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Farmer’s Delight AN 18TH-CENTURY PLANTATION IN SOUTHERN DELAWARE PHASE III ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA RECOVERY THE CEDAR CREEK ROAD SITE 7S-C-100 CEDAR CREEK HUNDRED SUSSEX COUNTY, DELAWARE Parent Agreement 1535 Tasks 5 and 10 Prepared for: Delaware Department of Transportation P.O. Box 778 Dover, Delaware 19903 Prepared by: William Liebeknecht, Principal Investigator Ian Burrow, Principal Patrick Harshbarger, Principal Historian Alison Haley, Historian FEBRUARY 2014 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY This is the study of an 18th-century rural settlement site in northern Sussex County, Delaware. It is argued that the main portion of the archaeologically excavated site was occupied and worked by enslaved Africans and/ or African-Americans. No trace of these people has been found in the documentary record, but observed pat- terning in the archaeological data is considered to be a direct reflection of their dominant presence and cultural practices here. Since this is the first archaeological site in Delaware at which such an archaeologically based identification has been attempted, the hypothesis needs to be rigorously reviewed, and also tested at other loca- tions. Federally supported planned improvements to the intersection of State Routes 1 and 30 in Cedar Creek Hundred, Sussex County by the Delaware Department of Transportation were preceded by historical and archaeological studies in accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended). These resulted in the identification of two archaeological sites, one solely prehistoric and the second (the subject of this report) a multi-component historic site, also with a prehistoric component. This complex, the Cedar Creek Road Site [7S-C-100] includes a basemented structure of late 17th- or early 18th-century date, and three mid-18th-century loci. These loci are a brick production area, an isolated building probably of log or frame construction, and a compact grouping of at least three post-in-ground structures, the remains of an iron bloomery furnace, and a range of features, including subfloor pits, relating to domestic and industrial activities. This third locus lies adjacent to Cedar Creek Road (State Route 30), an early 18th-century road that connected the site with an important mill seat and associated settlement at Cedar Creek to the south. Phase II studies had concluded that the Cedar Creek Road Site was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The late 17th-/early 18th-century locus is being treated through permanent covenanted preservation on land retained by the Department of Transportation for that purpose. No further investigations were therefore undertaken here. The remaining loci lay within the Limits of Construction of the new connector road between State Routes 1 and 30, and a program of archaeological and historical research was therefore undertaken as the agreed treatment of these historic properties. The historical research comprised detailed analysis of primary and secondary sources, archaeological excava- tion comprising controlled machine stripping of plowzone soils, limited trenching, and the hand excavation of numerous features identified in the exposed sediments below the plowzone. Specialists were included in the team to perform analysis of soil chemistry, archaeobotanical remains, a possible human bone fragment, and on slag and other materials from the bloomery. Oyster and other shell materials were analyzed in detail by a participant in Hunter Research’s internship program as a special project. XRF instrumentation was used to test postulated relationships between local clay, the bricks produced in clamps at the site, and the bricks found in other archaeological contexts. i MANAGEMENT SUMMARY (CONTINUED) Historical research proved somewhat frustrating and complex because of the spotty survival of 18th-century documents in Sussex County. There are gaps in the ownership sequence, but the general history of property ownership and subdivision is now understood. From 500 acres in 1694, the property on which the site lies was reduced to 250 acres in 1704. It is surmised that substantial improvements were not made at least until the 1730s when first Alexander Draper and then Alexander Thompson owned the land, although the Cedar Creek Road was already in place by 1734. By this time the plantation had been given the lyrical name of Farmer’s Delight, which is used throughout this report to refer to the mid-18th-century archaeological complex. The Drapers were a prolific and influential local family. Thompson was a ship’s captain. The ownership of Thomas Fisher in circa 1747-49, though brief, is nevertheless of potential importance for the history of the site because he is known to have been a blacksmith. Subdivision of the property on Fisher’s death resulted in the site falling in the southeast corner of a 100-acre tract. Samuel Davis, the owner of this tract, had the property until about the Revolutionary War. It was then acquired once again by the Draper family. The archaeological evidence, chiefly the occurrences of dateable ceramic types but also including data from tobacco pipestem diameters, suggests that the site was probably abandoned shortly after the Revolutionary War. Setting aside the late 17th-/early 18th-century house site in the eastern part of the site (which may be a separate episode), the evidence suggests that the intensive use of the site started in the 1740s (although some materials could be of earlier date). This judgment is influenced by the historical record, especially the evidence of the division of the larger property just before 1750, with the site now falling in a 100-acre tract. It is postulated that this smaller area reflected the general abandonment of tobacco cultivation in Delaware at this time, and its replacement by a more diverse, primarily grain-based economy. Area A, alongside Cedar Creek Road, was the most complex portion of the site, and the one at which the case for this being a slave site is most strongly made. There is evidence of varying quality for four post-in-ground buildings. Three of these (Structures 1, 2 and 4) had small subfloor pits of the type recognized as typical of slave sites in the Virginia Tidewater. Structure 3 had a much larger cellar pit that had been filled with a mass of oyster and other shell. No direct evidence was recovered that these buildings were heated, but the presence of daub and charcoal in the backfill of the possible “hearthfront” pit in Structure 4 is suggestive. Structures 1, 2 and 3 and associated fencelines may have defined a courtyard or work area open to the road. On the western side of this area was a pit containing large amounts of slag, charcoal, iron blooms and bloom fragments, as well as finished metal tools and iron bar stock. At first interpreted as a trash pit, evidence accu- mulated that this was the remains of a bloomery furnace built in a pit. It had been infilled with bloomery and forge debris after it had gone out of use and been largely dismantled. These conclusions were drawn by Dr. Carl Blair of Michigan Technological University after examination and testing of samples from the pit and review- ing the excavation data. He also identified pieces of the furnace wall lacking the distinctive lining of “lute” (an insulating mixture of charcoal and clay) that is normally used on European bloomeries, but is absent on those in MANAGEMENT SUMMARY (CONTINUED) the West African tradition. His conclusion is that this bloomery operation, while in most respects typical of what would be expected on a site in the English colonies, appears to show the deliberate incorporation of African cultural technology into the structure of the furnace. A possible grave feature was also identified in Area A. Small fragments of bone from this feature proved to be unidentifiable. Analysis of the soil chemistry from the feature showed elevated levels of phosphorus in the main fill and elevated levels of potassium in a context at the side and end of the feature fill. Phosphorus is a principal constituent of animal tissue, and the potassium could potentially be from the degraded wood of a cof- fin. However, this evidence is not conclusive and the feature remains as a possible grave only. A review of the at-times contentious field of the archaeology of American slavery led to an approach to the patterning data at the site that is derived from the research and thinking of Patricia Samford of the Jefferson Patterson Museum in Maryland. In two influential studies (1996 and 2007) Samford identifies two organizing principles that can assist in the archaeological identification of slavery. The first is Pattern Recognition: the assumption that patterns in the archaeological meaningfully reflect cultural values and behaviors of people in the past. The second, more specific principle is that African Cultural Retention – the continued use of African cultural assumptions and behaviors – may be recognizable within that pattern. A number of archaeologically identified features and artifacts from the site were examined in the light of these principles. These were: post-in-ground construction, interpretation of the large Structure 1 as a “non-kin coresi- dential building” (probably bunkhouse-like accommodation for single males), fence construction techniques, subfloor pits, inferred heating and chimney arrangements, the bloomery signature, a Spanish pillar dollar button or sleeve link, a gaming piece or charm, Colono-ware gaming pieces, ceramic vessel forms and wares, and a possible linen-smoother. These are identified as indicators of the presence of enslaved Africans and/or African- Americans with varying degrees of probability. The argument, essentially, is that the presence of this many potential markers of slave occupation in a relatively small area gives weight to the interpretation. A possible grave was also identified in Area A. This was located in the southeast corner of the courtyard or work area, and was aligned on roughly the same axis as the buildings.

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