Yes, our first day of finding the foundations of a church was a Sunday. I think it was appropriate. It was a cool day at first, but then it got pretty hot in the afternoon. We stopped by Subway to pick up some sandwiches for lunch on our way there.
Chris and I mapped the site. We focused on the stone monument (where the pulpit is said to have been, although it doesn't actually make sense based on the dimensions and placement of the church, but more on that later) and some post bases along Plum St (which is the eastern edge of the site). The post bases are corroded metal poles just barely sticking out of their surrounding concrete and pushed down. They actually turned out to be quite important, but we didn't know that when we were initially mapping them. We also mapped a depression in the southern part of the site (closer to the creek), which might be the location of the outhouse. Emily and Sam started digging a test pit while Chris and I were mapping.
Chris ended up doing a lot of the digging with a trowel because there were just too many rocks to get the shovel down. There were some bits of brick, corroded nails, and ceramic fragments. But there were hundreds of rocks in each bag we filled. Towards the end, Robin told us not to bother keeping the large chunks of rock (especially since we'd run out of bags big enough to put them in). We hit a layer of clay about 15 inches down. It was a sterile layer (in this case sterile means that it didn't contain artifacts). Although it was nice to not have rocks anymore, the clay was even worse to sift because it clumped up in these hard balls when I shook the sifter. The clay balls pretended to be rocks, but they were vile deceivers. So I was picking them up individually and crushing them to make sure they weren't balled up around anything important. It was a really unfortunate pit.
After we back-filled STP 2 and plopped the divot back on, we started on STP 4. STP 4 had more interesting artifacts and was more pleasant to dig. We didn't keep any of the really big rocks and fewer of the small rocks, so we filled fewer artifact bags. There were also fewer rocks in the pit to begin with. We found the neck of a glass bottle, some bits of brick and nails, a mollusk shell, and a few fairly large pieces of ceramic. After we hit the clay layer again we back-filled and replaced the divot since it was time to pack up and go.
At some point during all of that we ate lunch. My sandwich reminded me that some ham is glazed with stuff that contains corn syrup which is deeply unfortunate since I am allergic to corn. Luckily it was only a small amount, so I just got an upset stomach. Near the end of our lunch break, Sam walked down towards the creek and discovered that the little monument there was to Lucy the goose. A woman who lived down the road from the site explained that a family in the town had taken Lucy in after she broke a wing and she became the town mascot.
On the drive back to the college, we stopped at a little roadside farmer's market. Emily brought me a bottle of Ocean Spray orange juice. So I was drinking my juice as we were riding down the road again, and my tongue started itching and burning. Apparently, Ocean Spray is one of the companies that cuts their orange juice concentrate with Tang (which is mostly high fructose corn syrup). So I had an allergic reaction and had to use my emergency inhaler right there in the car after my first day of digging. It was definitely an adventure.
Chris and I mapped the site. We focused on the stone monument (where the pulpit is said to have been, although it doesn't actually make sense based on the dimensions and placement of the church, but more on that later) and some post bases along Plum St (which is the eastern edge of the site). The post bases are corroded metal poles just barely sticking out of their surrounding concrete and pushed down. They actually turned out to be quite important, but we didn't know that when we were initially mapping them. We also mapped a depression in the southern part of the site (closer to the creek), which might be the location of the outhouse. Emily and Sam started digging a test pit while Chris and I were mapping.
After we finished the initial map, Chris and I dug the second test pit (STP2). Well, Chris dug and I sifted. It was a small, square hole (about 2 shovel-widths long on each side). We carefully removed a divot of the grass and put it on the edge of the tarp our sifter was on so that the pit could be back-filled and covered up when we finished. It should have been fairly easy. It was awful. Almost immediately, we started finding rocks. Mostly slate. Some of them were huge and could have been part of the church that broke apart when it was demolished. Many of them were tiny and just everywhere in the sifter.
Here's a video of me awkwardly explaining the dig while working on STP2.
Chris ended up doing a lot of the digging with a trowel because there were just too many rocks to get the shovel down. There were some bits of brick, corroded nails, and ceramic fragments. But there were hundreds of rocks in each bag we filled. Towards the end, Robin told us not to bother keeping the large chunks of rock (especially since we'd run out of bags big enough to put them in). We hit a layer of clay about 15 inches down. It was a sterile layer (in this case sterile means that it didn't contain artifacts). Although it was nice to not have rocks anymore, the clay was even worse to sift because it clumped up in these hard balls when I shook the sifter. The clay balls pretended to be rocks, but they were vile deceivers. So I was picking them up individually and crushing them to make sure they weren't balled up around anything important. It was a really unfortunate pit.
Here's a little video of all of us working. Sam and Emily have their own pits, and Chris is the one dumping soil into the sifter so I can screen.
After we back-filled STP 2 and plopped the divot back on, we started on STP 4. STP 4 had more interesting artifacts and was more pleasant to dig. We didn't keep any of the really big rocks and fewer of the small rocks, so we filled fewer artifact bags. There were also fewer rocks in the pit to begin with. We found the neck of a glass bottle, some bits of brick and nails, a mollusk shell, and a few fairly large pieces of ceramic. After we hit the clay layer again we back-filled and replaced the divot since it was time to pack up and go.
At some point during all of that we ate lunch. My sandwich reminded me that some ham is glazed with stuff that contains corn syrup which is deeply unfortunate since I am allergic to corn. Luckily it was only a small amount, so I just got an upset stomach. Near the end of our lunch break, Sam walked down towards the creek and discovered that the little monument there was to Lucy the goose. A woman who lived down the road from the site explained that a family in the town had taken Lucy in after she broke a wing and she became the town mascot.
On the drive back to the college, we stopped at a little roadside farmer's market. Emily brought me a bottle of Ocean Spray orange juice. So I was drinking my juice as we were riding down the road again, and my tongue started itching and burning. Apparently, Ocean Spray is one of the companies that cuts their orange juice concentrate with Tang (which is mostly high fructose corn syrup). So I had an allergic reaction and had to use my emergency inhaler right there in the car after my first day of digging. It was definitely an adventure.
