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Crew assembles for first day of dig.

In June a dig team launched a search for site where Civil War general Josiah Gorgas and his family lived during an ill fated effort (1866-1870) by the former chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau to reopen the Bibb Naval Works.  During the war, the ironworks had supplied pig iron used to cast the famed Brooke guns and cannon prized by southern artillerymen.

Remnants of multiple shallow stone hearths.

A large double fireplace discovered early in the dig became the key we needed define the foot print of the Gorgas home.

The base of a double fireplace.

House corner.

Time ran out before we could determine the full dimensions of the substantial structure but we did succeed in locating several brick support piers and one house corner. 

The Gorgas home is an important part of the Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park because of the historically significant people who lived here. Josiah Gorgas had achieved prominence in the Confederate military because of his role as Chief of the Confederate Ordinance Bureau. His wife, Amelia Gayle, the daughter of an Alabama governor, went on after her husband’s death to serve as Director of the Library, named in her honor, at the University of Alabama.  Son John Crawford Gorgas developed the program of mosquito control that eliminated yellow fever and made possible the completion of the Panama Canal. In later years, as US Surgeon General, John Crawford would revisit Brierfield telling his hosts that his childhood days there had been among the best of his life.

Archaeology volunteers return to Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park to investigate the remains of a domestic structure on Furnace Branch about 400 meters upstream from the blast furnaces. These are probably the remains of house where a furnace worker and his family lived.

Tying the dig site to the archaeological grid of the park.

Kaylee Vernon worked the total station as we staked out the one meter squares that volunteers will be digging.

Opening the first two excavation units.

UAB student Brian Nichols (front) and Forester Carl Vernon dig the first level of the first two units we will be excavating. Carl's square contains bricks that were part of a worker house.

It’s too soon to tell how much survives of the worker house but our first day of digging suggests that we may be able to learn a great deal over the next week.  We have already identified two other houses in the immediate vicinity. One of these was a pyramidal hipped roof duplex. Also nearby was a church which is shown on a 1908 U.S. Geological Survey topographic map.

Here is a short video discussing the brick remains.

Video of brick remains of worker house.

On Day Six, we uncovered the remains of the structure’s fireplace. After two days of excavation, we’ve found some interesting details. In the following three video clips, Dr. Jack Bergstresser explains:

We spent the last few days exposing the pile of bricks that we suspect covers the remains of a fireplace. If we can expose the fireplace we have another key piece of evidence to use in estimating the footprint of the structure.

We are finding many artifacts. Among the most interesting are several pieces of this folk pottery which we think is a salt glazed type made somewhere in Alabama. Joey Brackner has studied the potters of Alabama and he and his fellow enthusiasts may be able to tell us who made this distinctive type. If we can identify it’s origin, the information will help us in our efforts to piece together the 19th century trade networks for domestically manufactured goods in upland Alabama. Click the picture above to view a larger version of the photo.

While the field crew digs, Jim Duffy, a retired research chemist from Maryland, continues to clean iron objects we recovered from the cellar last fall. The latest object to come out of the electrolysis tank is this hinge from the cellar door. We found both hinge and pintle units from the door along with many other beautiful 19th century hand wrought iron objects. These items are slated for display at our museum at Tannehill.

We found it! Saturday morning we finally located intact remnants of the fire place. The line of bricks running vertically across the middle of the photo have just been exposed and a little difficult to distinguish, but we will have them cleaned up in no time. From this new evidence we can estimate the mid point of the end walls of the structure. Since we already know the location of the opposite end wall and the back wall, based on the corner bricks we found on day two, we can now project the front wall. This combined data will give us the basic footprint of our structure. Now we can begin to look more closely at nail size and distribution and other architectural data to try and determine where doors windows and other features were located.

On Friday night we hold our regular close out party at the Garvin Lab because some team members have to get back home. The rest of us will spend another week digging and doing lab work. Note the new generation of archaeologists. That’s my grandson Darian in the bottom center of the group pic and Nancy Hicks’ grandson directly above. Our most important mission with AHIC Archaeology is to pass on to the next generation our love and pride in our heritage and the need to preserve it. Our SAV Team Members travel long distances each dig to help us with this task and we are forever in their debt.

Day Two of our dig was much more productive than Day One: the weather was beautiful–bright, sunny, but not too hot, with just a hint of a nice breeze. Many of our dig units reached their second or third level: each meter-square unit is dug in levels of 10 centimeters.

The contents of each level are sifted through a wire mesh to separate the loose dirt and stones from the artifacts. When an artifact — a nail, a piece of pottery, or other object — is found, it’s placed in a labelled bag; the bags tell which unit and level the artifact came out of, the date it was found, and the diggers that were working on the unit at the time.

The best find of the day wasn’t in a unit, however. We found these four bricks under a thick cover of leaves and humus. They rest on a layer of stones and are held together by lime mortar. We think they are the southeast corner of the structure we are investigating. If they are a corner they will become crucial evidence in our effort to identify the footprint of the structure.

In the following two videos, Dr. Jack Bergstresser explains a bit about our dig location, and about the cornerstone itself.

Today was the first of our dig at the Spring Site at Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park. Crew members are just beginning to excavate the first levels of their one-meter squares. We’re opening a ten-meter trench across what we suspect to be the footprint of a 19th century house. It was a chilly day. Frost the night before. Intermittent rain prevented us from getting much done, but tomorrow, we’re hoping for sunshine.

We call our dig location the Spring Site because it is located just up the hill from this brick-lined spring which feeds into Furnace Branch. The spring probably provided cool water to the occupants of the house we’re investigating.

Dave Jordan, ace excavator from California, opens a square next to a large pile of brick.

The brick is some of the earliest we have identified here at the old ironworks. Hand-pressed, low-fired, it was probably made by slave workers. The Confederate government, eager to build an industrial infrastructure in central Alabama, made hundreds of slave workers available to iron makers. The Union Army had disrupted industrial operations in Tennessee, Virginia, and other regions of the South. The isolated hill country of central Alabama was rich in iron ore, coal, and other raw materials.

Over the next week, Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park hosts it’s 22nd week-long volunteer dig (SAV AHIC Program).  We will be exploring what may be one of the earliest houses at the park. Located above a spring that feeds into Furnace Branch along an old road into the ironworks, we have no historical records of its architecture or function. Every thing we learn will be new information! We will post updates and short videos from time to time while the dig is in session so check back often.