Jones who, in North Carolina, aspired to 6 children 

 and 42 slaves. 51 



On the other hand, it may be noted that the Carters 

 of "Corotoman" on the Rappahannock, one of the 

 wealthiest families in Virginia at the beginning of the 

 18th century, had lived in a rather similar house prior 

 to the building of an imposing and larger brick 

 mansion. The latter burned in 1729, whereupon 

 Robert "King" Carter moved back into the old 17th- 

 century house. Carter's inventory made at the time 

 of his death in 1732, and now in the possession of the 

 Virginia Historical Society, identifies the rooms in the 

 "Old House" as comprising a dining room, chamber 

 over the dining room, lower chamber, chamber over 

 the lower chamber, and a porch chamber. This last 

 strongly suggests that the "Old House" was of 17th- 

 century date. As other buildings named in the in- 

 ventory are noted as being of brick (probably advance 

 buildings for the burnt mansion), it may be assumed 

 that the "Old House" was of frame construction and 

 so might well have been of the same class as the 

 Tutter's Neck residence. A further similarity is to be 

 found in the fact that the Carter inventory lists no 

 cellars beneath the "Old House." 



The Kitchen 



Like the residence, this subsidiary building was not 

 without its unusual features, the most obvious being 

 the position of the massive chimney standing against 

 the main east-west axis of the building instead of at 

 one of the ends, the normal position. Thus, instead of 

 being supported by the A of the roof, the chimney was 

 freestanding above the first floor with the pitch of the 

 roof running away from it. 



The building possessed external measurements of 

 25 ft. 4>2 in. by 16 ft. 7% in.; the foundations, laid in 

 English bond, were one brick (9 in.) thick. The 

 chimney abutted against the north wall, measured 

 10 ft. by 5U ft.; its sides were 1 1 ft., 1 ft. 9 in., and 1 1 

 in. thick. 55 Such a building would have stood to a 

 height of a story and a half with one room on the 

 first floor and a rude attic above, probably ap- 

 proached from a ladder. 



Cuttings across the foundations showed that the 



5 * Negroes belonging to the estate of Frederick Jones are 

 listed in Papers of the Jones Family, vol. 1, November 29, 1723. 



55 Oystershell mortar was used. Sample bricks are pale 

 salmon to overtired red and measure 8 in. by 3Ja ui. by 2 1 - in. 

 and 8?i in. by 3?i in. by 2 , » in. 



bricks were unevenly laid. At one point in the 

 south wall the bricks jogged out to a distance of two 

 inches, as though the foundation had been laid from 

 both ends and failed to meet correctly in the middle. 

 The: o possibility that this unevenness could 



have d by settling or root action after 



building, for the builder's trench was filled with 

 clearly defined burnt also followed the jog. 



The same red clay v\ d in the builder's 



trench all around tin It was also 



used to span soft depressions ri suiting from refuse 

 pits dug and filled with trash before the building 

 erected. For some unexplained reason the kitchen 

 was constructed over an area that previously had 

 been set aside for the burying of domestic refuse. 

 The largest and earliest of the five pits excavated was 

 situated partially beneath the massive kitchen 

 chimney, whose foundation, not surprisingly, had 

 settled into the pit. Another rectangular pit in the 

 middle of the building was not only topped with a 

 pad of red clay but was partially covered by a cap 

 or pier of laid brickbats that perhaps served as a 

 support for floor joists. 



The presence of the pits scaled beneath the kitchen 

 provided two pieces of information: that the site 

 had been occupied for some time before its construc- 

 tion, and that it was not built before about 1730 or 

 1740 — this on the evidence of a wine bottle found 

 at the bottom of Pit D. If this was the first separate 

 kitchen building erected on the site, it must be 

 assumed that the cooking was originally carried on 

 in one of the first-floor rooms of the residence. 

 However, the fact that the archeological excavations 

 were so limited makes any conjecture of that kind 

 of dubious value. 



The unusual construction of the kitchen and its 

 situation in the trash area at a skew with the residence 

 might prompt the conclusion that it was built without 

 much consideration for the beauty of the whole. It 

 is probable that the kitchen was erected after the 

 house had ceased to be the residence of the owner 

 or a tenant of the Tutter's Neck acres, and that the 

 dwelling was then a slave quarter. Such a conclusion 

 is supported by the presence in Pits D-F, of numerous 

 fragments of Colono-Indian pottery, a ware produced 

 bv Tidewater Indians in pseudo-European forms and 

 probably intended for the use of the slave population. 

 The construction date of the kitchen in the decade 

 1731-1740 would place it in the ownership of Col. 

 Thomas Bray, who resided at Littletown (see p. 40). 

 Thus the Tutter's Neck residence is at best unlikely 



PAPER 5 3 : EXCAVATIONS AT TUTTER S NECK 



45 



