Ivor Noel Hume 



Excavations at 



CLAY BANK 



in Gloucester County, Virginia, 1962-1963 



This paper describes and analyses artifacts recovered from the 

 Jenkins site at Clay Bank, Gloucester County, Virginia. The 

 building which overlay the excavated cellar hole does not appear on 

 any known map. Among the number of interesting objects recovered 

 was a large stem and foot from an elaborate drinking glass or candle- 

 stick of fine quality English lead metal. It was found in association 

 with crude earthenwares, worn out tools, and broken and reused clay 

 tobacco pipes, suggesting that this material was derived from various- 

 sources. 



The Author: Ivor Noel Hume is director of archeology at 

 Colonial Williamsburg and an honorary research associate of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



Early in January 1962 a brick foundation was dis- 

 covered at Clay Bank in Gloucester County follow- 

 ing the removal of a walnut tree beside the residence 

 of Mr. William F. Jenkins. The tree was of no great 

 antiquity but the foundation beneath it was thought 

 by Mr. Jenkins to be worthy of archeological examina- 

 tion. The author, therefore, visited the site late in the 

 same month and found that the brick footings were 

 certainly of colonial date. From the small collection 

 of ceramics and other artifacts also exposed by the 

 tree, there was reason to suppose that the building 

 had ceased to exist late in the 17th or perhaps early 

 in the 18th century. 



The site lay on the north bank of the York River on 

 rising ground immediately west of Clay Bank landing. 

 Little or nothing was known about the property in 

 the colonial period and it was apparently identified 

 on no known maps or land plats. However, the fact 



that it was adjacent to part of the 18th-century Page 

 family plantation (whose mansion house had been in- 

 cluded in previous archeological work 1 ) and because 

 the Clay Bank site gave promise of yielding informa- 

 tion regarding domestic life in the late 17th century, 

 the author decided to undertake limited excavation 

 in the area of the structure. 



With the assistance of local volunteer labor and the 

 archeological staff of Colonial Williamsburg, two 

 trenches were dug, one exposing a larger area of the 

 brick foundation, and the other parallel to it some 1 1 

 feet to the west in the direction of the river. The first 



1 Ivor Noel Hume, "Excavations at Rosewell, Gloucester 



County, Virginia 1957-1959" (paper 18 in Contributions from 

 the Museum of History mid Technology Pap n 12-18, U.S. National 

 Museum Bulletin 225, by various authors; Washington: Smith- 

 sonian Institution, 1963), pp. 153 228. Hereafter cited as 



Rosewell. 



PAPER 52: EXCAVATIONS AT CLAY BANK 



