SGA leadership touring Sapelo Lighthouse.

When the SGA leadership visited the coast in February 2010, many of us also toured Sapelo Island with archaeologist Dr. Ray Crook, who has worked on the island for decades. We took the morning ferry out underovercast skies, watched the sun arrive with us at the island dock, and returned to the mainland late in the afternoon. We took a break to enjoy a Geechee lunch at mid-day.

We met at the Sapelo Island Visitor Center, which is next to the ferry dock north of Darien. The Center has some informational displays, a telescope we used to spot the incoming ferry to time our exit into the chilly wind to wait for the ferry’s arrival, and books and souvenirs for sale.

We were very lucky to take the “new” ferry, a 70-foot long catamaran named the Katie Underwood. Ms. Underwood was the last midwife on the island, who delivered babies there through 1968. The Katie Underwood began ferry service in 2006.

On the island, our first stop was Long Tabby, which is also where the Sapelo Island Post Office is, along with DNR offices, and the tabby ruins of Thomas Spalding’s sugar mill, built by 1809. Spalding also owned Ashantilly, the plantation on the mainland where we convened our SGA meeting the day before. The sugar mill had a warehouse-dock combination right next door, for shipping the sugar. The dock is gone except for some pilings, and the warehouse is mostly gone above ground. Ray also told us the plantation architecture is atop a prehistoric occupation. In fact, this is true for many plantation buildings on Georgia’s barrier islands. A good spot is a good spot to anyone, we figured, whether you were staying for a few months to gather food from the estuaries in 1000 BC or build a tabby sugar mill in the early AD 1800s.

The lighthouse at the south end of the island has deep red and brilliant white stripes; it is one of five remaining lighthouses on Georgia’s barrier islands. The lighthouses were built to make commercial shipping safer. US lighthouses are all painted with distinct, unduplicated patterns so mariners never will confuse them. The building contract for the first lighthouse at the south end of Sapelo was let in 1819. This lighthouse was inactivated after damage by a hurricane in 1898; it was restored and reopened in 1998. The most difficult part of the restoration was reconstruction of the interior curving staircase; each step had to be made and installed before construction of the next one up could begin. Apparently, the 1820 facility grew to include a keeper’s house, cistern, and oil house. Also near the lighthouse is the foundation of an 1898 gun emplacement.

We made a brief stop at the Reynolds Mansion to take photographs. The mansion is owned by the state, and you can rent a room there. According to the Mansion website:

The original Mansion was designed and built from tabby, a mixture of lime, shells and water, by Thomas Spalding, an architect, statesman and plantation owner who purchased the south end of the island in 1802. The Mansion served as the Spalding Plantation Manor from 1810 until the Civil War. It fell into ruin after being damaged by Union attack during the Civil War and was later purchased and rebuilt by Detroit automotive engineer Howard Coffin in 1912. Tobacco heir Richard Reynolds purchased the property in 1934, donating land and facilities to the University of Georgia for marine research. Following Reynolds’ death in 1964 the Mansion and most of the island was obtained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 1975. Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve and University of Georgia Marine Research Facilities are still located on the island.

The wing of the Mansion in the pictures encloses a swimming pool. Facing this wing, a sharp-eyed archaeologist spotted an orange tree from the lovely gardens that once surrounded the Mansion. Only remnants of it remain. Archaeologists learn to spot “foreign” vegetation that indicates deliberate planting or horticulture by prior human inhabitants.

Next Ray took us to Behavior Cemetery. Once a slave community with dispersed homes rather than a centralize layout, Behavior is now abandoned and most of the structures are now below-ground archaeological features. The Behavior cemetery is still in use. In fact, a funeral was held the day before we arrived. According to the National Park Service website:

Behavior Cemetery is a unique post-Civil War African American burial ground located in the center, south end of Sapelo Island. It is one-and-one-fourth miles west of Hog Hammock, the sole surviving African American community on the island. The cemetery reflects African American burial customs. Early grave markers include short posts at either end of the graves and epitaphs on wooden boards nailed to the surrounding trees, while more recent tombstones are made of local cement, with some granite and metal funeral home markers.

Ray also taught us the proper way to enter a Geechee cemetery. Geechee refers to the descendents of slaves still living on Sapelo (and in other coastal areas), and maintaining some of their African linguistic and cultural heritage. Geechee peoples believe that spirits occupy the grave yard, and to enter one must first ask the spirits’ permission. Geechee people chose not to live near a cemetery, to keep a safe distance from the spirits.

As Ray has noted (“Gullah-Geechee Archaeology: The Living Space of Enslaved Geechee on Sapelo Island,” in the March 2008 Newsletter of the African Diaspora Archaeology Network:

Geechee people have lived on Sapelo Island for about 250 years. Their exceptionally strong sense of place is permanently connected to the island where they “catch sense” in their youth and are buried when they die. Here they tilled the fields and harvested gardens, fished the tidal creeks, hunted game and gathered plants along the marsh edges and in the forests, and engaged in a variety of work activities. [page 2]

After a Geechee lunch, this one characterized by yellow and orange foods (including canned corn, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, yellow poundcake), we drove north up the west/inland side of the island, wallowing through deep mudholes that had been filled by rains over the previous two days. We stopped at Kenan, a prehistoric archaeological site that Ray told us is the largest mapped archaeological site east of the Mississippi River. The site is civic-ceremonial and residential. Most people lived in homes scattered across a huge area.

Many ruins of the Chocolate plantation are still standing, but only two still have a roof, and therefore any protection from the elements. One is a Sears Roebuck Catalogue Home. The other This presents a difficult historic preservation situation, especially if funds are few or non-existent, as with this state-owned site. As Ray Crook noted in the 2008 newsletter article cited above,

During the late 1790s, the Chocolate tract was farmed by Lewis Harrington with the labor of 68 slaves. In 1802 that property became jointly owned by Edward Swarbreck and Thomas Spalding, who leased out at least a portion of the tract until 1808. Swarbreck, a Danish sea merchant with Caribbean connections who traded in cotton and other commodities, including slaves, then directed his attention to Chocolate. His plantation layout followed a familiar and very formal design…. The Big House, built of tabby, overlooked the Mud River and expansive salt marshes. His residence was flanked by outbuildings and other support structures. Two parallel rows of slave quarters, spaced some 10m apart and separated by a broad open area 50m across, were constructed behind the Big House. Vast agricultural fields extended to the north and south. Evidence of at least nine slave quarters, typically tabby duplexes with central chimneys and finished tabby floors, each side measuring about 4.3m by 6.1m, survives today as ruins and archaeological features at Chocolate. These represent an enslaved population of some 70 to 100 people distributed among at least 18 households…. [page 3]

Deteriorating, roofless structure at Chocolate Plantation.

Archaeological research at Chocolate is detailed in a 2007 report by Nicholas Honerkamp, Ray Crook, and Orion Kroulek titled “Pieces of Chocolate: Site Structure and Function at Chocolate Plantation (9MC96), Sapelo Island, Georgia” and downloadable here. They write that:

Besides presumably raising cotton, there is direct evidence that Swarbreck (or at least his slaves) grew sugar cane and had it processed into molasses and sugar at Thomas Spalding’s sugar mill located on the southern end of Sapelo. In a 12 January 1815 letter to Charles Harris, reproduced here in Appendix A, Swarbreck discusses the virtues of Thomas Spalding’s sugar mill, and the considerable value ($17,600) of the quantity of sugar and molasses that Swarbreck saw in Spalding’s “Curing House.” Swarbreck also mentions that he was sending an example of his own finished product: “Agreeable to your wish, I Present you with a small sample of sugar & molassis that I brought from sapelo Island, manufactur’d by Mr. Spalding from my own Sugar cane which place I left the 7th Inst.”

Tabby construction at Chocolate during Swarbreck’s tenure was an enormous undertaking, unparalleled at any other place on Sapelo Island. Preparation of the tabby mixture – consisting of equal parts of shell, lime from burned shell, and sand – involved collecting salt-free oyster shell from shell midden deposits found at nearby Native American archaeological sites (such as at the Shell Ring and at Long Row Field), transporting it to the construction site, burning a portion of the shell for lime, and preparing the mixture with sand and water to be poured into wall forms to cure. Roughly 1050 cubic meters (~37,000 cubic feet) of shell was brought into Chocolate to construct Swarbreck’s tabby buildings. This volume equals the oyster shell that would be represented in about 350 Native American shell middens, each measuring 3 meters in diameter and 50 centimeters in height. [pages 7-8]

From Chocolate Plantation, we continued farther north to the Sapelo Island Shell Rings, which, for many of us, was the high point of our adventure. This feature is just what it sounds like—a ring of shell deposits. Actually, there are three rings near each other on this part of Sapelo, but we only visited the largest, which is huge at over 100 yards across and more than 9 feet high (larger shell rings are known, though, just not on Sapelo). In the 1950s, archaeologists Antonio Waring and Lewis Larson dug a trench through this shell ring, which reveals that the deposits show layering, with some layers of mostly shell, and other layers with more dark, humic materials mixed with the shell. Probably, because they were mined for their shell to make tabby and road fill, there were more shell rings along the coast than can be found today. Shell rings date (mostly) to the Late Archaic, over five thousand years ago. Evidence suggests people lived atop the ring and discarded the shell between their houses. Most of the shell is oyster, but many other shellfish species are included, including the bones of terrestrial and other marine creatures.

What a great day we had touring Sapelo! Most of us were rather tired as we took the ferry back to the mainland en route to returning to every-day life, but we were also sad to end our adventure on one of Georgia’s barrier islands.

Thank you

Many people made this trip possible, and are owed a big debt of thanks. Thanks!

SGA Board Member Kevin Kiernan did the organizing of the whole weekend. DNR manager Fred Hay organized vehicles and helped with all aspects of our on-island time. Members of the Geechee community opened the cemetery to us and cooked our lunch and brought it to us. And, Ray Crook gave us the benefit of his decades of research, not only on Sapelo, but also along the coast.

 

Online reading on Georgia’s barrier islands

Dr. Crook’s webpage, with downloadable copies of his reports and articles, published since the 1980s.

Dr. Crook’s article on Jekyll Island, on thesga.org website.

Ginessa Mahar’s article on Late Archaic shell rings on St. Catherines Island on this website.

Some University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology Laboratory of Archaeology Series Reports detail coastal research.

On Sapelo Island’s past, by the Georgia DNR and by Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve.

On Sapelo, including Chocolate Plantation.

On tabby, a mix of sand, shell, lime, and water that hardens somewhat like cement.

Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia has been the focus of an important archaeological discovery over the last three years. In August of 2006 during excavation for a fiber-optic utility line in the heart of the Airfield’s cantonment, construction workers encountered several bones quite unexpectedly. All work on the utility trench ceased immediately and the Installation’s archaeologist, Brian Greer, investigated the disturbed burial and determined that the remains were that of one individual buried in a coffin. It was at that point the Installation realized there was a strong possibility that an unknown cemetery may have been lost to time.

New South team member Andrew Belcourt shovel skims a burial feature taking care not to disturb the remains that lie beneath (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

In order to complete the excavation of the utility trench and avoid disturbing any other graves that may be in the vicinity, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) unit was brought in to guide the remaining portion of the trench. As a result of the GPR, additional suspected graves were noted nearby and the path of the utility trench was altered slightly to avoid any further disturbances. Additional work was halted and the Installation initiated a larger radar sweep of the surrounding area. The location under examination consisted of two boulevards, a paved parking lot, and several grassy medians. After extensive radar sweeps of the location, the potential for a significant number of burials was suggested by the radar.

Upon the realization that this initial single burial may actually be part of a much larger unknown cemetery, the Installation contracted the services of New South Associates, Inc. in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District. The initial goal was to determine the size and origin of the cemetery. Although archaeological surveys had been previously conducted nearby, no signs of any cemetery were ever encountered. According to base records, the parking lot and boulevards had been in existence for over 50 years.

Remnant of the only inscribed grave marker recovered (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Upon the discovery of the initial burial, the Installation contacted the State Historic Preservation Office. Through close coordination and monitoring by staff archaeologists, the Installation was able to successfully complete the installation of the fiber optic cable without disturbing any additional suspected remains.

The discovery of a cemetery in such an environment created a challenge to the contracted mortuary archaeologists. Since the cemetery lies beneath asphalt and concrete, a significant amount of time and effort was required to remove this obstruction. The parking lot and road removal was carefully monitored by the Installation and New South Associates, Inc. over several days to ensure no burials were damaged. After 2 acres of asphalt and concrete were removed, the underlying soil was exposed. Due to the sandy nature of this hill, the grave outlines were not discernable until approximately 10 cm above each burial. Typical burial shafts that would normally be visible closer to the original surface had been obliterated over time. After weeks of careful backhoe excavation and hand shoveling by New South Associates, a total of 37 burials were discovered.

Of these 37 graves, a sample was examined to determine their condition and potential for eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a cemetery of significance. With minimal intrusion, it was determined that the cemetery represented an African-American cemetery dating from the 1880s to the 1910s. Furthermore, the condition of the burials indicated good preservation, and therefore the cemetery was considered to be a potential candidate for the NRHP.

This small bisque lamb figurine represents one of the various grave goods found during excavation of the cemeteries (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Initial examination of Installation documents and historic maps did not provide any clues to the origins of this lost cemetery. Therefore, the Installation looked to the public for help. Since the area was planned for further development, the Installation solicited public input from the surrounding communities through newspaper announcements, television interviews, and public meetings. Unfortunately, no members of the public came forward with information pertaining to this cemetery. Although this cemetery was just over a hundred years old, it appeared the memory of its existence had faded completely.

After efforts to solicit comments from the public, consultation with the SHPO, and through the course of an Environmental Assessment, it was determined that the best course of action was to archaeologically excavate the cemetery and respectfully reinter the burials within an existing cemetery elsewhere on the Installation (known as Belmont Cemetery). With future upgrades to the road and parking lot associated with the construction of a new barracks complex for the Rangers, a research plan was developed through a Memorandum of Agreement with the Georgia SHPO in order to mitigate the adverse effects of relocation of this NRHP eligible cemetery.

Custom engraved cufflink depicting an unknown church (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Upon completion of the regulatory process, the mortuary archaeologists began the long task of hand excavating each grave, mapping every burial, and carefully recovering all grave materials for future reburial. Over the next several weeks, all burials were fully documented and the remains transferred to secure mortuary caskets for future reburial. The entire contents of the coffin, including the coffin fragments themselves, were stored with each burial. This entire assemblage was measured and photographed in order to document all available clues to the identity of the individuals interred.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Installation, another cemetery was being investigated. During the 1950s and 1970s, several burials were encountered during construction of an exercise course for the Rangers. At that time, all remains were excavated and moved to Belmont Cemetery. In 1994, during upgrades to the exercise course, an additional burial was encountered. Work halted and the burial was moved to the Belmont Cemetery. Due to the number of burials encountered, the Installation initiated a GPR survey of the exercise field in 1995. Several potential graves were identified and a sample of these radar “anomalies” were excavated. No additional graves were encountered, and it was believed that the likelihood for additional burials was very low to non-existent. However, a small portion of the exercise field had not been sampled due to large oak trees and other obstacles that interfered with the radar. With mortuary archaeologists and an available radar unit already on site, the Installation decided that an attempt to examine the areas missed by the previous radar survey was in order.

An unusual collection of 9 sets of eyeglasses from a single burial (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Initially, the radar results of this second look indicated only a small number of potential graves. All suspected graves were examined archaeologically, and it was not until the very last radar anomalies were examined that a single grave was encountered. As a matter of procedure, a 20-foot area around this grave was excavated to ensure no other graves had been missed by the radar. It was this 20-foot expansion that eventually led to the removal of almost an acre of topsoil to expose the boundaries of this other lost cemetery. After all exploratory work was done, an additional 385 burials were recovered from this missing portion of the 1995 radar survey.

1889 map depicting “Negro Cemetery”.

During the investigation of this second cemetery, an extensive document search in the city of Savannah finally revealed a single map from 1889 labeling the area as a “Negro Cemetery.” Coupled with the examination of the skeletal remains as well as the age of coffin materials recovered, it was determined that this second cemetery was an African-American cemetery dating from the same time period as the first cemetery (i.e. 1880s to 1910s). Similar to the first cemetery, the remains were relatively well preserved and held the potential to provide significant information about a segment of the population of Savannah that has gone virtually unrecorded. Consequently, this cemetery was also deemed significant as a historical cemetery and underwent the same regulatory and decision making processes to respectfully move the graves to a more peaceful resting place in the Belmont Cemetery.

After all regulatory requirements were met and all burials were carefully excavated, the remains were all reinterred to the Belmont Cemetery. This cemetery was established in 1951 when the Army encountered several unmarked graves during the expansion of the airfield, and it proved to be the most suitable resting place for the newly discovered remains.

Final resting ground for the 2 relocated cemeteries- Belmont Cemetery named after the Old Belmont Plantation.

During African-American History Month in February 2009, the Installation coordinated a rededication ceremony presided over by the Installation’s Garrison Commander and Chaplain. Members of the community were invited to this important ceremony, which was held for both cemeteries. Although no descendants have been identified from these two cemeteries, the rededication ceremony provided important closure to one individual in attendance. Mr. Drayton, who learned of the upcoming ceremony through his family, sat quietly in the audience. It was quickly learned that Mr. Drayton’s grandfather was buried in the original portion of the Belmont Cemetery when it was established in 1951. For Mr. Drayton, the ceremony “was a wonderful thing,” and he considered it “one of the greatest days of his life.” Until that ceremony, Mr. Drayton and his family never knew where their grandfather’s grave had been relocated. For now, at least one of the unknown markers in the Belmont Cemetery has a name and is among the honored dead.

Research continues by New South Associates on the information collected during the excavation of these important cemeteries; one goal is to find names for the remaining forgotten individuals. From this work, future researchers will begin to shed new light on the lives of African Americans during the Post-Emancipation era in the Savannah area. New South Associates’ final report of investigation is nearing completion and is expected to be completed in the months ahead. From these two cemeteries, a significant amount of information pertaining to the lifeways of African-American residents of the Georgia Coastal Plain will shed light on a relatively recent, yet forgotten past.

The Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has a downloadable sixteen-page booklet dated November 2007, titled Preserving Georgia’s Historic Cemeteries, that you may find interesting.

Download or review this booklet by visiting this webpage.

Or click here to access the booklet PDF directly.

This booklet compliments the book, Grave Intentions: A Comprehensive Guide to Preserving Historic Cemeteries in Georgia, by Christine Van Voorhies. This book is available in print only, and cannot be downloaded as a PDF. Grave Intentions is a small, easy-to-read guidebook with, as the HPD website notes:

…great information on cleaning up a graveyard and tombstones, getting access to gravesites, funding your project, handling threats to graves, and legal issues.

The Georgia Municipal Cemetery Association’s Annual Conference, Tangible Links to Our Past, will be held in Rome, Georgia September 17-18 2009, at the Rome Forum Conference Center, downtown.

Topics include Cemetery Emergency Planning (statewide disaster plan for historic  cemeteries), Cemetery Advocacy (engaging your local officials), Heritage Tourism and Cemeteries. There will also be a tour of Rome’s Myrtle Hill Cemetery, and the GMCA Reception and Dinner.

Late registration is $50 for GMCA Members and $70 for Non-Members.

The conference is co-sponsored and partially funded with a Historic Cemetery Heritage Tourism Grant through the Tourism Division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development and the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Registration information is available on this webpage.

When the March 2008 tornado struck the downtown area, Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery especially suffered from the root balls brought up by toppled trees. Historic Oakland Foundation Director of Restoration and Landscapes Kevin Kuharic recognized that some of the root balls had the potential for containing human remains, and requested assistance from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). State Archaeologist Dr. Dave Crass.

Dr. Crass in turn recruited Dr. Jeffrey Glover, an archaeology professor at Georgia State University, who marshaled GSU students to do the fieldwork. GSU students and DNR personnel were assisted in this sensitive recovery mission by Atlanta city employees and volunteers.

Careful examination of the root balls did not reveal any human remains. However, one root ball had two small Civil War-era porcelain buttons, probably for shirt collars or cuffs.

On 25 March, the Historic Preservation Division published a press release (click to download it) detailing this information, from which this story was written. The HPD has a webpage with useful information about historic cemeteries.

The Fish Vault has been famous in Memory Hill Cemetery, Milledgeville’s city cemetery, as the place where poor Mr. Fish, despondent over the loss of his wife, had shut himself into the vault and killed himself while sitting in a rocking chair. Visitors to the vault are routinely told to knock at the door and ask “Mr. Fish! What are you doing in there?” With the person encouraged to place an ear to the crack in the wall in order to hear Mr. Fish’s answer, the response, of course, is “nothing.”

The vault is a partly subterranean, 1840s tomb made of handmade bricks. This style of structure is rare in central Georgia. It is large, approximately 14′ 3″ by 12′, and has a gable-style brick roof. Through the years it had suffered vandalism, which had caused the city to brick up the door in the 1960s. Secondhand reports from that time suggested that there were no visible remains. Now the deteriorating condition of the roof suggested that it was probably leaking. The front wall had been bumped by passing vehicles and had settled to the point where it was separating from the rest of the vault. Without intervention, the front wall would have eventually fallen, exposing the interior of the vault.

The Friends of Baldwin County Cemeteries, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity and historical society, decided to undertake the vault’s restoration. Susan Harrington, chairperson of the Friends, acted as project coordinator. Since there was still the possibility that there may be remains and opening the vault may constitute “disturbing a grave,” the Friends consulted with the superior court judge, probate court judge and the city attorney. It was determined that the only Georgia law that seemed to fit was the Abandoned Cemeteries and Burial Grounds Act, Official Code of Georgia 36-72. Under that law, descendants were to be determined and contacted for permission, a permit from the city was required, and an archaeologist should be present for the vault’s opening. Stephen Hammack agreed to serve as archaeologist.

After genealogy was performed, descendants contacted, and permissions given, the city issued the permit. This process took approximately 8 months. In the meantime, a leading brick mason was contracted to do the brick masonry. The work began September 8, 2008, one day after the permit was received by the Friends. Security was a concern, and the city immediately erected a large fence around the vault as the brick mason began his work.

The Friends notified descendants in Moultrie, Macon, and Atlanta, who came to Milledgeville to watch as the vault was opened. The vault was opened on the hot and rainy afternoon of September 9, 2008, and since no human remains were expected to have survived, it was assumed that the archaeologist’s responsibility was to be on hand to ceremonially give the go-ahead so the brick mason could begin his repairs.

View of Burial 3 within the vault.

But the vault was not empty! Upon peering through the just-opened door, it was clear that there were multiple sets of human remains, all but one of which were visible from the steps. Taking two steps down, Hammack found himself surrounded on 3 sides of the vault by stone benches. Remains and casket material covered the floor and benches to his left and the wall opposite. On his right was another burial enclosed in a cast iron coffin immediately recognized as a Fisk Metallic Burial Case.

It was quickly decided that all the remains had to be removed before nightfall, to prevent any potential looting or vandalism, and the back-up plan was put into effect. The plan was that any remains would be placed in the care of a local funeral home for safe-keeping until re-interment. Because there were three obvious burials in the crypt, though one contained more than one set of remains, the decision was made to extensively photograph everything in situ and to number the sets of remains Burial 1, Burial 2, and Burial 3.

Burial 1 was on the left (south) wall and was that of an adult. The most obvious thing about this burial was that in addition to the remnants of coffin wood, there was an enormous amount of charcoal intermixed with the bones. Burial 2 was on the back (west) wall, was also an adult, and appeared to have contained lesser amounts of charcoal. However, it appeared that some of the bones had been disturbed at some point in the past and replaced in piles. These piles, however, also included the skulls and some bones of what appeared to be one or two children. Burial 3 was enclosed in the Fisk burial case and was not visible for inspection, though it was clear that the metal coffin itself had once been inside a wooden coffin.

The “methodology” for removing the remains was as follows. Since daylight was limited, the only logical choice of action was simply to remove the bones and large pieces of coffin wood and charcoal and place them in individual body bags. Burial 1 and Burial 2 were each placed in separate body bags and placed in the back of the funeral home van. Burial 3, which was noted to have a corroded layer near its bottom, was slowly and cautiously removed from the vault and placed on thick wooden boards, which were to provide support in case the iron coffin’s bottom gave way. The coffin and boards were then placed on dollies and rolled to the van and, with much effort, the coffin was placed inside. Several breaks were required over the course of the afternoon because of the rising humidity and temperature, which rendered the situation in the vault nearly unbearable for the archaeologist. Finally, just before dusk and with the assistance of a flashlight, the work was completed. The following day, the Friends contacted Dr. Matthew Williamson, an anthropologist at Georgia Southern University, who came to acquire the bones for identification in his lab.

A few days later at the funeral home, with the family’s permission, it was decided to remove the iron plate covering the glass face plate, or viewing port, of the Fisk Metallic Burial Case in order to assess the condition of the remains inside. The Burial Case was patented by Almond Fisk of New York City in 1848 and was designed to be air tight and filled with gas to prevent the decomposition of the body. The upper and lower halves fit tightly together and are sealed with a glue-like cement and fastened by screws. The Burial Case would have been ideal for Sarah Fish, who died in 1856 in Gordon Springs, Whitfield County, located in the northwest corner of Georgia, to be transported back to central Georgia for burial.

The body had not been preserved by the supposedly air tight coffin, and the skeletal remains were found to be in an advanced state of decay, evidently due to penetration into the coffin of water from the damp vault. It is interesting to note that a fair amount of fabric from what appeared to have been a striped dress was still intact and visible around the waist.

After washing and analyzing the artifacts, Hammack noted a variety of different sizes of coffin nails and other types of extant artifacts, such as wood and Prosser (China) buttons. Some curious findings were three rocks of granitic or gneissic composition that were found with Burial 1. It is not known if they were placed on top of the coffin or included inside with the body, but they were the only lithic artifacts discovered within the vault and may have been memorials placed purposefully with Burial 1. The presence of large amounts of charcoal with Burial 1, and the smaller amount included with Burial 2, were also noted. Research eventually pointed to the usage of charcoal as an odor-deterrent when bodies were shipped long distances, and this method was evidently also utilized for the same reason in vaults, especially where future burials were planned. It appears that in such burials the coffins were lined with charcoal, sometimes even to the point of surrounding the corpse with it. Other instances are recorded of charcoal actually being placed into the abdomen of the corpse.

Williamson determined that two adult males and three children (labeled Burials 2a, 2b, and 2c) of predominant European ancestry are represented by the Burial 1 and 2 remains. Dark brown staining was present on all the bones, which was consistent with other historic burials perhaps caused by tannins that have leached out of the coffin wood and were then absorbed by the bones. In addition, a small amount of dried adipocere was present at various locations on the skeleton, indicating that the body may have come into contact with water relatively soon after burial. Adult dental health was fairly poor based on the presence of several carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss while the juvenile teeth were in pretty good condition. In general, there were no lesions from infectious disease, metabolic disorders such as chronic anemia, nor any significant osteoarthritis present on the adults. According to local legend, Mr. Fish shot himself in the head while sitting in a rocking chair. From his analysis, Williamson found that there was no skeletal evidence of a gunshot wound.

Unfortunately, positive identification of people from historic cemetery contexts is generally impossible unless they are buried in separate grave shafts with an associated nameplate or grave marker. With this in mind, the skeletal remains have been tentatively identified as those of William Fish who died in 1843 (Burial 1), his youngest son Horace Virgil Fish who died in 1845 at the age of about 5 (Burial 2b), two infants whose names are unknown, and a 45–55 year old male whose identity is unknown. Sarah Harvard Fish, the wife of William Fish, died in 1856 and was buried in the Fisk metallic burial case (Burial 3).

Because of the concerns for security and the need to close the vault in conformance to the brick mason’s availability, all remains had to be returned to the vault and sealed in on October 1. This date provided Hammack and Williamson less than two and a half weeks to perform their analyses.

The Fish Vault after restoration.

The archaeological, anthropological, and historical preservation experience at the Fish Family Vault was, to say the least, a memorable one. It proved to be very interesting from beginning to end, and the best part was that after the restoration was complete and the contents of the vault subjected to study, all remains, casket materials and other items were reinterred with dignity in the vault where they rightfully belonged. Despite the tight timetable, this is a great example of how a project of this kind, with cooperation of many experts, is supposed to work. Preservation-minded Georgians everywhere should be proud of this endeavor!

Practical training in action, courtesy of Jonathan Appell.

The Historic Preservation Division, in partnership with the Decatur Preservation Alliance/Friends of Decatur Cemetery and the Georgia Municipal Cemetery Association, sponsored four hands-on cemetery conservation workshops in October and early November 2008. HPD was able to offer financial support from sales proceeds of the book, Grave Intentions: A Comprehensive Guide to Preserving Historic Cemeteries in Georgia, authored by HPD Cemetery Specialist, Christine (Van Voorhies) Neal.

HPD receives a large number of inquiries about historic cemeteries issues. The demonstrated need for information and guidance, especially about gravestone conservation, prompted us to initiate these workshops. The workshops were also an excellent way to fulfill our responsibility to use the book sales funds to advance cemetery preservation in our state. We are pleased to have been able to offer Georgia citizens this rare, hands-on educational opportunity.

The one-day workshops were conducted by Mr. Jonathan Appell, independent gravestone conservator from West Hartford, Connecticut (http://gravestoneconservation.com). He discussed various kinds of stones, why they decay or get broken, and gave an overview of how to repair them, followed by instruction in some universal gravestone preservation techniques. Participants were able to try their hand at effective, simple methods for repair and resetting of tombstones, which they can use in their own cemeteries. Mr. Appell was also happy to view photos and/or answer questions about particular gravestones in other cemeteries. Workshops were held in Columbus, Sandersville, Gainesville, and Decatur. Attendees ranged from interested individuals to members of cemetery friends groups, county planners, city cemetery staff and other government officials.

We hope this very successful, first effort at bringing cemetery conservation training to Georgia has generated interest in more groups partnering to offer future similar opportunities.

Beginning in May 2008, members of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society have participated in a project complete with a sense of historic preservation and civic responsibility. Dedicating time and tools, members of GAAS have teamed up with the Flat Rock Archive in Lithonia, Georgia, to help in the restoration and documentation of the historic Flat Rock cemetery.

The African-American community of Flat Rock, Georgia, was established in the first half of the 1800s as a product of three large plantations. Although it has not appeared on a map since the end of the Civil War, the community persists in the area to this day. Overgrown and surrounded by new development, the Flat Rock cemetery is the resting place of members of the community dating back to the era of slavery and into the 1950s, including African-American veterans from the Civil War through World War II.

GAAS members have enthusiastically joined the President of the Flat Rock Archive, Johnny Waits, and documentary filmmakers, Eddy Anderson and Michael Face, in the on-going effort to restore and protect the Flat Rock cemetery. To date, we have removed barbed wire, cut trees, pulled vines and raked leaves that have hidden the cemetery for years. Over one third of the cemetery has been completely cleared of undergrowth but the project is still in progress. Aided by students and professors from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Georgia State University, goals for the cemetery project include digital mapping, photo-documentation, and historical research.

For information regarding the Flat Rock Archive and cemetery, please visit www.flatrockarchive.org. For more information regarding the GAAS involvement in the cemetery project, please contact Kate Jackson at kathryn.jackson@fernbankmuseum.org or at (404) 929-6414.

The staff at New South Associates (NSA) has been very busy this year. In addition to the following Georgia projects, our employees have been working on a variety of additional projects in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, New York, and Puerto Rico. The Berry Creek Site (9MO487) was investigated by R. Jeannine Windham during March and proved to be a small upland Swift Creek site (see artifact feature elsewhere in this issue of The Profile). Although the site has been significantly eroded, small features and potentially structure-related curvilinear trenches were discovered. On going analysis suggests that this site was occupied for a short time period and/or possibly on a seasonal basis.

In March, Diana Valk conducted a Phase I Survey along SR 24 in the areas of a proposed new right-of-way (ROW). The project resulted in the expansion of a previously recorded historic house site and the discovery of a new historic artifact scatter. Both sites were not eligible for the NRHP. In addition to Phase I work, the possible existence of an infant burial in the proposed ROW was also investigated. The landowner informed us that the previous resident of the address indicated his stillborn brother was buried on the land in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. During that time period, it was not uncommon for rural families to bury their deceased relatives on their land. They would mark the burial with a formal stone, a field stone, or nothing at all. In this instance, the landowner said that he had never seen surface indications of the burial and that he could not be sure of its exact location or if it even existed. Surface examination and subsurface probing revealed no clues as to where the burial might be located. A smooth shovel trackhoe was brought in to scrape off the plowzone layer in the six-meter square area that the burial was purported to be. After shovel shaving the stripped area, several features were identified, but none appeared to be a graveshaft. We concluded that if a burial does exist on the land it does not lie in the area surveyed.

For the last 12 months, Heather Mauldin has been working in conjunction with ecologists at PB World on the first year of a 3-year contract for Georgia Department of Transportation borrow pits through Edwards-Pitman Environmental. To date, she has completed 61 individual survey tracts throughout the state, ranging from Catoosa County, to Glynn, from Burke to Clay, to Rabun, and a variety of places in between. While criss-crossing the state to locate proposed pit areas, this project has allowed Heather to explore often unseen corners of our great state, and sample a few great “out of the way” barbecue places on the way! Additionally, Ms. Mauldin has worked on a number of additional transportation and bridge replacement projects in Barrow, Clayton, Bartow, Gwinnett, Forsyth, Walton, and Fulton counties as a member of the Express Projects Team at NSA.

Christopher Espenshade, Mark Swanson, and Shawn Patch conducted archival research and archaeological survey of a portion of the Resaca battleground for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Parks, Recreation, and Historic Sites. The fieldwork included an intensive metal-detector survey of 37.35 acres of former pasture on the floodplain and terraces of Camp Hill Creek and surface survey and the mapping of trench remnants and possible rifle pits on 7.60 acres of wooded hillside, at the north end of the project’s Area of Potential Effects (APE). The metal-detector survey, which covered the entire floodplain and terrace portion of the APE, recovered 126 artifacts that can be securely attributed to Civil War military action and an additional 26 horseshoes, which may be from the battle. A well-preserved trench line and three possible rifle pits were also discovered on the hill slope. The artifact patterns suggest that the APE saw action on May 9, 1864, when the Federal probe reached at least as far east as the APE. The probe may have been repelled, in part, by Confederate artillery fire from a battery near the present I-75 interchange (outside the APE). The Federal troops were members of the XVI Corps, including the 66th Illinois and the 9th Illinois Mounted Infantry. The APE also witnessed action on May 14, 1964, when the Federals took the hills east of Camp Hill Creek, including the trench system in the northern end of the APE. Members of the XV Corps, including the 12th Missouri and either the 46th Ohio or the 97th Indiana, were engaged in the APE. New South recommended that due to the possibility of battlefield graves, the archaeologists monitor the removal of plow zone in all the proposed construction areas, and that further steps be taken if burials are found during monitoring.

Terracon archaeologists and historians continue to maintain busy field schedules across the southeast. The summer and autumn seasons have sent our staff to southwest, northern, and coastal Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, and the far reaches of northwest Virginia.

Recently we have completed Phase I & II surveys for GDOT of a 32-mile corridor road expansion project through Dougherty, Worth and Colquitt counties. Forty-five archaeological occurrences were found during the survey, 39 of which were archaeological sites and six were isolated finds. Additionally, an unmarked cemetery was delineated and recorded within Worth County. Two sites, 9WO41 and 9DU173, were examined with Phase II testing. 9WO41 is an amalgam of small Early to Middle Woodland seasonal habitation sites; however, there is the possibility of a Paleoindian component. 9DU173 is a multi-component site with evidence of Archaic encampments and an historic mid-to-late twentieth-century privy. Neither site was recommended eligible for the NRHP due to lack of integrity and heavy disturbance over long periods of time.

In north Georgia, we conducted four surveys in Hall County for various multi-use developments, including a 6-mile survey for bike trail improvements at Chicopee Woods Nature Preserve. Currently, we are completing a 13-mile GDOT corridor survey that extends from Forsyth County into Hall County. Thus far, we have identified an early nineteenth-century house site in Hall County. Miscellaneous projects north of the Fall Line were completed in Clayton, Fayette, Fulton, Gordon, and Gwinnett counties; however, much of the fieldwork for these counties fell within urban limits, which yielded negative findings.

In August, we identified an Early Woodland site, 9GN326, upon the completion of a survey for a proposed sewer line. The survey area was located adjacent to Oak Grove Cemetery, the oldest historic cemetery in Brunswick, Georgia. A possible grave shaft was also discovered outside the cemetery fence line. Neither archaeological occurrence was recommended eligible for the NRHP; however, based on our findings, the proposed line was relocated, preserving 9GN326 and the possible grave shaft.

In Laurens, South Carolina, we discovered a mid-nineteenth century homestead and an associated unmarked cemetery within a 22.3-acre tract of land slated for commercial development. Due to heavy erosion and bulldozing, the site was not recommended eligible for NRHP.

This winter season we look forward to commencing archaeology and historic preservation work in Peach, Troup, and Sumter counties.