22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



FOREST HALL SITE 



The aerial photograph of which a part is reproduced in plate 5 was 

 made from high over the mouth of the Rapidan, with the camera 

 pointing a little east of south. It is looking down the Rappahannock, 

 as the stream bears to the left in the distance. On the right is the 

 Synam farm — part of the old Forest Hall plantation — a mile or more 

 below the junction of the two streams. The dwelling and barns, far 

 to the right in the picture, stand on land some 40 or 50 feet higher 

 than the Rappahannock. The flats bordering the river bank, where 

 once stood a native village, are mostly cultivated and are very rich 

 and productive. This is the first cleared ground on the Rappahannock 

 below the mouth of the Rapidan. in the midst of a thickly timbered 

 area that has changed little in appearance since the days when it was 

 claimed by the Manahoac tribes. Here the river banks are rather high, 

 with islands both above and below, and although when the photograph 

 was made (Sept. 17, 1934) the river was unusually high, the waters 

 had not spread over the bordering fields. This was a most desirable 

 site for a native settlement, one which had evidently been occupied 

 from the earliest times. 



The entire surrounding country is of much historical interest, and 

 less than a mile west of the Synam house are the remains of the iron 

 furnace constructed by Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1727, the 

 first furnace erected in North America for the exclusive manufacture 

 of pig iron. This became known as the " Tubal Works ". 



The large field on the right bank in the bend of the river proved 

 to be of interest when visited late in the summer of 1934. Much of the 

 surface was strewn with pottery, all small fragments, broken and 

 ground by the plow during the many years the land has been cultivated. 

 Some arrowpoints, a few entire but the majority fractured, were 

 likewise found, together with innumerable flakes of quartz, quartzite, 

 and diabasic rocks. In addition to the material discovered on the site 

 at that time, other objects were obtained that had been collected during 

 the past few years, all tending to indicate the location of an extensive 

 native settlement. This may have been one of the Manahoac villages 

 occupied in 1608, but some of the specimens appear to be much older 

 than others, suggesting more than one period of occupancy by differ- 

 ent tribes, the last of which ended about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. Material from the site is shown in plates 6 and 7. 



Many of the projectile points and other small chipped objects found 

 on the site are made of white quartz, and for that reason there is no 

 dift'erence in the surface appearance of the specimens, although some 



