Archaeology: Your Ancestors' Artifacts

Last week on the genealogy librarians' list, members briefly discussed the potential value of archaeology books to their collections. The talk went on just long enough to remind me of one of my favorite crossover books, Robert Mazrim's The Sangamo Frontier: History and Archaeology in the Shadow of Lincoln.

"Archaeology," he writes, "has a peculiar ability to enhance and also to challenge the written word, to uncover the little aspects of daily lifelong since passed. It also returns an authentic ghostliness to a landscape so flattened by the plow and by pavement." {3}

One not-so-little aspect uncovered by archaeology digs in frontier Illinois sites is that the early settlers 200 years ago were surprisingly well connected to urban centers of trade in the east and in Europe. "Objects discarded during the very first years of the territory include not only gunflints, knife blades, and butchered deer remains" -- all of which we might expect -- "but also English teacups, brass vest buttons, and French wine bottles." {96} These pioneers were not soloing in the wilderness; they were accompanied by families and tied back to civilization.



Robert Mazrim, The Sangamo Frontier: History and Archaeology in the Shadow of Lincoln (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).


Harold Henderson, "Archaeology: Your Ancestors' Artifacts," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The New Philadelphia story

Today brings a press release from the University of Illinois about another year's archaeological work on New Philadelphia, Hadley Township, Pike County, Illinois, the first town platted and subdivided by a black man -- "Free Frank" McWorter, who used his own work and the proceeds of subdivision to buy family members out of slavery in the 1830s and even after his death in 1854. The town was integrated and peaceful; it's not named in the 1860 census but a browse of the township in HeritageQuest Online shows families designated "M" (mulatto) or "B" (black) on images 16, 18, 26, 28, 29, and 33 of the 33 imaged pages of the township. (It's a telling point that although the from asks for color -- "White, Black, or Mulatto" -- the census taker evidently saw no need to record the race of the white people in the township.)

This township map from Pike County Genweb gives the geographical location; many more detailed maps and further reading are at U of I anthropologist Christopher Fennell's website.

There's a video link in the release. Also on line is an article from the 2004 Living Museum giving some more background and showing a little bit about how land and census records have been used to help design the essential and ongoing archaeological digging.