Grant will help protect Kingsmill artifacts

Groups seek to preserve items associated with enslaved people

JAMES CITY — Preservationists and conservationists at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources are working on safeguarding archaeological artifacts associated with enslaved people at the Kingsmill Plantation in James City County.

The project, headquartered in Richmond, was made possible through $176,176 in Save America’s Treasures grant funds provided by the National Park Service in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The state is providing matching funds for the project, estimated to take three years of staff work.

Artifacts were recovered from various archaeological excavations from 197276 at Kingsmill from the plantation site owned by Anheuser-Busch Co. amid its Kingsmill on the James residential development.

In 2018, Anheuser-Busch transferred the artifacts — an estimated 60,000 individual items stored in about 600 boxes — to the state historic resources department “because we had become known as a repository for archaeological materials,” said Chelsea Blake, conservator and project manager, “and as a safe place for storage and preservation.”

“This work will make these collections accessible to researchers, museums and community members who wish to learn more about Virginia’s colonial era,” added Elizabeth Moore, state archaeologist at the Department of Historic Resources.

An earlier grant — The Conservation Fund — provided the DHR with the ability to catalogue and start treatments on some of the artifacts, Blake said. The recent grant will allow the examination of about 230 of the boxes of roughly 23,000 of those artifacts.

“We’re not treating all 23,000 items, but rather only the metal items,” Blake said. “The archaeological metals are in a rapidly deteriorating state and need to be stabilized.”

Among the items are nails, hoes, locks, horseshoes and horse-related hardware, pots, pans, utensils and other metal items found within the domestic and farmstead context. When the grant concludes, all the metal artifacts will be placed in dry storage to slow deterioration.

How can artifacts associated with enslaved persons be distinguished from other artifacts recovered at Kingsmill?

“That’s when we really take into account the archaeological record,” Blake said. “We look at locations that are rich in enslaved artifacts and at slave quarter sites.”

All archaeological artifacts are routinely labeled as to site location and site usage, if it is known. Then, when cataloguing is done, it is possible to know who might have been associated with the specific artifact, when and where.

Kingsmill Plantation, the home of Col. Lewis Burwell III, was built around 1736, when it was described as consisting of “a mansion, outhouses, garden, 1400 acres,” according to the 1972 nomination of the plantation site for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

The mansion was destroyed about 1843, but two dependencies — the office and kitchen — remain as the only visible structures of the 18th century plantation. These are among the earliest brick dependencies in Virginia.

Excavations showed the house had a formal plan, elaborate paved forecourt, terraced gardens and numerous outbuildings, according to the DHR. Nearby, at the edge of the James River, are the remains of Burwell’s Landing or Burwell’s Ferry, which was important to the local economy during the American Revolution.

The Landing site is now visible from the 17th hole of the River Course at the Kingsmill Golf Club. The remains of the colonial-era roadway can be seen leading away from the river.

Burwell, whose nephew Carter Burwell built the nearby Carter’s Grove mansion, was named by Gov. William Gooch in 1728 to the post of naval officer, who oversaw the collection of royal customs and enforcer of trade and navigation acts. He also was a member of the Governor’s Council.

In the mid 1730s, Burwell purchased about 1,400 acres of the Kingsmill property, of which 300 acres were originally granted to a Richard Kingsmill.

Burwell gradually bought more than 2,000 acres in James City and York counties and 1,800 acres in Isle of Wight County in addition to 4,800 acres in King William County that he inherited from his father.

Historians have often referred to him as Lewis Burwell of Kingsmill to distinguish him from other close relatives of the same name.

Kingsmill saw action during the American Revolution and in the Civil War.