Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

Introduction

On Friday, July 11, 1997, Colonial Williamsburg's Department of Archaeological Research, at the request of Louise Kale, Executive Director of the Historic Campus, excavated a one-meter square in hopes of dating the stratigraphic layers associated with a previously-unknown brick foundation. The foundation had been accidentally uncovered during the excavation of a waterline trench that cut through the Wren Yard. The trench penetrated two adjoining walls before continuing out of the yard. The foundation was located north of the northeast corner of the Wren Building, approximately 11.45 meters east of the northwest corner of the President's Guest House.

Three courses of brick had survived in the ground. The foundation was one-brick wide, and held together with shell-tempered mortar. The structure was not on the town grid suggesting that it may predate the establishment of Williamsburg in 1699.

This area was first patented as part of the Rich Neck plantation in the 1630s. Rich Neck was the home of two Secretaries of the Colony (Richard Kemp and Thomas Ludwell), and of Thomas Lunsford, a refugee from the English Civil War who married Kemp's widow Elizabeth.

Thomas Ludwell sold 330 acres of Rich Neck to Thomas Ballard in 1674, who in turn sold it to college trustees in 1693. It is currently unknown at this time if Thomas Ballard lived in Middle Plantation.

The Early Years of the College

In 1691, James Blair was sent to England to secure a Charter for a new college. Two years later, Blair returned with a royal charter, it's first employee, and construction funding. After first leaning towards two other locations, the General Assembly overwhelmingly chose Middle Plantation as the site of the new college. The selection of Middle Plantation foreshadowed the settlement's selection as the new colonial capitol and was part of a well orchestrated effort to remove the government from Jamestown to Middle Plantation. The college was seen as a way to help transform Middle Plantation into a town by stimulating cultural, intellectual, and economic endeavors. A 330 acre tract was selected located as near to the church as was possible.

The college was the most ambitious English colonial construction project of its day. Its design appears to be the work of Christopher Wren, the Surveyor General of England. England was also responsible for the design of the college's garden, her contractor, and several of her bricklayers. Originally designed as a quadrangle, only half of the building was executed. If completed the structure would have measured over 80,000 square feet and contained 300 windows. Cost overruns resulted in the execution of only two sides of the quadrangle. The resulting L-shaped structure contained over 40,000 square feet of space. In order to accomplish this, a contract for 800,000 bricks was written. The building was four and a half stories high, with a three foot wide brick foundation. The structure was considered state of the 2 art for the colony. Incorporated into its design was the first classic cupola in Virginia, and the first known use of sash windows in the colony (Godson, Johnson, Sherman, Tate, and Walker 1993; Kornwolf 1989).

The Test Excavation

The test unit was designed to sample the stratigraphy near the foundation wall in hopes of determining the foundation's age. The unit was placed 11.45 meters west of the northwest corner of the President's Guest Cottage. The test unit, aligned on the town grid, measured one meter square. Each stratigraphic unit was assigned a context number drawn in plan and profile, and described in detail. Layers were excavated either by shovel or when necessary by trowel.

All soil was screened through ¼ inch mesh and all artifacts other than brick fragments and mortar were kept. The artifacts were washed, numbered, and identified. These finds are stored at the department's warehouse.

Five layers and one feature were identified in the test units. The layers in stratigraphical order were:

• 1Topsoil - a clean grey sandy loam—15 cm thick—twentieth century.
• 2A thick dark grey fill layer that contained large amounts of brick rubble and oyster shells—15cm thick—nineteenth century.
• 3Very thin medium grey sheet refuse layer containing charcoal and brick flecking—3cm thick—appears to date to the last quarter of the seventeenth century
• 4Light grey, very clean, sandy loam, also contained sheet refuse—12 cm thick—appears to date to the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
• 5Arbitrary division of layer number four—5 cm thick—appears to date to the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
• 6Subsoil

Only one feature was identified—a 35 cm wide trench that was sealed by the second layer and cut the third layer. Running roughly north-south the trench ran out of the unit to both the north and the south. It was filled with a dark brown soil that contained a heavy concentration of animal bone and nineteenth-century artifacts. The function of this feature is currently unknown but does not seem to be related to the foundation.

Conclusions

The structure cut by the pipe trench in the north Wren yard appears to predate the construction of the Wren Building. The foundation seems to be the remains of a dwelling, possibly associated with Thomas Ballard. Future research questions involved determining the size of the structures, its function, the date of construction, and to record and compare this structure's architecture with other Middle Plantation sites.

References

Godson, Susan, Ludwell Johnson, Richard Sherman, Thad Tate, and Helen Walker

1993

The College of William and Mary: A History. Volume 1.

Kornwolf, James

1989

"So good a design." The Colonial Campus of the College of William and Mary: Its History, Background, and Legacy. Joseph and Margaret Muscarelle Museum of Art.