Lives and Legacies

Tag: Civil War

“We encampt here on the banks of the Rappahannock. Oh, it is beautiful country.”

A Personal Look At Civil War Soldiers As Told Through Artifacts

Ferry Farm is most well-known as the Boyhood home of George Washington. While our primary emphasis of interpretation and research has focused on young George and his family’s life on this farm, Ferry Farm has many other stories to tell. The American Civil War had a major impact on the Ferry Farm community, changing both the landscape and the lives of those who lived here. This blog will look at how our archaeological efforts have brought to light artifacts that reflect the experiences of the soldiers that were stationed on the “old Washington Farm.”

Washington House at Ferry Farm

“The Old Mansion of the Washington Family” (1833) by John Gadsby Chapman shows the foundation stones of the house where George grew up at Ferry Farm and trees along the riverbank.

The Washington house and its outbuildings gradually fell into disrepair until by the mid-1830s there was no trace of them on the landscape. But the soldiers still knew the significance of the site. In April 1862, the Civil War came full force to Fredericksburg and to Ferry Farm. Federal Forces took over and occupied the City of Fredericksburg behind the retreating Confederate Army. Encampments and gun emplacements were established all along our side of the river and throughout Stafford County as the army set about maintaining control of the city across the river. Engineers were set to the task of rebuilding the railroad bridge and erecting pontoon bridges, including one at the end of Ferry Road.

Looking over Fredericksburg by Alfred R. Waud

This spring deployment and the military occupation of Ferry Farm was relatively quiet and uneventful. There is no evidence of a large, formal camp at Ferry Farm, but soldiers were stationed here to protect one of the pontoon bridges that ran from the bottom land of Ferry Farm across to the city of Fredericksburg. In August of 1862, the army suddenly retreated from the city and the surrounding countryside to defend Washington, D.C.

In November of the same year, the full force of the Union Army returned to Stafford County in preparation for the retaking of Fredericksburg and their expected march to take over Richmond. Instead, the Federals suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December and retreated to the north side of the river for winter camp. Now, Ferry Farm was being used more actively as a staging ground for multiple troop movements, bivouacs for soldiers guarding the pontoon bridges, and as a defensive line for the Federal troops.

  A defensive trench, or rifle pit, with an adjoining berm to protect soldiers from gunfire originating on the Fredericksburg side of the river, was dug across the edge of the upper river terrace, stretching north-south from the edge of the stream gully through the remains of the Washington house. A small extension on the south end of the trench was dug out to connect it to the now-exposed cellar.

Artifacts found within the cellar trench fill reflect the extensive use of the house ruins by soldiers during both occupations. In the spring and summer, they used the farmhouse as their headquarters, writing on the plaster walls and leaving graffiti in pencil and charcoal on hundreds of plaster fragments that have been excavated and preserved.

Plaster fragments with graffiti

Various artifacts were abandoned when they left, including canteens, bullets, gun parts, and writing tools. But this blog isn’t about buttons, bullets, and buckles. It’s about the items the soldiers found more dear. Objects they made or relied on for small comforts.

So, on a more personal level, what was everyday life like for the Union soldiers stationed here during the Civil War? When they weren’t directly experiencing the brutal and intense combat fighting on the front, it was a routine-filled life of constant drilling, standing watches, maintaining equipment, and finding imaginative ways to entertain themselves in the camps. But camp life had its own struggles and hardships. Poor shelter, food, and hygiene, along with low immunity rates to communicable diseases, all contributed to high rates of sickness and disease. Add to that boredom and homesickness, and camp life was a private’s first test of survival.

It was very important for the soldiers to recognize that they were standing on the very ground that their hero, George Washington, once stood on. Those sentiments were expressed in a speech by Private Edwin Jones of the 6^th Wisconsin when he said, “We are assembled on sacred soil…It was while living on this plantation, under the direction and blessed with the teaching of a noble mother, that George Washington learned those lessons…fitting him for leadership in war and peace, to lay the foundation of the mighty Nation that we today are fighting to preserve.”

On a more personal note, we know soldiers spent a lot of idle time playing games among themselves. Dice, card games, chess, checkers, and gambling were all very popular, and remnants of these activities are found on all Civil War sites. At Ferry Farm, we have a collection of gaming pieces, including this bone die and a gaming piece crafted from a Minié ball, which could have been used to play chess, checkers, or as markers in a game of chance.

Bone die, one of the many gaming pieces uncovered

Gaming pieces crafted from a Minié ball

And we can’t forget about the importance of music in camp life. Music was a common and welcome pastime activity for troops. Fiddles, guitars, fifes, harmonicas, and accordions all came out at night to entertain the soldiers who relished listening to songs about home and the worries of war. Jaw harps were inexpensive and easily portable, which made them very popular with soldiers. Our jaw harps, one of which was recovered from the civil war trench, is of the style known as a Gloucester type, one of the most common designs in America during Colonial times and after the Revolution.

“Gloucester type” jaw harp

            Nothing is normal about wartime. Many people were forced to improvise, and it’s very hard to determine why a soldier placed four unfired Minié balls in this tin can, which was revealed through X-ray. Did he lose his ammo case? Was it just idle behavior? Were these bullets saved to be turned into gaming pieces? This is the type of artifact that raises more questions than answers.

A tin can filled with four unfired Minié balls,

X-Ray of tin can with four unfired Minié balls

Literacy – Ink Bottle/Pen nib:

Literacy among Civil War soldiers was very high, and much of what we know about daily camp life comes from the letters written and received by the soldiers themselves. Letter-writing to loved ones at home allowed the soldier to keep up with local news, forward monetary and business instructions to those left running the household or farm, and relay war news to their family.

            A complete ink bottle and pen nib recovered from the site evidences the desire for correspondence, both official and personal. The ink bottle itself was found in the Bray cellar hole, which the Union soldiers used as a defensive dugout to avoid Confederate sharp shooters. We can just picture a group of soldiers huddled down inside the cellar, building a small campfire to stay warm, and writing letters home to their families. Was it a hasty departure that left this bottle in the cellar, or perhaps the owner expected to return but didn’t. As archaeologists, we can’t answer all these questions, but we know it was used during the Civil War by a Union soldier and was found in a location many soldiers never wanted to be stuck in.

This particular ink bottle is an ‘umbrella’ shape, one of the most ubiquitous ink bottle forms from this era. The bottle was typically meant for single use and would have been made in one of the numerous American glasshouses present during the 19^th century. It was then filled with ink, affixed with a label, and marketed for single use.

“umbrella” shaped ink bottle and small pen nib

This small pen nib is stamped with a maker’s mark and style name. The Esterbrook Company started making nibs, including the “Relief” style, in 1858 in Camden, New Jersey, and became one of the largest manufacturers of this product in the US. The nib was part of a dip pen, which consisted of a handle made of various materials and the replaceable nib.

The first evidence of self-care in the trenches takes the form of a small double-sided bone comb. Combs were made from an assortment of materials, including bone, ivory, gutta perch, and steel, and were used for grooming the moustache and hair. But their fine teeth were also handy in capturing the pesky lice that were endemic to camp life among men marching and living together in close quarters. This comb would have been an essential component of any soldier’s personal kit.

small double-sided bone comb

Our second evidence of self-care is this intriguing bottle. It is not so much interesting because of what it is – it’s a very common medicine style bottle for the mid-19th century– but rather what’s inside. Clearly visible within the bottle is a hard black substance, and for years, we’ve wondered what the substance may be.

Mercury bottle, mercury was used for a variety of medicinal reasons at the time

So we chipped off a little fragment of the substance and sent it to Ruth Ann Armitage, our chemist friend at Eastern Michigan University. The sample was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy to map out specifically what elements were present in the sample. Our sample was also run through DART (direct in real time) mass spectrometry. This technique is good at detecting organic components within a substance.

            Almost immediately, Dr Armitage responded, and we weren’t disappointed: “Did you know there’s mercury in this?” Nope, we did not.

However, this discovery was not too surprising given the use of mercury in many medicines for thousands of years. Nowadays, it’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t drink mercury…or touch it…or inhale it, but for a long time, mercury was seen as a potent healing metal, and it was readily rubbed on skin, consumed, and vaporized for immediate effect on the lungs.

And while all these treatments using mercury did little to address the body’s underlying medical problem, mercury did cause an immediate bodily response, which convinced people it was working to cure their ailments. When applied topically, it burned. When introduced into the body, it caused a person to sweat, salivate, and have diarrhea. The mucous membranes also went into overdrive, leading many to believe that the bad stuff in your system making you sick was being purged by the mercury. The reality, of course, was that the body was trying desperately to rid itself of poison.

So, if the residue inside our bottle was medicine, what was its exact formula? All we can say at this point is that it was mercury-based and that it could have been in either liquid or pill form. Common Civil War-era uses for mercury-based medicines were for treating skin sores and lacerations, internal and external parasite infections, syphilis, and constipation, to name but a few. On a side note, an almost identical bottle also containing mercury was found across the river in Fredericksburg at a site that was well known to be a Union field hospital. It was found in a knapsack discarded in a trench that included amputated limbs.

Lastly, we’d like to highlight one of our favorite artifacts, a tiny hatchet about two and a half inches long, recovered from the bottom of the Civil War trench. For such a diminutive object, it speaks quite loudly to our local history in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Initially, earlier archaeologists at Ferry Farm assumed it was a pewter toy souvenir given out or sold in 1932, when our country and Fredericksburg celebrated the 200th anniversary of George’s birth. Indeed, cheap pewter toys were very popular during this time period.

Lead toy hatchet found in Civil War-era trench with traces of tin and nickel.

Lead toy hatchet found in Civil War-era trench with traces of tin and nickel.

A recent reexamination of all the artifacts from the context where the hatchet was found revealed that nothing from that stratum had any 20th-century artifacts in it, nor did the two strata above it. In fact, the youngest artifacts from these strata were all mid-19th century. Additionally, although the archaeologists who excavated the hatchet didn’t know it at the time, the excavation unit from which the hatchet came sat right inside the Civil War-era trench.

This revelation shut the door on our ‘it’s a 20th-century souvenir’ narrative but opened the door to an even cooler one. A close examination of the hatchet showed that it didn’t have mold seams, which are always present on cast pewter toys. Furthermore, for some reason, it had one smooth side and one textured side, leading us to believe that it was handmade, not machine-cast. This was supported by a thorough internet search to find an identical toy hatchet, which came up empty, further supporting our new theory that this piece was a one of a kind. The textured side resembled the grain of wood, so we surmised it had been cast in a simple hand-carved wooden mold. All of these clues, combined with its location within a Civil War trench, made us suspect that the hatchet was crafted by a soldier, likely from a lead Minié ball. The hatchet is likely ‘trench art’, which is defined as objects of art either made by soldiers, POWs, or by civilians to create mementos of the war experience.

To further support our identification of the hatchet as trench art, we took the artifact to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, where Katherine Ridgeway analyzed it using XRF, or X-ray fluorescence analysis. This non-destructive technique determines the composition of metal. We also brought along a few Minié balls recovered from the same unit for comparison. It turned out that what we thought was a pewter hatchet was actually a lead hatchet with a similar compositional profile to Minié balls, which are mostly lead with trace amounts of other metals such as tin and nickel.

One can just imagine a bored Union soldier whittling the mold and then melting down some of his bullets to pour into it. He likely chose the hatchet form because of the famous cherry tree story, in which young George Washington owned up to hacking his father’s cherry tree with a hatchet by proclaiming, ‘I cannot tell a lie.’ The soldier would have been well-versed in the Washington cherry tree myth at Ferry Farm, created by Mason Locke Weems in his first biography of Washington, published in 1800. By the 1860s, the story was nationally known. Additionally, letters Union soldiers wrote while encamped at Ferry Farm indicate they knew the site’s connection to Washington. They even went so far as to send home cherry seeds for their families.

Grant Wood — Parson Weems’ Fable (1939)

While the identification of the hatchet is now secured, we have so many more questions. Who was this soldier? How many hatchets did he make, and why did this one come to be left behind in his trench? Was it a souvenir for himself, or did he send one home to his family, or share with fellow soldiers? Did he survive the war? Unfortunately, these are mysteries that will likely never be solved, but that make for great pondering.

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist and Lab Manager

Judy Jobrack, Archaeology Co-Field Director

June 3, 2025
One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s TPQ: Modern Materials in Archaeological Excavations

Archaeology is trash. There, I said it. Before you call Mr. Jones and have me thrown in a pit of snakes, let me explain. Generally speaking, archaeology focuses on understanding the past through the items that people left behind, i.e., their trash. Most of the things we find are left around because they were broken or no longer needed. Disposal of these items looked much different before modern garbage collection as we know it today. Rather than trashcans and landfills, trash was often thrown outside of the home or workspace near windows and doors or any other designated disposal areas. These areas, also known as middens, usually have a high number of artifacts and are top-tier when it comes to understanding a site. So, in other words, archaeology is trash, and we love it.

Most people can get behind the archaeologists saving the trash that’s hundreds or thousands of years old, but things are a little different when it comes to saving more modern materials like plastic. When visitors or volunteers see things like plastic bottle caps or food wrappers in our bags to bring back to the lab, they usually have a few questions. Like, “Did you mean to keep this?” Or “Why are you keeping this trash?” Here at Ferry Farm, we don’t pick favorites, every bit of trash can tell us something about the site and how it has been used.

One-way modern materials can help us understand a site is by helping us determine the Terminus Post Quem (TPQ), or “time after which,” of a layer. The TPQ is determined by identifying the earliest production date of the most recently produced item. For layers deposited before the widespread use of plastics, ceramics are usually used for determining the TPQ because they are datable (temporally, not romantically) since most have very specific production dates, and they also hold up pretty well under ground. For example, when looking at the ceramics in a layer with tin-glazed wares, Buckley, and creamware, the TPQ would be 1762 since that is the earliest production date of the most recently produced ceramic (creamware). All the items in the layer had to have been deposited after that date.

The same idea works with modern synthetic materials like plastics, which are usually found at sites that have been used within the last 100 years. If there were to be some plastic soda bottles, weed eater line, and styrofoam in a layer, the TPQ would be 1978. While these materials may also be items you have in your home, not thought to be worth collecting and preserving, their presence in a layer helps provide a date. They can also tell us if an earlier layer was disturbed.

When archaeologists talk about disturbed layers, we aren’t judging their emotional state or love of 2000s heavy metal. Instead, when a layer is described as disturbed, that means there was some sort of activity happening after the initial deposition that affected that layer. During last season’s dig, there were layers with a mix of colonial, prehistoric, and modern materials that indicated that the area was disturbed by some subsequent activity. The information gathered by the presence of modern materials is important for the interpretation of the site and its use over time.

Example of a disturbed layer– Artifacts include prehistoric flakes and fire-cracked rock, colonial items like tobacco pipe stems, Civil War Minie balls, and modern-day plastics

Now that we know why we keep this so-called modern trash. Here are a few examples of how the presence of these items helped our archaeologists understand a part of our site.

My favorite example happened during last year’s dig. One of our crew, Abbie, was preparing a feature for photographs and had to keep clipping pesky hairlike roots that were in the way. After a bit of excavating, it turns out the “roots” were bristles from a plastic broom. The broom dated the feature fill to the late 20^th century and got to the root of the hairy soil issue.

Pesky broom in feature

Our staff has numerous examples of these modern materials being used to help identify previous archaeology as well, from candy wrappers at the bottom of shovel test pits and trenches to an entire trowel! While things like plastic trash bags and food containers aren’t the most exciting to find, they play a part in interpreting the history of activities on the site.

Once something is left behind, it becomes part of the archaeological record, whether it was 10,000 years ago or yesterday’s lunch. What does your trash say about you?

Danielle Arens

GWF Archaeologist

March 19, 2025
Behind the Glass at Ferry Farm’s Archaeology Lab

The observer stands behind glass and watches. The one being watched picks up the object with her bare hands turns it carefully to see every angle, then sets it down to record data into her computer. Then she washes her hands, unwraps another object – and eats it!

Visitors to George Washington’s Ferry Farm can explore more than the museum gallery, or the Washington House replica, or newly constructed Quarter and Cellar outbuildings. They can tap into their people-watching curiosities and observe real archaeologists in a laboratory researching, washing objects, making labels, cataloguing, repairing ceramics – and even eating lunch!

One extraordinary thing about Ferry Farm is that its archaeology lab is viewable and accessible to the public. The mysteries of history lie out in the open, sitting out on tables or in trays ready to be washed and categorized. Like zoo-goers, visitors are mesmerized by the goings-on behind the glass, and likewise, our archaeologists love interacting with the public, glad to answer questions or even pose for a picture.

Recent mends of enameled creamware behind one of several Archaeology Lab observation windows.

It may be an interesting coincidence, but as Mary Washington drives the story of Ferry Farm and Historic Kenmore was saved by a group of intrepid women, Ferry Farm’s archaeology laboratory is also dominated by women who are passionate about what they do and more than willing to share their findings with guests and professional peers. Who are these interesting women, and what exactly happens in the lab? Its main inhabitants are Lab Supervisor Mara Kaktins and Field Directors Judy Jobrack and Danielle Arens. Also, part of the team (but not in the fishbowl) are Research Archaeologist Emma Schlauder and Director of Archaeology Dave Muraca. Dave, the only man in the department, led the team that discovered the foundation of the Washington House.

There would be no lab work if there was no field work, and every summer for about 11 weeks, a carefully planned dig occurs on the grounds of George Washington’s Boyhood Home. Rich in artifacts, the land has yielded over 800,000 since the 1990’s. Finds date from indigenous, colonial, Civil War, and a sequence of farms throughout the 20^th century. As Dave Muraca has said, “I would never recommend having a Civil War battle on your archaeological site. There are five successive farms out there, one on top of each other. In that way, it’s very complicated and hard to take apart.” That said, the fieldwork is not easy, but incredibly, each season, they find thousands of artifacts that will need to be mapped, processed, washed, bagged, catalogued in the database, labeled, stored, and researched.

Washed artifacts waiting to be bagged and catalogued.

Typical finds include ceramic sherds, window glass shards, architectural pieces, household items, mortar, sandstone, personal items, pipes, wig curlers, buttons, personal adornment, and indigenous and faunal (animal remains). Objects popular with the public include a Masonic pipe bowl, cufflinks engraved with foxes and “Tally O,” a chamber pot, and even 20th-century items that indicate children used to live on-site, such as Matchbox cars, a toy motorcycle, or a doll’s head. Observers are also surprised to learn that 21st-century trash is catalogued because it was unearthed, and someday that too will be a part of Ferry Farm’s history.

It’s important to note that Ferry Farm doesn’t dig exhaustively. While archaeologists are certainly concerned with the past, they also make concessions for the future, leaving areas untouched for future generations to dig using as-yet not invented technology. Ground penetrating radar has not been used much because of all that has happened on the land since Washingtons’ time. The main emphasis is feature-chasing – looking for structures such as the Washington House, cellar, kitchen, the Quarter, and more. No land feature will be recreated without knowing exactly where it stood.

A unique quality of Ferry Farm’s Archaeology Department is that lab and field duties are not segregated; the same amazing team works both in the lab and field. This creates an intimacy with the artifacts that may not be present elsewhere. One day in the field equals three working days in the lab, processing, interpreting, and analyzing all the data from the artifacts. The first step is turning the field data into a format that’s digestible for record-keeping, end-of-year reports, and future Ferry Farm archaeologists. In the field, a site grid in five-foot increments is established and laid out to track where the finds are. Within that grid, context numbers are assigned to specific soil layers and features. A context is essentially a 5’ x 5’ address that notes the horizontal and vertical location of artifacts, noting spatial distribution where items are concentrated. In the lab, context maps are made from each grid unit, and the maps are put together to create the stratigraphy of a dig site.

Leaded glass takes on a blue hue under UV light.

Artifacts that come in are brought to the Wet Lab and washed with water in a tub or colander using tools such as toothbrushes, pipe cleaners, or dental picks. One might wonder if there are special precautions for handling artifacts, and interestingly, controversy swirls over whether artifacts should be handled with gloves or not. Rubber gloves are worn during lengthy washings to keep hands from getting too waterlogged. It turns out wearing gloves for analysis proves more damaging since touch sensitivity is reduced and gloves are prone to ripping. Items being examined have been surrounded by the elements for years, so oils from hands are not likely to harm artifacts any further.

Next to the Wet Lab is the Conservation Lab, where acetone might be used to remove glue from previously mended artifacts. It’s equipped with a vent hood for fumes and the archaeologists wear masks for safety. They often create tableware replicas for the Washington House display, which might require the use of spray paint.

Very well-designed and equipped, the lab was created by archaeologists for archaeologists. Their equipment includes a light table, a Dremel, a fine water screen for the field, and a UV light to identify leaded glass. For further testing, the department may contract out to other labs, such as the University of Eastern Michigan, with DART mass spectrometry capable of identifying organic materials.

After artifacts are entered into the database and bagged with tiny labels indicating their project number and context, they are either put in the study collection or housed in cabinets or a storage room. With almost a million artifacts in the collection, the boxes stacked in the storage room resemble a miniature version of the ending scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Boxes of artifacts stacked in the storage room resemble a miniature version of the ending scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

While one cannot put a value on tiny sherds of 18th-century ceramics, a rusted hinge, or an old button, Kaktins says, “Everything is priceless because of the information gleaned from it.” Archaeology at Ferry Farm is the driving force behind the stories shared with visitors. It informs where the buildings go, reveals the long-forgotten secrets of inhabitants, and intrigues visitors as they glimpse into the past.

Lori Pikkaart

Marketing & Communications Manager

October 2, 2024
Music from the Past: Jaw Harps and their Players

What is a jaw harp, and what does it tell us? This little instrument likely looks familiar, but you may not know that much about it. That certainly proved the case for me when I decided to research the four we have in our collection.

To start, a jaw harp is an extremely simple instrument to make and play. It only requires an iron or copper alloy frame and a flexible metal tongue, or lamella, which runs through the center. Manufacturing styles vary, but many undergo casting or forging to create the bow shape and arms. The lamella most often attaches by hammering it in place. This part is rarely preserved in the archaeological record, so only the frame remains for us to find.

To play the instrument, one places it against their mouth and plucks the lamella while breathing out. Varying your breathing and the shape of your mouth cavity allows the sound to change. That said, while the instrument is easy to play, it proves difficult to play well, and many dislike its boings and buzzes. Those skilled at the jaw harp, however, went on to play for the likes of Frederick the Great and George IV. They even managed to play more than one jaw harp at once.

Man playing a jaw harp (Mackinac State Historic Parks 2018)

            The history of jaw harps dates beyond the fifth century BCE in Asia. Archaeological evidence places the instrument’s arrival in Europe around 1200, with the migration occurring along northern routes through the Baltic. Due to their mundane nature, jaw harps rarely appear in historic accounts or art. Two exceptions include Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Sleeping Peddler Robbed by Monkeys (1562), which helps identify peddlers as the main purveyors of jaw harps, and accounts of the North Berwick Witch Trials (1590-1592), where one of the accused performed for James VI of Scotland. Witches aside, the most common players at this time included the lower classes and soldiers.

            While jaw harps may not have generated the most attention, they played key roles in early trade deals in North America. Jaw harps likely first came to North America in the company of soldiers, but they soon gained popularity amongst indigenous groups, such as the Five Nations Iroquois. Confirmation of this occurred as early as 1595, with Robert Dudley reporting that the instrument made a successful trade item. As trade continued, the exchange of jaw harps frequently related to the fur trade, but some larger and more dubious, deals included the acquisitions of Staten Island and Maryland. That said, even the fur traders came under fire for using jaw harps of poor quality.

Within established colonies, jaw harps appeared as an item frequently sold by merchants. Numerous adverts appeared in papers between the 1730s and 1780s. For Virginia, this included merchants in Williamsburg during the 1760s, as well as Alexandria and Gloucester in the 1770s. Production would have occurred in England with the then imported good available to all customers in the colonies. We know that soldiers played them during the French & Indian War and the American Revolution. This connection to soldiers would even continue through the Civil War. As for other players in Colonial times, a couple of adverts for runaway indentured servants placed in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette listed jaw harps as a special talent of the individual and amongst the items possibly carried by them.

Aside from these individuals, the other most common players consisted of enslaved people. Evidence of this comes solely from the archaeological record. Excavations have uncovered jaw harps at a number of sites in Virginia, including Monticello, that date from the mid-1700s to early 1800s. In all of these cases, the instruments came from enslaved domestic quarters and work areas. Due to their nature, jaw harps would have proved an easy item for an enslaved person to hold on to, use, and share with others. In use, they would have been part of the enslaved music culture, which offered individuals a respite from work, a way to express themselves, and perhaps an outlet for the continuation of West African cultural practices.

As I mentioned earlier, four jaw harps reside in our collection. Three came from the Washington cellar, while the fourth came from a Civil War trench that ran through the cellar. To understand their significance, an examination of the artifacts themselves and their contexts help us identify and date them.

Physically, all four appear to reflect a design known as Gloucester. This means they consist of an iron frame and represent one of the most common designs in America during Colonial times and after the Revolution. We know that the ones that came directly from the cellar pre-date the 1830s due to the collapse of the house. A closer look at the artifacts accompanying them provide us with a range of the 1780s-1830s for the date of deposit.

Depiction of a Gloucester-type jaw harp sans lamella

As for the harp from the Civil War trench, while this may seem like an obvious identification, it remains tricky. A Union soldier may have played and discarded it while encamped here. However, when people filled the trench after the war, they may have used dirt that contained earlier artifacts from Ferry Farm. As the trench ran through the cellar, this harp ultimately lay close to the other three, and the dirt used to fill the trench may have come from that area. We may never know for sure on this particular piece, but it likely dates either to the war period or as a contemporary of the other three.

Ferry Farm’s jaw harps

While the dates provided occur after the Washington occupation of Ferry Farm, jaw harps existed on the market during their time, meaning the instrument may have had an earlier presence. As for who played them, these instruments likely reflect use by enslaved individuals. After the Battle of Princeton (1777) claimed the life of Hugh Mercer, who had purchased Ferry Farm from George Washington, the property passed through a series of renters. None occupied the site for long, but an enslaved population maintained a constant presence as each renter relied on enslaved labor. This continued up until the Civil War. With the evidence of enslaved people using jaw harps at other sites in Virginia and the fact that enslaved individuals constantly lived or worked at Ferry Farm, we can attribute these artifacts to them.

One of our future projects involves reconstructing the enslaved quarters at Ferry Farm to better represent and tell the enslaved narrative. As jaw harps represents an activity that occurred during the limited down time allocated to enslaved people and reflects the importance of music in the culture, one will certainly be included upon completion of the project.

After all that history and archaeology, I leave those wondering what a jaw harp sounds like with the perfect piece. Fittingly titled “Washington’s Birthday,” this 1909 piece by Charles Ives utilizes the instrument to invoke the sound of country dances on a cold, dreary day in February. To hear the jaw harp, skip to 7:37. Enjoy!

Emma Schlauder

Research Archaeologist



References

Clyne, Anthony, 1928. The Jew’s Harp a Century Ago. The Musical Times 69(1024): 508-509.

DAACS, 2022.Artifact Query 3, 8 August 2022. The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (https://daacsrc.org/queries/aq_three_results).

Kolltveit, Giermund, 2006. Jew’s Harps in European Archaeology. Archaeopress, Oxford, UK.

2009, The Jew’s Harp in Western Europe: Trade, Communication, and Innovation, 1150-1500. Yearbook for Traditional Music 41: 42-61.

Samford, Patricia M.,1994. Searching for West African Cultural Meanings in the Archaeological Record. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter 1(3): 1-3.

Wright, Michael, 2008. The Jew’s Harp in the Law, 1590-1825. Folk Music Journal 9(3): 349-371.

2011, The Jew’s Harp Trade in Colonial America. The Galpin Society Journal 64: 209-218.



September 14, 2022
Bad Medicines: Mercury and Self-Medication in the Civil War

During the Civil War, George Washington’s Ferry Farm was the site of Union Army encampments that included some defensive works like a trench dug into the crest of the ridge overlooking the river. In that trench and throughout Ferry Farm’s landscape, Union soldiers lost and threw away a wide array of military gear and personal belongings, which our archaeologists frequently excavate.

Excavated area containing the footprint of the 18th century Washington house at Ferry Farm and showing a 19th century Civil War trench running the length of the house and beyond.

This blog post highlights an intriguing artifact excavated from the trench: a diminutive glass bottle. This bottle is not so much interesting because of what it is – it’s a very common medicine style bottle for the mid-19th century– but rather what’s inside. Clearly visible within the bottle is a hard black substance and for years we’ve wondered what the substance may be.

Medicine bottle excavated by archaeologists at George Washington’s Ferry Farm and containing an mystery residue.

Enter Ruth Ann Armitage, our amazing chemist friend from Eastern Michigan University. Over the years, she and her colleagues have generously used their extremely fancy equipment to analyze many of the residues we’ve recovered archaeologically. So we chipped off a little fragment of the substance in the bottle and sent it to her lab.

The sample was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM works by shooting a beam of electrons at the sample, which gives you an image of its surface topography. Backscattered electrons (BSE), collected in a different detector, tell you about the elemental composition. In a BSE image, the contrast in the image is related to the atomic number of the material, with brighter areas showing high number elements (usually metals) and darker areas representing low number elements (like carbon). X-rays are also produced when the electron beam hits the sample, so an x-ray detector allows the chemist to do energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to map out specifically what elements are present in the sample. To put it simply, all of these techniques are good at alerting the chemist to the elements within a residue.

Our sample was also run through DART (direct in real time) mass spectrometry. This technique is good at detecting organic components within a substance. It’s important to note here that this is not an episode of CSI and a reading does not automatically tell you what is in the bottle.

A magnified image BED of sample, which is clearly stratified with darker low atomic number elements such as carbon at the top. The brighter areas represent higher atomic number elements, in this case, mercury.

That being said, almost immediately, Ruth Ann responded and we weren’t disappointed: “Did you know there’s mercury in this?” Nope, we did not.

However, this discovery was not too surprising given the use of mercury in many medicines for thousands of years. Now a days it’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t drink mercury…or touch it…or inhale it. Believe it or not many people did not accept mercury’s dangers until well into the 20th century. Some people born in the 1980s and before might even remember playing with the little balls of mercury from a broken thermometer, am I right? As weird as it seems this wasn’t that dangerous because mercury is not toxic in such small concentrations. However, if you were born a little further back you may remember a substance called calomel (mercury chloride), which was marketed as a cure all. Perhaps most tragically, it was as a common teething medication for children until the 1950s. For a long time, mercury was seen as a potent healing metal and it was readily rubbed on skin, consumed, and vaporized for immediate effect on the lungs.

And while all of these treatments using mercury did little to address the body’s medical problem, mercury still caused an immediate bodily response, which convinced people it was working to cure their ailments. When applied topically, it burned. When introduced into the body, it caused a person to sweat, salivate, and have diarrhea. The mucous membranes also went into overdrive, leading many to believe that the bad stuff in your system making you sick was being purged by the mercury. The reality, of course, was that the body was trying desperately to rid itself of poison, the mercury. That being said, mercury does actually have a place in the medical world and can be useful, it just took a little while for people to learn how to properly utilize it.

So, if the residue inside our bottle was medicine, what medicine was it? Initially our archaeology lab thought it was calomel but the chemical analysis didn’t show any chlorine. The most interesting components were mercury and sulfur, which could possibly indicate cinnabar, the ore from which mercury is obtained. The image below is a close up of the mercury and shows the sulfur (dark circles) surrounded by the brighter mercury.

Other elements detected include carbon, oxygen, and trace amounts of iron, silica, and aluminum. A closer look at the DART analysis suggests that the mercury compound might be in the dried remains of a fat or oil based on the presence of substances that form when fats decompose over time.

What does all this mean? Unfortunately, without more research, it’s hard to say what was in the bottle other than the basic components already detected. Because it’s a medicine bottle, our assumption is that the residue it contains was a treatment of some sort in which case we’re dealing with a soldier who had an ailment. Common Civil War-era uses for mercury-based medicines were treating skin sores and lacerations, internal and external parasite infections, syphilis, and constipation, to name but a few.

What is even more interesting is that a nearly identical bottle which also contained a hefty amount of mercury was recovered across the river just a few years ago by Dovetail Cultural Resource Group from another Civil War context. Read more about their discovery here.

Soldiers throughout history are known to have carried their own medicines with them so it’s very cool to see actual physical evidence of that. As to the exact medicine, perhaps we’ll know someday but for now let’s just say it was definitely bad medicine.

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
Archaeology Lab Supervisor

May 20, 2020
When a Toy Hatchet is so Much More: Trench Art at Ferry Farm

Lead toy hatchet excavated at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.

This is a Memorial Day story of a tiny hatchet excavated at George Washington’s Ferry Farm. For such a diminutive object it speaks quite loudly to our local history in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Initially, archaeologists at Ferry Farm assumed it was a pewter toy souvenir given out or sold in 1932, when our country and Fredericksburg celebrated the 200th anniversary of George’s birth. Indeed, cheap pewter toys were very popular during the time period.

Pewter World War I Toy Soldier

Pewter World War II Toy Soldier, depicted as wounded and using crutches.

A closer look at the provenience, or the location on the Ferry Farm landscape, where the artifact was recovered paints a more complex picture. Provenience is very important in archaeology because whatever is excavated around an artifact paints a more complete picture than one object all by itself. A reexamination of all the artifacts from the context where the hatchet was found revealed that nothing from that strata (we excavate in layers) had any 20th century artifacts in it, nor did the two strata above it. In fact, the youngest artifacts from these strata were all mid-19th century. Additionally, although the archaeologists who excavated the hatchet didn’t know it at the time, the excavation unit from which the hatchet came sat right inside the Civil War-era trench that runs across the property.

Excavated area containing the footprint of the 18th century Washington house at Ferry Farm showing a 19th century Civil War trench running the length of the house and beyond.

This revelation shut the door on our ‘it’s a 20th century souvenir’ narrative but opened the door to an even cooler one. A close examination of the hatchet showed that it didn’t have mold seams, which are always present on cast pewter toys. Furthermore, for some reason, it had one smooth side and one textured side leading us to believe that it was handmade, not machine cast. This was supported by a thorough internet search to find an identical toy hatchet, which came up empty, further supporting our new theory that this piece was a one of a kind. The textured side resembled the grain of wood so we surmised it had been cast in a simple hand carved wooden mold. All of these clues, combined with its location within a Civil War trench, made us suspect that the hatchet was crafted by a soldier, possibly from a lead minie ball. The hatchet is likely ‘trench art’.

Textured side of the lead hatchet. See photo at the start of post for at image of the smooth side.

Trench art is defined as objects either made by soldiers and POWs or by civilians using military items such as brass shell casings or lead bullets. This simple lamp, owned by the author, was made using a 105 millimeter brass artillery shell casing.

Lamp fashioned from a portion of a 105 millimeter brass artillery shell casing.

To further support our identification of the hatchet as trench art, we took the artifact to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources where the amazing Katherine Ridgeway analyzed it using XRF or X-ray florescence analysis. This non-destructive technique determines the composition of metal. We also brought along a few minie balls recovered from the same unit for comparison. It turned out that what we thought was a pewter hatchet was actually a lead hatchet with a similar compositional profile to minie balls, which are mostly lead with trace amounts of other metals such as tin and nickel. While minie balls vary in their composition due to their imprecise method of manufacture, the hatchet was still a close match.

Minie Balls – rifled musket bullets. From left to right: .557 Enfield Minie Bullet, Burton Pattern Minie Bullets .58 Springfield (x 2), Williams Bullet missing zinc base, .69 Caliber Minie Bullet for modified 1843 Springfield Musket. Credit: Mike Cumpston / Wikipedia

One can just imagine a bored Union soldier whittling the mold and then melting down some of his bullets to pour into it. He likely chose the hatchet form because of the famous cherry tree story, in which young George Washington owned up to hacking his father’s cheery tree with a hatchet by proclaiming ‘I cannot tell a lie’. The soldier would have been well-versed in the Washington cherry tree myth, which was set at Ferry Farm by Mason Locke Weems in his first biography of Washington, published in 1800. By the 1860s, the story was nationally known. Additionally, letters Union soldiers wrote while encamped at Ferry Farm indicate they knew the site’s connection to Washington. They even went so far as to send home cherry seeds for their families.

While the identification of the hatchet is now secured, we have so many more questions. Who was this soldier? How many hatchets did he make and why did this one come to be left behind in his trench? Was it a souvenir for himself or did he send one home to his family or share with fellow soldiers? Did he survive the war? Unfortunately these are mysteries that will likely never be solved but that make for great pondering on this Memorial Day.

Mara Kaktins, Archaeologist
Archaeology Lab Supervisor

May 27, 2019
A Thimble of My Love

A sample of the 30 historical thimbles found to date by archaeologists at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.

Thimbles were once a popular token of affection given to ladies by family members, close acquaintances, or sanguine suitors. These essential tools formed an ideal gift for a beloved family member or an appropriate token of affection during those early, initial stages of a budding romance. They were considered a less intimate gift than perfume or jewelry – all of which had more serious, romantic connotations. Gifting thimbles to cherished daughters or sweethearts developed as an esteemed tradition by the 1500s in Europe.

Thimbles served as an emblem of female domesticity and skill. Thimbles possessing a domed end were employed to protect the tip of the finger as a seamstress pushed a needle through cloth. Such thimbles typified domestic use, where tasks were dominated by sewing and mending. These duties were associated with a well-run home, and these skills grew to define womanhood.

Thimbles came in a variety of graduated sizes to accommodate the young as well as the experienced. Accomplished girls were expected to produce elaborate samplers and embroidery by the age of seven. The products of these young artisans were ostentatiously displayed throughout the house, where prospective suitors and visiting families could appreciate the budding skills and diligence of their daughters. Thimbles were such essential tools in the daily lives of women that they were part of everyday dress, often worn on the body as part of a chatelaine or belt-hung tool kit that included scissors, needles, and a thimble (think of Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Hughes).

A variety of sizes accommodated a child’s growth to adulthood. These examples were uncovered by archaeologists at Ferry Farm.

Commercially-used thimbles were typically open ended and known as thimble rings. They proved to be popular amongst tailors who used these special thimbles “sideways” to protect the side of the finger. An open ended, ‘thimble ring’ provided a better option for use with thicker materials, such as leather. Such sturdy fabrics were associated with upholstery manufacture. Products that employed leather, such as saddles and tack, also required thimble rings. Tailors were often male, and many assert that thimble rings were used by men exclusively. Like all assumptions, they should be made with care: no doubt women who worked in industries associated with thicker materials employed thimble rings, and men who needed to mend their clothes in the absence of female family members made ready use of thimbles (soldiers in camp, for instance).

Archaeologists have recovered over thirty functional (not souvenir) thimbles from the soils surrounding the Washington home. The majority date from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and – given their context – likely represent those used by women and girls for sewing hems, mending tears, and stitching. These historical examples from Ferry Farm were typically made from brass, reflecting both the popularity of that metal for manufacture, but also its durability and stability over time. A few examples feature copper sides with steel tips. Iron thimbles were also popular, but they decompose quickly and are rarely encountered by excavators.

Sometimes, when given as gifts, thimbles were enhanced with mottos, a tradition that was especially popular during the 1800s. They might be friendly, such as “Live Happy,” or didactic: “Pray and Work.” Slogans included “Remember Me,” “I Live to Die,” “A Friend’s Gift,” “Amor,” and “Pray and Prosper,” to mention a few. Two thimbles embossed with the sentimental idiom “Forget Me Not” were unearthed at Ferry Farm, each recovered from layers dating from the antebellum era (the time before the American Civil War). During this time, the ownership of the Ferry Farm lands was dynamic, and the property changed hands frequently.

Chatham resident, and Commonwealth of Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Judge, John Coalter purchased the property in 1829. However he never resided at Ferry Farm. Less than a decade later, in 1838, John Teasdale and Joseph Mann attained the property. Just five years after that, the land was transferred to Lewis G. Sutton. By mid-century, in 1846, John R. Bryan owned the farm and in December of that same year Winter Bray purchased Ferry Farm.

“Fredericksburg, Virginia — [From a Drawing by Mr. A.R. Waud]” in the December 20, 1862 edition of “Harper’s Weekly.” This image was drawn on the Ferry Farm side of the Rappahannock looking across the river into Fredericksburg. Buildings of the Bray farmstead can be seen along the river bank in the image’s left middleground. Public domain.
Bray engaged an overseer at Ferry Farm to manage the property. Importantly, they constructed a dwelling on the property in 1851, where the overseer resided. The George Washington Foundation’s archaeologists unearthed this structure as well as a kitchen related to this occupation in 2004. The construction of these dwellings is significant, since it demonstrates that people were residing on the land. Thimbles are more likely to derive from such a residential occupation as opposed to an absentee owner who devoted the land to pure farming.

We know from their method of manufacture that the “Forget Me Not” thimbles date from the 1800s. Given the dynamic history of property ownership and occupation that characterizes Ferry Farm at this time, it might at first seem challenging to determine which land owner – or rather which land owner’s family of resident workers – purchased these touching thimbles. However one thimble was found in the center of one of the Bray era dwellings, from a stratum dating from sometime between 1800 and 1860. The other thimble was discovered in the yard east of the Bray era structures, recovered from a layer that also dated from the antebellum era. It’s possible that both of these thimbles relate to the Bray era of ownership, and specifically to the overseers who occupied the property on the Bray family’s behalf.

Look closely and you can read the word “NOT” upon this unconserved “Forget Me Not” thimble found in 2014. It was found in the yard east of the Bray era structures in a layer dating from sometime between 1800-1860.

It’s easier to see the letters “FORGE…” of the phrase “FORGET ME NOT” upon this conserved Ferry Farm thimble. It was found in 2004 in direct association with one of the Bray era dwellings.

Over the centuries, sentimental tokens similar to the thimbles excavated from the Bray dwelling cemented relationships, expressed affection, and inspired diligence among sisters, daughters, and sweethearts.

Laura Galke, Archaeologist
Small Finds Analyst

February 14, 2018