The whole crew assembled for one last session of digging and the plan was an aggressive one.
First, we’d open a new test pit at the back of the house. Our previous trench quickly uncovered a brick, a clam layer, and undisturbed soil: what you’d expect in the backyard of a shore dinner establishment. Now, we’d move a few feet to the north in hope of finding a wall of the garage.
Second, we would dig a test pit five or six feet from trench 1 looking for the southern wall of the house. Trench 1 was full of bulldozed rubble: concrete, stone foundation material, nails, brick, mortar, a fragment of a late 1940s/50s sink, and some metal pipe. Seemed to follow that the wall must be close.
Third, we’d expand trench 2. It’s been a confusing hole. Now we’d make sense of it once and for all. Hopefully.
Finally, we’d also go deeper into trench 1. Where’s the bottom?
There was an added bit of excitement on this last official dig day: two television cameras. In addition to a documentary that UNE is doing about our project, we’re going to be on the popular local television news magazine 207. Who knew that archaeology would lead to fame and fortune? 15 minutes of it anyway.
The students got right to work. They’re fast now. Know what they’re doing. Not one of them lacks skill with a trowel. It’s fun to see.
The new trench south of our original hole was the first to yield results: undisturbed soil. Rocks and soil were different. Little in the way of archaeology. We were outside of the house.
One of the things that I’ve found most interesting in doing archaeology this semester is that the absence of anything is something. It tells you a lot. Helps you know where you are. Gives you a point of comparison.
The new trench at the back also proved helpful. The students digging there soon found concrete. A sidewall. When considered in light of our hole from last week, we knew that we were digging a garage wall, but also that the corner was some distance closer to Decary Hall. If we had time and permission to dig closer to our oldest academic building, we could pretty easily get the whole outline of The Wayside. That is as much as we can expect for such a short period of digging and it’s good information to have.
Our first trench was now deep, but it was also turning more sandy. It looked like the students had the bottom. A soil core proved it. What we had was a shallow cellar. More crawl space than basement. It was evidently built of a mixture of stone, mortar, and some strategically placed concrete.
Finally, the expansion of trench 2 revealed more concrete and various artifacts in-line with what we’ve been finding. This, our most vexing of trenches, was starting to make sense. It appears to be the middle of what was the garage and later classroom and dorm space.
The garage door only extended halfway across the structure. After that was originally a wall with a window. At first we thought we’d found the edge of the structure, but really it’s a central supporting pillar in the middle of the front wall. The northern side of the building is another seven or so feet from this—outside of the area we’re permitted to dig and probably close to an electrical line that powers a streetlamp.
By the end of the day, we’d resolved quite a lot and yet, there remained one big question. Not one that we HAD to answer, but one that we wanted to. Where was the southern wall of the house? It had to be located within a five-foot space between pit 1 and the new trench that turned up undisturbed soil. One more day ought to do it…
Digging The Last Trench…
And so, three students and I turned up on Saturday morning. I arrived a few minutes early with plans of testing out what I’ve learned from watching the students turn into skilled diggers. Could I successfully start a 50×50? Frankly, I was a little nervous. I’ve dug a few holes in my day, but not with any precision.
Just as I’d seen the students do, I assembled three tape measures. I put in a nail, measured 50cm to put in a second, measured 50cm across to place a third nail, using the second tape measure to assure that everything would be square. With all four nails in, I strung string around to mark the edges, then I started cutting the sod. Not bad. It looked like a proper 50×50. The big discovery? You can teach an old historian new tricks!
I’d just finished cutting through the sod when Marissa turned up. Kai was next. Then Peyton. We quickly fell into alternating between digging, hauling dirt, sifting, offering encouragement, and thinking about what we were seeing. Like old pros.
At first, it was the usual fill. Then there was a strange, coppery, coarse sand. Natural soil? It wasn’t what we’d seen before. We kept going.
More stones. Then more. By Jove, one of them had mortar on it!
We’ll consult with Prof. Anderson before filling everything in Wednesday morning, but this seems to be what’s left of the wall.
Even if it’s just a bit more rubble and the wall is slightly left or right, there isn’t much more to be learned here. We know the dimensions of the building to within a few inches. We know what the foundation looks like. We’ve confirmed the shore dinner story archaeologically. We know what the soil strata looks like in this area and can apply that knowledge to any future digs.
The archaeology doesn’t provide a definitive answer to the early hypothesis that the house was moved from elsewhere, but it hints strongly that it was not. We have some indications of what color it was. There’s archaeological proof, confirming what we know from photographs, of various stages of construction. We even have a pretty good sense of what the destruction of the building looked like, of the direction taken by the bulldozer as it pushed material into a shallow crawlspace of a foundation. That’s not bad for what amounts to less than 24 hours of digging!
With each class, it’s gotten chillier. Fall color is in full swing, even a bit past peak. It’s well into dusk when we wrap up each day. Time to move to the next phase of our investigation. Next week, we head for the archives.
During our next class session, we’re going to debrief and refocus. What do we still need to learn? Quite a lot. Between documentary evidence and collecting oral histories, we ought to be able to find answers.
—Prof. Eric G. E. Zuelow