Contributed by Mikala Hardie
This summer, 23 young archaeologists set out to investigate one of the first buildings constructed by Samuel Phillips Jr. after he founded Phillips Academy. During the first week of the Andover Summer program, the students of the Lower School’s Dig This course were introduced to the story of the Mansion House and the mysterious fire that destroyed it in 1887. According to primary accounts, the fire seemed to have started in two different places in the house. This account was made even more suspicious by sources that said the caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, had their bags packed the day of the fire and walked away with insurance money. With this interesting piece of information, the students were excited to uncover more clues about the Mansion House and the people who inhabited it. The students worked in groups of 3 to 4 at six excavation units. These units were spread across the site in areas that, using past excavation results and Ground Penetrating Radar maps, had a good chance of finding evidence of the Mansion House.
The first day of excavations was met with enthusiasm, apprehension, and later exhaustion as the students realized how much work goes into opening a unit. Nonetheless, we persevered and by the end of the first week of excavations many groups had already finished Level 1. Some had even found glass and metal artifacts which, of course, created healthy competition between groups and motivated the students as they continued in the second week of excavations.
During the second week, things got interesting. The students working in Excavation Unit 5 came across an 1802 “Draped Bust” Liberty penny which caused a ripple of excitement for both the students and the instructors. This coin gave an important terminus post quem (TPQ) for the level and showed the students how old the artifacts we were finding really were.
Additionally, in Excavation Unit 2 Level 2, a brick feature began to reveal itself in the northeast corner. This unit was placed near a 2018 excavation unit that uncovered part of a chimney, so it is likely these features were related and Unit 2 uncovered another part of the chimney which helps in understanding how large the chimneys would have been and the layout of the Mansion House. The images below show the brick feature when it began to be discovered in Level 2 and the brick feature in Level 3 before backfilling.
The third and final week of excavations supported the archaeological adage that you always find the most interesting stuff right before you’re going to leave a project. This week, two new features were discovered. One was in Excavation Unit 6, which was intended to find one of the foundational walls of the structure. This feature also included a brick, though it is unclear if it relates to another chimney of the house. There was also a large stone and some smaller stones found near it, though, likely not enough to constitute a foundational wall of the building.
That being said, one of the biggest finds of the project included a huge rectangular stone with other large stones overlapping it. This feature was found in Excavation Unit 1 which was placed north of Excavation Unit 2 in the hopes of uncovering part of the foundation of the house. Given the size of the stone and the overlapping rock around it, it is pretty likely that this feature relates to the foundation or a wall of the Mansion House. On the last day of excavations this unit surprised us further by containing a large amount of metal artifacts in the southwest corner of the unit. A fork, a hinge, a handle, and a plethora of other artifacts were uncovered in the last level of this unit. We probably could have found more in the next level if we didn’t have to backfill the next day. This unit is definitely one to revisit in future years!
While neither unit contained a feature, Excavation Unit 3 and Excavation Unit 4 contained a lot of charcoal and mortar. Excavation Unit 3 specifically had extremely dark, somewhat ashy soil which was likely due to the fire. Ideally future Dig This! classes will uncover more of this ashy, dark soil and the data can be compiled to give a better understanding of how the fire destroyed the mansion house.
During the last week of the course, the students were busy washing their artifacts and picking a few to display at their end of the year exhibition. These artifacts included a locking mechanism, large nails, blue transfer print ceramics, a marble, a hinge, and a fork! All of the artifacts found during this summer’s course were transferred to the Peabody Institute to be cataloged and analyzed with the rest of the Mansion House artifacts.
Overall, the students had a great summer excavating the Mansion House and learning how to be archaeologists by following proper archaeological methods and recording techniques. I look forward to seeing what next summer’s Dig This class will find!
The Peabody 