As it happens, today is rainy and I’m using this opportunity to write this long-overdue update on the excavations over the past two weeks.

First off – a day or so after the last post, a film crew from WSTM NBC Syracuse came to the site, and did a lovely story on the dig and the history of the house. It’s available online for viewing here.

On the 16th, Krissy headed back to California to get ready for classes to start again. I had a great time working with Krissy again, and I’m so thankful for her time with us – we got a lot done. In the end, she did find just about all of the fragments of the blue-and-brown-striped bowl, and it will be a beautiful piece for the Foundation to display in the museum once it’s glued back together.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two weeks excavating within the foundation, and (literally) getting to the bottom of it. It finally ended at reddish-brown compact clay subsoil at over a meter in depth, with most of the artifacts having come from the very top few layers of fill. Unfortunately, the pit under the foundation pre-dates it (as the pit undercuts the walls), and so we’re no closer to determining the foundation’s use than we were when we started. It doesn’t look like it was the privy after all.

We also opened up two units just outside of where the original kitchen door on the house was. This was one of the areas that until last summer had been covered by early twentieth-century house additions which actually protected the nineteenth-century ground surface. We found many artifacts on the ground surface last summer in this area, and opened up these two units to see what the kitchen-yard area was like. As predicted, we’ve found large amounts of artifacts in these units, likely having been discarded directly from the kitchen. We also came across the edge of a line of laid bricks in one of the units – we didn’t expose enough of it to tell exactly what it is, but it may be part of a path that led from the kitchen to the back yard.

Finally, we’ve also started a new unit directly outside of the french doors on the west side of the house that in Gage’s time, led to the formal garden. We’ve placed the unit hoping to catch any footing, etc. of the small deck and steps that led down from the french doors, but didn’t actually expect to find much in the way of artifacts because our other excavations in this general area in years past didn’t turn up much. To our surprise, we found a wealth of artifacts (albeit mixed up with modern debris probably associated with the construction/removal of the sun porch that covered this area until last summer) – including several buttons, a fragment from the head of a porcelain doll, fragments of a hair comb, and – our most exciting find of the day yesterday – an 1859 US penny, with a hole drilled in the top. The coin may have been worn as a charm or jewelry.

And that brings us up to today. This is the last week of working with volunteers for this summer; over the next two weeks I will be working to finish up the in-progress units before heading back to California myself. I’ll be on a somewhat irregular schedule over these next two weeks, but if you’re nearby stop by and I’ll show you what I’m up to. This has been a fun and productive excavation season, and I appreciate the fact that the rain has held off for the past few weeks after our rainy start!

As always, photos are here.