We’re under way at the Bird-Houston Site. This corner of a flat, muddy field was somebody’s home for 150 years, from around 1770 to 1920. The house here appears on no map and was never noticed by the tax collector. Even on surveys of the property the spot is just mapped as a wood lot. The residents were tenants, and their hidden little house in the woods must have been dear to their hearts.  Please see this link to learn more about the site:

https://deldot.gov/environmental/archaeology/us301/pdf/handouts/BirdHoustonSiteHandout.pdf

During the testing of the site last year we found that it is divided into two parts. One part dates to around 1770 to 1830, the other from 1830 to 1920. Likely the first house on the site was falling down, so the residents built a new one 50 yards away. We found interesting things in both parts. In the more modern part we found a well, filled in when the site was abandoned, and what we think are house foundations.  On the older part we found some pits, some post holes, and a weird pit, half filled in with clay from the swamp nearby, which nobody has been able to interpret. Maybe we’ll figure it out when we dig the rest! Next week we’ll bring out a backhoe and start stripping the topsoil from the site, we can’t wait to see what we will find.