Glass Tablewares of the Washington Household

May 10, 2017May 19, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

As work continues on the reconstructed Washington family home at Ferry Farm, we archaeologists are continuing to identify items that were owned by the Washingtons so we can eventually fill the reconstructed house with plates, bowls, glasses, and many other objects based on artifacts we’ve discovered. Our latest mending project towards this goal involves glass tablewares. Piecing together thousands of fragments of clear tableglass is a special kind of agony but a wonderful amount of data has been collected from this painstaking exercise. And we’re not even close to being done yet! In this post, I’ve written about three of the glasswares we have identified in our study thus far.

LEAD GLASS BOTTLE

Fragment of the neck of a lead glass bottle excavated at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.

This particular fragment likely belonged to a small decanter or carafe. It could also possibly be part of a scent bottle, meant to hold perfumes. It was created using a pattern mold. The craftsman would have blown the glass into a simple mold with a ribbed pattern and then twisted it to get this diagonal line effect. He would finish the bottle by adding a separate piece of glass to create the delightful ‘ruffle’ on the neck. Below is an example of what the whole vessel may have looked like. Hopefully, we’ll find more fragments and know precisely what this piece is soon!

Lead glass bottle showing the ruffled neck on the fragment excavated at Ferry Farm.

FLIP CUP

Portions of a flip cup dug up by Ferry Farm archaeologists.

If you google ‘flip cup’, the first image result is a large red plastic cup commonly associated with college parties. The original flip cups were far more aesthetically pleasing. However, they too were used to enjoy recreational beverages. The drink called flip was the original cocktail and needed its own fancy glassware. Colonists loved flip and made it by combining a bizarre (by our modern standards) mixture of beer, hard liquor, spices such as nutmeg, a raw egg (a not uncommon ingredient in eighteenth century drinks), and then immersing a hot iron poker into the concoction. This resulted in a delightfully lukewarm eggy, boozy beverage that was then decanted into a decorative tumbler – the flip cup. While these cups were not only used for flip, the name has stuck. They are delicate and were often engraved with elaborate designs or scenes using a copper wheel. At Ferry Farm, we have a number of archaeological fragments of flip cups. Our examples are made of soda lime glass, not leaded glass, which is common.

Flip cup in the collection at Historic Kenmore. It features the same design as the fragments discovered at Ferry Farm.

VENETIAN GLASS

Archaeologists excavated this small fragment of Venetian glass at Ferry Farm.

This fragment represents what may be the fanciest glassware owned by the Washington family during their time at Ferry Farm. It is a piece of a pincered and buttressed handle that belonged on a vessel such as the beautiful goblet pictured below. Although the sherd may appear unassuming, it is likely part of an elaborate hand-blown Venetian piece made of finely crafted colorless soda lime glass with a barely visible bead of opaque glass running through the center. This would certainly have been a show piece and displayed prominently within the house.

The portion of the handle circled in red on this 16th century Venetian glass goblet is similar to the fragment excavated at Ferry Farm. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Follow Lives & Legacies for updates on the Washington family’s glasswares we are identifying at Ferry Farm. More discoveries await!

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
Ceramics & Glass Specialist

Photos: Grandparent-Grandchild Archaeology Day Camp

April 24, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

During spring break last week, George Washington’s Ferry Farm hosted to Grandparent-Grandchild Archaeology Camp. Campers, young and old, got a crash course on the entire archaeology process at Ferry Farm and the importance of archaeology to history. From recording information and digging up artifacts to a behind-the-scenes lab tour and creating an artifact diorama, campers left with a new-found knowledge of what is beneath their feet! Here are some photos of the camp.

Preparing to dig.

Archaeologists have to record everything they do.

Taking soil depth measurements before digging.

Determining the soil color.

Digging.

“I found something!”

Screening to separate artifacts from dirt.

Carefully checking for artifacts after screening.

Artifacts get bagged.

Viewing Mary Washington’s punch bowl during an Archaeology Lab tour.

Learning about the glass mending project now happening in the lab.

Mending an ‘artifact’.

At the end of the day, campers were given an object that they used to create a diorama telling the story of the object.

“I wonder if this was mine?”: Robert Bailey’s Ferry Farm

March 16, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

We have a unique situation here at the Ferry Farm Archaeology Lab. One of our volunteers, who has spent hundreds of hours washing, sorting and labeling excavated artifacts, is oddly enough, also partially responsible for creating some of those artifacts in the first place!

Robert Bailey

Robert Bailey, his father Ray, mother Peggy and older brother Ray Jr., lived here at Ferry Farm from the late spring of 1957 until August of 1959. His parents rented what was referred to as the “Colbert house,” a large three-story home built in 1914 by James Colbert, a farmer and businessman.

Colbert House

Robert was only five years old when he moved to Ferry Farm. He vividly remembers playing in the many barns, running through the fields and woods that surrounded the farmhouse, and swimming in the stream that runs alongside the historic Ferry Road on hot summer days. He and his brother also showed visitors stopping to see George Washington’s boyhood home around the property and invited them to sign the guest book located inside the small late 19th century building called the Surveyor’s Shed.

Robert as a child (foreground left in the rocker) in the Colbert House back yard.

He also remembers playing with lots of toys typical of the time, most notably glass marbles, plastic army men, toy cars and trucks, and especially a new toy called Play Doh, a wallpaper cleaner compound that had just been reinvented as a moldable clay product for children.

Collection of 20th century items excavated at Ferry Farm. Clockwise from left: portion of a Playdoh canister lid, marbles including a large green shooter, green plastic army man, red plastic Indian, blue plastic Civil War soldier, four .22 caliber shelling casings.

Over 800 toy-related artifacts have been excavated and catalogued in our artifact database. As a collection, these toys span all time periods, from colonial clay marbles, to Civil War-era dice, to a Cold War-era Sputnik ring, and most recently, Dora the Explorer sunglasses! We have also catalogued fragments of bicycle parts, dominoes, board game pieces, dolls, plastic figurines, toy guns and planes, toy cars and trucks, and dishes and tea sets.

Of course, Robert and his brother were not the only children who lived on or visited this site. Other children lived in the Colbert house before and after the Baileys resided there, and hundreds have visited the site on field trips and for special events, such as our annual Fourth of July celebration.

Robert cannot say with any certainty that any of the marbles he has washed in the lab once belonged to him, but the conversations that those marbles start are an important part of the oral and archaeological history of the site. Robert Bailey has participated in the Foundation’s oral history program with a detailed accounting of his memories of the house and grounds. Because he experienced living at Ferry Farm, he can tell us about not only the events and activities his family took part in, but also of the perceptions that visitors to the farm had about the importance of this site as Washington’s boyhood home.

Another vivid childhood memory that often comes to Robert’s mind is of his mother shooting at the black snakes that appeared in and around the house and yard. According to Robert, one day a snake came out of a hole in an old gnarled tree located near the Surveyor’s Shed. His mother dutifully brought out her rifle and proceeded to, as Robert says, “blast away” at the snake. Despite the countless number of bullets expended, she missed and the snake eventually slithered back into its hole.

Surveyor’s Shed in the foreground left with Colbert House in the background right.

While washing artifacts in the wet lab, Robert has come across a lot of .22 shell casings. Just this past week he washed seven. Each time one appears in an artifact bag, Robert chuckles and says “this shell casing might be one that my mom shot at the snake in the tree – and missed!”

Robert looks over some of the 20th century items excavated at Ferry Farm that, who knows, might have belonged to him in his youth.

Sixty years have passed since the Bailey family first came to live at Ferry Farm, but the past certainly comes full circle and is alive again when Robert empties another artifact bag onto the tray and begins to sort its contents. His connection with our archaeological site provides staff with many opportunities to record and analyze more about Ferry Farm in the 20th century. Robert’s deep commitment to helping preserve George Washington’s boyhood history, combined with his own unique insights, creates a new understanding about Ferry Farm for Robert too.

Robert’s history lies mostly in the topmost soil layers of the site as not enough time has passed to deeply bury his things. Although Robert’s lost marbles and plastic army men are mixed in with excavated toys dropped by other boys and girls, it’s fun to hear him say “I wonder if this was mine?”

Judy Jobrack, Archaeologist
Assistant Lab Supervisor

Photos: Washington’s Birthday & Archaeology Day 2017

February 20, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

Every February, Presidents’ Day weekend is a celebratory one at George Washington’s Ferry Farm! As always this year, George’s boyhood home marked his birthday on Saturday, February 18 and then held Archaeology Day on Monday, February 20. Here are some photos from both days.

Cake!

A selfie with George.

Making a birthday card for George.

Playing hoops.

Catching the Graces hoop.

George, one of The Washington Nationals’ Racing Presidents, stopped by the celebration.

Visitors lined up for the Stone Throw Challenge.

Trying to get that rock across the river.

Archaeology Dig Site tour with Laura Galke.

Laura talks about all the wig curlers that have been excavated at Ferry Farm.

Chatting with George (Greg Fisher).

John Jeanes, project manager for the Washington house construction, discusses the project with visitors.

Muraca the Magnificent (Dave Muraca, director of archaeology) glues an ‘artifact’ together with some much needed help.

Visitors learning how 18th century glues worked.

Theater scene in which a modern-day archaeologist travels back in time to question a Civil War soldier about his toothbrush.

Can you guess what the artifact is?

Seeing a real Civil War cannon ball.

Drink Your Vegetables: A Special 18th Century Wedgwood Ware

February 8, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

Fads come and go. Such is life. Eighteenth century colonists were not immune to flash-in-the-pan trends. However, given that information traveled a bit slower before the digital age, in the 18th century a ‘quick trend’ may have lasted 10 or 20 years, instead of 10 or 20 months. Such is the case with ‘vegetable ware’, a refined earthenware molded to look like produce. Imagine being the envy of all your colonial neighbors if you served them tea out of an elaborate ceramic cauliflower, pineapple, melon, or cabbage. As evidenced by the archaeological record, Mary Washington, George’ mother, was similarly taken with the prospect of displaying her very own veggie-themed teaware.

The advent of vegetable ware seems to coincide with the development of bright green and yellow pottery glazes by a young and upcoming potter named Josiah Wedgwood in 1760. He used these new flashy glazes for a number of applications, including coloring teaware molded to resemble produce. While some combinations of ceramics and decorations had previously enjoyed decades or even centuries of popularity in the past, the demand for the initially popular vegetable ware seemed to drop off after only ten years, around 1770. At that time, Wedgewood indicated he was glad to send a shipment of overstocked vegetable ware to the colonies – a popular dumping ground for out of fashion or slightly damaged English goods.

Ceramic vegetable ware tea canisters made at the Josiah Wedgwood’s factory in England between 1754 and 1764. Credit: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Mary seemed to prefer the pineapple form and owned at least one item, if not more, of this fruit-shaped tea equipage. Her preference for the tropical fruit design was not unique. In the 18th century, the pineapple was an incredibly sought after luxury item loaded with symbolism. Today, many of us, especially along the East Coast, associate the pineapple with welcoming guests into our home and as a decoration for the holidays. Colonial Americans considered it a Christian symbol as well as a display of status. They readily incorporated it into the architecture of their houses, decorated room interiors with the motif, and served food and beverages out of pineapple-shaped objects. These were all cheaper options than displaying an actual pineapple, which was well outside the price range of the average colonial American. In fact, there are accounts of people actually renting a real pineapple for a party rather than purchasing one outright. Rented fruit! Let that sink in for a second.

Returning to Mary’s ceramic pineapple, which is represented archaeologically by a dozen or so sherds. It is almost certainly some type of tea equipage, although we are not exactly

Vegetable ware sherds excavated at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.

sure which tea vessel it may be. The pineapple color and texture are unmistakable but we’ve yet to identify the specific object. A number of forms have been ruled out. It is not a tea or coffee pot because it appears to be relatively squat with a straight or very gently sloping body and a wide rim. What’s especially odd about this particular vegetable ware vessel is that the rim is unglazed. This would seem to suggest that it sported a lid of some kind or perhaps endured a defect during firing. Hopefully more of the vessel will come to light, we’ll be able to answer the question, and proudly display pineapple teaware in the newly recreated Washington house!

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
Ceramics & Glass Specialist

Tales of a Patch Stand and a Porringer

February 1, 2017February 15, 2017 / ferryfarmandkenmore

For the past year or so my focus here at George Washington’s Ferry Farm has been determining what types of ceramics were owned by the Washington family. Once we have this information we want to acquire accurate examples to place in the reconstructed house for all to see. From door hardware to teacups, most of the details of the house will be informed by archaeology or historic documents. If a visitor asks “Why do you have these plates on the table?”, we can say “That’s an excellent question! Because we’ve dug up pieces of it right over here!” Our most recent focus has been on the white salt glazed stonewares, which have been featured in previous blog posts. In this post, we talk about fragments that have been identified as a patch stand and a porringer.

First of all, identifying whole vessels from tiny sherds involves a lot of research. This is made all the more difficult when you’re working with a ware-type such as white salt glazed that is defined by its plain white color. So, it’s always a thrilling moment when you’re paging through a huge book with a tiny but distinctive fragment of pottery in your hand and you manage to spot the fragment’s whole object.

My most recent ‘Eureka!’ moment involved both a patch stand and a porringer. You’ve likely never heard these terms but you may own modern day equivalents. A patch stand is a teapot stand, designed to elevate a teapot, arguably the most important object in a tea set, above the other tea wares. It also serves the practical purpose of keeping the hot pot off of the table surface.

18th century pearlware blue and white patch stand. Credit: Woolley & Wallis.

At Ferry Farm, archaeologists found four small fragments from just such a patch stand. The fragments all have evidence of ‘piercing’ or the cutting out of wet clay before it was fired to form a pattern. The pattern created through piercing also promoted air circulation under the stand. Patch stands are not common in the archaeological record so we’re very happy to have identified the sherds. Now we’ll be able to furnish the new Washington house replica with a patch stand.

Fragments of the patch stand excavated at Ferry Farm.

A profile view of one of the patch stand fragments.

The other vessel is a porringer. Although kind of a weird name, porringers were really handy and ubiquitous in every colonial household. A porringer was simply a bowl with a handle for eating soups, porridges, stews, and the like. You may have some equivalent in your house, like those oversized coffee mugs you can also use to eat soup or cereal.

A silver porringer dating from 1742 and made in Boston by Samuel Gray II. Credit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Fragment of a ceramic porringer handle excavated at Ferry Farm.

Stay tuned and keep your eyes out for a sweet patch stand and a nifty porringer once the Washington house is finished!

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
Ceramics & Glass Specialist

Inside the Archaeology Lab: Putting Artifacts on Exhibit

November 16, 2016November 15, 2016 / ferryfarmandkenmore

Here on Lives & Legacies we’ve shown you a variety of important tasks that take place inside the Archaeology Lab at George Washington’s Ferry Farm. You’ve seen how we wash, catalog, label, and then mend vessels with archival glue. One goal of all this work is to piece together whole artifacts from the many broken bits found and share that whole artifact with our visitors as part of the exhibits in our museum gallery. Right now, a new exhibit of white salt-glazed stoneware vessels is on display at Ferry Farm. It took numerous staff and volunteers working hundreds of hours to get the vessels on display ready to be exhibited. Here’s how we did it!

Seven reconstructed white salt-glazed (WSG) stoneware vessels make up a new exhibit at Ferry Farm. These pieces, which include two dinner plates, a fruit dish, three ointment pots (used for mixing medicines and cosmetics), and a tea ware or condiment pot lid, were all excavated from the Ferry Farm site. These ceramics were popular during the mid-18th century and most likely graced the tables of the Washington family.

White salt glaze stoneware fruit dish, 1740-1765. The dish is decorated with a molded “dot, diaper, basket” pattern and would have been displayed prominently in the Washington house at Ferry Farm. An almost identical dish has been excavated at Mount Vernon and additional sherds with a similar pattern were recovered across the river at Kenmore. This may signify a Washington family preference for the motif or indicate that someone within the family acquired multiple fruit dishes and gave them as gifts, something George Washington was known to do.

In preparation for the exhibit, I spent the better part of three weeks in August and September finishing the documentation for the individual vessels and then meticulously gluing them together. This relatively small amount of time spent at the end of the project was only the tip of the iceberg – the total amount of time spent getting these pieces ready for exhibition encompassed a year and a half! Preparing these pieces to be displayed involved the hard work of numerous archaeology lab staff and volunteers.

November 2014 – January 2015: Executive decisions are made…
First, discussions were held within the archaeology department about studying Ferry Farm’s archaeological collection of white salt-glazed stoneware. Such a study would answer questions about the material setting of the Washington household and help with interpreting the forthcoming Washington house replica to the public. The project was given the go-ahead.

January 2015: Getting the lists together…
Using our searchable artifact database, we generated a list of every piece of white salt-glazed stoneware in our collection. A total number of 1,623 artifact bags were on this list, representing over 2,800 actual sherds.

Screencap of the artifact database.

February 2015: Puzzle-solving begins!
We started pulling the 1,623 artifact bags from storage, and by my records, we were still pulling artifact bags in June. Lab staff, volunteers, and, on rainy days, the excavation field crews helped with pulling the artifacts.

After making sure the sherds were labeled correctly, we laid them all out on one of the lab tables, which had been covered in a black foam board to make it easier to see the all-white ceramics. The sherds were first separated by decorative variations, such as plain white salt-glazed, slip-dipped, scratch blue, or dipped with iron oxide, and next by vessel part, such as rims, bases, and bodies. Then the cross-mending began.

Sherds of white salt glaze stoneware waiting to be mended together.

Over the next eleven months, countless hours were spent at the table looking for mends between the sherds. Having identifiable vessel parts, such as rims and molded and decorative elements, helped in the matching process, but there were hundreds of plain white, non-descript sherds to try and fit together. Pieces that mended were taped together with painter’s tape, which doesn’t leave an adhesive residue on the artifacts.

A friendly competition began and whoever had the most mends at the end of each month won a free lunch! In all, everyone spent countless, addictive hours each week scrutinizing the sherds and patiently putting together “puzzles” for which, unfortunately, the majority of the pieces were missing.

“Do these match?”

vessel-209-pot-lid-recto-before-treatment

Puzzle solved!

January 2016: Minimum Vessel Count…
After eleven months, we cried “uncle” to the cross-mending and started the minimum vessel count by figuring out how many and what types of individual WSG vessels were represented in our collection. Under the supervision of Mara Kaktins, The George Washington Foundation’s ceramic and glass specialist, the sherds were separated into what we believed were individual vessels using the bases and rim styles. By late April, our choices were firm and over sixty white salt-glazed vessels were identified.

July 2016: Putting the paperwork in order….
Treatment reports were started on the most complete vessels, which would be included in the new exhibit. Each report listed all the sherds that made up each vessel and their condition. Photographs were taken to help with the mending and gluing. The remaining white salt-glazed sherds on the table were separated into bags according to decorative and body type, their contexts recorded in a spreadsheet for our records, and then returned in storage.

August 2016: Finally, the fun part – gluing!
I started gluing the vessels using a product called B-72, an archival glue that can be removed, if necessary, and that we mix ourselves in the lab. The design of the upcoming exhibit, including the layout, mounts and signage, was created by Meghan Budinger and Heather Baldus, the Foundation’s curatorial team.

White salt glaze stoneware lid, 1720-1780. This lid could have been used with any of several different vessels related to serving tea, such as a tea pot, a punch put (a large version of a tea pot), or a tea canister. Tea was an important part of 18th century life, and displaying fine teawares demonstrated social status.

September 2016: Finishing touches…
The white salt-glazed stoneware exhibit is now installed and ready for the enjoyment of our visitors to Ferry Farm. A total of 614 days from report prep to exhibition!

Judy Jobrack, Archaeologist
Assistant Lab Supervisor