This paper describes and analyzes artifacts recovered from the Jenkins site at Clay Bank, Gloucester County, Virginia. The building which overlay the excavated cellar hole does not appear on any known map. Among the number of interesting objects recovered was a large stem and foot from an elaborate drinking glass or candlestick of fine quality English lead metal. It was found in association with crude earthenwares, worn out tools, and broken and reused clay tobacco pipes, suggesting that this material was derived from various sources.

The Author: Ivor Noël Hume is director of archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and an honorary research associate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Early in January 1962 a brick foundation was discovered at Clay Bank in Gloucester County following the removal of a walnut tree beside the residence of Mr. William F. Jenkins. The tree was of no great antiquity but the foundation beneath it was thought by Mr. Jenkins to be worthy of archeological examination. The author, therefore, visited the site late in the same month and found that the brick footings were certainly of colonial date. From the small collection of ceramics and other artifacts also exposed by the tree, there was reason to suppose that the building had ceased to exist late in the 17th or perhaps early in the 18th century.

The site lay on the north bank of the York River on rising ground immediately west of Clay Bank landing. Little or nothing was known about the property in the colonial period and it was apparently identified on no known maps or land plats. However, the fact that it was adjacent to part of the 18th-century Page family plantation (whose mansion house had been included in previous archeological work[1]) and because the Clay Bank site gave promise of yielding information regarding domestic life in the late 17th century, the author decided to undertake limited excavation in the area of the structure.

With the assistance of local volunteer labor and the archeological staff of Colonial Williamsburg, two trenches were dug, one exposing a larger area of the brick foundation, and the other parallel to it some 11 feet to the west in the direction of the river. The first cutting revealed the remains of a massive brick chimney measuring 10 feet 2 inches by 6 feet using oystershell mortar and laid in English bond. The brickwork was not bonded to, or abutting against, any wall foundation and it was therefore presumed that the building to which it belonged had stood on piers.

The second trench cut through mixed strata of sand, black soil, and scattered oystershells extending downward to a depth of at least 3 feet 9 inches, at which level a thick layer of shells was found. In the top of the shell stratum were fragments of glass wine bottles of the late 17th century and parts of an iron can. It was clear that the trench was not wide enough to enable the artifacts to be studied in situ or removed in safety, and consequently work was halted until the project could be developed into an area excavation.

Both the stratigraphy and the similarity in date of artifacts from top to bottom of the test trench strongly indicated that we were cutting through one deposit, probably the filling of a cellar belonging to the same building as the large brick chimney to the east. Remembering the huge quantities of artifacts that had been recovered from a single hole at neighboring Rosewell, it was hoped that yet another significant contribution would be made to the archeology of colonial Virginia. But in the final analysis the Clay Bank site was to prove less rich and less historically important (owing to a lack of adequate documentation) than had been anticipated. On the credit side, however, it did contribute new facts relating to building construction in 17th-century Virginia, as well as yielding a series of closely dated tools and miscellaneous artifacts, plus one piece of glass that is not only without parallel in America, but which is of sufficient importance to merit a place in the annals of English glass. For this one object alone, the Clay Bank project would have been eminently worthwhile.

Historical Background

Archeology may be termed the handmaiden of history in that it is truly the servant of the historian, providing information that is not to be gleaned from documentary records. At best it is a poor substitute for the written word, but when the two are used together the pages of history may acquire an enlivening new dimension. This is particularly true of American colonial history where the documentation often is extremely full.

Unfortunately Gloucester County was one of those whose Court Records were destroyed during the Civil War, and it is difficult and often impossible to establish property histories over an extended period of time. However, it is debatable just how much of the blame can be laid at the doors of war, as many of the county's colonial records had already been destroyed in a fire at the clerk's office of the Gloucester courthouse in 1820.