Lives and Legacies

Category: Archaeology

  • Behind the Glass of the Archaeology Lab: Creating an Exhibit

    It can be daunting to look at a blank space and realize you are in charge of filling it. And not just filling it, you need to create something that will leave a lasting impression on the public. The process of creating an exhibit is much more complicated than it seems. From the initial idea to the final product, there are many steps that require careful attention.

    With countless artifacts in the Archaeology Lab, finding inspiration for a topic was easy. Once I settled on 18th Century tea practices, everything seemed to fall into place. There were many subjects I could have focused on from this topic. In order to connect the idea to Ferry Farm and the Washington legacy, I chose to focus on Betty Washington and what she would have learned from her mother growing up at Ferry Farm.

    This inspiration came from an archaeologically excavated pewter teaspoon handle with the initials ‘BW’ stamped into it. It is clear that Miss Betty Washington was the owner of this spoon. The spoon was likely part of a children’s tea set that Betty was given in order to teach her the intricacies of the American Tea Ceremony. This education was Mary’s legacy for Betty; it taught her how to be a proper gentry lady and interact with the upper-class circles in Virginia.

    Teaspoon handle with “BW” initials.

    Once I picked my topic, it was time to begin researching. Research is the backbone of any exhibit, though it might not be the most exciting part. I was able to obtain an understanding of the Tea Ceremony from my research that I applied to my specific topic. The biggest question on my mind throughout my research was: Why was this important for Betty?

    While working on research, I was simultaneously creating a reproduction 18th Century creamware teapot. With the help of the Archaeology Lab Forgeries Department, I quickly transformed a Goodwill find into delicate creamware with a rose motif. The pot is the centerpiece of the exhibit on 18th Century tea practices. Many scholars wrote that the teapot is the literal and figurative center of the ceremony, bringing people together and initiating the ceremony. This concept inspired my placement of the teapot for the exhibit.

    Hand painting of reproduction teapot.

    After concluding my research, writing the signs for the exhibit, and finishing the replica pot, I had to choose the artifacts to include in the exhibit. Throughout this process, I kept my thoughts on Betty. The BW teaspoon handle was set aside for the exhibit as well as the replica teapot. Including teaware from Ferry Farm and Kenmore displayed the continuity of Betty’s gentry practices throughout her life. A slop bowl excavated from Kenmore, as well as a teacup and a saucer excavated from Ferry Farm were both chosen for the exhibit in order to support that point.

    Once this was all completed, the excitement truly began. I saw my work come to fruition when I set up the display in the conservation window of the Archaeology Lab. Being able to share what I had learned with the public was an excited prospect. The exhibit is currently on display and can be seen in the Ferry Farm Visitor Center.

    Intern Gillian Both standing behind her exhibit.

    This process has taught me a lot about exhibit design and the research process. I couldn’t have completed the exhibit without the Archaeology Lab staff helping me along every step of the way. I encourage you to go and visit the lab to see the exhibit and learn more about archaeology at Ferry Farm.

    Gillian Both

    Fleming Smith Scholar, UMW Class of 2022

  • Dig These Dishes! We Recreate an 18th Century Table Setting Using Only Artifacts.

    Dig These Dishes! We Recreate an 18th Century Table Setting Using Only Artifacts.

    On a typical day at George Washington’s Boyhood Home at Ferry Farm, visitors experiencing the house tour are ushered into the main hall upon which a dining table is set out before them with 18th-century reproductions of plates, glassware, wine bottles, and serving dishes. This setting creates an interactive experience for our visitors, transporting them back in time to the mid-18th century when the Washington family lived here on site.

    Last month, however, an unexpected sight greeted a tour group as they entered the hall. The dining table was set, not with reproductions, but actual plates, jugs, and serving dishes that could very well have graced the Washington family’s dinner table over 250 years ago.  The principal difference is that nothing on the table was complete – all were fragmented versions of the originals. 

    Dining table in Hall set up for dinner.

    The setting was a special photoshoot for The George Washington Foundation and an occasion to display and highlight the array of vessels, many mended, residing in the Archaeology Department’s collection.  Everything on the table was archaeologically recovered from either Ferry Farm or Historic Kenmore and represent vessels that date to the Washington family’s occupation of Ferry Farm or Betty Washington Lewis’ time at Kenmore. 

    The Archaeology Department at Ferry Farm has been mending vessels over the past couple of years for our museum displays at the Ferry Farm and Kenmore Visitor Centers. This mending was also done for research purposes as the curatorial department worked to furnish the replica house with accurate, period-relevant household items.

    So what is on the table? Creamware and white salt-glazed plates and serving dishes, glass tumblers and wine glasses, German stoneware jugs, dark green glass wine bottles, a porcelain teacup, coarse earthenware porringers, forks and knives with bone handles, silver spoons, and Mary Washington’s creamware enamel-painted punch bowl.  Many of the ceramic tablewares and a few of the glass tumblers were mended using archival glue.  Some of the objects were able to stand on the table unaided, while others needed mounts for support, such as the wine glass.

    Fragments of dinner and glasswares

    To help envisage the original shape of some of the fragmented vessels and make them recognizable, we first sculpted their shapes out of foam, covered them with fabric, and then attached the incomplete vessel fragments in their correct positions. This process allowed us to present a more “complete” and familiar view of some of the tablewares, such as the two large stoneware jugs, the creamware pepper pot, the glass tumbler, and the two wine bottles. All of these items would have been very difficult to display simply using the fragments themselves. 

    Having such an array of different ceramic styles on the table is more a function of what we have mended in our collection versus what Mary might have actually had on her table.  But for our purposes, we are happy showcasing all of the different ceramic types presently in our possession.

    Welcome to the Washington dining table! Enjoy!

    Judy Jobrack, Archaeologist
    Co-Field Director

  • The Archaeological Process [Infographic]

  • Playing Around: 20th Century Die-Cast Toys Excavated at Ferry Farm

    A lot of people don’t realize how many 20th century artifacts we excavate at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.  Up until the 1990s, families lived and farmed on the property, leaving tens of thousands of artifacts behind.  Some of our favorite modern artifacts are the toys we recover, whether marbles, plastic army and cowboy figurines, doll parts, or miniature tea sets. In this blog, we look at three die-cast toys left behind by the many children who played on the same ground where young George Washington grew up. 

    The first is a small die-cast coal car almost completely intact, except for its missing rubber wheels.  In archaeology terms, we call this artifact ‘talky’.  It makes an archaeologist’s research so much easier when “Midgetoy / Rockford, Ill / U.S.A. / PAT. / 2775847” is embossed on the underside of the car.  However, we still need a date range for this particular toy.  The patent number is a huge help.  After an Internet search, we discovered the patent for this toy was taken out in 1954 by the A&E Tool and Gage Company.  The patent specified an improvement in the wheels to make them rotate more smoothly.  To find the date after which this toy was no longer manufactured, we researched the toy company, Midgetoy, since the patent suggests the toy’s manufacturer started out under a different name.  A&E Tool and Gage was started in 1943 by Alvin and Earl Herdklotz as a defense-based precision tool-and-die business. After the Second World War, they changed their business model to toy making with the goal of creating low-priced die-cast toys.  Thus, Midgetoy was born. The company stopped producing toys in the late 1970s or early 1980s, which represent the approximate end date for this die-cast coal car.

    Our next toy is a fully intact purple die-cast car. With “Tootsietoy Dragster / USA / 3” embossed on the underside, it’s another talky artifact!  Much like Midgetoy, Tootsietoy Corporation started off as something completely different.  Two die casting companies of the Dowst and Shure Brothers were established around the same time in the 1890s.  The companies merged and, in 1909, produced their first model cars: a limousine and Model T Ford. ‘Tootsietoy’ became a registered trademark in 1924. The dragster was not produced until much later, however.  The company didn’t just make cars either It made charms for Cracker Jack boxes as well as die cast dollhouse furniture.  It also produced promotional cars used by dealerships to sell full scale models.  Our dragster has a wedge body with a rear engine, which wasn’t invented until 1974, so this particular toy dates to the mid ‘70s or ‘80s.

    The last toy is one of my favorites, a funky motorcycle.  When it was first discovered, our lab staff thought it looked a lot like a motorcycle from the First World War.  It has an elongated metal body with hard black plastic tires.  Admittedly, our archaeology department knows very little about motorcycles so we started to do some research.  Initially, it appeared as though the toy had no identifying marks. Closer inspection under magnification ultimately revealed that the larger back tire had ‘Corgi’ and ‘Made in Gt. Britain’ faintly embossed on it.  Our initial assessment of the toy being modeled after a World War I motorcycle was completely off.  Although, the toy looked complete to us, the bike was actually missing some parts.  Roughly modeled after a racing bike, it would have had a plastic front piece and a rider figurine. In this case, either Batman, Spiderman, or (our favorite) the Pink Panther, which we would love to recover in a future excavation.

    Aside from these toys being fun to research while occasionally rolling across our desks as we make ‘vrooooom’ noises, they are also poignant reminders of the kids who played here.  The truth is that aside from the Washington children, we don’t know very much about the youth of Ferry Farm.  In many cases, the only record of them living on this landscape are the toys they left behind.  I often wonder who owned these little treasures and how they got lost.  Were the toys missed?  Would any of the adults who grew up at Ferry Farm remember them? When he’s washing a toy, Robert Bailey, a lab volunteer who lived here as a child, often wonders if it was one of his toys.  Regardless, these toys are a nice reminder of the young ones who once played on the same landscape as little George, and that’s pretty cool.

    Mara Kaktins, Archaeology
    Archaeology Lab Supervisor

  • “Have you found anything today?”: A Review of the 2021 Archaeological Excavation at Ferry Farm

    “Have you found anything today?” was (and always is) the most-asked question posed by our daily visitors who stopped by our archaeological site at George Washington’s Ferry Farm this summer. Everyone wants to understand what is going on in the very large square hole we have made in the lawn.  “Yes, we find something every day,” our crew happily answered, while showing the visitors all the small bits of ceramics, glass, metals, and other artifacts sifted out of the dirt that day. Not only did we find hundreds of artifacts during the course of the summer dig, but we also hope we found a building!

    This year’s archaeological dig at Ferry Farm began on June 7 and ended on August 21.  We opened twelve new 5-foot by 5-foot square units and reopened six previously excavated units just south of and adjacent to last year’s excavation site. Our site is located within the Washington house work yard, where activities such as food preparation and cooking, washing laundry, animal husbandry, dairying, household storage and wig maintenance took place.

    The direction of this year’s dig was prompted by the discovery during last season’s excavation of two large rectangular postholes with similar alignments and measuring ten feet from each other.

    Two postholes about 10-feet apart at the end of last year’s excavation.

    Finding additional postholes of similar size and properly distanced from each other would enable us to determine if our postholes were part of a fence line or one side of a post-in-the-ground building.

    After a lot of hard work, we uncovered two similar postholes on the same line as the first two. Unfortunately, we did not find a parallel line of postholes representing the opposite side of a building within the limits of our dig.

    Four postholes in a line at the end of this year’s excavations.

    The abundance of artifacts found on the north side of the posthole line, and the contrasting lack of artifacts to the south of them, indicates the presence of some physical barrier substantial enough to create a division preventing artifacts from passing. Our plan for next season is to hopefully expand the excavation block to the south and the west because that is where associated posts would be located. If there are no matching posthole features, we know we have a fence. If it is a building, we want to get the proper dimensions of that structure, which in turn will help determine its function on the landscape.

    Now that this year’s dig is over, our staff and volunteers are busy in the lab washing and cataloging the artifacts we found this season. As usual, we collected artifacts ranging from present day plastics to thousand-year-old prehistoric tools. Although our total artifact count was not as numerous as in former dig years, we did manage to find some interesting items.

    Our total wig curler count of over 200 continues to grow with the addition of seven wig curler fragments this year.  This may not necessarily sound like a lot, but the amount of curlers found this season alone surpasses the number most other domestic colonial sites have in Virginia.  Thirty wig curler fragments have been found within the 30-foot by 45-foot excavation block dug between from the years 2019 to 2021 in the work yard.

    Approximate Ferry Farm work yard area excavated between 2019 and 2021.

    Other artifacts of interest include a bone-handled toothbrush, children’s toys, a round rusty lock, delicate Chinese porcelain cup fragments, projectile points, buttons, and the rim of an alphabet plate.

    The prettiest artifact prize goes to our blue paste gem button. Research has not yet started on this little gem, but we suspect it dates to the 18th century.

    Blue paste gem button

    For now, the excavation site is once again covered with tarp for protection against the winter elements until we open it again next year. Here on Lives & Legacies, we’ll keep you up-to-date about what we found this summer as we spend the next several months researching these 2021 artifacts in the lab.

    Judy Jobrack, Archaeologist
    Elyse Adams, Archaeologist
    Co-Field Directors

  • A Day at the Dig at George Washington’s Ferry Farm [Video]

    In this video, spend a day with the archaeologists digging at George Washington’s Ferry Farm this summer.

  • We’re Still Digging!: An Update on 2021’s Archaeological Excavation at Ferry Farm [Photos]

    The 2021 archaeological dig season at George Washington’s Ferry Farm is over two-thirds complete. Here’s a collection of photos taken in the field of a few artifacts discovered thus far.  You can read an overview of our expectations and goals for this year’s dig here.  Visitors can ask archaeologists questions and observe their work Monday through Friday at Ferry Farm. The dig continues until August 20.

    Elyse Adams, Archaeologist
    Co-Field Director

  • We’re Digging!: A Preview of 2021’s Archaeological Excavation at Ferry Farm

    Visitors to George Washington’s Ferry Farm will once again be able to meet and talk to our staff archaeologists as they work at our archaeological dig this summer. The dig opened this past Monday, June 7 and runs through Friday, August 20. Archaeologists dig Monday through Friday.

    Approximate location of the 2021 archaeological dig at Ferry Farm.

    The dig is located on the east side of the Washington house in the work yard.  The work yard is where the everyday activities associated with the running of an 18th-century household took place. These activities including food preparation, cooking and cleaning, washing laundry, animal husbandry, dairying, household storage and wig maintenance.  Eventually showing and interpreting these activities as well as incorporating our findings into Ferry Farm’s history are the reasons we dig.

    We are looking for the remains of outbuildings in this area of the site.  Luckily for us, last fall we uncovered a large post mold and hole which we suspect is a structural part of one such outbuilding. This first week we are opening up multiple 5’x5’ units to the south of our posthole feature in anticipation of finding more of this structure.   

    Large post mold and hole located at the southern edge of the 2020 site.

    Our crew will consist of four paid interns in addition to Elyse Adams and myself as co-site directors.  COVID-19 has again eliminated the possibility of university archaeology students joining us for a six-week field school this year, but we hope they can finally return next year. 

    The 2021 dig will be located directly beneath our visitor’s feet in this photo.

    Over the next 12 weeks, we’ll post some of our more interesting discoveries during on Ferry Farm’s Facebook and Instagram so everyone can stay up-to-date our progress.  When you visit Ferry Farm, please stop by the excavation site to ask questions and watch us at work. We are happy to share our daily findings and explain the process of digging into the Washington family’s past!

    Judy Jobrack, Archaeologist
    Co-field Director

  • The Fossils of Ferry Farm

    Archaeologists have one pretty big hang up, and that is when people ask us if we dig for dinosaurs.  We’re so obsessed with making sure that people know we don’t dig dinosaurs that you can find shirts, coffee mugs, keychains, and other merchandise that all say “Archaeologists Don’t Dig Dinosaurs.” But we get it: dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals are super cool- just ask my 4-and-a-half-year-old son or my nine-year-old nephew.  Still, we archaeologists go to great lengths to emphasize that archaeology and paleontology are pretty different.  Archaeologists study historic and pre-historic human cultures by examining the artifacts they left behind.  Basically, we obsess over dead people’s broken stuff. Paleontologists, however, study ancient plants and animals using the fossil record.  Now, that being said, archaeologists do frequently happen to uncover fossils while excavating for artifacts. We’ve made our share of fossil finds while digging at George Washington’s Ferry Farm and we’re going to share some of those finds with you today.

    Archaeologists Don’t Dig Dinosaurs T-Shirt. Credit: cafepress

    First, it should be noted that what we call Virginia today looked a lot different when the creatures our fossil finds represent were alive.  During the Cretaceous and early Paleogene periods, which lasted from 145 to around 56 million years ago, much of this part of Virginia was at times completely underwater as part of the newly formed Atlantic Ocean, while inland areas were very swampy with high temperatures and humidity (Yes, even more so than today’s notorious Virginia climate. Back then, it got up to around 100 degrees most days).  Hence, most of the fossils we recover are from marine environments or swamps.

    Let’s start with one of my favorites: the turritella, a species of spiral-shaped gastropods or mollusks that still exist today. The turritella we find at Ferry Farm, however, are around 50 million years old.  We don’t usually find the shell, but rather the ‘cast’ which forms when sediment fills the inside of a dead mollusk’s shell and then turns to stone, leaving an impression of the inside of the animal.  The resulting fossil cast resembles a corkscrew.  They’re pretty common in this area.  In this picture, you can see a turritella that still has its shell and fragments of the interior case.  Usually they can be found in clusters, representing mass die-off events in which a lot of the turritella met their demise all at once.

    Conglomerate of turritella fossils.

    Bits of turritella excavated at Ferry Farm.

    Turritella casts from the author’s collection.

    Other marine fossils we’ve found include pelecypods.  These bivalves resemble modern day scallops and are estimated to be around 60 million years old.  We have two fragments found at Ferry Farm next to a whole example unearthed by my husband Joe Blondino, who is also an archaeologist, while on another excavation.  We believe these to be Chesapecten jeffersonius pelecypods, which is the Virginia state fossil. Tuck that back in your brain for future trivia nights!

    Fragments of Chesapecten jeffersonius found at Ferry Farm (foreground) next to whole examples from the author’s collection.
    Ray mouth plate fragment excavated at Ferry Farm.

    This little guy above is another one of my favorites.  It may not look like much, but this is a ray mouth plate fragment.  Rays, which also still exist today, used these specialized ‘teeth’ plates to crush the shells of their favorite prey.  It may have shared the waters with some of this fossilized coral, of which we’ve excavated only a few tiny pieces that are as yet unidentified with regard to species.

    We also uncover quite a bit of petrified wood.  These trees would have lived during the periods of the Cretaceous when Virginia was a hot and humid swamp.  After falling into the waters, they were covered and, over millions of years, petrified as the trees’ organic tissues were slowly replaced by minerals.  This example is our largest specimen.

    Petrified wood excavated at Ferry Farm.

    Crocodiles also swam where the George Washington’s boyhood home replica now stands when the land was covered in a warm, shallow sea.  We think the tooth pictured below belongs to one of those crocs, although likely a juvenile one.  Unlike a shark tooth, it is conical, with a depression at the top.

    Crocodile tooth, like from a juvenile, found at Ferry Farm.

    We’ll end with everyone’s favorite: shark teeth!  They’re the most common fossil found at Ferry Farm due in no small part to the fact that sharks continuously shed their teeth throughout their lifetime. Some sharks go through up to 50,000 teeth in their lifetimes!  Most of our shark teeth belong to a species of sand tiger shark, which still exists today (they’re also called the gray nurse shark).  Starting at the beginning of the Cenozoic Era, approximately 66 million years ago, sand tiger sharks swam near the coast in the warm shallow sea waters that covered this part of Virginia.  Their teeth are not large, but quite numerous. They have a distinctive shape with a long very ‘pointy’ crown, small sharp bumps called cusplets on either side, and relatively long root lobes.  The only shark’s tooth we have that doesn’t resemble the sand tiger at all is one we think may be from a species of white shark (related to the great white).

    Sand tiger shark teeth excavated at Ferry Farm.
    Possible giant white shark’s tooth excavated at Ferry Farm.

    Even though archaeologists do not dig for dinosaurs, we certainly do find fossils in our excavations. Since we are obsessively focused on the human cultures of the past, these fossils are not our primary interest. We do not dig for dinosaurs but maybe we actually do sort of DIG them and all fossils from ancient times in a “Wow, fossils are really cool!” sort of way.

    Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
    Archaeology Lab Supervisor

  • Mary’s Dishes [Video]

    In this video, archaeologist Mara Kaktins shares bits of Mary Washington’s dishes excavated at Ferry Farm and explains their significance.

    Read more about Mary’s dishes in this blog post.