|
|
||
|
New Philadelphia : 2004 Archaeology Report |
|||
|
|
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS: Summary Paul Shackel
SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS FROM THE 2004 SEASON The original archeological survey (Gwaltney 204) and the geophysical survey (Hargrave 2004) helped to guide the first season’s excavations. Concentrations of artifacts in the blocks along the northern portion of Broad Way and the intersection of Broad Way and Main Street provides some clues about the settlement pattern of New Philadelphia. Most of the town’s residential occupations occurred along this corridor.
According to the census data for Pike County, there is a significant change in the number of occupants per dwelling from the early nineteenth century through the end of the century. From 1850 through 1890 the average number of persons per dwelling dropped by one person, from 5.97 to 4.78, and the mean family size decreased from 5.89 to 4.68 (Smith and Bonath 1982: 79-80). The change in the average size per household occurred because of the drop in family size and the decrease in the number of households that practiced having extended families under one roof. Therefore, there is a good chance that while the population for New Philadelphia dwindled, and the average size of the households also decreased, the number of dwellings would not have declined in relative proportion. Over the next several years there is a good likelihood that the archaeology will reveal many of these dwellings and outbuildings.
Excavations indicate that the plow zone is about 1.0 ft to 1.2 ft deep throughout New Philadelphia and it is a bit shallower in the northern portion of Block 9, Lot 5. The archaeology work demonstrates that undisturbed archaeological features exist below the plow zone in each of the four areas that we tested, and thus the site is eligible to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. These features taken together span the entire time period of the town’s occupation. One feature, a filled pit, dates to the 1850s or earlier (Feature 4), another pit feature (Feature 1) related to the Butler household’s late nineteenth and early twentieth century occupation. A lime slacking pit (for the mixing of lime for the plastering of interior walls) is located in Block 3, Lot 4, and is associated with a yet to be discovered nineteenth-century building. A stone foundation also exists in Block 7, Lot 1 and is probably a late nineteenth-century addition to a mid-nineteenth century building. At this time precise dating of these two latter features is tentative, but they are both related to the nineteenth-century town (Figure 3.31).
Fig 3.31. Team Z of the New Philadelphia NSF-REU Program. (Courtesy, Paul A. Shackel.)
Almost all of the nails found at the houselot sites are machine cut nails. They were generally manufactured from about 1790 to about 1880. In the 1880s wire nails become popular and they are still manufactured today. The lack of wire cut nails provides some perspective about the growth and eventual demise of the town. Little building and very little repairs occurred to the existing buildings in New Philadelphia after the 1880s. While the residents of the former town left, people apparently did not build or renovate existing structures. The town suffered a slow decay as families moved away and buildings disappeared from the landscape.
The artifact assemblages found at the different parts of the town also help to paint a different picture of the end of frontier Illinois. While there is a common perception of frontier life with little amenities, this is not the case as the town developed in the 1840s, 1850s, and after the American Civil War. Very early in the town’s existence the residents were well connected with regional and national markets. Refined earthenware ceramics from Great Britain found in contexts that date to the 1840s/1850s provide notable evidence of the purchasing networks necessary to provision material items to this town located over 20 miles from the Mississippi River. Agents from St. Louis traveled to eastern ports and ordered large quantities of ceramics to be shipped to St. Louis for eventual distribution to the city’s hinterlands. By the 1850s goods easily flowed from Chicago.
The presence of an aqua green scroll flask container fragment that dates to about 1850 is also an intriguing object. It was made in the Midwest and while the object may suggest the opening of regional trade routes during this era to places like Louisville and Cincinnati, its presence may also be attributed to the strong local connection that residents maintained during the town’s early settlement (Figure 3.32).
Figure 3.32. Excavations at New Philadelphia. (Courtesy, Paul A. Shackel.)
The sewing assemblage from the Butler house furnishes a context for domestic life of a late nineteenth-century African-American family. The identification of slate pencils (found in Block 9, Lot 5) close to the area where local accounts locate the site of a past, segregated school house that served African-American residents (on Block 9, Lot 4) provides notable evidence of the presence of this institution and the use of this structure by members of the community. However, future excavations need to concentrate on the old schoolhouse lot (Block 9, Lot 4) to further investigate that site.
It becomes clear when comparing sites from the early nineteenth century in Illinois that many forms of material culture become homogenized and earlier cultural differences become indistinguishable (Mazrim 2002:268). While “Yankee” and “Upland South” traditions are noticeable in the faunal assemblage (see Martin, this report), a review of the material goods uncovered to date shows that the types of material culture found at sites inhabited by different ethnic groups show little or no differences. All of the residents of New Philadelphia have the same types of material culture and could access local merchants for goods, such as refined earthenwares. What distinguishes the different households from each other may be their dietary habits. Lack of access to some markets, because of economics, transportation, and/or racial discrimination may have encouraged some families to continue the tradition of relying on foraging and hunting for a substantial amount of their protein intake (see Mullins 1999). A closer and more detailed examination of house construction techniques may also provide some clues about household and ethnic differences.
Additional archaeology and a more detailed analysis of artifacts and features will help provide a foundation for additional interpretations of the lifeways of the residents of New Philadelphia.
|
||
