There are three prominent structures located on the north side of Main Street in Gloucester that are often called the Booker buildings. Each has its own history, and they have endured changes through the years, but all were built and maintained by the Booker family. Sadly, the buildings are currently slated for destruction, as the […]
A Golden Lion’s Paw
Yep. You read that title correctly. A golden lion’s paw. While this certainly ranks highly on any list of “coolest things ever found,” it is also the inspiration for an amazing collaboration between three institutions that value meaning and substance as much as they do the “Wow” factor. As organizations dedicated to public archaeology and […]
Preservation vs. Growth
Updates from a summer researcher: Ruth Blair Moyers, Masters of Architecture candidate at MIT Preservation is not only a question of history but it is also a topic that deserves attention from the fields of architecture and urban planning. Historically, when architecture overlaps with the field of history, it is through historic preservation of buildings […]
Delving into Gloucester’s Public School Past
Guest blog written by Colleen Betti, current doctoral candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill and long-time Fairfield Foundation friend. In 1912, Gloucester County’s surveyor and superintendent of public schools, R.A. Folkes, illustrated a map showing all of the public schools in the county. At the time, he identified 20 black schools and 20 white schools. This nearly […]
History’s Mysteries: Toddsbury’s Lost Plantation Landscape Revealed One Building at a Time
This blog was prepared by intrepid and passionate avocational archaeologists Jim Gloor and Carol Reynolds. WHAT MEASURES 13.4 FEET X 13.2 FEET, CONTAINS OVER 1000 LBS OF HINGED OYSTER SHELLS, AND RESIDES AT TODDSBURY? The excavations continue at Toddsbury (44GL0264), a 17th– to 19th– century historic plantation located on the Middle Peninsula along the west […]
Irene Morgan: Virginia’s Freedom Fighter
Irene Morgan In 1944, a woman named Irene Morgan was riding a bus from Hayes to her home in Baltimore. Ms. Morgan was at a hard point in her life. She was a mother to several children and had just suffered a painful and dangerous pregnancy ending in miscarriage. After an operation associated with this, […]
Conservation Update: Fairfield Cast Iron Stove Under the X-ray!
Thanks to Kate Ridgway at the Department of Historic Resources, we have an update on the conservation of our cast iron stove excavated at Fairfield! For background information on this project, you can read our previous blog post “What’s Under the Rust? Preserving and Conserving Fairfield’s Cast Iron Stove”. As our previous post described, the […]
Gone Before We Knew to Look: Searching for Green Book Sites in Rural Virginia
This project arose out of a seemingly random email. Dr. Jessica Taylor (Virginia Tech) caught a reference to the Watkins Motel and Florist at Gloucester Courthouse when she was conducting background research for our collaborative oral history project on Main Street (supported by the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust). She passed along a link to […]
What’s Under the Rust? Preserving and Conserving Fairfield’s Cast Iron Stove
We love doing archaeology at a variety of sites across the Middle Peninsula, but Fairfield Plantation will always be our home. There are thousands of fascinating artifacts that have been recovered from the manor house and surrounding property, and we don’t always have the time or resources to give them the attention and care they […]
Fairfield Mantel Returns Home
The Fairfield manor house is most recognized for its massive diagonally-set chimney stacks. which stand out to anyone who sees them. The house had several sets, including two doubles and two triples, although one set was lost around 1839 when the west wing came down. These iconic elements of this once grand building are only […]
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