Pit V.

4095

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 13

Topsoil in woods W of the compound, immediately W of ditch and SW of female burial 4078C.

4096A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 4

Stratum below topsoil immediately S of dwelling. Dark brown sandy loam with occasional brick bit.

4097A

Site H: Sq. III-11C, 8

Boyse dwelling shed addition? Dark brown sandy loam with occasional brick chips. Postmold, SE wall of Boyse homestead. (Possible doorway.)

4098A

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 24

S end of compound. Soft dark brown loam.

4099B

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 19

Plow-disturbed stratum outside S gate. Light brown loam, more sandy and lighter than 4099A.

4101A

Site H: Sq. III-11F, 22

Excavation square SE of “Granny’s” grave and W of the compound’s S flanker. Light brown sandy loam.

4103A

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 14

Square ca. 20´ SE of the Boyse compound. Brown sandy loam.

4104A

Site H

Stratum below topsoil SE of dwelling extension.

4106A

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 25

Plowzone below topsoil inside palisade NE of S flanker. Soft dark brown loam.

4109B

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 22

Sandy loam and yellow clay stratum along W edge of ditch, N of female burial 4078C.

4110A

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 17

Ditch, upper fill.

4111B

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 12

Ditch, median silting. Mixed gray loam and yellow/orange clay, occasional chunk of bog iron. Very lightly flecked with brick bits or daub. 6˝ max. thickness.

4112A

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 8, 7

Brown sandy loam. Runs from E edge of ditch ca. two-thirds of distance across to W. Ave. ca. 6˝ thick. Adjacent to and cutting into the top of “Granny’s” grave. Ditch adjacent to and postdating “Granny’s” grave. Ditch adjacent to “Granny’s” grave. Primary silting of yellow sand entering from W and therefore not directly associated with the grave pit.

4084A

4097B

4112B 4112D

APPENDIX III

585

Site H: Sq. III-11B, 7

Pit V, a stratum of dark brown sandy loam with flecks of charcoal and small pieces of daub, extending over most of the feature in the period of its final silting and below the overlying and adjacent stratigraphy reaching to the subsoil beyond the pit’s limits. Upper filling of “Granny’s” grave, a stratum of burned clay daub. Pit V. 1622. Pit V. “Granny’s” grave, orange and yellow clay mixed with brown loam and occasional black ash, overlying the skeleton. A pocket of gray and white ash with charcoal in the immediate vicinity of “Granny’s” left leg. Pit V, a stratum of dirty clay sloping into the feature from the N, but not extending to “Granny’s” grave. Pit V. “Granny’s” grave, a tip of white wood ash at NE edge of the hole and deposited prior to the woman’s death.

4121A

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 18

Area excavation E of the SE gateway, a stratum of plow-disturbed, brown sandy loam with occasional brick chips.

4122 4122A

Site H: Sq. III-11G, 13

Topsoil SE of site in area previously mechanically stripped. Brown sandy loam with few brick chips, but still plowzone to natural.

4125A

Site H: Sq. III-9-10R

Brown sandy loam under topsoil and over natural.

4127

Site H: Sq. III-9Q, 7

Area excavation over the ditch NW of the compound; topsoil in the woods and apparently unplowed.

4129A

Site H: Sq. III-9R, 15

Extremity of site to the S, 1970 backfill.

4130B

Site H: Sq. III-9Q, 11

Dark brown loam heavily mottled with clay immediately over subsoil in excavation square NW of the compound.

4143A

Site H: Sq. III-11R, 9

Top of Pit II, sealed top fill of dark brown sandy loam.

5015C

Site H

Preliminary test trench into woods crossing the N end of the dwelling and W palisade, plow-disturbed brown sandy loam with brick chips.

7073A

Site H

Area S and SE of Pit III, subsequent grading.

4115A

4115D 4115E

4115F 4115H 4115J

APPENDIX IV

Ceramic Nomenclature

APPENDIX IV

587

588

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