There is no evidence as to the height of this back addition to the Hawkins house. However, the Roberson statement of 1741[42] says that Oglethorpe stood in the window and put his head between the joists of Davison’s house. It is further stated that Oglethorpe’s action involved the roof levels of the two houses. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that the joists mentioned are roof joists. As the only place in the Hawkins house where a window could face the Davison house is in the narrow gap between the south addition and the Davison house it seems this addition must have been three stories high. As this was the only addition to the house that was made of brick it seems to correspond to that mentioned as being completed by August of 1740 which cost £60.[43]
One other well belonging to the Hawkins lot was forty feet west of the house just inside the western line of the lot. It was circular and probably had a well house over it. Slightly over six feet deep the walls were supported by another series of bottomless barrels. It also had been filled with household trash including a very fine musket bayonet. All these wells had planks laid across the bottom, apparently to prevent the well bucket from muddying the well. This last well had in addition a large square post of unknown use resting on the plank. Just west of the well was a poorly defined line of root disturbances which may mark the location of the hedge of pomegranates mentioned for Dr. Hawkins lot.[44]
The Davison House
The home of Samuel Davison lay to the east of the east wall of the Hawkins house. The front room was seventeen feet east-west and eighteen feet north-south. Directly back of this was an additional room twenty and a half feet east-west and eleven feet north-south. The east wall, however, was straight, the extra three and a half feet being taken up by a stairwell along the east side of the north room. The floor of the north room had originally been excavated to a level two feet four inches below colonial ground level. Only a disturbed sand strata remained of the lowest floor level, and it is not possible to determine of what the floor was originally composed. It was soon covered with a tabby floor whose upper surface was two feet below ground level. This floor was later covered by a brick floor, set with tabby mortar in a herringbone pattern. In the middle of the east wall there was a doorway four feet four inches wide opening into the stairwell on that side. The floor of this door appears to have joined a stair up to the stairwell, possibly to both sides. In the southeast corner of the north room was another doorway of the same width. A short flight of steps remained leading from the floor level up to the south. The steps are of brick with a four inch wooden nosing.
The north wall and the north half of the east wall were of brick. The south half of the east wall and the south wall were tabby. In the middle of the west (party) wall, directly opposite the fireplace of Dr. Hawkins house, was a fireplace five feet wide. It was formed by two short pilasters extending out from the wall. At first these were slightly less than two feet long, but they were lengthened at a later date to slightly less than three feet. The walls as well as the fireplace were plastered. This, however, was not the finished wall. The brick and tabby floors did not come up quite to the wall. The space between the floor and wall, four inches wide, had contained wooden lath and a plaster coat “furred” out from the masonry or tabby wall. This gave the room a double wall and certainly made it drier and warmer than a plastered brick or tabby wall, as in the case of the Hawkins house. This suggests an explanation for the remark attributed to Dr. Hawkins, that he would sell the Davison children, “one to the Carpenter and the other to the Plasterer.”[45] It is perhaps understandable that the village doctor and magistrate would be irritated that his neighbor could afford a tighter, drier house. The south room was larger than the north but not so elaborately finished. Perhaps in this case the boys in the back room were the less favored customers at the Davison tavern. The walls appear to have been brick with the exception of the north wall which was tabby. All the walls had been salvaged down to the bottom course of brick so that it is not sure that they may have been of wood or tabby on a brick footing. However, the footings appear to be so similar to those for the other brick walls that I think we may conclude that they were, in fact, brick. The remains of a tabby floor covered part of the room area and it is possible the entire floor was so paved. There is a suggestion of steps down from outside to the northeast corner of the room, but very little remained in this section and the size of these steps cannot be determined. Just north of the Davison house a narrow ditch running parallel to the front wall was found. It is not certain what this represents except that it is clearly some sort of front fence.
Samuel Davison ran a tavern and it seems the lower floor of his house was the tap room. The large quantity of bottle fragments and stoneware mug fragments found around the house support this view. A total of 651 pieces of clay pipe bowls and stems were found in and around the house. They reflect the 18th Century custom of smoking in the taverns and give some idea of the frequency of smoking as well as the fragility of the pipes used.
The Davison lot was supposed to be completely fenced and efforts were made to locate the evidences of these fences along the east, west, and south sides. A row of postholes was found along the west side to the southwest corner and followed a short distance along the south side. The east side seemed to have another fence, but it was obscured by a series of wells as that along the west side of the Hawkins lot had been.
South of the Davison lot an open space fourteen feet three inches wide was found. South of that tabby remains were found, but time and funds did not permit their exploration. The Miller map of 1796 gives the width of the first street south of Broad Street as 14 feet. The open space south of the corner of lot 2 fits this width quite nicely. The 1736 Auspourger map says that the width of street “C” is sixteen feet. Only more thorough excavation will clear up this point. In any case the tabby to the south would be the remains of a building on South Ward Lot 19, belonging to Thomas Sumner, or to South Ward Lot 20, belonging to Daniel Prevost. The southwest corner of South Ward Lot 2, Samuel Davison, was located with some accuracy. Measuring north ninety feet, along the line of the party wall, the northwest corner was found to be three feet north of the northwest corner of the Davison house. The front stairwell of the Hawkins house extended out into the street alignment a matter of six inches. This line between lots 1 and 2 was taken as the base for laying out the grid of town lots as shown on the Miller and Auspourger maps. The town grid fits very well with the present contours that seem to represent colonial features. It can be assumed that the town grid of Frederica has again been determined. It should be possible to locate any specific town lot from the information now in hand.
Along the east side of the Davison lot a series of pits was excavated in an attempt to locate the fence along that side. There were postholes that very probably represent the fence but the area was taken up largely by three wells, two round and one square. Time permitted only the clearing of the square one. This well was exactly what might be expected on the Davison lot, the upper part had been filled with a solid mass of fragments of bottles, a total of five thousand three hundred and ninety-five pieces. The quantities of glass and other household refuse in this and other wells suggest that the colonists saved such materials to fill old wells.