The post-dig work got under way last week at the Independence Living History Center public archaeology laboratory, Third and Chestnut Streets, and will continue every day over the next several weeks. The public can visit the lab and watch the work seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Brian Seidel, a lab supervisor with URS, was on the job there recently, much like a dishwasher, scrubbing seemingly endless numbers of clay pipe stems and bowls, castoffs from a tobacco store run by George Zorn and his descendants in the 19th century. After the President's House was demolished in 1832, three commercial buildings were erected on the land; Zorn's business occupied one of those buildings.
The store is long gone, but its leavings remained in the ground and in great abundance, as archaeologists discovered during the course of this summer's dig.
Obviously, Seidel pointed out, the pipes were not associated with Washington or his successor, John Adams, who occupied the house until the national capital moved to Washington in 1800. In fact, it is too early to tell if anything taken out of the ground at the site can be tied to the presidential decade, 1790-1800.
But archaeologists did unearth a few intriguing finds, some from the 19th century and some that might well date to the 18th century, including an intact redware ceramic crock, found 30 feet down an old well, and an unusual Chinese porcelain bowl with a dragon pattern, found in another well on the site.
Both can be seen at the lab. Do they date from the presidential period? Possibly, although archaeologists said they may be from a slightly earlier period, and the crock is of a local variety produced in abundance well into the 19th century. Further analysis may well provide more precise dating.
