The Fiske Center Blog

Weblog for the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Figuring out the Sarah Boston Cellar Feature

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While we’ve expanded our goals this year to include an investigation of the surrounding landscape, we continue to excavate the Sarah Boston cellar feature in the hopes of finally understanding the shape, dimensions, and other attributes of the house. These findings may prove to be very important within the field of Indigenous archaeology, as few Native dwellings from the late 18th and early 19th century have been excavated in New England (not because they don’t exist). While written archival and other historical resources are sometimes useful in understanding Colonial Period Native architecture, they can be contradictory, or slanted toward a specifically Euro-American centered historical narrative, so we must compare this information to our archaeological findings. For example: one discription of Sarah Boston’s home is as follows:

” Low and little, black and old and faced Kittville. The East door above at the end of front. In the middle of the room on the opposite side as one entered was the big chimney with all the things around it, no cupboard, cooking utensils, stools, no chairs. Small loft accessible by ladder. Indians just slept around. Set the table in the middle. Windows faced out toward the valley, and were little. When the door was shut it was quite dark” (Fiske #11, [n.d.] 6).

An early 20th century sketch of the Sarah Boston house that accompanied the above description

An early 20th century sketch of the Sarah Boston house that accompanied the above description

Through our archaeological investigations, we already know that Sarah Boston’s house had no shortage of cooking utensils, in fact, we’ve found many forks and knives in our excavations! Which makes one wonder, ‘what else about this discription is inaccurate!?’

We also have an 1802 receipt for Sarah Boston’s purchase of floor brads, window sashes and glass, nails, and hinges for the renovation of her house:
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But what kind of renovation was this? A new structure? Another floor? Repairs? Is there anything from the receipt or the archaeology or both that might tell us whether or not the local history descriptions were accurate? We consulted Eric Fahey, a carpenter by trade and one of this year’s field school students. Eric made some interesting observations by comparing the items on the 1802 receipt to the basic dimensions of the cellar feature that we’ve compiled in our archaeological investigations. He determined that this list is incomplete for building an entire house the size and proportions of the cellar feature, but it would account for an extensive but specific set of repairs. That could mean that the house foundation we are digging now dates from at least the late 18th century, and perhaps earlier. But what did the pre-renovation house look like? What did it look like after? There are a couple of interesting hints to these questions contained within the receipt.

Grouped together on the receipt, Sarah purchased 7,000 shingle nails and 500 feet of “laithing boards,” which, Eric observed, would be consistent with replacing an entire 12-pitch roof with one-foot courses of shingles. The only thing missing would be the hand-split cedar shingles themselves, a fact which raises even more questions: Was she cutting her own? Did she trade in kind for her shingles with one of her neighbors? These details are unclear, but in addition to the lathing boards for securing the shingles to the rafters, she bought enough yellow pine boards and “board nails” to use as trim for trimming around her new roof, and enough plastering material to cover or recover every wall in the house. While we haven’t yet processed what this all means, but it sure does give us something to think about! Only time and more analysis will tell; until then, any thoughts or ideas are much appreciated from our inquisitive readers!

Eric trowels carefully around foundation stones in the Sarah Boston cellar feature

Eric trowels carefully around foundation stones in the Sarah Boston cellar feature

Thanks very much to Eric Fahey for his valuable expertise, research, and help in writing this post!

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