Alright folks, this query has prompted me to play devil's advocate for a
moment...  No offense intended to Debbie or anyone else!
 
What the heck's the deal with Underground Railroad sites?  What are you (we)
expecting to find at these sites? What are the research questions that are
being asked or potentially answered?  What are the potential archaeological
contributions to these questions?
 
Too oversimplify the issue (for arguments sake)...  How would one recognize an
underground railroad site without documentary evidence?  After all, these
"stations" are for the most part just white folks basements and/or barns,
where transients with virtually no personal possessions stayed on a very
temporary basis...  What exactly is it that you hope to find that would
distinguish such a temporary presence from a normative mid-nineteenth century
domestic assemblage?
 
I just don't get it...  Do you expect to uncover smashed leg irons and
abolitionist literature?  And if you don't find something that obvious, what
exactly do you hope to find...  And if you do find something, what
significance would it have other than particularistic historic data for
display in a local museum?
 
Yes, it sounds pretty cool (and very PC) to say you're working on an UGRR
site, but if we're gonna do archaeology, it better be for a reason...
 
Mark Branstner
Great Lakes Research Associates, Inc.