EXCAVATIONS IN THE VICINITY ol' tlic luincci mansion 

 of Rosewell in Gloucester Countx were undertaken 

 not to gain information concerning the plantation 

 house and its dependencies but to recover stratified 

 and closely dated groups of artifacts that would be of 

 value as comparative material for archeologists and 

 historians concerned with the excavation of colonial 

 sites. This paper relates to a single trash deposit, the 

 main filling of which is believed to have taken place 

 between the approximate years 1763 and 1772. The 

 deposit was found by Mr. J. \'. N. Dunton while search- 

 ing through the woods for the site of Rosewell's ice- 

 house. Oyster shells and wine-bottle fragments had 

 been thrown up from the pit by the burrowing of a 

 groundhog that had made its home deep in the refuse. 

 Although the discovery was made in October 1956, 

 it was not until the autumn of 1957 that the writer 

 sought permission of the o\vners of Rosewell for ex- 

 ca\ations to be carried out on the site. 



History of Rosewell 



Rosewell stands on the west bank of Carter's Creek 

 at the point where it enters the York River, thus its 

 lands are bordered on the southwest by the river and 

 on the southeast Ijy the creek. The tract was said by 

 some authorities to ha\e been willed by John Page, 

 the emigrant, to his son Mathew in 1692. But others 

 claim that the land came into Page hands through 

 Mary Mann whose family won the land in a game of 

 push-pin. ' Mary Mann was the wife of Mathew Page, 

 of the King's Council, who built a frame house on the 

 land in the late 17th century. After the death of 

 Mathew Page in 1703 the land passed to his son Mann 

 Page I, who, after the destruction of the Page home in 

 1721,2 began to build himself a mansion of such gran- 

 deur that it rivaled the palace of the Royal Governor 

 in Williamsburg, and has since been described as the 

 finest example of domestic architecture in Colonial 

 America. 



'A. Lawrence Kocker and Howard Tieairstyne, Shadows in 

 Silver, New York, 1954, p. 66. Miss Nellie Deans Greaves was 

 kind enough to contribute the following information: "Mathew, 

 son of John Page, married Mary Mann, sole heir and daughter 

 of John Mann, and thus became master of the Rosewell tracts. 

 John Mann had purchased the property on September 24, 1680. 

 'by virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale,' from Elizabeth 

 Coggs and Mary Perry, heirs and granddaughters of George 

 Minifree (sometimes spelled 'Menefee"). George Minifree had 

 come into possession of the tract when he received an original 

 grant in 1639." 



- William Byrd, The London Diary, 1717-1721, edited by Louis 

 B. Wright and Marion Tinlins;. New York, 1958, entry for 



In 1730, with Rosewell apparently still far from 

 completed, Mann Page I died, leaving to his widow 

 Judith "his dwelling house, with all out houses thereto 

 belonging, where he then lived, and the mansion 

 house then building, with all the land thereto ad- 

 joining . . ." ' It is perhaps significant that his wife 

 was the daughter of Robert "King" Carter, who had 

 built Corotoman on the Rappahannock, then one of 

 the wonders of \'irginia. It was not impossii)le that 

 Mann Page I embarked upon the building of Rose- 

 well at the instigation of, or to keep pace with, his 

 father-in-law. 



The bulk of the Page estates passed to Mann Page II 

 when his elder brother, Ralph, died intestate. Mann 

 Page II continued to work towards the completion 

 of Rosewell, but he soon found that he possessed 

 insufficient funds to pay the immense debts incurred 

 bv his father that were compounded by his own efforts 

 to finish the mansion. In 1743 Mann Page II married 

 Alice Grymes, and in the following year he petitioned 

 the .Assembly to break the entail on 27,000 acres 

 scattered over nine counties.'' It has been assumed 

 that until this land was sold Rosewell remained un- 

 finished, but there is, in fact, no mention of the house 

 in the plea to the Assembly, only a desire to pay 

 existing debts. It is perhaps reasonable to suggest 

 that the house was actually finished on credit before 

 Page's marriage and that the necessity to pay the 

 resulting bills occasioned the land sale in 1744. The 

 history of the inansion throughout the remainder of 

 the 18th century is one of gradual decline, the Page 

 family having too little money to maintain it, to 

 entertain in it, or to enjoy it as its optilence demanded. 



April 1744 saw the Ijirth of Mann Page II's son 

 John, who was destined to become the most influential 

 of his clan. Educated in England, he became master 

 of Rosewell about 1765, by which time, for some 

 uncertain reason, his father had mo\'ed out of the 

 house. During the decade 1761-1770 the father built 

 for himself another imposing residence, Mannsfield, 



March 12, 1721, p. 506: "After dinner I put some things in 

 order and then took a walk to Mrs. Harrison's who told me 

 Colonel Page's house was burnt to the groimd, which I was 

 much concerned to hear.'' Robert Carter, writing on March 8, 

 1721, reported that Colonel "Cage's" house and barn had 

 burned to the groimd (Louis B. Wright, ed.. Letters of Robert 

 Carter 1720-1727, San Marino, California. 1940, p. 90). 



^ William Waller Hening, Statutes at Large ... .4 Collection 

 of all the I^aws oj Virginia . . . , Richmond, 1819, vol. 5, p. 

 278. 



< Ibid. 



156 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



