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 […]
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 […]
The CAPE crosses the finish line!
With the recent ribbon cutting at the CAPE we have reached the exciting end of a long journey. In 2010 we purchased the Edge Hill Service Station and embarked on a dream to transform this 1930s gas station into a regional center for the archaeological, preservation and education efforts of the Fairfield Foundation. The […]
The Hall Site: A “Hallmark” of Mathews County
Guest Blog author Katie Brauckmann has worked with the Fairfield Foundation/DATA Investigations for three years, first as a volunteer and intern, and now as a part-time employee. Katie is a sophomore anthropology major at James Madison University. The Hall Site (44MT0173) is a predominately 18th-century site located in Mathews County, Virginia. Conrad Hall, former President […]
A Long-Lost Site Reveals Many Stories at York County’s New Quarter Park
By guest blogger Sara E. Lewis If you’ve never joined the Fairfield Foundation for a public dig at New Quarter Park in York County, then you’re missing out on some exciting finds! In the most recent round of excavations, a young volunteer was excited to find this Very Cool Artifact: a locally-made tobacco pipe stem […]
Preserving Fairfield from the Ground Up!
Last week we hosted our second Adventures in Preservation (AiP) workshop of 2017 and made great progress at Fairfield Plantation. We opened a new excavation block on the south end of the house foundation, and continued work around a collapsed chimney that we’ve been excavating for the past two summers. The AiP participants (aka “Jammers”) started […]
Archaeological Journey to Chincoteague
There are many great reasons to take a trip to Chincoteague. This barrier island holding out against the Atlantic Ocean has its own storied history and unique culture, attracting visitors from far and wide who want to experience its solitude and seaside, its salt marsh and sunsets, and its quiet charm. We came for the […]
Extraction and Excavation: Archaeology of a Collapsed House Ruin
The house is magnificent. It is everything that you would want in an 18th-century Virginia manor- symmetry, mass, rhythm- and it sits boldly on an elevated landscape surrounded by extensive cropland rimmed with forest and descending towards complex terraced gardens and a wide creek in the distance. It also stands out in the Flemish-bond land of Tidewater, with its rough, […]
Fairfield, Abingdon, and Carter’s Grove, 1924
One of the most interesting emails we’ve received in the Fairfield Foundation’s sixteen year existence arrived on March 9th at 11:09 pm. The subject line was simple: Old Pictures. It started our minds racing, especially after more than 15 years of researching the history of Fairfield plantation, and the Burwell, Thruston, and other families that lived […]
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