This year’s Independence Day is the United States’ 250th birthday and all over the country there have been celebrations and events to honor this anniversary. this is a great opportunity to examine the archaeological record in the City of Brotherly Love.
If you are looking for something to do to celebrate the 250th, we recommend heading to The Museum of the American Revolution which opened its doors in Philadelphia in 2017. The museum was constructed “in the heart of the oldest part of Philadelphia,” along Chestnut Street and a mere two blocks from the Delaware waterfront. Realizing the history of the chosen plot prior to the beginning of construction, archaeological surveys and excavations took place thanks to the Section 106 review process. Commonwealth Heritage Group (formerly John Milner Associates) conducted large scale data recovery excavations in 2015 and 2016, which identified thousands of artifacts dating back to the colonial period of Philadelphia’s occupation.
A section of the 1762 Scull Map of Philadelphia with the location of the Museum of the American Revolution notated. Map from Library of Congress.
The excavations exposed Philadelphia’s history from the earliest seventeenth-century residential plots, through the commercialization of taverns and printing offices of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, to the construction of the Jayne building in 1849/1850. The Lippincott button factory represented yet another transition to industrialization in 1907 and finally, the property became institutional by the construction of the National Park Service Visitor Center in 1970.
William Carter received a patent from William Penn shortly after his arrival in 1682 for land surrounding the project area. Carter later added to that parcel by purchasing a north-south lot in 1701/1702. It was this later property that would encompass a quarter of the project area for the new Museum of the American Revolution. This is the parcel that was divided into 74, 76 and 78 Chestnut Street by 1750.
74 Chestnut Street (PASS #: 36Ph194) was purchased by William Smith, a tanner by trade, in 1749 from the Overseers of the Public School that included William Carter’s trustees. There were two features found on this parcel that represented the early colonial occupation of the project area “generating over 25,000 colonial-era artifacts.”
View of Feature 28 before excavation. Photo by JMA.
Feature 28 was a privy located at the back of the lot. Near the bottom of the privy laid two Westerwald jugs.
Jugs from the Westerwald region of Germany found in Feature 28. Photo by JMA.
While the privy contained relatively little tableware or food remains there were several drinking vessels and bottles. The feature also contained over 1,400 fruit pits.
A layer of cherry pits in Feature 28. Photo by JMA.
Archaeologists suggest that perhaps no one lived in the “alley house” but instead, may have been used for some commercial related activity. Evidence of the tanning industry was suggested by “horn pieces, leather scraps, modified wood and bark fragments (Yamin et al., 2016).”
Horn core, wood shavings, modified wood and cut plank found in Feature 28. Photo by JMA.
The bisected profile view of Feature 28 mid excavation. Photo by JMA.
A Bisected view of Feature 32 mid excavation. Photo by JMA.
Feature 32 was another privy, located in the middle of the lot straddling the property line of 74 and 76 Chestnut Street. 76 Chestnut Street (36Ph195) was occupied by Samuel Garrigues, a barber. Unlike Feature 28 this privy contained a large quantity of table and teawares, including Chinese Export porcelain, tin-glazed earthenware, locally made redwares, slip-decorated earthenware and stoneware.
Tin-Glazed Earthenware Plates found in Feature 32. Photo by JMA.
Tin-Redware and English Slipware Chamber Pots found in Feature 32. Photo by JMA.
White Salt Glazed Stoneware and Tin-Glazed Earthernware Tankards found in Feature 32. Photo by JMA.
There were also many Kaolin or ball clay pipes and pipe stems (180) as well as a large volume and variety of faunal food remains. These clues point to the privy used by tavern clientele as opposed to strictly domestic use. The “terminus post quem” for this deposit is 1760 and although no tavern license can be found for either 74 or 76 Chestnut Street at that time there was a tavern across Chestnut Street (Yamin et al., 2016). Another possible explanation for the volume of non-residential fill may be related to an act passed by the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1763 dictating the depth of privies with regard to distance from the Delaware River. Possibly trash was collected and dumped into the privy in an attempt to reduce the depth to the newly acceptable level (Yamin et al., 2016).
The information produced from this excavation gives us a window into our country’s earliest days as well as its evolution through the twentieth century; this brief presentation hasn’t even scratched the surface (so to speak) of the archaeological history of the project area. It’s an incredible site and we hope you enjoyed this glimpse of our shared American heritage as we celebrate its birthday. We also hope you’ll check back for future posts dedicated to the archaeological investigations of Pennsylvania. Happy 250th to everyone!
For Additional Reading:
Carpentier, Donald and Jonathan Rickard
2001 Slip Decoration in the Age of Industrialization. Ceramics in America 2001. Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, WI.
Cotter, John L., Daniel G. Roberts Michael Parrington
1992 The Buried Past: An Archaeological History of Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia Pa.
Liggett, Barbara
1978 Archaeology at New Market Exhibit Catalogue. The Athenaeum of Philadelphia.
Myers, Susan H.
1980 Handcraft to Industry: Philadelphia Ceramic in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, No. 43. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Orr, David G.
2003 Samuel Malkin in Philadelphia: A Remarkable Slipware Assemblage. Ceramics in America 2003, pp. 252-255 (http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/97/Ceramics-in-America-2003/Samuel-Malkin-in-Philadelphia:-A-remarkable-Slipware-Assemblage).
Yamin, Rebecca
2008 Digging in the City of Brotherly Love: Stories from Philadelphia Archaeology. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
TWIPA Connection
This blog post is a synthesis of multiple posts previously published on the “This Week in Pennsylvania Archaeology” blog. These posts were originally published on July 7th 2017 and July 7th 2020. The content has been revised and summarized for clarity. Modifications may include editing, removal or addition of text or the removal or addition of images.
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