In the early 21st century, advancements in historic archeology led park staff and archeologists to review the efficacy of past excavations of Building X, which in turn led to a recommendation to reopen the foundations. In partnership with New South Associates, Inc., Building X was once again opened in 2022 with the hopes of shedding more light on 86 years of uncertainty. We share findings from this recent study of Building X, bringing us one step closer to unraveling one of the biggest mysteries of the park

Jonathan Malriat Welcome back to another episode of Upon This Land: History, Mysteries and Monuments. This episode is the second part of our exploration into the 2022 excavation of building X, one of the over 20 foundations here in George Washington Birthplace National Monument that we protect and preserve. On the previous episode, we talked about how the excavation was conducted and who was conducting the excavation. So for more information on that, please refer back to our previous episode. On this episode, we'll be diving in to the results of that excavation and what that tells us going forward into the future. I'm Jonathan Malriat, the lead interpretive park ranger here at George Washington Birthplace National Monument and Thomas Stone National Historic Sites. Joining me on this episode is Dustin Baker, the chief of interpretation. And then our special guests, Kerry Gonzalez, the chief of cultural resource management at the parks, and Maureen Meyers, a principal investigator of archeology at New South Associates.

Dustin Baker No pun intended, this whole project was a monumental task. I mean, dozens of people involved, the site was opened for almost ten months and I guess we're getting into the real heart of why we're here. What have we learned from this project? And I'll start with the first kind of leading question is, what was this? What was this building?

Maureen Meyers Right. Well, I think the shortest answer is that the building was used as a residence. And then it changed, as Kerry's already mentioned over time. And so the the building itself, the the remains that we were looking at are really the basement of the building itself, or the lower levels. And it was added on, as she said, over time. So it initially started, well, first let me say we identified five rooms, which the, the archeologists in 1930s had identified and named. So we just of course used their names for those rooms. And room A is basically included an, an exterior entry staircase, into it. So you would go down into it, it had a chimney base with some storage, an enclosure for an interior staircase, and was really just a cellar space for storage. It included, what we were able to take out of there again. Out of the, out of context, was a lot of ceramics dating to the 18th century. Some bottles, some glass, wrought nails, which are early. Room B was then next to that, it had a rectangular brick foundation. And it, it allowed us to see evidence or Willie Graham saw it as evidence that additional construction was probably planned but not done. He could see some indicators of that attached to room B. Room C had, three sets of brick foundations and two chimney bases and some of the, some of the fact that we found fewer artifacts here suggested that it was an area that didn't have dining, whereas room B probably did. And then you finally had room D and E, which, room D was constructed off room A, and then room E was a chimney base as well. I mean, that's those are basic descriptions of the rooms themselves. And so, room A was built first, then added on room B and then C, D and E, and that C, D and E are probably separate bed chambers, and they each had, heated closets for each of them. Which sounds really strange. It sounded strange to me. I thought, why would you heat a closet? Although the idea of warm clothes on a cold winter morning sounded like a good idea. But these were more like, We should think of them as working spaces. Like a space where you might have a desk and, and a chair, and you would be able to work in those areas. So almost like little studies. Yeah. And, Kerry, you want to add anything there?

Kerry Gonzalez So at some point, we were looking at square footage of building X and wanting to compare it to the size of the Memorial House Museum and our rough estimates of building X in its complete form to include the basement areas, first floor and then the like the loft upper areas is a little over 3000ft². In its initial form, when you're just looking at room A for any listeners out there that need more of a visual, if you look up the Rochester House in Westmoreland County, that is a really good example of what, you know, the the form and the shape of what room A would have looked like when that was initially constructed. It's a bit later than building X, which was in the 1720s, but it gives you a good idea of that. But in its fully constructed form, this was a this is a substantial home. It would have been lived in by people who are, were of means, of the upper middle class. They, this family obviously had a lot of land. They had the means to build a structure like this with all these rooms and, you know, the the heated closets. But remember, a closet isn’t a warm space, space to keep your clothes. It was more of like an office space. You know, just your, your everyday planter wouldn't have been able to afford such a structure.

Dustin Baker So when you combine this new look at building X with, you know, the artifacts and information that came from the 1930s, can you kind of paint a picture of when this building was in use?

Maureen Meyers Yeah, I think I think so. I think you can look at some previous analyzes of the artifacts by, by Phil Levy and, and students a couple of years ago. And we did and we incorporated that. And then we looked at some of the artifacts that we got out of the fill. So that gives you a general sense, of when the building's in use.

Kerry Gonzalez It was my understanding that the most recent information from Phil was that the house was probably abandoned around the Revolutionary War period.

Maureen Meyers Yeah, thank you!

Kerry Gonzalez Yeah, they moved back. They like down the road inland some to Blenheim and that’s where the family lived. But one thing that I want to point out, and this isn't my own, this came from Phil's analysis as well. For those who don't know, Phil Levy is, knows all things Washington and has been a great researcher here at GEWA. But what Phil explains in his reanalysis of the the artifacts is, you as a archeologist or someone that's looking at an assemblage, you're, you have a tendency to say, okay, all these artifacts came from this cellar feature, essentially a big hole in the ground, and you want to say all of these came from within the house. It's just kind of how your mind would work. But what Phil realized is the artifacts that were found within building X look like, materials from a midden, like from yard trash, essentially. A lot of coarser earthen wares, stuff that would have been like utilitarian type stuff, not fine porcelains, tea sets, things like that. And what he is proposing is that when Building X, Building X was abandoned, they moved down the road and then the house was either since it wasn’t being lived in was disassembled, bricks were robbed, boards were taken, and a hole was left in the ground. Those holes need to be filled. And what you do is you take your trash from the yard and shove it into the hole. And so you can't take the artifacts strictly from what was found within building X and say the all these materials were used in the house. They were it was from a variety of tasks. We have a midden that's, between the standing kitchen and building X and it looks like a lot of yard activities, utilitarian stuff kind of took place in that area. So I just, I wanted to to point that out.

Dustin Baker So this site or this archeological feature, has, you know, befuddled people for over a generation, there's been a lot of confusion over what this is, was there anything unique about this site that you all found?

Maureen Meyers As a archeologist, I'm sort of trained to see broader patterns. I think, it's a pretty good, example of I, of the architecture at that time and that the way, the way a lot of families in Virginia, like, were like the Washingtons. I mean, I think they exemplify sort of what's going on in the larger colony at that time of people coming from elsewhere and trying to make a better life. And so they're doing that. And I mean, to me, it's a very American story, right, of people just coming here and making a different kind of life for themselves. And it often means increasing wealth. And so that's what we see there, I think. Yes, there are probably, very, unique architectural features there, but I can't exactly speak to those. That's really a great question for Willie Grahams. There I, I think what one of the things that I do see is that, like a lot of other sites in, in Virginia, a lot of plantation sites in Virginia, we tend to focus on, on the main house. And that's great. I think, and on the individual and I, I see a real potential for a lot more work at the site that shows us the entire household, a larger it's that would encompass more of the people that allowed this to happen as well. I think we know a lot about, you know, obviously George Washington and I know we think, you know, it'd be great to always learn more and, and, and his family of origin. But there's a part of me that's also interested, and again, I say this as a native of Virginia who grew up hearing all of the George Washington lore and worked at Mount Vernon, it was a real, you know, privilege to be able to work at the birthplace. But I want to know more about the, the the world around him, the household around him that that would have, added to his foundations. Right. To his ideas, his moral principles or his ideas of democracy. And in order to do that, I think we need to expand and see who else is living at this household. And in just in general, households like this.

Kerry Gonzalez I'm I'm glad you brought that up, Maureen, because it gives me a good segue into telling our listeners that we are working towards that very effort now, to really understand this landscape and we're doing that in a couple of ways here. We're taking all of the archeological data that we have from past excavations and getting that into one map, digitally, we are putting them into GIS so we can take a step back and look at this landscape and see where we have, outbuildings, kitchens. Yeah, we know we have the dairy. Where, where were the the enslaved living on this landscape. We know where one was. We know about how many enslaved people work on this property. There are definitely more, and in addition to taking that mapping and looking at where things are, we’ll develop a, archeological management plan to see what we want to look at next. But we do in the coming months, have an excavation planned. There is a building in the memorial area that we're going to re-explore. It was looked at in the 1930s. For some reason they lost interest in it. It does have a brick foundation. We have named it building Y, for obvious reasons. And we're hoping that that's going to help answer some more questions that we have about the birthplace. You know, namely, the big question was building was George Washington born in building X? We know we still can't answer that. But, we are working working towards all of that.

Dustin Baker So if you're familiar with the history of the birthplace and Wakefield, you probably are very familiar with a longstanding oral tradition that the home site burned down on Christmas Day, 1779. So what have we seen in building X to either validate that story or counter it?

Kerry Gonzalez Well, it's, what we haven't seen. We we don't have the archeological assemblage that reflects a house that burned down that, that that is a, a clear signature when you're excavating a site that has been burned, even if the house, let's say that the house was abandoned when it burned, which the stories talk about them rescuing furniture out of it. So it presumably it wasn't empty for long periods of time, but you get what you get is a lot of melted glass. You get burned ceramics, the nails show evidence of being burned because when you find them, they're not rusted. You know, archeologically, a lot of times when you find nails that have been in the ground for years, we call them, Rusty Cheetos, because that's what they look like. They look like brown Cheetos. So you would have a lot of nails that aren't rusted. They're called annealed nails. You would have melted glass a lot. If the fire's really hot, it's just literally you have blobs of it. The the brick in the basement would have shown evidence of being burned. And while we have some melted glass in the assemblage, we don't have that concentration that would be indicative of a house being burned. And Maureen, from you know, you were here during the excavation, I was not. Do you have anything to add to that? From what you saw and what, you know, maybe Willie was talking as he was doing his analysis?

Maureen Meyers Right, yeah. No, I completely agree, not a whole lot to add other than when a house burns, if that's a pre-contact house or a historic house, you know it, right. As an archeologist, you can tell, because there are stains in the ground. The artifacts, as Kerry, you know, elucidated, is, are are clearly damaged and clearly showed signs of burning. And we just didn't see that in these remains, at all. I mean, there's no sign on the brick itself that there's any kind of burning happening there. There's no sign in any, of the, you know, the soil, the intact soil under the fill that there would be burning. Whereas, you know, I have excavated soils that have been completely burned, and they're, they’re, as you would expect. They're all shades of of red and maroon and black, with, hard chunks and, and and often preserved wood. But we didn't see anything like that at all.

Dustin Baker Can you explain to our listeners why this feature was filled back in? A lot of visitors have come here and they've, you know, asked about like why it isn't permanently open for them to see,

Kerry Gonzalez It's, it's expensive. The the brick has been in the ground for a long time, and that type of brick gets really friable. You would have to have a climate controlled environment. You couldn't just leave it out to the elements. It would start to crumble and fall apart and the National Park Service is in the business of preserving and protecting. Lining it with, the geotech cloth that New South did and then re burying it will preserve it for future generations. If there's some technological advance in 50 years and they want to re-excavate part of it to reexamine the brick, it will allow that. Leaving it open to the elements would just destroy it. Now, if we wanted to do something like they did in Michigan and and, Fort Michilimackinac or I think at Saint Mary's where they have like a plexiglass over it and encase it, that is an expensive endeavor, again climate controlled. So it comes down to preservation or, or money. It would have been really cool to leave it open. But, because of the fly through that New South did we've got these technological advances that will, soon allow visitors to have a more immersive experience.

Dustin Baker October is archeology month in Virginia, and, building X made it on to the poster for this year's archeology month. And so, you know, this poster is really highlighting some of the most important archeological projects, sites, features in the state. So what makes you think that building X rose to that level and was included on that poster?

Maureen Meyers Yeah, well, I think a couple of things. One is, as I noted at the start of the podcast, you know, this site is important to the history of archeology in Virginia and in the US. It's it's really one of the I think it's been overlooked and by archeologists as one of the important sites where, the first use of things like, you know, stratigraphy and a grid system were used. I think it gets overlooked in that we focus on Colonial Williamsburg as a place of archeology, but I think this was an important site here, too. In that in the history of archeology and then on its own, because I think it is important to look at where our founders came from. Because by doing that, you can get a better sense of how they became the persons that they became. And and you know, I can get lofty and say, you know, how did they together, how did all of them together come up with these ideals of democracy that we're we're still practicing over 200 years later? Right. And so in order to do that, as an archeologist, I think you need to look at what's there. And I think that this is an important site. And so if you want to understand, you know, who George Washington is, you need to understand the family from which he came. And then the the larger community and culture out of which that family came. And so that's where I think building X is really important.

Kerry Gonzalez That was beautifully put.

Maureen Meyers Thanks. Thank you.

Jonathan Malriat Are there any other events occurring during Virginia's Archeology Month? Or any other events that you would like us to showcase to our audience?

Maureen Meyers Right. Well, there is on November 16th in, at Colonial Williamsburg, there is a celebration of 50 years of Virginia archeology. There'll be, I think, over 40 tables, different organizations across the state, talking about archeology for the public. It's going to be great for the kids and New South will have a table there. Kerry and I will both be there, and we're going to have opportunities for people to see pictures of building X to learn more about it, and hopefully for kids to maybe draw what they think building X may have looked like at the time that the Washington family was living there. That’s Saturday, November 16th from 10 to 3:00. So please come out.

Jonathan Malriat So if you've enjoyed this podcast and listening to Maureen and Kerry talk about this site and the features of it, come on out and listen to them and talk to them in person and ask them your own questions.

Dustin Baker Well, we want to thank both of you sincerely for joining us on this podcast and for all the work and effort you've put into helping us understand the site here.

Kerry Gonzalez It's been a pleasure. And we've got we've got a lot more to do, a lot more research projects and excited to be a part of it.

Maureen Meyers Yeah. And, you know, I just want to say for me personally, this was this was a real highlight of my 30 plus archeological career. I've dug it lots of really great places. This was really amazing for me, who started as an 18 year old with a lot of questions at Mount Vernon and then later, you know, was able to work there. Then it felt more full circle to be like, oh, this is really this is neat. And this, this really, allowed me to just, you know, and it's I felt like it, in a sense I was able to kind of give back to a lot of the folks that helped me get to where I am. And so I'm just really happy too. We were so thrilled, all of New South was thrilled to be on this project. And, and to be able to do that this and to contribute in the in the way that we did. So thanks to to all of you and thanks for having us on the podcast.

Dustin Baker Thank you for joining us on this episode of Upon This Land: History, Mystery and Monuments. The park has some major milestones in its future, including its centennial anniversary in 2030 and the tricentennial birthday of George Washington in 2032. Will the mysteries surrounding building X be truly unlocked by then?