Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

Physical Description

The project area is located within the gardens of the Governor's Palace in the Historic Area of Colonial Williamsburg. The trench emerged from the Palace at the east wall of the Palace ballroom, continued in a straight line approximately 6 meters east, and then ran south (approximately 8 meters) through the gates between the wheelwright and the stables to a power house located across Scotland Street. An offshoot ran across the area between the wheelwright and the tool sheds, tunneled under the east advance building and then traversed the courtyard garden. Test units were dug along most of this path, with one area being excluded due to disturbance from excavations done in the 1930s (Figure 2).

History of the Governor's Palace

Construction on the Governor's Palace began in 1706 under Lieutenant Governor Edward Nott. Little progress was made, however, under Alexander Spotswood assumed the position of Lieutenant Governor in 1710. During his first few years as governor of the Colony, Spotswood made many impressive additions to the palace structure. These included Figure 2. Location of Phase II Test Units. 3 a formal vista along Palace Street, elaborate gardens, falling terraces and a canal, a forecourt with iron gates and heraldic animals, and an impressive arms display in the entrance hall. He also added elegant accents to the upper middle room which was used to receive petitioners. Governor Spotswood moved into the Palace in 1716, although the work was not completed until 1722, at which time it was considered "one of the finest such buildings in British America" (Olmert 1990:73).

By 1751, however, the Palace building had fallen into such disrepair that the governor at the time, Robert Dinwiddie, had to move into a house next door! Renovation began in 1752 at which time the ballroom wing was added under the supervision of Robert Taliaferro. The Palace once again became a structure suitable for the Governor and his family. Aside from the ballroom wing few changes were made until Governor Norborne Berkeley arrived in 1768. Under Berkeley, the Palace underwent complete redecoration resulting in the Palace that people see today.

Following the flight of the last royal Governor, John Murray, during the American Revolution, the building served many functions. It housed the first two governors of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, until 1780 when the seat of government moved to Richmond. During the Battle of Yorktown the Palace was used as a hospital and the orchard as a cemetery. On December 22, 1781 the Palace burned to the ground. All that remained were a few outbuildings and the two advance buildings, one of which was destroyed by the Union Army in 1863 while the other fell into ruin.

Previous Archaeological Study

Beginning in June 1930 and continuing until December, full scale excavations were carried out in and around the Palace under the direction of Prentice Duell and Herbert S. Ragland. Although work centered on the Palace structure and the Revolutionary War cemetery, excavations did lead to the discovery of garden walls, pathways, steps and terraces. Using a copperplate engraving discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, excavators were able to locate the exterior garden walls and the two outbuildings shown on the copperplate. The Bodleian plate also shows the diamond planting pattern which is today recreated in both the east and west ballroom gardens. As mentioned above, the majority of the recreation planting is based on English practices of the eighteenth century, however, not on what the 1930 excavation unearthed.

Although the excavations carried out in 1930 led to the reconstruction of the Palace and its ballroom addition, the field reports do not include much on what work was done in the gardens. Soon after Governor Spotswood's arrival in 1710, authorization was given by the House of Burgesses for "a 'Court-yard' on the town side, (and) a walled garden 254 feet by 144 feet on the north side..." (Carson 1987:85). What was contained within these areas- The Bodleian plate shows the courtyard garden, but little of the rear garden. Prentice Duell's field notes make no mention of garden features, and H. Ragland's report focuses on garden walls, steps, outbuildings and pathways but neither report indicates whether the entire garden area was ever excavated.

In 1979, Ivor Noël Hume began putting in test trenches in the west Palace courtyard, near the kitchen. Two were dug in January and two more in February. Although none of the trenches were placed in areas impacted by the current project, Noël Hume did determine "that any pre-1930 stratigraphy in this area had been removed during the first Palace excavations" (Noël Hume n.d.: 1). Armed with this information, the current project began.

The primary research goal of this project was to identify any possible features which would be damaged or destroyed by the installation of the climate control system. Through the use of regularly spaced test units, the impacted area was examined, recorded and evaluated. The trench line running east-west from the East Advance building to the north-south line was not tested due to a) the results of the units dug on the north-south line, b) the fact that a portion of the area is bricked over, and c) photographs of the 1930 excavation showed this area to be disturbed.

Methods for Testing

The testing method employed for this project consisted of 75 by 75 centimeter units dug systematically every 10 meters. Each unit was excavated using shovels and hand trowels. Although topsoil was not screened, all soil encountered below topsoil was sifted through ¼-inch screen and all artifacts were kept. A profile was drawn of one wall of every unit (to illustrate soil stratigraphy) and descriptions of layers and features were recorded on Department of Archaeological Research context forms. Over half of the units dug unearthed a utility trench of some kind. Excavation was not carried out below utility lines; however, where space allowed, work was continued alongside the disturbed area. Every unit was backfilled.

All artifacts were washed and inventoried using a computerized coding system. Artifacts, as well as documentation, are stored at the Department of Archaeological Research.

A total of 17 test units were excavated along the designated trench lines. Numerous utility lines were encountered, but no archaeological features were discovered. Stratigraphy indicated that the entire area had been disturbed and no intact eighteenth-century layers were identified. This section will discuss some of the findings made.

The stratigraphy in the test units varied from simple to complex. The test units dug in the east ballroom garden (not including one dug directly against the ballroom wall which will be discussed separately) cut through an existing marl and shell pathway. The units dug in the grassy area near the bowling green had a surface layer of grass and sod. The test squares dug along the north-south line began with a layer of extremely hard-packed gravel and marl. The units dug in the courtyard garden had a top layer of ivy and loosely packed loamy soil.

Beneath the surface layers, 6 units had a layer of dark brown silty loam topsoil ranging in thickness from 12 to 36 centimeters, while 9 others had a mottled yellow-brown sandy clay fill ranging in thickness from 18 to 38 centimeters. Layers below this varied depending on the unit; while some units encountered subsoil, others contained

additional strata (the most complex of these contained 6 layers above subsoil; see Figure 3). There did not appear to be any correlation between number of layers and location of unit, as units dug in the same area had very different stratigraphy. Artifact densities range from very light to 6 Figure 3. Complex stratigraphic sequence. fairly heavy, with the majority of the artifacts being nineteenth- or twentieth-century (see Appendix 1).

The testing of the Governor's Palace east and courtyard gardens did not reveal any intact eighteenth-century layers or any features. One unit, however, deserves special note as it was opened with a specific goal in mind.

Test Unit 1

A test unit was opened against the east wall of the Palace ballroom, midway between north and south comers. The purpose of this unit was to determine whether or not 6 courses of original brickwork, which could be seen from the crawl space below the ballroom floor, would be impacted by the climate control system. Architectural conservationist Tom Taylor suggested a unit be opened alongside the brick gutter so that a tunnel could be dug under the gutter until the brickwork was encountered. The original brick was expected to be in line with the existing ballroom wall, assuming the existing wall was built on top of the original foundation.

A 1 meter by 1.5 meter unit was put in against the gutter and excavated to a depth of 80 centimeters. Since the gutter is 86 centimeters wide, it was expected that a tunnel of that length was all that was needed to encounter the original brickwork. After 2 days of excavation, a tunnel approximately 1.5 meters long had been dug under the ballroom floor 7 Figure 4. Test Unit 001. and no evidence of brickwork was found, except in the roof of the tunnel which was interpreted to be the underside of the bottom course of the existing ballroom wall. An auger was used to determine whether the brickwork would be found should the tunnel be lengthened; however, the core sample uncovered no brick further under the ballroom floor.

Architectural conservationist Tom Taylor and Project Archaeologist Christina Adinolfi determined that it would be safe for the trench to pass under the ballroom wall at this location since there is either a gap in the original foundation or the tunnel dug by the archaeologists was below the original Palace brickwork seen in the crawl space.

Utility Trench Work

Following the Phase II testing, workers were brought out to dig the utility line trench. After the area was archaeologically examined, the utility line trench was excavated using machinery. The work was monitored daily by Staff Archaeologist David Muraca and Project Archaeologist Christina Adinolfi. Previous archaeological examination of the Brush-Everard yard, located across Scotland Street from the Palace, had uncovered a trash-filled ravine that appeared to continue underneath the street. The current utility line work was to remove a slice of Scotland Street and dig a six-foot deep trench from the southeast corner of the Palace property to the powerhouse located at Brush-Everard. Archaeologists hoped that the ravine in the Brush-Everard yard would be revealed by this trenching and would uncover evidence of Palace life.

Two trenches were dug through the street. The western one was approximately 2 feet deep and therefore was not deep enough to encounter the ravine. The eastern one was 8 approximately 6 feet deep. While deep enough, this trench failed to uncover the ravine. The area was extremely disturbed; and although a few artifacts were collected, they were unprovenienced and were not considered to be part of the filled-in ravine. It was concluded that the ravine must have run somewhere west of the area trenched.

Palace Courtyard

Discovered in the courtyard across from the wheelwright's workshop was a small fragment of brickwork. Measuring 1.2 meters in length and approximately I brick length wide, it was visible in the sidewalls of two intersecting trenches (see Figure 5). It may be the remnants of a Palace outbuilding foundation; however full excavation was not possible as portions of the foundation lie beneath either brick paving or an existing structure.

Two pit-like features appear to be associated with this brickwork. The westernmost, Context 028, ranged in depth from 1.9 meters to 2.3 meters and was approximately 3 meters wide. It contained brick fragments, porcelain, window glass, bottle glass, an oyster shell, animal bone and numerous pieces of agatized-body slipware. These artifacts indicate this pit was filled in during the mid eighteenth-century. The easternmost pit, Context 029, was 2.9 meters deep and 2.4 meters wide. The grey fill contained charcoal, brick and mortar as well as window glass and a fragment of whiteware. Judging from the assemblage associated, this context is apparently from the nineteenth-century. The function of these pit-like features was not clear.

Figure 5. Location of brickwork.

Conclusions

The Phase H testing conducted in the Governor's Palace gardens revealed that the area is extremely disturbed. Although excavations associated with the reconstruction of the Palace in the 1930s were able to determine the exterior garden walls, along with outbuildings and pathways, it is unclear just how much of the area contained within the walls was explored. Whether due to prior excavations or to numerous utility lines criss-crossing the area, no intact eighteenth-century stratigraphy or features were encountered during the archaeological testing. As a result, the climate control system did not damage or destroy any archaeological remains.