PAST COMMUNITIES OF LOWER HADDAM NECK, CONNECTICUT: THE SALMON RIVER COVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISTRICT Salmon River Cove Archaeological District Haddam, Connecticut Acknowledgments e thank the following individuals for their help through the years on this most interesting project. WDr. David Poirier (former Staff Archaeologist of the State Historic Preservation Office) and Dr. Nicholas Bellantoni (Connecticut State Archaeologist) provided guidance and support throughout the archaeological investigations, and Dr. Poirier patiently reviewed earlier drafts of this publication. Daniel Forrest (present Staff Archaeologist of the State Historic Preservation Office) kindly provided commentary on the later version. Archaeologists Mary Harper and Ross Harper (Public Archaeology Survey Team, Inc.), Dr. Warren Perry, Janet Woodruff and Gerald Sawyer (Central Connecticut State University), and historian Dr. Bruce Clouette (Public Archaeology Survey Team, Inc.) freely shared their expertise and unpublished research on the archaeology and history of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company property. Dr. Karl Stofko, East Haddam Municipal Historian, generously shared his unpublished biographical research on several of the former occupants of the historic archaeology sites discussed in this report and his discoveries of old news accounts concerning portions of the Connecticut Yankee property. Lisa Malloy, Executive Director of the Haddam Historical Society, and local resi- dents Robert Johnson, Susan (Smith) Olsen, Peter Smith, Alison Guinness, Jim McCutcheon, Constance (Brooks) La Rosa, and the late Lillian Brooks kindly shared information on the local history and physi- cal landscapes. The staff in the Office of the Town Clerk at Haddam Town Hall was helpful during our searches of the Land Records and Town maps. The library staffs at the Brainerd Memorial Library in Haddam and the Rathbun Free Library in East Haddam were helpful in our research of local histories and genealogies. Anthony Irving of Ecological and Environmen- tal Consulting Services, Inc. kindly provided charts and maps summarizing his firm’s environmental research of the CT Yankee property. We are most grateful to the staff and subcontractors of Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company for their support and the opportunity to participate in this important project. Particularly, we thank Dr. Gerry Van Noorden- nen, John Arnold, Peter Clark, Federico Perdomo, Jack Rollins, Anthony Nericcio, Wayne Gates, Robert Pritchard, Edie Guzallis, and John McCarthy for cheerfully providing their time and labors to aid AMCS staff in our efforts to complete Cover image: Lower Haddam Neck and the confluence of the project in a methodical yet timely manner. Photographer Ray Martin generously provided photographs of the AMCS the Salmon and Connecticut Rivers, view south (Connecticut Yankee, Haddam Connecticut). archaeological excavations, the CT Yankee property, and several of the cultural features within its bounds. Photos, this page: Top: the Schmitt house on the Salmon River, Haddam Neck This publication was funded by the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company. view east (Connecticut Yankee, Haddam Connecticut). Bottom: Quartz Narrow Stemmed projectile points found at the Salmon River Cove Archaeological District, Dibble Creek 2 site. Salmon River Cove Archaeological District American Cultural Specialists LLC Torrington, Connecticut Site Nos. 61-96 to 61-132 Authors: Lucianne Lavin, Ph.D. and 2011 Marc Banks, Ph.D. Designer: Sue Arnold Archaeological Surveys in Connecticut The Role of Archaeological Surveys occupations across the local landscape illustrates the degree of cultural complexity within the local community. Most archaeological surveys are a result of the state and Changes in site function or size over time suggest cultural The Value of a Regional federal permitting processes. State and federal laws often adaptations to changing physical or social environments, require that an archaeological study be conducted prior to Perspective or both. Felicitously, we were given the opportunity to any subsurface work on large industrial or commercial conduct a large-scale archaeological study in the lower projects such as sewer installations, roadwork, construction A regional perspective may help us to better Connecticut River Valley region. Our findings provide on housing subdivisions, schools, shopping malls, etc. understand long term changes in our cultural insights into some of the above questions that we share heritage, particularly from the periods of The great majority of archaeological surveys are on with our readers in the following pages. pre-European contact, for which we have relatively small parcels of property. This is unfortunate no written records. This perspective helps because, unlike single site archaeology, a regional A Regional Perspective: answer such questions as: approach can provide insights into the overall economy, Archaeology at the CY Property settlement system, and social organization of the Did early indigenous peoples move freely The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company • communities of people who created the archaeological and frequently across the landscape or sites. No two archaeological sites are the same. Sites (CYAPCO) property is a 582 acre parcel at the southern did they have home territories? differ in size, in the kinds of objects and food remains end of the Haddam Neck peninsula in the Town of When did sedentary village life first appear their occupants left behind, the season of occupation, Haddam. The CY facility was one of the earliest • length of time occupied, and the number of times they constructed nuclear power plants in the Northeast. It was and why? were occupied. Documenting and interpreting such the world leader in nuclear generation from 1980 to 1984. • When and where were domesticated plants information helps archaeologists understand why a CY recently completed decommissioning this plant. The first cultivated and how did horticulture particular site was occupied and how that site reflects past decommissioning process included decontamination and affect indigenous communities? cultures. Site types include fully sedentary villages and dismantlement of existing facilities and cleanup of any multi-seasonal base camps where the entire community contaminated soils. As part of the federal regulatory A regional perspective also allows us to repeatedly returned to stay for long periods of time; review process, the State Historic Preservation Office examine how different landscapes within (SHPO), which oversees the implementation of federal seasonal residential camps where some community our state may have fostered distinctive members lived for several months at a time; and a and state archaeological laws in Connecticut, required post-European contact cultures and histories. variety of temporary camps representing short-term or a comprehensive historic and archaeological survey of Regional studies help us to understand: overnight stays by small groups (families or work groups the CY property in order to professionally identify and of a specific gender or age grade). Some short-term evaluate archaeological resources for their potential sites were special purpose camps such as men’s hunting eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places • Why some rural colonial communities lookouts or animal butchering sites, women’s nut or and to develop and implement appropriate management died out while others thrived. plant collecting camps, children’s berry-picking camps, alternatives ranging from intensive archaeological • Why some rural landscapes fostered stone quarrying sites, tool making workshops, or sacred excavations to in situ preservation. In effect, SHPO successful commercial farming while sites where spiritual ceremonies were conducted (naming mandated a large-scale archaeology study of the Lower others did not. ceremonies, puberty rites, marriages, death rites, etc.). Haddam Neck district overlooking Salmon River Cove. • Why and how industrialization and urbanization differently affected parts of CY retained the archaeological firm of American Cultural Comparisons of a region’s archaeology sites show the Connecticut. range of site types occupied by its resident populations Specialists LLC (AMCS) to conduct a seven-year study in space and through time. The diversity of concurrent of the property. The surveys were carried out according 1 Archaeological Surveys in Connecticut to the SHPO’s Environmental Review Primer but important to the ancient inhabitants of the region, for Connecticut’s Archaeological Resources. were the cobbles and pebbles of quartz and quartzite Investigations included documentary research, field found within the soils and stream beds of the area. Native walkovers, and systematic archaeological testing Americans used these materials to make projectile points and excavations. Laboratory analyses included (generally called “arrowheads” or “spear points”) and artifact identifications, analysis of plant and animal Canal other tools. The upland soils that cover most of Haddam food remains, analysis of the stone material used to Neck are acidic, thin, and stony. In contrast, deep and rich make tools at the sites, and radiocarbon dating of sandy silt-loams formed on terraces and floodplains are organic materials from the sites. Salmon found along the Salmon River and its tributary Dibble River Creek. Fine sands and silts deposited by these rivers The archaeological surveys identified 30 Native Peninsula and earlier