Making the Museum

[Making the Museum]

From August-October, archaeologists from John Milner Associates (JMA) explored the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. The excavation phase is over, but the analysis has only just begun! Lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin is back with new discoveries being made in her group’s lab:

Since finishing excavation on October 24th, we have been busy cleaning, organizing, and inventorying the artifacts in our West Chester laboratory. About 60,000 artifacts have been entered into a computer database and we are beginning the mending process. When possible, found fragments are mended together to form the vessels they used to be—cups, plates, glasses, flower pots, etc. 

Our last field report announced the discovery of the Success to the Triphena punch bowl. Many more sherds have been found in the lab and when taped together they form an almost complete bowl. We’ve also pieced together some beautiful redware plates made by Philadelphia potters who we will make every effort to identify. A surprise artifact that we didn’t notice when it was covered with dirt in the field included a bottle seal bearing the initials “S. M.,’ probably for its owner, Sarah Merrick, who lived at No. 32 Carter’s Alley in 1791. (The punch bowl was found next door at No. 30.)

In addition to mending artifacts, another part of the analysis process is tracing the owners and occupants of the properties where the artifact-filled features (privies) were found. Fortunately, many primary documents with this information, including deeds and directories, are now online, but we will also be visiting the City Archives and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. So far, from deeds we have learned that the block was occupied by many different kinds of artisans. For instance, in the 1790s there was a shoemaker, a bookbinder, a printer, a carpenter, a paper manufacturer, a blacksmith, a stay maker, a tallow chandler, a coachmaker, a cutler, and a cordwainer on Carter’s Alley.  A clerk in the Treasury department lived at No. 76 Chestnut Street in 1794, which would have been convenient to the First Bank of the United States located on the other side of Third Street. A shoemaker and cordwainer were at that address a few years earlier and a gilder was there in 1810.  It will be interesting to see if any artifacts relating to these particular occupations turn up in the lab.  

Once the artifacts are mended we will match them to their probable owners and address research questions that relate to domestic life in early Philadelphia and industrial activities that co-existed with private houses in this neighborhood. The site includes a material record of the development of the city in microcosm and we will trace the changes over time from the late 17th century up to the second decade of the 20th century.

Pictured above (from top) are two images of archaeology team members piecing together artifacts; a more complete look at the Success to the Triphena bowl from the inside and the outside; an assortment of sherds; and a beautiful example of Philadelphia redware.

We’re looking forward to hearing more about the team’s findings in the new year. Many thanks to Rebecca and her team for their hard work and to you for following along!

Image Credits: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

For nearly three months, archaeologists from John Milner Associates (JMA) have been exploring the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Each week lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin shares her team’s discoveries. Today she recaps her team’s last week of site work, and announces a special discovery!

Friday, October 24, was the last day archaeologists needed to be in the field until spring, when the ramp covering William Hudson’s property at the corner of Chestnut and Third Streets will be lifted. The rest of the site has been excavated to depths below which any cultural remains would be expected.   

It is both sad and exciting to finish an archaeological investigation—sad because excavation, especially urban excavation, is so full of surprising finds that make every minute in the field interesting, and exciting because now we get to figure out what all those finds mean. Who did the artifacts belong to? What was life like on this block during the Revolutionary War? What was it like during the 19th century? What can we learn about the tanning industry, the printing industry, and button making from the physical remains?

In all, we excavated a well and twelve brick-lined privies, most of them brimming with artifacts. One of the largest assemblages of artifacts came from an 18th-century privy in the southeast corner of the site, located behind a house that would have faced Carter’s Alley. Among them was one of our most treasured findings: the pieces of an English delftware punch bowl.

When these sherds were pieced together in the lab, we were delighted to see a resplendent ship flying British flags with the words “Success to the Triphena” below. (“Triphena” is the name of the ship depicted.) We were the first people to lay eyes on this object since it was broken and discarded around the time of the American Revolution.

American colonists drank enormous quantities of alcoholic beverages, including beer, cider, wine, brandy, rum, gin, and whiskey. One particularly popular beverage during the era of the American Revolution was punch, which combined various ingredients like sugar, citrus juice, spices and liquor, and was commonly served in ceramic “punch bowls” like the “Success to the Triphena” bowl found on our site. (If you’d like to try a classic punch, check out Ben Franklin’s recipe for Milk Punch here.)

During the 18th century, many of the punch bowls that were exported to the American colonies were produced by potters in Liverpool, England. The collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England includes an example that is a very close match to the Triphena bowl. (See above.) Such bowls were likely produced to commemorate the launch of a new ship or to mark a voyage.

Thanks to the digitization of 18th-century American and British newspapers, we have been able to piece together some fascinating details about the original Triphena. (“Triphena” is Greek for delicate or dainty). The December 1, 1763 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette carried an advertisement for merchants Robert Lewis and Son, located on Front Street in Philadelphia, where they offered an assortment of goods just imported on the “Triphena, Captain Smith, from Liverpool.” It is certainly no coincidence that Captain Smith’s travels on the Triphena over the next few years regularly carried him to Liverpool, the place where the punch bowl was made, as well as Philadelphia, Charleston, and the West Indies.

In addition to plying the Atlantic and Caribbean waters, the Triphena played an interesting role in the American colonial protest movement against the Stamp Act. In late 1765, Captain Smith carried a memorial from the merchants and traders of Philadelphia addressed to the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain, asking them to pressure Parliament to repeal the odious act.

Like many of the items discovered on our site, the “Success to the Triphena” bowl is not simply an object—it is also a witness to and product of the rich and fascinating history of our corner of the world as a new nation was being formed. We look forward to making additional discoveries in the archaeology lab and sharing them with you in the coming months. Thank you for following this project!

Pictured above are fragments of the “Success to the Triphena” bowl found by our archaeologists.

Special thanks to the Museum’s Director of Collections, R. Scott Stephenson, for researching the history of the punch bowl.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

This summer, archaeologists from John Milner Associates (JMA) began excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Each week lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin shares a dispatch about her team’s discoveries. Today, she reports on their newest findings:

Last week, all of our efforts went into the east side of the site, which meant finishing up the two privies in the line of six that had been found a couple of weeks ago. It also meant finishing up the well that was found during the first week of the project. This well had been tricky because of water present, and couldn’t be worked on until DeAngelo, the contractor, supplied a pump.

Tim Mancl, JMA’s field director, excavated the shaft down to the bottom, exposing the brick superstructure and the pump shaft that, for a while at least, was free standing. The wooden pump shaft was composed of two parts: a tapered upper cylinder that fit into a larger diameter shaft that had an intake hole near the bottom. An iron, octagonal ring was present at the point the two parts joined and metal straps on either side connected one part to the other.  DeAngelo used an excavator to lift out the pump, which will be kept wet until a decision has been made about conserving it.

The northernmost privy in the line of six produced an unusual assemblage of artifacts. Among them were bale seals, weights (for a scale), gun flints, clay “marbles” that actually may be gaming pieces,  glass beads, and lots of pipe stems, as well as a few marked pipe bowls. While there were many fragments of Chinese porcelain teacups, English slip-decorated posset cups, and large pieces of local utilitarian redware in the assemblage,  the usual dinner plates and wine bottles were missing. The artifacts appear to date to the early 18th century and may have come from a commercial enterprise on Chestnut Street.  

Pictured above are some of this week’s small finds, including straight pins, bone buttons, beads, pencil, clay marble, and lead shot. Also pictured (below) is the well described by Dr. Yamin. 

UPDATE: The archaeologists’ Thursday, October 9, Q&A is cancelled, but they’ll be back next Thursday between 10am-2pm on the steps of the First Bank of the United States across the street from the construction site. In the meantime, submit any archaeology questions to editor@amrevmuseum.org.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

This summer, archaeologists from John Milner Associates (JMA) began excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Each week lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin shares a dispatch about her team’s discoveries. Today, we were thrilled to hear her report on a trove of buried treasures:

Artifacts! Artifacts! Artifacts!

Confined to the southeast corner of the site by construction activities, last week we put all of our efforts into excavating the two privies that had first been uncovered during the second week of the project. The largest of the privies—almost eight feet in diameter—contained at least two layers of fill. A railroad token was found in the upper layer and the thick lower layer was full of domestic artifacts, many of them dating to the late 1830s. These include many different ceramic vessels decorated with transfer-printed designs showing landscapes with castles and mansions and even a lighthouse. A set of glass tumblers was also found.

The other privy—about six feet in diameter—had been filled in the 18th century. Even more artifacts were recovered from its fill, including elegant glassware, locally made redware, beautifully hand-painted English ceramics, and a bowl decorated with a sailing ship flying the flag of Great Britain. Anna Coxe Toogood’s map reconstruction of the block in 1787 shows “Benjamin Humphreys, Gentleman” as the owner of the lot. By 1800, Widow Humphries was the occupant. The Humphreys surely set an elegant table. From the many food remains recovered we will be able to figure out what they ate as well as what they ate it on. 

Pictured above is a collection of items found in the 8’ privy (top), as well as items found in the 6’ privy (bottom). 

Have questions for Dr. Yamin and her team? She’ll be available to talk about their work every Thursday between 10am-2pm on the steps of the First Bank of the United States across the street from the construction site. Or submit your questions to editor@amrevmuseum.org and we’ll answer them in a future post.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

While your humble editor was away last week on vacation, archaeologists from John Milner Associates (JMA) remained hard at work excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Today, lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin recaps her team’s past two weeks of work:

Lots of progress over the past two weeks. Continuing excavations have revealed more features, mostly foundation walls and floors. JMA archaeologists followed contractor DeAngelo’s huge excavator, testing one shaft feature and documenting the remains of at least three structures. Close behind the archaeologists a drill was used to place supports for the shoring of the site.

The location and the construction methods of the structural remains will be used as an aid in determining the names of the people or businesses that once occupied them. We are comparing the location of foundation walls to Anna Coxe Toogood’s 1787 map reconstruction of the block and to later insurance maps.

The next stage of the work is to see what fragments of the 18th century remain under the basement floors of the buildings that were taken down when the Visitor’s Center was built on the site in 1975.  Two floors—one brick and one concrete—belonging to buildings that once faced Third Street were lifted last week. Nothing was found beneath them, but the back of the lots they once covered had been heavily disturbed by the bell tower for the Visitor’s Center. The contractor is still struggling to remove its remains. 

Pictured above is DeAngelo’s excavator and the map being used to help determine what once occupied the newly uncovered structures. (Thanks to Independence National Historical Park for supplying the map!)

Have questions for Dr. Yamin and her team? She’ll be available to talk about their work every Thursday between 10am-2pm on the steps of the First Bank of the United States across the street from the construction site. Or submit your questions to editor@amrevmuseum.org and we’ll answer them in a future post.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

An archaeology team from John Milner Associates (JMA) is excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Each Monday, lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin shares a recap of the previous week’s work. Here’s what they found last week:

A third, brick-lined circular feature was found this week very close to the two that were uncovered last week. They appear to be a cluster of privy pits that were in the backyards of houses near the corner of Carter’s Alley (later Ionic Street) and Goforth’s Alley (later American Street). A map reconstruction of the area in 1787, created by Independence National Historical Park historian Coxey Toogood, shows “Francis Donnell, schoolmaster (dancing)” living right on the corner and “Benjamin Humphreys, Gentleman” living next door.

Excavation of one of the privies produced a collection of artifacts dating to the mid-18th century. Included were clay pipe stems, diagnostic (or “dateable”) ceramic types like polychrome delft and white salt-glazed stoneware, and delicate pieces of table glass. The artifacts were embedded in nightsoil, which is deteriorated human waste. Privies are, after all, the holes under outhouses that in cities were deep shafts made of brick or stone. A dense deposit of bright white lime had been thrown into the privy, probably to diminish the smell. It covered still more nightsoil containing additional artifacts that the archaeologists will excavate later in the project.

The archaeology on this site is being coordinated with construction activities and we can only go as deep as the construction allows. We hope to move further toward Third Street next week.  

Pictured above are privies described in the post.

Have questions for Dr. Yamin and her team? She’ll be available to talk about their work every Thursday between 10am-2pm on the steps of the First Bank of the United States across the street from the construction site. Or submit your questions to editor@amrevmuseum.org and we’ll answer them in a future post.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.

[Making the Museum]

The Saturday Evening Post and its iconic Norman Rockwell covers are seared into the American memory. And the venerable publication was itself the direct descendant of an even more legendary publication: Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette. So imagine our delight to discover that, for a short window of time, one iteration of the Saturday Evening Post was actually printed on the site of the future Museum!

It all started in 1729 when 22-year-old Benjamin Franklin and his partner Hugh Meredith purchased a flailing newspaper called The Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette. (They quickly shortened the name.) Printed from their shop at 51 High Street, the newspaper became incredibly successful, due in no small part to Franklin’s written contributions. After Meredith retired, in 1748 Franklin brought on a new partner, David Hall. Hall took on full control of their printing company and the Pennsylvania Gazette upon Franklin’s retirement. From 1766 on, the business changed hands a number of times, including when Hall passed away and partial ownership shifted to his sons, its name switching from Hall & Sellers to Hall & Piere to Hall & Atkinson. It’s this last iteration that leads to the birth of the Saturday Evening Post.

When David Hall, Jr., passed away in 1821 his partner Samuel C. Atkinson united with Charles Alexander. They decided to rebrand the Pennsylvania Gazette into a literary weekly with mass appeal, covering foreign and domestic news, while eschewing all politics. The Saturday Evening Post debuted on August 4, 1821.

In 1827 the business moved from Franklin’s original headquarters to nearby 112 Chestnut Street. Atkinson became the sole owner of the Saturday Evening Post the following year, then in 1833 he moved the company to 36 Carter’s Alley, where the Museum is being built. The successful weekly was published there until 1840, when new owners George Graham ad John Du Solle moved the business further up the block to Third and Chestnut Streets.

The pattern of ownership changes continued for the next decade, with Edmund Deacon and Henry Peterson eventually taking over in 1848. They ushered in a renaissance of sorts for the Saturday Evening Post, boosting its weekly circulation to 100,000. But as seems characteristic of the roller-coaster fortunes of the publication, this success was not to last. It appears that Peterson broke the non-politics rule by writing a virulently anti-slavery article that alienated their significant Southern following, resulting in a slashed subscriber base.

The next revival would not occur until 1897, when Cyrus Curtis (of the Curtis Publishing Company) purchased the Saturday Evening Post from its most recent owners. Curtis turned it into one of the most beloved magazines in the country. It would enjoy this status until its readership began to decline in the 1960s. But like a phoenix, the Saturday Evening Post has risen again. Now published by a nonprofit, the magazine underwent a reinvention in 2013. It lives on from its home base in Indianapolis, nearly 300 years after its first iteration was born.

Image Source: October 2, 1729 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette via the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. November 28, 1903 edition of the Saturday Evening Post via Wikimedia Commons.

[Making the Museum]

An archaeology team from John Milner Associates (JMA) is excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. Each Monday, lead archaeologist Rebecca Yamin shares a recap of the previous week’s work. Today, she reveals the team’s newest findings:

As is often the case with urban archaeology, things turn up where they are not expected.

Last week the archaeologists uncovered a wall that spans the width of Carter’s Alley, which started at Second Street, but did not run all the way through to Third Street until the early 19th century. The wall is built of alternating layers of cut stone and brick, a rather distinctive style. Its builder’s trench (which is the trench dug to support a wall) contained the same kinds of 18th-century artifacts—ceramic sherds, straight pins, and glass fragments—that were recovered from the midden next to it that we investigated last week. 

Another rubble stone and brick wall was found on the south side of Carter’s Alley and its builder’s trench also included 18th-century artifacts. Among them were lots of small pieces of animal bone and oyster shells, perhaps the remnants of meals enjoyed more than 250 years ago.

A two-foot diameter brick circle in the middle of the alley that we discovered last week was probably a communal well used by alley residents. According to the documentary record, the alley was “closely built on both sides.” The top two feet or so of fill in the well consisted of cinders, but as the archaeologists dug deeper they found a “Jayne’s Expectorant” bottle. Dr. David Jayne manufactured patent medicines on the block as early as 1852.  

Several large flat cut stones uncovered on the north side of Carter’s Alley during the first week of excavation appear to relate to the famous Jayne building—the city’s first “skyscraper,” which stood on the site. It was taken down in the 1950s when Independence National Historical Park was created. 

Have questions for Dr. Yamin and her team? She’ll be available to talk about their work every Thursday between 10am-2pm on the steps of the First Bank of the United States across the street from the construction site. Or submit your questions to editor@amrevmuseum.org and we’ll answer them in a future post.

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc. 

[Making the Museum]

Last week we focused on the life of diarist Christopher Marshall, but what about the lives of his neighbors? According to a 1754 tax list, they included Philadelphia County coroner (1764-1772) Caleb Cash, sea captain John Bolitho, and George Sharswood, whose progeny (and namesake) would become Pennsylvania Chief Justice in 1879.

Joining this list at the end of the 18th century was “gentlewoman” Elizabeth Oliphant (pictured above). She owned property at 28 Carter’s Alley, which is now called Ionic Street in the spots where it still survives in Philadelphia.

Oliphant was the daughter of William Oliphant, a wealthy landowner, and sister of Robert Oliphant. Both siblings were the subjects of miniature portraits by painter James Peale. Peale started painting before the War of Independence, under the tutelage of his brother Charles Wilson Peale. He served in the Maryland regiment of the Continental Army, fighting in battles at Long Island, Trenton, Germantown, and Mommouth, among others. He retired as a captain in 1779 and settled in Philadelphia, where he painted miniatures of local merchants and military figures, and even George Washington!

Peale painted Elizabeth Oliphant in 1795, as a new chapter of American history began to unfold. The start of the 19th century would herald significant changes across the young nation, including at our site at Third and Chestnut as it transitioned into a commercial hub. Next week we’ll share some of the surprisingly famous former businesses that once stood on the same land as our future home.

Image Credit: Portrait of Elizabeth Oliphant by James Peale, 1795, via the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

[Making the Museum]

An archaeology team from John Milner Associates (JMA) is excavating the site where the Museum of the American Revolution will be built. With principal archaeologist Rebecca Yamin behind the scenes and archaeologist Tim Mancl heading up the field effort, they are hoping to find evidence of the people who lived and worked on the site in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Every Monday, Dr. Yamin will write a recap of the previous week’s work. Below, she shares their initial discoveries:

Excavation on the Museum site started with a bang! With five huge machines (two excavators, two cranes, and a drill) swirling about, the archaeologists used their small hand tools (shovels and trowels) to investigate an area near the middle of the site, now five feet below grade. The area was considered “sensitive”—in other words, likely to contain an undisturbed record of the past—because it was once covered by Ionic Street, which was called Carter’s Alley in earlier times.  

First, the archaeologists found two brick-arched conduits running along the northern edge of the street alignment. Just to the south of the conduits was a dark brown soil that contained artifacts dating to the mid-18th century. The artifacts included small ceramic sherds, straight pins, brick fragments, shells, and a few pieces of printer’s type. (A document dating to 1806 describes a “calamitous conflagration” that entirely destroyed several buildings along the alley including “Bioren’s printing office,” perhaps the source of the type.) 

Also uncovered were a complex of 19th-century building foundations and a deep pipe trench that emptied into a storm drain. A probable privy—a circle of un-mortared bricks about two feet in diameter—was also found and will be excavated next week. Privy pits are often a major source of artifacts on urban sites since they served as trash repositories before there was trash collection.     

We’re looking forward to hearing what Dr. Yamin and her team find next! Pictured above are some of the discoveries mentioned in her dispatch. The first image shows a handful of 18th-century ceramics, the handle of a clay pipe, two pins, two pieces of type, a button, and a bone fragment. The second image shows an uncovered conduit. 

Image Credit: John Milner Associates, Inc.