Figure 1.—Top: Hypothetical elevations based on foundations discovered on Tutter's Neck site. Bottom: Conjectural reconstruction based on elevations of the Tutter's Neck site, about 1740. Elevations by E. M. Frank, director of architecture, Colonial Williamsburg; conjectural drawings by R. Stinely.
Ivor Noël Hume
Excavations at
TUTTER'S NECK
in James City County, Virginia, 1960-1961
Land clearance for reforestation of property leased from Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., resulted in the exposure of numerous fragments of early 18th-century pottery and glass. Partial excavation of the site, known as Tutter's Neck, revealed foundations of a small colonial dwelling and outbuilding, both of which had ceased to exist by about 1750.
This paper describes and analyzes the artifacts recovered from refuse pits on the site. These artifacts, which have been given to the Smithsonian Institution, are closely dated by context and are valuable in the general study of domestic life in early 18th-century Virginia.
The Author: Ivor Noël Hume is director of the department of archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and an honorary research associate of the Smithsonian Institution.
In the summer of 1959 the Chesapeake Corporation undertook land-clearance operations prior to reforestation on property leased from Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., lying to the east of College Creek, which runs into the James River below Jamestown Island (see fig. 2). In the course of this work the foundations of a small and hitherto unrecorded colonial residence were bulldozed and largely destroyed. In the spring of 1960, Mr. Alden Eaton, director of landscape construction and maintenance for Colonial Williamsburg, while walking over the razed area, picked up numerous fragments of early 18th-century pottery and glass which he later brought to the writer for identification. As the result of this find a survey of the site was undertaken, and two colonial foundations were located and partially excavated.[57]