Historical Archaeology in Wachovia: Excavating Eighteenth-Century Bethabara and Moravian Pottery

434 Pages·2002·21.18 MB·English

by  Stanley South (auth.)

HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY IN
WACHOVIA
Excavating Eighteenth-Century
Bethabara and Moravian Pottery
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY IN
WACHOVIA
Excavating Eighteenth-Century
Bethabara and Moravian Pottery
Stanley South
South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology
and lnstitute for Southern Studies
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow
eBookISBN: 0-306-47143-4
Print ISBN: 0-306-45658-3
©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers
New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow
Print ©1999 Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers
New York
All rights reserved
No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher
Created in the United States of America
Visit Kluwer Online at: http://kluweronline.com
and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://ebooks.kluweronline.com
For those spellbound by
shadows from the past ...
Especially Jewell,
on whose zeal a dark shadow fell.
Preface
(1999)
It is rewarding to realize that a book written 30 years ago is as relevant
today to those interested in historical archaeology and colonial American
pottery as the day it was written. That is the case with this two-part work.
In the 1975 Preface, written to accompany a dozen copies distributed at
that time for use by researchers, I explain why this volume has taken so
long to be published. The original work, Discovery in Wachovia, has now
been divided into two parts: Part I, on the archaeology at Bethabara, was
written in 1966, and Part II, on the Moravian potters Gottfried Aust and
Rudolph Christ and their ware, was written between 1966 and 1972.
In preparing this volume for publication I have added a few foot-
notes to update the text to inform the reader of more recent develop-
ments since 1975. I have edited the book as it appeared in 1972 by
adding a few sentences here and there and by dropping others in the
interest of clarity. I have also included captions to the photographs, many
of which had not had captions in the original version.
A major change from the 12 copies of the manuscript distributed in
1975 has been with the maps. The 12 maps and drawings George
Demmy and I made were from over 3 feet wide to 5 feet long. When I
distributed the dozen copies in 1975, I folded these and put them in a
box accompanying the manuscript. To allow these to be published here
I have reduced them and literally split them into as many as seven parts.
Each map included plan and profile drawings of several excavated ruins
as well as documented notes relating to them. When I split them into
individual parts I assigned a map or drawing number and identifying letter
to each part. The parts were then distributed throughout the volume as
appropriate to the text. Thus, what was once a large illustrative drawing
will appear here interpaginated with parts of other drawings along with
text. Each of these parts has been assigned a figure number appearing
vii
viii in the List of Figures. I have also provided a List of Oversize Maps and
Drawings to document how each drawing was split.
PREFACE
(1 999)
Acknowledgments
The publication of this book was made possible through two grants
from the Archaeological Research Trust (ART) at the South Carolina
Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. These funds allowed the
typewritten manuscript to be put into word-processing format by Lisa
Hudgins. I am extremely grateful for the funding provided by ART and to
Lisa for her expertise in helping me prepare the book for publication.
Thanks also to James Legg for drawing the zigzag Potter's price symbols
used by Rudolph Christ and to Historic Bethabara Park and the Wachovia
Historical Society for their support toward the publication of this volume
and to Brad Rauschenberg, John Larson, and Ed Hill for their interest.
I would like to thank the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts,
Old Salem, Inc.; The Wachovia Historical Society; and the Unity Archives
of the Moravian Church in Herrnhut, Germany, for permission to publish
some of the illustrations in this book.
I also thank Plenum Press for agreeing to publish it.
Preface
(1975)
Over 10 years have passed since I first began the archaeological work at
Bethabara and Salem, North Carolina, in 1963. Five years later, the 1968
field season at Salem was followed by my accepting my present position
at the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South
Carolina early in 1969. I brought the data with me to South Carolina to
continue work on writing the results of our archaeological explorations
from 1963– 1968 into a book on the potters Gottfried Aust, Rudolph Christ,
and William Ellis, as revealed by the documents and archaeology at
Bethabara and Salem.
In 1966, I prepared three copies of the book as it existed at that time.
I submitted a manuscript with maps, drawings, and photographs to John
F. Blair, publisher, who agreed to publish it under the title A House of
Passage on the Carolina Frontier. However, after 3 years it was still under
review, so I withdrew it from his hands. I had also given a copy to my
assistant, Brad Rauschenberg.
I continued work on the book as other projects would permit until by
1972 it had reached the stage of development seen in this volume: by that
time it was called Discovery in Wachovia. The major work needed then
was correlation of photographs and drawings with the text and writing of
summarizing and synthesizing sections. It was at this point, in 1972, that
the fine book The Moraviun Potters in North Carolina was published by John
Bivins, Jr., with photographs by Brad Rauschenberg, utilizing the Moravian
records and photographs from my 1966 report (Bivins 1972). It also
illustrated pottery I had recovered during 1963– 1968 excavations and that
I had restored and photographed for use in my book. With the appearance
of Bivins’ book, the publication of Discovery in Wachovia seen here was
no longer a possibility, and it has remained untouched since that time,
ix
X except for footnotes added in 1975, when 12 copies were distributed for
research purposes to various repositories.
PREFACE
However, over the years a number of occasions have arisen when
(1975)
researchers have read sections of this manuscript and have urged me
to make copies available for their research purposes. The most recent
of these specialists was Dorothy Griffiths, Curator of Ceramics for the
Canadian Historic Sites Service of the Department of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development in Ottawa. Dorothy has identified on Canadian
sites of the Revolutionary War period what may prove to be fragments
of John Bartlam ceramics made in South Carolina. As a result of these
urgings from colleagues, this unfinished book Discovery in Wachovia is
being distributed in a dozen copies only to those few companions in
research who may be interested in the data it contains.
Photographic data are presented here in rough photocopied form
without a specific assigning of figure numbers to the plates or a correlation
with the text. This was a major unfinished task facing me in 1972 when all the
work on the manuscript came to a halt. Some drawings included here are in
an incomplete state, and are so indicated on the enclosed copies, having
been in the process of being drafted from the original field drawings when
work stopped. The original drawings, and other data, photographs, nega-
tives, provenience cards, profile drawings, drawings of ceramic forms,
rubbings of marks from vessels, etc., are on deposit with the archives of the
administrative sponsor of the Bethabara Project, the Southern Province of the
Moravian Church, in Old Salem, North Carolina. The artifacts are curated at
Old Salem, Inc., and at the Historic Bethabar a Park.
The early years of excavation at Bethabara were concerned with
recovery of archaeological, architectural, and artifactual data from many
ruins in the town, but once the ceramic data began to appear relative to
the ware of the potters Aust, Christ, Krause, and Ellis from the Bethabara
excavations, interest turned to this area of research. As a result, the
analysis of details of architecture, archaeology, and artifacts other than
ceramics was set aside, and emphasis was placed on ceramics as the
“
“queen of research interest.
Consequently, the view of these areas of the Bethabara story, as
seen through archaeology and presented herein, is one oriented toward
popular appeal as originally planned to be published as part of A House
of Passage on the Carolina Frontier. In the future, perhaps, research and
interpretation at Bethabara can deal with questions regarding other
aspects of life as revealed through the documents and archaeology. For
the present, however, and likely for many years to come, the primary
focus will be on the dramatic story presented by the ceramics made at
Bethabara and Salem.
Acknowledgments for the Preparation of Twelve Copies
of the Book (1975)
I would like to thank my wife Jewell for help in putting these copies
together. I would also like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Robert L.
Stephenson, Director of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and xi
Anthropology at the University of South Carolina.
PREFACE
Copies of this book Discovery in Wachovia have been placed as (1975)
follows for the purpose of research accessibility:
1. Dr. E. L. Stockton, for the archives of the Southern Province of the
Moravian Church
2. Mrs. Charles H. Babcock, in appreciation of the great interest she
and her husband have shown through sponsoring the Bethabara
research and development
3. lvor Noël Hume, for the Department of Archaeology, Colonial
Williamsburg, Virginia
4. Bradford L. Rauschenberg, for Old Salem, Winston-Salem, North
Carolina
5. Dr. Larry E. Tise, for the North Carolina Division of Archives and
History
6. Dr. Robert L. Stephenson, for the Institute of Archaeology and
Anthropology, University of South Carolina
7. E. L. lnabinett, for the South Caroliniana Library, University of South
Carolina
8. Dr. Charles Lee, for the South Carolina Archives Department
9. Dr. lain C. Walker, for the Ceramics Section, Historic Sites Section,
Canadian Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Ottawa, Canada
10. Stanley South, archaeologist, Institute of Archaeology and Anthro-
pology, University of South Carolina
11. Frank Horton, for the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
12. Review copy for circulation as needed
A Note for Those Interested in Further Research ( 1975)
The artifacts recovered from the Bethabara and Salem projects are located
in Salem and Bethabara, North Carolina under the custodial care of Old
Salem, Inc. and the Southern Province of the Moravian Church. Copies of
the various progress reports are on file at the archives of the Southern
Province of the Moravian Church, as well as the following data:
Book or
lot
number Description
1. “Bethabara 1753–1 772, A Photographic Report of the
Archaeological Project of 1964”
2. Archaeological square sheets from which the maps were
drafted, Bethabara Project
3. Bethabara survey data sheets for mapping ruins
4. Bethabara and Salem Project miscellaneous research notes
xii 5. Glenn Little notes on the Christ-Krause Dump (B55),
South-Demmy profiles of the Christ ware from B55, and the
PREFACE
(1975) Krause–Burner Trench.
6. Bethabara ceramic catalog
7. Bethabara ceramic profiles, Waster Dump # 1 (Aust) (B4), and
Waster Dump #2 (Aust) (B51)
8. Bethabara ceramic profiles for B20, B41, B44, B45, B55 (the
Christ–Krause Period)
9. Analysis catalog for the Christ–Krause Waster Dump (B55) and
the Krause-Butner Trench
10. Bethabara and Salem Project correspondence book #1
11 . Bethabara and Salem Project correspondence book #2
12. Bethabara budget, payroll, public relations, etc.
13. Garry Stone’s Salem Lot 49 provenience cards
14. File drawer with 5 × 8 inch cards: Bethabara provenience
cards, Bethabara historical research notes, Bethabara artifact
research cards, type descriptions, and pottery mark research
(mark rubbings for B4, B5 1, B55, B65, etc.)
15. Metal file drawer for 4 × 5 inch negatives (500 negatives) plus
“
two rolls of 35 mm. film of various “fine pottery sherds from
the Lot 49, Salem Project. These are labeled “Series B
Negatives“ (for Bethabara)
" "
16. Large wooden drawer 13" × 1 8 × 24" of 8 × 10 photographs
mounted on cards, with identifying negative number,
arranged according to subject, ruin, etc., for ease in locating
negatives for any subject of interest. Contains a card for each
negative in the negative file.
“
17. Small cardboard box marked “Salem Series S Negatives,
containing 108 negatives from the Salem Lot 49 Project.
These negatives have the print mounted on the negative
sleeve for easy identification.
18. Color slides. Many of these were placed on deposit at the time
the project was underway, for both the Salem and Bethabara
expeditions.
19. Ten Herculene film master drawings for the drawings
accompanying this report.
20. Xerox copy of the 440-page manuscript Discovery in Wachouia
Stanley South
Columbia, South Carolina
January 1975