and this is our second event in our
spring anthropology speaker series I
just want to thank our co-sponsors today
who are the division of Arts and
Sciences and the Diversity Committee and
there we all work together to bring to
campus dr. Katherine faith rather her
tweets she's going to talk to us about
her work in the town of New Philadelphia
Illinois so I'm just going to give the
floor to dr. Lauren and I am for teaches
anthropology crustier and program and
she will introduce the speaker so I'm
actually very honored to get to
introduce dr. Katie she was one of my
cohorts at the University of Illinois
dr. Kenneth Bay is an archaeologist she
completed her master's and her PhD both
at the University of Illinois near in
time focusing on historical archaeology
in the United States as well as Museum
Studies she's been involved with the New
Philadelphia archaeology project since
2004 right and has served in several
capacities as the excavator crew chief
and laboratory director for field
schools throughout the years she has
also worked in cultural resource
management or what's called commonly
known as contact archaeology for several
years while completing her undergraduate
degrees in history and anthropology at
Northern
dr. Faye has worked with multiple
museums including the Spurlock Museum of
world cultures here at the UIC campus
the Illinois State Museum and more
recently the F P Warren Air Force Base
icbo inherited 2:02 spent the last
seventy years teaching American history
anthropology archaeology and humanities
at Park University and Laramie County
Community College and Wyoming and has
served on the board of the warren
military Historical Association as well
as the city of Cheyenne's Historic
Preservation Board dr. Faye currently
works at the Army Corps of Engineers
construction engineering research
laboratory doctoral researcher where she
designs plans to improve the Army's
preservation and protection of heritage
and archaeological sites during
construction of new camps and bases so
it's my privilege to welcome dr. faith
it's a treat to have her and to ask the
same thing
so I'm Katherine page said I do work
currently of for the Army Corps of
Engineers but as you can tell have kind
of bounced around a lot of different
fields but this one in particular I've
been doing for quite a few years working
at New Philadelphia here I'm not too far
from about two and a half three hours
from here that's not too far away and
I've been working here like I said since
about 2004 and what I'm going to tell
you guys about today a little bit about
sort of the history of the town in case
you're not familiar with the stories
some of you might be more than others
perhaps I'm hoping maybe and then I'll
go into a little bit about my research
in particular and kind of the new
findings that have been coming out as of
late so to start off nobody see pictures
and things okay so start off the town of
New Philadelphia was founded by a family
of the mcquarters so Frank and Lucy here
depicted they were both born into
slavery in the late 1700s so Frank here
on the bottom we actually don't have any
pictures of him at all so that's why
this is a statue this is
made by one of his descendants who's an
artist she's massively talented and how
she did this is completely beyond me she
actually took pictures of their sons
compared it to pictures of Lucy took her
features out of the sons and
extrapolated back to what Frank would
have probably looked like so that kind
of talent is completely beyond me so
it's amazing to me that she did that so
that's closest we might get to Frank and
that's Lucy there she who I think is
about 95 ish in that picture she lived
to be 99 the women in the McWhorter
family are very long-lived they're very
proud of that fact as well so Frank here
saved a lot of money up over the years
from hiring his time out to do labor and
at farms and other places and he also
operated a saltpeter mining business all
while keeping a watch on the plantation
that the man who was his owner had him
working on he actually was running it by
himself
it is probably likely that the man who
owned him was probably his father but
we're not entirely sure about that so in
1817 he actually had enough money saved
up to purchase Lucy's freedom he was
actually quite intelligent in purchasing
her freedom first because she was
pregnant at the time and if you guys are
familiar with that part of American
history a sort of freedom status
depended entirely on the the freed
status of the mother not the father so
if she was free when her child was born
that child would also be free instead of
enslaved so for him to do that while she
was pregnant was a very very smart
decision on his part they had several
children and this would be the first one
that was born free instead of enslaved
two years later he then purchased his
own freedom in 1819 and this was while
they were living in Pulaski County
Kentucky so after that he purchased 160
acre parcel of land in Illinois in 1830
and he did this by selling the little
farm he had and his saltpeter mining
business
it was quite lucrative because the war
of 1812 was going on shortly before that
and saltpeter is one of the main
ingredients in gunpowder so he's
actually able to make quite a bit of
money from that so it was a pretty
lucrative business that he sold kind of
traded for this land and
which he bought never having been there
before so he bought it completely sight
unseen trusting that this guy was not
you know kind of pulling the wool over
him and giving him something that wasn't
gonna be great land so he bought this
parcel here this little chunk where the
little red dot is there the man who sold
it to him he had been granted it within
the military bounty lands so this
section of Illinois between the two
rivers here was granted out his military
bounty lands two veterans from the war
of 1812 so this guy didn't want to move
out here sold it traded with Frank for
that land so they left in 1830 Frank
Lucy and I believe there are two
children who were free at the time they
left four still enslaved behind them in
different states even so they came out
here took them about a year to get here
when they arrived in Illinois they
arrived in 1831 in the middle of the
worst winter on record so it was quite
horrible took him quite a while to get
there also they couldn't necessarily
take Maine roads as they were both free
but given the states they were traveling
through and the kind of social culture
at the time that didn't necessarily mean
that they would be safe on the way so it
did take them a while to get here they
also had to bring with them certificates
of good character basically proving to
the territory of Illinois government
that they would not become a drain on
society which sidenote white people did
not have to carry around with them right
at the time so they were they came here
had those and their free papers in hand
having to prove a lot on the way right
that they had this land they were owners
of this land and we're coming here to do
that so they began farming this parcel
of land and engaged in a bunch of other
enterprises as well to raise money they
were doing things like you could catch
wild horses and get them back right for
essentially the bounty on them you could
also be doing things like killing wolves
would get you money you could bring
pelts in to various government agencies
in the area and get money for them
because they were killing sheep and cows
and other things one of the reasons we
don't have them anymore in Illinois is
because of that
well so they were doing a lot of other
things to raise money and they were
raising money to free their other family
members who remained enslaved back east
so through doing all these things
throughout their lives and ending with
provisions and Frank's will when he
passed away
the mcquarters freed 16 people in total
throughout those years the rough money
equivalent in today's dollars is over a
million that they were able to raise
right which is quite impressive for
anyone at this time but doubly so when
you're under that additional constraint
of being african-american in the 1880
1830s to 1880s right having to prove
continually that you're actually free
you're allowed to be here Illinois was
technically a free territory but that
didn't mean that they were really Pro
equality necessarily so would have been
still difficult for them to do this so
for them to be able to do this at all
but especially given the other
constraints they were under is quite
impressive so the town itself this was
one of those additional money-making
ventures that they decided to undertake
because you can make more money if
you're selling off tiny Lots right in a
town than you could just selling off
that chunk of land to farm on right so
they decided to do this so in 1836 they
decided to found this town to raise more
money
so Frank hired a surveyor Frank was
illiterate he couldn't read or write so
he couldn't do this on his own so he
hired a surveyor to come out and lay out
the blocks and lots and then he filed
the plat in the pike County Courthouse
this is what makes this town the first
town legally founded by an
african-american in the United States
right in 1836 because he filed a plat
and legally founded it instead of sort
of just coming together and starting a
town informally this is what makes it
the first town legally founded in the
United States there were others
certainly earlier than this that were
founded but not by filing a plat and
planed in advance like this so over the
years that it existed there are really
vague census entries so we're not really
sure how many people live there at any
one
because it wasn't a very large town the
census taker didn't note who actually
lived within the town or not it was just
done by Township right so the smaller
sections of counties they didn't do
census like we do now where they mail
you a form and you fill it out and mail
it back they came to your door they saw
that somebody would be coming around
asking you everybody's name who live in
the household how old they are what do
they do for a living where they come
from right also things like race were
based on the guests of the surveyor who
was there so the family here the
mcquarters and other people in town kind
of vary as to what they're reported as
on the census so that's always
interesting to see what somebody else
usually a white person will characterize
people as um so they change between
black mulatto and white depending on who
showed up to take the census so that's
kind of an interesting thing to find
so also reading census records is
horrible if you've ever had to read
historic handwriting it's terrible so if
you're going into history just practice
on reading horrible handwriting it's a
necessary skill it's like a different
language so we're not entirely sure but
our best guess likely somewhere between
sixty and a hundred people so not a
bustling huge metropolis by any means
but a small rural community so the
height of the town would be in the mid
1800s found in 1836 lasted for about
fifty years or so so we had in town
people who owned the property and the
home they built on it there were also
quite a number of people who would come
through and rent properties rent homes
from the owner usually on their way
further west and then there were
merchants there were a couple of shops
in town a couple of other trades people
there was a wheelwright there are people
who made shoes cobblers there were a
couple of blacksmiths in town so a few
major necessities for the time but the
town itself and most of the residents in
it are primarily agrarian they're
farmers most of them which we know from
the census they also listed on the
agricultural census what property they
owned how much land and
they were farming so we also can know
what types of crops they're growing what
types of animals they're raising and
what else they're taking to market
things like molasses so we get an idea
of that as well several people including
many of the McWhorter family most of
their children actually moved to this
area with them so most of the McWhorter
family as they were freed did come here
to live not all but most of them so
several people own lots and in town but
also properties outside of town if you
guys can read this you can see there's
quite a lot of McWhorter names here note
many of them are female names I'll come
back to that in a second that's rather
important
but some of the other names here Walker
and Shipman they also owned Lots in town
had souls on the Shipman's ended up in
Hawaii so that's fun we have a lot of
family descendants of people who lived
in the town that are actually really
active with us in the project and
they've been sending us their own family
histories letters pictures and things
that they have of their relatives who
lived in town so that's been quite
amazing to see that what people will
share with us so the town of like I said
about 50 years about the 1880s people
really were kind of gone and most of the
land had been converted back into
farmland one of the theories there's a
few but one of the theories of the
town's decline is the bypass of the
railroad the railroad comes through in
1869 and this really could kind of make
or break a town at this moment right
there's really no other way to reliably
and fairly quickly move people and stuff
around the country except for railroad
right your other choice is barges on the
river right which there between your the
Illinois and Mississippi but again it's
only quick one way right coming back is
difficult and didn't happen for a while
so the railroad which is on this map
here this is it this line right there so
it passes roughly a mile north of town
and so one of the going theories is
based on racism of the people who are
planning it they did not want to pull
the railroad through a mostly black town
they did not want to do that for right
racially motivated reasons we don't have
documents to prove that but
that kind of thing is sort of hard to
nail down that way in history but it's
one of the theories however kind of in
line with that there is a very strong
family oral history in the McWhorter
family that they participated in the
Underground Railroad in New Philadelphia
so we have several different stories
that have been passed down through the
generations like I said Frank's fifth
generation descendants now our mmm
roughly retirement age anywhere between
60s and 70s most of them there's quite a
number of them and a lot of them are
doctors PhDs and MDS so that's fun so
they have many many stories about
participation the Underground Railroad
that there is a story that if the
escaping enslaved people can make it to
New Philadelphia from Missouri most
often it's only about 20 miles away from
here a Hannibal is the closest town if
you know Mark Twain like yeah it's sort
of Mark Twain Ville over there if you've
never been it's interesting but it was
an active slave market at this time when
New Philadelphia was around as an
integrated community it's an active
slave market in a slave state about 20
miles away so there's a a story they
would make it this far
and anybody who made it to New
Philadelphia would be given a new pair
of shoes goes the family story that they
would be given shoes and shown up sort
of on the next next way to go there's a
few stories of some of Frank's sons
actually taking people to Canada as well
one of them may or may not have run away
to Canada and then come back after Frank
purchased his freedom we're not sure we
don't have documents for this but again
oral history usually pretty strong right
but things with the Underground Railroad
are notoriously hard to prove right
because by its nature it was secret
people didn't want you to know right
that they were doing this so it's really
difficult to nail down for sure actual
definitive proof that this was going on
right sometimes you can find it not here
but one of the additional theories about
the bypass the railroad is that the
mcquarters wanted that to happen they
didn't actually want the railroad to
come through because it would bring more
people and more attention and they
no longer be doing these secretive
activities right if the railroad was
coming right through town because they
had this this is a main road through the
county and it still is actually this is
the main east-west road through the
county that isn't highway 72 so 72 runs
actually today right about here just
south of town they actually had to route
it reroute it a little bit when they
pulled the highway through the town in
the 90s because the locals knew that
this site was here and didn't want them
to disturb it didn't and it originally
would have blown right through it so you
can see it when you're standing it's
right right there so additionally with
this in the town we have no evidence of
segregation at all in terms of spatial
like neighborhoods and things in town
nothing they seem to be purchasing Lots
just wherever they felt like it right
there is no this is where all the
african-americans live this is where all
the right European immigrants live this
we don't have that at all and we've got
direct from Europe mostly Irish
immigrants coming through here a couple
of times on the census and we have a
couple of people who are moving up from
the South moving north
a couple moving down south from Northern
States and then we've got quite a few
african-american residents as well but
they're not living in segregated areas
so that's pretty interesting again for
this time period we also have no
evidence of racially motivated motivated
violence things like riots lynch mobs
cross burnings we don't have any
evidence of that through historic
documents oral histories or
archaeologically speaking we don't have
that which is also again given where it
is right so close to Missouri pretty
impressive right it's kind of surprising
I was pretty surprised at that when we
finally kind of put that together
because you have things if anybody knows
in Springfield there was a pretty major
race riot right around some of the time
this was going on the Ku Klux Klan was
particularly active in this area of
Illinois throughout the lifetime of this
town no reported incidents newspaper
otherwise in town right so clearly there
was some amount of equality right
acceptance people would have known right
that the mcquarters owned this land it's
if they're coming here in theory right
they're okay with that right so that
gives us a little bit of a glimpse into
sort of people's ideas maybe what they
might have thought about that which
sometimes it's not something you can
really access an archaeology that's one
of the hardest things to try to access
is people's feelings thoughts ideas
unless you find their diary which is
pretty rare I think it's rare that you
find that right but from just the fact
that people were coming there right that
gives us a little bit of an idea so
after the town towns demise essentially
there were only a few houses left on
that landscape into the 1900s eventually
almost all of it got reverted back into
farmland which is where it stayed until
the late 1990s when like I said
interstate 72 I guess it is now route 72
highway so anything every pass is right
about route I was called it route 72
anyway so it passed right about here
south of town there's a farm at the end
of this Lane and it's just south of that
farm so when the highway passed through
and they had asked for it to be rerouted
that kind of got this idea going and a
lot of the locals heads everybody in the
area kind of always knew that this site
was here right they always sort of knew
there was a sign put up a while ago by
the locals and some of the landowners
there's about four different families
who owned this 42 acre plot of land here
so they all kind of knew and all had
sort of made a loose agreement with each
other to not disturb it not build
anything else on it they all knew what
was there right so in the late 90s early
2000s we had a group of local community
members as well as descendant family
members from mostly the mcquarters but a
few others start kind of getting
together contacting some archaeologists
say hey we're really interested in this
we'd really like to know if there's
still anything there if you guys can
maybe check for us really interested
right there fear was it had been farmed
so much that there would have been
nothing left right that it had
obliterated everything there be no
imprint of anything left and that's
fairly common around here right Midwest
most of our open land as far
there has been at one point or another
it's pretty common to see that so we put
together a crew starting in 2002 to
start doing some survey and actually
discovered that yes there are some
things still there we found quite a few
artifacts I'll show you another picture
in a second and we did a walkover survey
to look for artifacts found quite a few
which gave us hope that there were still
other things buried right what we call
features and archaeology so has anybody
take an archaeology class before
hopefully some of you guys I know some
of you might have already right so
features right in moveable things that
we find right the remains of buildings
right cemeteries for instance artifacts
or things that you can sort of pick up
and carry away with you right features
or things that have to stay right
because they're a soil stain or the
foundation of a house or a castle or not
around here sadly but you know stuff
like that so we are hoping that we would
find some of these still buried there so
we started in 2004 when I first started
doing NSF funded field schools here
we've done six in total so far hopefully
at some point we're able to go back and
do some more but this is essentially
what the site looks like today this is a
couple years old now but more or less
this is what we've got there's a house
that sits here that one was built in the
late 1890s early 1900s so it's still
sitting there these are small little
cabins essentially that are from this
time period but from elsewhere in the
county the gentleman who owns this land
here actually purchased these cabins and
moved them here and set them on top of
foundations that are from New
Philadelphia to protect them and he has
worked it was a very good idea on his
part and has definitely protected them
we had people crawl under there to take
pictures of them thankfully not me
there's like raccoons and stuff under
there but he crawled under there and got
some pictures and they are still in
pretty good shape so potentially someday
we might get under there and see what
else we can find inside those features
and then up here at the top there's a
little bit more here now if you were to
go there today there's some signs and
other things up at the top there and
like so there's another farm back
down here so the guy who lives at this
farm actually owns most of this land and
he had before this aerial photo was
taken
come through and actually mowed the
grass these are these little brown
squares here about the size of what the
blocks and Lots were in town so he mowed
them for the aerial photos so that you
could see what it would have looked like
in terms of land plots but there's been
some terracing here as well which was
because a lot of this was a roading into
this big pond here so there was some
terracing done also this pond was dug so
we were a little bit worried right given
all this stuff and the farming that we
wouldn't find anything but one of the
things that I chose to focus on actually
is this plot right here right when I
wanted to start my own dissertation work
actually focusing on a particular member
of the McWhorter family so her name is
Louisa this is her fairly certain she
pronounced it Louisa not Louisa because
she's listed on the census a lot as
Eliza which if you're sort of talking to
someone who isn't probably paying very
much attention it might sound like Eliza
it's also a pretty common southern
pronunciation of that name so pretty
sure it's Louisa sole Eliza Clarke
McWhorter she was also actually born
into slavery but was freed as a child
along with her mother probably by her
father who was white and actually moved
to New Philadelphia with her and her
mother so super scandalous you know for
the time anyway so they and her probably
parents lived in New Philadelphia for
quite a while until he passed away so
she married one of Frank and Lucy's son
Squire in 1843 they lived within New
Philadelphia by 1853 is when they first
show up on documents as actually owning
a property in town and there is a house
on it probably earlier than that but
that's the first time we have solid
documentary proof of that Squire
actually died in 1855 probably of
malaria which was very common around
here at the time which we kind of put
together based on the
doctors bill for after he had passed the
things that he tried to give him common
cures for malaria
cures from malaria like arsenic that
totally solves everything right yeah old
medicines it's horrible stuff in them so
square done in 1855 she was left a widow
she never remarried right which at this
point in history is actually pretty
important because as a widow right
prior to relative women's legal
political equality being a widow is one
of the only ways you could actually own
land and not be challenged on it so that
it was willed to her and her children
once they were grown in her husband's
will so she was left as the head of her
household several children she was to
her mother lived with her probably
taking care of her elderly mother her
brother lived with her for a time after
he came back from the Civil War and she
took in a foster son so she also owned
about a hundred and twenty acres of land
it's pretty impressive for anyone let
alone a woman let alone an
african-american woman at this time and
she possibly was managing their chunk of
farmland right our guess is that she and
her children were likely cooperatively
farming with the rest of the McWhorter
family based on their inventory of items
as they would pass away some of them had
like all the things you need to raise
animals and some of them only had things
that you need to like do threshing of
wheat and grains right so we kind of
think they were probably all doing it
together
she lived in town for most of her life
they had the house on this block that
I'm focusing on they had was the biggest
house in town which we know because it
was valued the highest on the tax rolls
so they had probably the biggest house
in town and she lived in it all her life
after they moved there and got married
except there was this mystery couple of
year period where the family moved to
Quincy to live with some distant
relatives and that always kind of
baffled our historian she really wasn't
sure why that happened like why would
you just leave town also about that same
time all of a sudden the tax value on
that law
dropped way down right meaning why would
it go from pretty expensive with a big
house to really low and I'll come back
to that in a moment all right so that
was a question she had for me when I
went into this like hey see if you can
figure this out so we started
excavations there again right about
there in town so Eliza actually died in
1883 and her daughter and her husband
purchased the house from the estate and
moved in they lived there for several
years until she passed away and he moved
out it remained in the McWhorter family
until the turn of the century another
local family then bought the house and
rented it out I am pretty common the
house actually caught fire there's
several newspaper articles about this
and burned in 1937 the husband was
warming up his engine oil on the stove
one morning which he had to do with old
cars right warming it up yeah that
didn't go well it tipped over exploded
and caught the house on fire all right
they all made it out thankfully the
family did but there were successive
articles the next couple of weeks about
having things like clothes and food
drives to the family because they had
lost everything so the house was torn
down and never rebuilt after that burned
down so we knew there had been something
there for quite a while we have an oral
history of a gentleman who grew up in
this area and remembered the house being
there and kind of gave us a loose
description of what he remembered as
like a five year old the house looking
like right so we had some idea and again
that was something else I was looking
for like oh well can I tell if that's
accurate or not when I excavate this so
when we did that walkover survey I
mentioned they disked up all this land
here and we had people just walking
carrying those little pin flags around
and dropping a pin flag every time they
saw an artifact right when you plow you
pull there's been studies done on this
like multi-year studies bless those
people for doing it pulling a plow
around to see how far artifacts move
when you plow around them about 50 feet
they don't move further either way than
about 50 feet from where they came from
so when you have enormous clusters like
this tells you something must be there
right also these other clusters are the
reason that we've pretty much only been
digging in this north-central area of
town right so far
so that gave us hope that something was
still there we went there in 2010 and
opened up a whole bunch of Units and
found out that yeah there's a lot of
stuff still left there six inches to a
foot down depending on where we are so
this is what we uncovered the first
season we went to dig so this is exposed
kind of in plan view most of it so I
don't know if you guys can see because
of the light in here but there's a
little color change right here from this
kind of darker soil here to this lighter
kind of yellowy clay stuff as boring as
it sounds that's one of the things that
we get real excited about right because
that tells us that something was there
all right when the normal undisturbed
soil like if you're digging a hole in
your backyard or something right around
here about six inches to a foot down you
get down to this yellowy sort of clay
soil around here but if you encounter
right this kind of loose packed super
dark organic soil that tells you
somebody dug something there all right
something happened when you dig even if
you put the dirt back that soil will
always be a little bit different than
the surrounding soil and that's the kind
of thing we're looking for in addition
we found a whole bunch of rocks
everywhere right foundation stones that
had fallen in when the walls collapsed
in so we found out right the relative
outline of the house has been something
like this about like that which means
about a twenty by twenty house
foundation which is quite sizable again
for the 1800s pretty big house so
looking into it for the next year what
we wanted to do is actually go into the
features see how deep it was what's in
there right so the next year we decided
we're gonna dig a trench right and these
units here that's what these kind of
like clear see three boxes here on this
one going through basically the middle
of the feature but we don't want to
excavate all of it because we want to
leave some of it
you always want to leave something there
for the future so this is the big huge
trench that we dug in 2011 so when we
were excavating this out one of the
things we found about three and a half
feet down was a whole huge
thick layer of ash and a bunch of burned
materials bunch of burned artifacts and
a whole bunch of timbers that were
burned and charred and had fallen in so
guess what probably happened to the
house when she mysteriously vanished to
Quincy for a few years yeah
so the house caught fire right twice now
in its history right so likely what
happened in those couple of years which
we also kind of dated some of the
artifacts that were burned and in there
we were able to date to about that same
time period
so what likely happened is something
right lightning strike wildfire another
engine oil can who knows right caught
fire burned the house and they had to
move to Quincy while they rebuilt the
house in exactly the same space so that
was something that I always kind of
point to as my example of see you need
archaeology on historic sites right
because we don't you know we don't know
everything just based on documents
sometimes you need to go look at the
stuff there to you learn new information
so we definitely found that out and then
by the time we got to the bottom of the
feature we dug until we ran into this
what we call culturally sterile soil
again right when it changes back to that
orangie yellowy clay that's about four
and a half feet deep so I'm kind of a
short person so it was about two here on
me was super awesome try to climb out of
that delicately right walls are fragile
so about four and a half feet deep to
the bottom of what would have been the
cellar underneath this house and that
means that you would have been able to
walk into it right walk into that cellar
I mean you would have been doing one of
these probably right that is incredibly
rare for this time period and this
region to have a full cellar the size of
your house that you can actually walk
into most people had some pits under the
house because you can keep things cool
there to have this sizable cellar again
is another indication that they were
doing pretty well economically speaking
this would have cost some decent money
to do so that was also pretty impressive
and rather unexpected we didn't think we
would encounter that also these walls
look kind of crazy and messy don't judge
me right I can make nice square walls
right but this is because if you
encounter artifacts
excavating that are sticking out of the
walls of the nut that what would be the
next unit over you never want to pull
them out right it destroys your
integrity of where they came from and
all your stratigraphy and all the
different layers so you'll lose that
integrity if you pull them out so we
have to do what's called pedestal them
and kind of dig around them as we go
just got really awful for oil especially
this metal skateboard looking thing we
never figured out what that was I have
no idea we just say wagon parts if we
don't know how it came off a wagon
whatever so looking at the artifacts
that came out of there those two years
those two summers of digging 10 weeks of
excavation total for those two features
that I showed you we got over 20,000
artifacts 20 some-odd artifacts out of
there and that is less than half of that
cellar feature that we excavated we got
20,000 pieces of stuff out of there and
that is anything from tiny little shards
of glass to big enormous hunks of we
have no idea what this is metal right
burn timber pieces animal bones from
their dinner we have tons of stuff so
looking at all that stuff all right we
need to find out some information from
the feature itself and then we look at
the artifacts just you know ask that
well what does this tell us question
right what does this tell us about the
people who used that stuff right that is
the goal so comparing her artifacts from
this this household her family to other
households in town both African American
and white families they were relatively
similar in terms of what they had
percentage of them how much right how
much they would have cost things like
that we're all pretty similar right
which there are only very few small
differences which I was not really
expecting there were some projects
similar timeframe other places that
found rather large differences
especially along racial lines but a lot
of african-american families tended to
buy brand-name goods right whereas white
families would not and in sometimes that
makes sense given where you're at
especially in larger cities when you're
thinking
about potential racism based on shop
owners is the theory of the gentlemen
whose work this is that if you buy a
brand name you know exactly what you're
getting and you they have to sell it to
you for a certain price right so it
makes sense that they would tend to rely
on that because they know what they're
getting it's pre-sealed right they can't
get the flower with the worms in it or
whatever right so that was a kind of a
going theory so I expected to see based
on other studies that came out with that
result I expected to see that here too
didn't I did not see that here are some
just for fun photos of some of the stuff
we found god I have pictures of the good
stuff right so we found quite a number
of ball mason jars right for canning
food if my some of you probably don't
even know what that is anymore but
hopefully right so to store food right
long-term salting or pickling
these are lid liners from ball mason
jars before we got those fancy nice
metal ones that won't give you crazy
diseases right something that if you
ever do decide to go into archeology
these say pure porcelain on them they're
not they're milk glass they're white
glass so they're actually deliberately
mislabelling things as they're selling
it to them so kind of a cautionary tale
don't always believe things that are
written on artifacts that you find Oh on
quite a few ceramics these are both from
England so they're tapped into trade
networks right they're able to get items
from international markets we found some
items from the East Coast New York some
I think the Carolinas so they're getting
stuff from all over the place also very
locally here's some of the bottles that
we found miraculously we found a whole
lot of whole bottles which never happens
especially in a plowed field one of
these is actually from a druggist so a
pharmacy at the small town down the road
that was also pretty neat to find we
found some beer bottles from a brewery
in Springfield
I was pretty fun only a couple though
not too many at this house a few more
items this is a pocket watch one of the
McWhorter brothers based on his when he
died his list of his list of items when
he passed away he had about five
her six pocket watches he's an avid
watch collector right might have been
his we don't know maybe this is a
suspender clip buckle from this
particular brand tended to be used for
women and children's suspenders so we
know there were children there this is a
trivet that you put hot items right when
you're cooking you can either put this
in the fire and set up a pot on it when
you're cooking or when you take it out
and you're serving you can set that on
it so you don't burn the table ours are
a nice little ceramic or cloth ones now
but just a big ol metal one probably
made in town right looks very it's very
handmade this is probably the artifact
that is the most favorite of the
McWhorter family that we have found to
date right this is a uniform button from
a Civil War soldiers uniform a union
soldiers uniform which is particularly
significant because Louise's one of the
wisest sons and one of her brothers went
to serve in the Civil War they had to go
to Michigan to join a unit again because
they were segregated still at that time
in the Civil War so they had to go to
Michigan to join I think it was the
hundred and fifty third Colored Troops
regiment I think what they had to go to
Michigan to join up but they did came
back we found three of these in this
cellar feature so far the McWhorter
family members were particularly
delighted about that we also found a
pair of glasses which I didn't have a
picture of I couldn't find it but it's
dad they sell the lenses in so that was
really impressive we have pictures of
some of the people who lived here and a
few of them had glasses on so that was
pretty fun try to see who they who might
have actually been wearing them you
don't normally get that kind of link in
a lot of archaeology okay so dug a big
hole in the ground found a bunch of
stuff what does it mean
right what does that tell us about all
this stuff who was living there what
they were doing so I said that we found
a lot of commonalities between the
assemblages right the collection of
things from a bunch of different houses
so the commonalities there suggest to us
that there was probably a similarity and
community mindset right between those
people if they have the same stuff
they're using the same stuff there's
probably something that
binds them together right a shared
culture right society kind of ideas
about what's popular at the time or not
right what's in style perhaps so access
to material goods right they live in a
small rural community there's only so
many places you can get stuff from right
I've been a local general store Sears
catalog is always gray or the chance to
look through an old Sears catalog do
it's really amusing to what kind of
stuff they were selling in their houses
actually you could order entire houses
to be shipped to you so it's fun right
so they only had a few few avenues of
stuff so it kind of makes sense that
maybe some of the things that be similar
right if they only have a few places to
get the stuff from and then they were
using things in a similar fashion a
similar way a similar timeframe so usage
patterns something we also look at when
we found a few differences a few small
differences between those they can also
tell us something really important too
so they might suggest variations in
effects and experiences of those social
norms and also the laws around right
like I was mentioning with buying the
brand goods versus the sort of store
brand stuff right that kind of
difference can tell you a lot about why
they might have been doing that so you
have to think about all right well why
might they have been doing that right
for instance one of the differences was
Louise I had a whole lot of stoneware so
big heavy thick utilitarian ceramics
think like butter turns and big storage
vessels that you could like salt a bunch
of meat in and keep it stored they had a
lot of that right way more than other
households in town so that suggests that
they were storing up a lot more food or
making a lot more food than other
households in town right potentially for
selling at market potentially because
maybe that was part of her contribution
to the family farm right she's putting
up extra food for everybody else - some
of the sons weren't married right or
their wives had passed and there's that
whole stereotype about men not being
able to make their own food right you
know not usually a case but it might
have been what she was doing so and then
you've also got variations pretend
based on other aspects right not just
race and gender right we are all more
than our race and our gender right
there's more to you so she may have been
making other decisions based on other
things like religion or her age one of
the reasons but probably we think that
there weren't a lot of alcohol bottles
found at this particular house and there
were at other ones the my quarters were
known for being rather staunch Baptists
right
they Frank actually was a deacon at the
Baptist Church at the local church just
down the road small town which again
pretty surprising but they were very
religious family and so it's possible
right that they were involved in the
temperance movement right Carrie nation
actually stopped at New Philadelphia
right lady with the hatchet and going
after all the beer barrels have you
taken some history classes right that
was her right she stopped at New
Philadelphia to give a talk right about
temperance and not drinking so it's
possible right that little Wisie was on
board with that and that's why we didn't
find a lot of alcohol bottles they're
usually find more of those than anything
else don't want to drink the water it's
bad for you you have to drink beer
instead generally good advice and then
you also have just down to maybe they
didn't like certain stuff right maybe
they just had preferences for one thing
over the other right I like blue and you
like red right you can't not account for
that kind of thing too so it's a
presence of these assemblage pattern
differences right along race and gender
lines like we found in big urban areas
right the study about the brand name
goods for instance and a lack of them at
New Philadelphia right also points to
the differences between urban and rural
environments right you can't right
looking at that you have to be careful
that you're not sort of putting the
urban persons experience on the rural
persons experience and assuming that
it's the same because oh well here's you
know a african-american woman in
Annapolis Maryland in 1840 her life is
probably exactly the same as this
african-american woman in the middle of
rural Illinois in the 1840s right
noop right it wouldn't be now right if
you grow up in Chicago you have a pretty
different childhood than a person who
grows up in Mohammed all right be pretty
different so
the same is still the case here too that
often gets kind of glossed over in a lot
of big picture history and archaeology
stuff right so that big picture right
our sort of takeaway lessons currently
from this work so our available evidence
suggests that the integrated was
integrated community seem to exist in
relative peace and without violent
racially motivated incidents right as
far as we're aware currently anyway but
that of course doesn't mean that
everybody had the same experience right
you might get along with your neighbor
right but if you are black in 1840
you're gonna have a very different
experience than a white person in 1840
right or if you're a woman who's trying
to run a farm by herself that's gonna be
very different than a man trying to run
a farm by himself because of societal
expectations and the laws at the time
then most of them were probably living
in a similar economic class just above
subsistence farming right just above
that we can feed ourselves with what
we're growing right they're able to do
that but also then take things to market
right to make more money so all a
similar economic class but again right
that experience is going to be different
based on your race gender religion age
right so we can't make that big glossing
statement this was the same for
everybody in this area right and these
differences in her assemble just point
that out so like I said we can't assume
as archaeologists or historians that a
person in the city is going to have the
same experience as a person in a rural
area nor can we assume that if you find
anywhere else at a different site to
similar assemblages to similar batches
of stuff that that means similar people
were living in each house right usually
and especially in prehistoric
archaeology right you don't know who
lived in these houses it's pretty rare
to know specifically who lived in that
house that you are digging up right and
so we were able to kind of test that
case here that yeah well we found
basically the same stuff but obviously
it's not the same people right in terms
of demographics right these people would
be very different and so that kind of
help point that out to serve a sort of a
cautionary tale for other people in
other areas so to kind of wrap up the
future of the site what's going on there
now
right there you can go visit site if you
want to it's right by Barry Illinois is
the closest town just off 72 there so
there's a bunch of signage up for
visitors including some the archeology
the history as well there's a walking
trail you have a pamphlet that gives you
information about where you're at and
the different stops along the trail um
there's also this really fancy new app
that we're pretty impressed with that we
had an artist actually do some
renderings of what some of the houses in
town might have looked like might is the
operative stressed word there and you
can actually download this and open up
your camera on your smartphone and it
will project these images onto the
landscape like you can kind of do one of
these and they'll show up they're like
geo tags they show up in the proper
place so it's pretty cool very high-tech
we're pretty impressed with ourselves on
that one right mostly the artist who did
that because again that's not my thing
this is a mock-up of approximately what
the wisest house might have looked like
we know it was pretty large the little
guy who while he was little in the 1930s
right who told us what he remembered he
said it was two-story White had a bunch
of windows we found we know had a bunch
of windows I found a ton of broken
window glass found a slate roof tile so
I know it wasn't like tarpaper roofs
those are slate tiles definitely had a
chimney there was a well just behind it
which we also found and around the back
there would have been like an old cellar
entrance right where you like open the
doors and walk down the stairs because
they would have been able to get into it
and we also found evidence of that too
so actually the guy's recollection was
pretty well held up by the archeology he
remembered pretty well for he was 89 or
so telling us what he remember and he's
like five or six it's pretty impressive
so if you want to see some of the stuff
some of them are on display at the
Illinois State Museum some of them are
very newly on display the Springfield
central Illinois African American
History Museum right and there is
everybody cross your fingers for us a
possibility that some of our artifacts
might go to the National Museum the
african-american history and culture in
DC that just recently finally opened so
fingers crossed on that one also I
forgot to mention we're also in the
process of hoping it becomes a national
park so that's another hopeful thing
that might happen in
future is a national historic landmark
already but fingers crossed on the
National Park thing as well and then
hopefully in the future might be going
back to do some more excavations not
entirely sure that of course like
everything depends on funding so we'll
see what happens right but if that does
I will be sure to spread the word here
if any of you are interested in doing
things like that
so thanks very much I'm happy to take
any questions anybody has
