Blog post written by Katie Brauckmann, staff archaeologist, Fairfield Foundation. In 2018 , I wrote this blog about our ongoing work at the Hall Site (44MT0173) in Mathews County. Three years later, I’m back again to give an update now that our work in the field and the lab has concluded! Ashley McCuistion excavates the […]
Three Weeks as a Fairfield Intern: Rachel Shin, 2019
Guest blog by summer intern Rachel Shin, a high-school student from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Week 1:On the first day of my internship, I got to dive into field work right off the bat. We made the short trip to Tucker Store in Gloucester Courthouse, a lot where a general store once stood. I began excavating a […]
Anything But Ordinary
Twenty years ago, two young archaeology students, David Brown and Thane Harpole, surveyed a farmstead site located in Gloucester County, Virginia, dating to the late 17th to early 18th centuries. The property was originally patented in the 1670s by Robert Bryan and was eventually part of the adjacent Belle Farm plantation. After the Civil War, […]
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 […]
Two New Fairfield Preservation Initiatives: Documenting and Preserving Sites Across the Middle Peninsula
The Fairfield Foundation has long supported preservation efforts on the Middle Peninsula and surrounding areas through public archaeology, historical research, oral histories and preservation advocacy. As our Center for Archaeology, Preservation, and Education (CAPE) nears completion we are redoubling our efforts within the community to broaden our impact and demonstrate the value of historic places. […]
Mobjack: Starfish, Pickled Herring and Hidden Stories of Mathews County
One of the best parts of our work is the idea that you can discover something new and exciting every day. Most of you see this excitement from our archaeological excavations, and if you visit our facebook page you can see how frequent these discoveries occur. But there are other discoveries to be had, ranging from fascinating oral […]
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, […]
A Look at Colonial Drains
Archaeologists are always finding remarkable features that provide new insight into the colonial world. One type of feature that shows up with some regularity, yet receives very little attention, is the lowly drain. Serving a strictly utilitarian, though very useful, purpose and intentionally buried upon completion, drains are rarely remembered and generally forgotten. On many […]
Archaeology in Mathews County: What do we know? Where do we go from here?
“You can’t set foot in Mathews County without tripping over a piece of history.” Many of you have heard this before, and you’d be hard pressed to argue against the sentiment. Mathews County, along with Gloucester, Middlesex, and perhaps the majority of the Old Dominion is so infused with history that it is an important part of how […]
New Challenges and New Discoveries at New Quarter Park
Every research excavation has that moment when you must decide whether to keep digging, or focus your energies on the inside work- whether it’s the artifact washing, cataloging, and report writing that accompanies any archaeology project, or potentially pulling together exhibits, lectures, and other outreach to the public. We say “research excavation” because often archaeologists are salvaging […]
