Mciccr period piovi-d to l)i- of greater importance. 

 After completion, a report was made in the 1956 

 Tear Book of the American Philosophical Society 

 (pp. 304-308). 



After ilic 1956 excavations, the question remained 

 whether the principal foundation (Structure B) might 

 not have been that of the courthouse. Therefore, in 

 August 1957 a week-long effort was made to find 

 comparative evidence by digging the site of the 

 succeeding 18th-contury Stafford Count)' courthouse- 

 at the head of Potomac Creek. This disclosed a 

 foundation suHiciently different from Structure B to 

 rule out any analogy between the two. 



It should be made clear that -because of the limited 

 size of the grant— the archeological phase of the in- 

 vestigation was necessarily a limited survey. Only the 

 more obvious features could be examined within the 

 means at the project's disposal. No final conclusions 

 relative to Structure B, for example, are warranted 

 until the section of foundation beneath the highway 

 which crosses it can be excavated. Further excava- 

 tions need to be made south and southeast of Structure 

 B and elsewhere in search of outbuildings and cxidence 

 of 17th-century occupancy. 



Des|)ite such limitations, this study is a detailed 

 examination of a segment of colonial Virginia's 

 plantation culture. It has been prepared with the 

 hope that it will provide Dr. Darter with es.sential 

 material for his area studies and, also, with the w4der 

 objective of increasing the knowledge of the 

 material culture of colonial America. Appropriate 

 to the function of a museum such as the Smitlisonian, 

 this study is concerned principally with what is 

 concrete — objects and artifacts and the meanings 

 that arc to be derived from them. It has relied upon 

 the mutually dependent techniques of archeologist 

 and cultural historian and will serve, it is hoped, as 

 a guide to further investigations of this sort by his- 

 torical museums and organizations. 



Among the many individuals contributing to this 

 study, I am especially indebted to Dr. Darter; to the 

 members of the American Philosophical Society who 

 made the excavations possible; to Dr. Stewart, who 

 reviewed the archeological sections at each step as 

 they were written; to Mrs. Sigrid Hull who drew the 

 line-and-stipplc illustrations which embellish the 



report; Edward G. Schumacher ol the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, who made the archeological 

 maps and drawings; Jack Scott of the Smithsonian 

 photographic laboratory, who photographed the arti- 

 facts; and George Harrison Sanford King of Fred- 

 ericksburg, from whom the necessary documentation 

 for the 18th-century courthouse site was obtained. 



I am grateful also to Dr. Anthony .\. B. Garvan, 

 professor of American civilization at the University 

 of Pennsylvania and former head curator of the 

 Smithsonian Institution's department of civil history, 

 for invaluable encouragement and advice; and to 

 Worth Bailey formerly with the Historic American 

 Buildings Survey, for many ideas, suggestions, and im- 

 portant identifications of craftsmen listed in Mercer's 

 ledgers. 



I am equally indebted to Ivor Noel Hume, director 

 of archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and an 

 honorary research associate of the .Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, for his assistance in the identification of 

 artifacts; to Mrs. Mabel Niemeyer, librarian of the 

 Bucks County Historical Society, for her cooperation 

 in making the Mercer ledgers available for this re- 

 port; to Donald E. Roy, librarian of the Darlington 

 Library, Unixersity of Pittsburgh, for providing the 

 in\aluable clue that directed me to the ledgers; to 

 the staffs of the \'irginia State Library and the Alex- 

 andria Library for repeated courtesies and coopera- 

 tion; and to Miss Rodris Roth, associate curator of 

 cultural history at the Smithsonian, for detecting 

 Thomas Oliver's inventory of Marlborough in a least 

 suspected source. 



I greatly appreciate receiving generous permissions 

 from the L^niversity of Pittsbiu'gh Press to quote ex- 

 tensively from the George Mercer Papers Relating lo 

 the Ohio Company of I'irginia, and from Russell & 

 Russell to copy Thomas Oliver's inventory ot 

 Marlborough. 



To all of these people and to the countless others 

 who contributed in one way or another to the 

 completion of this study, I offer my grateful thanks. 



C. M.\LCOLM \V.\TKI.NS 



Washington, D.C. 

 1967 



