Dear folks -- this is a longish post about an odd feature at a plantation
site - might not be of interest to all, apologies if it's taken too much
space.
Here at the Hermitage, the crew has uncovered an intriguing set of stone
foundations, most likely a remnant of some kind of agricultural processing
station.
In plan view, it looks something like this:
## ########## ##
## ## ## ##
## ##
**##### ##
%% * ## ##
%% ##########
North toward bottom
# = limestone slabs
The center rectangle is about 8 ft. by 6 ft, and the small "pads" off to the
side are about 1.5 ft. square. The center of the rectangle had not been dug
out - we hit subsoil right away in opening it up. The coursing goes about
1.5 ft. deep, and is made up of two or three layers of roughly shaped
limestone slabs, of the type commonly used on many other foundations on the
property. There are three bricks seemingly intentionally placed near the
couple of slabs projecting from the left side of the rectangle (position
roughly marked by asterisks).
The original thought about this feature was that it was the hearth at the
north end of a slave dwelling known as the yard cabin. This building's south
end had been excavated in 1988-89, revealing a "classic" example of a
limestone hearth and brick-lined root cellar. (The lack of any additional
foundation stones encouraged the interpretation that this had been a log
building.) Additional testing in the area in 1993 and 1994 revealed a small
section of the stonework shown above.
The south end "yard cabin" hearth is in near-perfect north-south grid
alignment with the newly uncovered stonework. The outer edges of the two
feature are 32 feet apart, north to south. Artifacts from the excavation
point to strictly domestic activity in the area. The stratigraphic evidence
suggests that the structure associated with the odd stone rectangle etc. may
have been destroyed before the yard cabin was built, with the midden deposit
from that occupation more or less covering the stonework. Despite this, the
notable grid alignment of the features argues for direct and contemporary
structural association.
There is a large stone off to one side of the features shown above (the %'s)
that might be a pier for the yard cabin sill log, since there are two others
in line with it to the south, approximately 15 and 30 feet away. These are
at a much higher level (ca. 1.5 feet) than the top of the stone rectangle.
The stone rectangle is fairly massive, suggesting the structure sitting on it
must have been something large and heavy. It doesn't look like any hearth
anyone on the crew has ever seen. The stones are more or less at the center
of an excavated area measuring 20 by 30 feet, with so far no other features
showing up that appear to be associated with the rectangle. (This might
change as we excavate the last few inches of the cultural deposit in the next
few weeks.)
Anybody have any ideas? We've gone through the basic sources in the library
here, specifically a variety of site reports from Tennessee and elsewhere and
Vlach's _Behind the Big House_. I'd be especially interested in hearing
about sources (archaeological and otherwise) with detailed descriptions of
nineteenth-century plantation industrial/agricultural architecture. We've
been playing around with ideas about it being a cotton press, a
hog-processing station, a roasting pit, etc etc but nothing seems to ring
true in terms of the evidence and "common sense" so far. The lack of much
charcoal and ash (except in relation to the midden deposit) seems to argue
against it having anything to do with fire.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or
comments.
Larry McKee
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