Preserving the Kingsmill Collection
In 2018, DHR received 772 boxes of artifacts from the sites associated with Kingsmill in James City County. Some of these artifacts were in bags and boxes dating to the 1970s. Their condition ranged from unwashed and unprocessed, to conserved objects stored in fully archival materials. In 2019, funds managed by The Conservation Fund provided for a collections assessment of archaeological assemblages from sites in the project area. They include some of Virginia’s most significant Colonial period sites, including those from the Kingsmill project. The assessment identified the scope of the work that needed to be addressed with these collections including rehousing, cataloging, and conservation.
In 2020, DHR received funds through The Conservation Fund for curation and conservation of the Kingsmill collections. A subset of the entire collection was selected for improvement. For this grant, DHR prioritized those collections associated with people of color—individuals often overlooked or unrecognized in the archaeological and historical record. In addition, we identified important or unique artifacts from other contexts that were exhibiting signs of deterioration.
The objects highlighted on this page represent both unique and everyday objects. They illustrate how their owners used material culture not only for functional purposes, but also to convey messages of social status, economic standing, and education, and to establish and reinforce social networks and relationships. The objects arrived in Virginia through a trade network that included Africa, the Caribbean, and much of Western Europe. The network became part of a setting where Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans interacted and established relationships that would have long-lasting, and often disastrous, repercussions. The current curation and conservation project will provide access to some of these collections to researchers for the first time since they were recovered from the ground.
Pictured above: Archaeologist Bly Straube excavating at site 44JC0052 in 1978 at Kingsmill. Photo credit: DHR.
The Kingsmill Historic Site in James City County
Located along the James River five miles south of Williamsburg, Kingsmill is the location of a complex of archaeological sites that includes plantations, wells, a mill, and quarters dating from the first half of the 17th century through the 18th century. Given the variety of site types and the identification of several quarters housing the enslaved, excavations offered an opportunity to examine the lives of those other than just that of the wealthy landed gentry of Colonial Virginia, as had been the focus of much research previously (Kelso 1984).
From 1972 to 1976, archaeologists from the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, now the Department of Historic Resources (DHR), led excavations at these sites with the financial support of Anheuser-Busch. Some of the more complete and unique artifacts recovered were placed in a study collection at DHR and have been used by numerous researchers. The remaining artifacts were stored in boxes at other locations and have been largely inaccessible for decades. Those artifacts were received by DHR in the Richmond repository in 2018. Since then, DHR staff have assessed the collections, completed the cataloging of 10 Kingsmill sites, and conserved over 100 artifacts.
Here are some publications where you can learn more about these sites and some of the material culture studies that arose from their excavation:
Kelso, William M., 1984, Kingsmill Plantation, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial Virginia. Academic Press.
Egloff, Keith, 1980, “Colonial Plantation Hoes of Tidewater Virginia”. Research Report Series No. 1, Virginia Department of Historic Resources. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/Archeo_Reports/S683-E34-1980_Colonial%20Plantation_Hoes_Virginia_1980_DHR_report.pdf
McClure, James Patrick, 1977, “Littletown Plantation, 1700-1745”. Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539624993. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-jsn0-m425
Samford, Patricia M., 2007, Subfloor Pits and the Archaeology of Slavery in Colonial America. University of Alabama Press.
Kingsmill Artifacts
Hand-painted, Polychrome Tin-Glazed Earthenware Bowl From the Early 1700s
Tin-glazed earthenware is a soft-bodied ceramic with a lead glaze containing tin-oxide. Tin-glazed ceramics found in Virginia and the Chesapeake are often English or Dutch although there are also French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish versions. In the photo on the left, the larger piece from the bowl, most likely of English design, was recovered from the Utopia IV site of Kingsmill; the smaller piece is from Eyreville, a site on the Eastern Shore in Northampton County dating to the mid-1700s. They have similar, though not identical, decorated and crimped rims. Similar pieces were made in Bristol, England, between 1730 and 1740. These artifacts can be seen in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in the museum’s online collections portal.
Metal and Leather Ornaments
While horses were initially rare and extremely valuable in the colony of Virginia, by the end of the 18th century they were relatively abundant. As their numbers increased, so did saddles and other equipment used for horse riding, driving, and care. Horseshoes were made locally but saddles and bridles had to be imported. English saddles were sent to the colonies in large quantities. From 1697 to 1698, more than 17,700 bridles and 5,861 saddles were exported from London to Maryland and Virginia (Cofield 2008). Most leather ornaments most likely originated in England, where specialized trades prepared their goods for sale and export. While some ornamental pieces, such as keepers that act like a belt loop to secure strap ends, were also functional, many pieces including decorated leather straps, bags, saddle pads, and sword hangers, were purely ornamental.
Pictured left: These brass ornaments may have once decorated several leather pieces that were part of horse-riding or carriage hardware. The spur (lower right) dates to circa 1625-1670 and is unique in that it is inlaid with silver, identifying it as more of an accessory piece than a utilitarian tool.
Reference:
Cofield, Sara Rivers, 2008
A Preliminary Study of 17th- and 18th-Century Leather Ornaments from Maryland.
Maryland Archeology Volume 44(2):12-47.
