than others, and that t In- sleepers were made from 

 short .mhI sometimes roughly cut lengths of timber. 

 These sleepers m iy. in fact, have served only as a base 

 for anchoring the ends of floorboards, as was certainly 

 the c tse northwest of the underhearth where the nails 

 from the ends of five boards had dropped through into 

 the channel left by the decayed sleeper. It may be 

 supposed, therefore, that the sleepers' location would 

 have been dictated In- the vagaries of board length 

 rather than by the design of a planned, measured 

 foundation and that they served as ties for the floor, 

 rather than joists raising it off the natural clay 

 beneath. 



In addition to the remains of the carefully laid floor, 

 another much-decayed board, 10 inches wide, and of 

 uncertain thickness, was found running north/south 

 immediately west of the underhearth. This board 

 was partially covered by mortar, suggesting that it 

 had been set on the dirt during the building of the 

 brick structure. 



I he filling of the cellar in the vicinity of the chimney 

 and underhearth comprised a single massive deposit 

 of sandy clay, scattered through which were numerous 

 iron nails, isolated oystershells and occasional frag- 

 ments of pottery, glass, and tobacco-pipe stems. A 

 similar unified filling was encountered at the western 

 end of the excavation, but towards the middle a large 

 and irregular deposit of oystershells was sealed within 

 the sand at a depth of 4 feet 6 inches sloping upward 

 to 3 feet 6 inches towards the south wall. The shell 

 layer averaged from 6 to 9 inches in thickness and was 



found to contain many of the more important artifacts. 



On the wooden floor of the cellar lay a thin \',- to 

 1-inch layer of wood ash, mortar, and occasional brick- 

 bats. Had this accumulation been considerably 

 thicker it might have suggested that the building 

 above had been destroyed by fire. But although the 

 presence of this skin of debris could not be explained, 

 it was far from sufficient to support such a conclusion. 



The topsoil over the entire area had been disturbed 

 to a depth of at least 1 foot, presumably by deep plow- 

 ing. Over the cellar fill, humus and a sandy loam 

 extended to a depth of 1 foot 8 inches at the south 

 edge and to 2 feet 1 inch in the middle. The bottom 

 of this stratum contained nothing but late 17th- or 

 earl)- 18th-century artifacts, including an important 

 and well-preserved latten spoon. 1, A small 19th- 

 century disturbance cut into the south cellar edge 

 towards the west end of the excavation, but caused 

 little disturbance to the main fill. Another, much 

 larger, late 19th-century trash deposit had been dug 

 into the fill to the northwest of the chimney and this 

 had reached to a depth of 3 feet 6 inches below the 

 modern grade. The removal of the walnut tree had 

 created a similar disturbance immediately south of 

 the refuse deposit, while a trench for a 20th-century 

 water pipe had cut yet another slice through the same 

 area. None of these disturbances had caused any 

 damage to the lower filling of the cellar. 



DATING EVIDENCE FOR THE CELLAR 



The majority of the excavated artifacts were scat- 

 tered throughout the cellar fill and were of similar 

 types from top to bottom of the deposit. These objects 

 included wine-bottle and drinking-glass fragments, 

 potsherds of English and perhaps Portuguese tin- 

 enamelled earthenware, and more that 600 tobacco- 

 pipe fragments, all of them indicating a terminal date 

 of about 1700. A quantitative analysis of the tobacco- 

 pipe stem fragments using the Binforcl formula 17 pro- 

 vided a mean date of 1698. 



Method of Excavation 



Digging was initially confined to the immediate 

 vicinity of the chimney foundation (Area B on fig. 3) 

 and to the previously described test trench (A). An 

 east west trench (I)) was next dug to link the two and 

 to isolate the disturbed areas of the tree hole and 

 19th-century pit in Areas C and G. 



11 Remai i .i w n ii i por hi iards in ill- eel 



i ourU >i oj /-.'. P' Unrdil.) 



16 E2. Figure 12, no. 1. 

 " See footnote 27. 



10 



BULLETIN 249: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



