MANSION COMPLETED 

 C 1744 BURNED 1916 



PIT FILLED WITH 

 TRASH C 1763-1772 



SITE OFKITCHEN(?) 

 EXISTING AT CLOSE 

 OF I9TH CENTURY. 



-RIM OF GULLY 

 SLOPING WEST TO 

 SPRING t STREAM. 



FiGi'RE 2."- Plan showing pit in relatiun to llir man.sion. 



Icaii-to at the rear."* but it seems unlikely that this 

 was the original colonial dependency. An examina- 

 tion of the surviving foundations revealed the use of 

 large pieces of dressed stone, some with moldings; 

 Ijut whether these were used as repairs or were in 

 the original construction of the building is not yet 

 clear. No careful excavation has been undertaken 

 in this area, but souvenir himters have apparently 

 dug holes here and there within the confines of the 

 walls and have unearthed small ciuantities of domestic 

 trash that appear to date to the late 10th centurs' or 

 early 20th century. 



The site of the Page barn has not been identified, 

 but it is possible that it stood to the northwest of 

 the house and that its foundations spanned the track 

 now leading to the ruined mansion. In the course 

 of deep ploughing in 1958 and 1959 traces of shell- 

 mortared colonial brick foundations were found 

 running north and south. The same operations 

 also revealed two large domestic trash deposits. The 



>' Kocher and Dearstyne, np. cit. (footnote 12), pi. Ill, 



contents of these deposits have not been inxestigated 

 but they are known to be of colonial date. 



There is no doubt that John Page possessed other 

 structures in the vicinity of Rosewell that did not 

 feature in the 1802 insurance policy — buildings such 

 as smokehouse, dairy, lumber sheds, icehouse, and 

 so forth. No reference is made to a slave quarter, 

 and one can only wonder whether the slaves were 

 housed in imsightly shacks unworthy of insurance or 

 whether some were allowed to reside in the west de- 

 pendency. 



The 1957-1959 Excavations 



In the coin-sc of its own cxcaxations of the trash 

 pit. the burrowing grotmd hos; had thrown out large 

 quantities of oyster shells, brickbats, and bottle 

 fragments. The site of the pit lies 190 feet west of 

 the plantation house (see fig. 2) on the edge of a 

 natural slope that runs into a small \alley. Through 

 the \alley winds a stream fed by a spring popularly 

 known as Pocahontas" Spring — a reminder that 

 Powhatan is said to ha\e had a settlement in the 



162 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



