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| DIG! has been DUG! |
After 5 terrific summers, DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery has come to an end. Last week, staff and Colonial Williamsburg volunteers were allowed to excavate the Archibald Blair Storehouse site, and finally uncover the cellar floor. I joined in on the last day to help out and commemorate my times over the years with this particular program and site.
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| DIG! Excavation and Prentis Store - October 2019 |
The mood of the day was ambivalent. Happy to dig, but sad that it was the last time at the site.
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| Ambivalent Brownies, baked by a DIG! volunteer. Whatever mood you chose, they were still delicious. |
The goal was to unearth the complete rectangle of the chosen site... unfortunately, that did not happen. One side of the site had 2" of dirt to the bottom. The other side was found to have close to 7". One corner was filled with clay that did not want to budge. Towards the later part of the day, shovels became more prevalent in hopes of dislodging dirt faster. Great progress and strides were made, but at the end of the day, there was still plenty of dirt.
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| The final results of 5 summers of DIG! |
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| Digging on the cellar floor of the Archibald Blair Storehouse |
There were still treasures to be found: Toy marbles, pieces of decorative plates, rusty nails, clay pipe pieces, bricks, buttons, glass, animal bones, oyster shells, and lots and lots of dirt.
A couple of the unique items found on the last day that I photographed:
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| A circular metal thing? For a buckle maybe? |
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| Tiny, tiny, tiny piece of glass with an R etched into it |
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| Bottom of the Coca-Cola glass bottle, which reads "Newport News" |
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| Coca-Cola Newport News Bottling building facade I shot a couple years back. The plant is no longer operational. |
It was sad to see it covered up by the tarp one last time. There is still 1-2 days worth of digging left to complete what has been dug. There are other features of the cellar outside of the chosen rectangle of the excavation, but utility lines are in the way. As there are no current plans to move these lines, the excavation can go no further.
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| Shot of the latest version of the Visitor Center's DIG! display case. |
When I was talking with guests about the site, a common question was what's going to happen next? Are you going to rebuild the storehouse? Unfortunately, no. Digging in the dirt is one thing. Constructing a building is another. The cellar will be reburied.
With my current amount of research, I do not know why the storehouse wasn't rebuilt during the Restoration with Rockefeller. Back when I worked for Williamsburg full-time, I located a proposal from 1977 to rebuild it and use it as a retail location, but that did not come to fruition.
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| Wheelbarrow getting ready to take supplies back... one last time. |
Will DIG! come back at a new site next summer? I sure hope so. It's a wonderful program that shows a different yet necessary side of the Williamsburg story. It's fun, hands-on, and educational. You get to touch the history! It's a lovely time, with a lovely group of people.
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| CW Archaeologist Meredith and I after a last day of digging at DIG! |
Sometimes, community can be found in a dirt pit, looking for the past's trash. Thank you to all the archaeologists and volunteers I befriended over the years at this site. Till the next one!
Sources:
Colonial Williamsburg Archaeology Facebook Post - Oct 3, 2019
"Renovation and Fixturing of the John Greenhow Store and Taliaferro-Cole Shop" [Segment of document that I copied pages out of from the CWF Rockefeller Library back in 2015. Apologies for the partial source]
See other stories on DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery:
DIG! during the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017
DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery 2016
35/15 Part 5 - Ludwell-Paradise
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