Archaeologists from the UMass Boston Department of Archeology and the Fiske Center for Archeological Research have been conducting an exploration of the grounds surrounding the Jeremiah Lee Mansion and Brick Kitchen at 157-161 Washington Street.
This is the third summer that these archaeologists have partnered with the Marblehead Museum to help it better understand how the Lee property was used many years ago. This year, the goals are to uncover the late 18th-century privy, or outhouse, well, work yard, and barn foundations.
Artifacts found will be processed in the UMass laboratories during the fall and winter. Eventually, all artifacts will be returned to the Marblehead Museum for its permanent collection.
According to Marblehead Museum Executive Director Lauren McCormack, the archaeologists have set up yellow flags throughout the grounds to discern where they will be digging, “and it’s all based on what they’ve found in past years that they want to explore further,” or based on a geophysical study that was done.
That study includes ground-penetrating radar, and as the archaeologists made a grid across the grounds with that radar, “they found anomalies that they said, ‘This could be something. This is something we want to explore.’”
So far, Research Scientist for the Fiske Center Christa Beranek said they have found at least 1,500 new artifacts at Lee Mansion just this summer. There have been about 40,000 artifacts collected at Lee Mansion since UMass began working at the property in 2022.
Beranek noted that it has been difficult to find artifacts from the property that actually date to the Lee period because “it’s a 20 year time period, which archaeologically speaking, is very short.”
“We have a lot more evidence from the people who were here from 1690-1750 because that’s just such a longer time period. The other thing that’s challenging is that much of Lee’s landscape was this formal, cobbled surface which was kept clean and swept. From the earlier time periods and the later time periods, we have a lot of trash that’s being deposited in the yard, and Lee was maintaining such a formal landscape that that wasn’t the case,” Beranek said.
Among the many new artifacts that have been found recently are parts of red pipe bowls, which McCormack said were not often found in New England. She said that most pipe bowls in that time period in New England would have been white, British imports whereas the red pipe bowls were typically made in Virginia and popular amongst enslaved populations.
McCormack said these discoveries now beg the questions: Was Lee trading in Virginia? Were they bought in bulk? Was it an enslaved person from Virginia’s pipe?
Interested community members are invited to check out the progress. Excavations and related work will continue until June 27, but it is likely the work may be completed and wrapped up by June 25. Visitors can stop by Monday-Friday from 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. It will be closed June 19 for Juneteenth, as it is a federally recognized holiday.
“It’s definitely a community project, and I’d be remiss if I did not thank the community because it was because a lot of museum members and the public donated that we were able to do this,” McCormack said.
The project has been funded in part by a grant from the Preservation Fund for Eastern Massachusetts of the National Trust Preservation Funds, as well as numerous generous donors. Marblehead Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the mission to preserve, protect and promote Marblehead’s part as a means of enriching the present.
