2025 Field School Week 4 (Part Two)

By: Sam Brown and Quinn Fergusson

Hi everyone! This past week, after many days hard at work on the grounds of Poplar Forest, the archaeology field school went on a spectacular two-day field trip to the Tidewater region! Here, we had the opportunity to explore Colonial Williamsburg and Historic Jamestowne, two incredible places from early American colonial history. Throughout our visits, the staff and professionals at work provided in-depth, behind-the-scenes looks at the amazing archaeological work being done at both destinations.

First up, the trip to Colonial Williamsburg! What begins as an early Thursday morning, leaving from Lynchburg, ends at the DeWitt Wallace Museum. Upon arriving in Williamsburg we are introduced to their new archaeology buildings and current plans, as well as blistering heat; however, this did not stop us from enjoying our exploration. Walking along, we are introduced to an open field currently identified as “Custis Square”, a property owned by one of the richest men in Virginia at the time, John Custis IV. This area had his home, some outbuildings, and a vast garden that would later be important for interpretation to the public. Continuing, we come across a very significant area of Colonial Williamsburg, Nassau Street, which housed the site of a Baptist Church established by enslaved and free African American people, one of the first in the country. The church building has been altered and moved several times, as well as destroyed once by a storm in the 1830s. A gravesite is located adjacent to the historic church site with over 60 graves resting within it. Efforts to identify those who occupied the graves, by archaeologists and other specialists, have worked in collaboration with the descendant community to provide additional evidence that the gravesite is composed of individuals of African descent from the nineteenth century. CW has worked with members of the First Baptist Church congregation on Scotland Street (descendants of the original congregation), to help identify and restore this area. The Bray School is another significant location on Nassau Street, which was created in the 1700s and taught roughly 300 enslaved children during 1760-1765.  This area showed the strong connection Colonial Williamsburg has to the enslaved people who inhabited and the African American community who lived there into the 20th century. Next, we visit a plot of land which was owned by the aforementioned Custis and rented out by a man named Peter Scott, a popular furniture maker at the time, who used his skills as a transaction for rent. The house burned down in 1775, but will be undergoing restoration after archaeological research on the site is finished. On our way to the Archaeology Lab, we see where Colonial Williamsburg gets its renown for historical accuracy, being shown the large brickyard, which is worked year-round with artisans to have period-accurate materials. CW boasts around 60 million artifacts in its archaeology collection, of which we had the privilege to see some in their lab. CW is lucky to have a French cartographer’s map (known as the “Frenchman’s Map”), which helped give context to the land and made excavations easier by helping identify sites that were there during that time period. This allowed them to identify and contextualize a plethora of items like money boxes, lead window panes, armor, marbles, tools, and lots of ceramics of all times and ages. We then finish the immersive experience by perusing the grounds, museums, and shops and ending it at the tavern.