Remnants of 18th-century tavern found spilling from hillside in NC farmer’s yard
BY MARK PRICE
SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 01:46 PM, UPDATED SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 06:05 PM
Remnants of 18th Century Tavern Found in Eastern North Carolina
East Carolina University student Mackenzie Mulkey is analyzing ceramics from the site of an 18th Century tavern found this summer in a farmer's yard in Colrain, NC. BY CHARLES EWEN
A farmer who found a lot of oddities in his yard is being credited with leading archaeologists to a previously unheard of Revolutionary War-era historic site in Colerain, 140 miles northeast of Raleigh.
Exactly what Free Perry discovered is still a mystery, but the hundreds of artifacts suggest it was either a rowdy tavern or a warehouse for goods shipped along the river, according to Charles Ewen, director of the Phelps Archaeology Laboratory at East Carolina University.
Rowdy is an apt word given all the broken wine bottles and smoking pipes found in the debris. However, the most telling bit of evidence is a single glass jewel inscribed with a coded phrase: “Wilkes and Liberty 45,†Ewen says.
Those words, which are barely legible on the jewel, were a rallying cry for American malcontents standing in opposition of King George III. Anyone wearing such a jewel (likely in a cuff link) would have been secretly supporting sedition against Great Britain, Ewen says.
Only a handful of the beads are known to exist, including one found by Ewen last year during an excavation at Brunswick Town, a North Carolina port town destroyed by British troops in 1776.
“These artifacts are just eroding down a gully near (Perry’s) house and he’s shoveling it up,†Ewen told McClatchy News.
“Everything we had found in Brunswick Town, he has found lots more of: Twice as much bottle glass, an incredible amount of ceramics, keys, locks, bone handled utensils. And yes, a ‘Wilkes & Liberty 45’ cuff link jewel identical to what we found.â€
It’s the similarity of the artifacts to his Brunswick Town dig that makes Ewen think Perry’s yard was the site of a tavern. However, the sheer amount of artifacts has Ewen considering the possibility it was more than just a tavern.
The spot — 100 yards from the Chowan River — may have been linked to a ferry crossing, with a storage facility operating in Perry’s yard. (Ballast stones for ships have been found in the rubble.)
“He has a lot of fragments of large stoneware storage vessels: A foot to a foot and a half tall. And he’s got something marble that I’m not sure what it is: It looks like a baptismal font. It’s marble and kind of ornate,†Ewen says.
“It may have been a warehouse for people doing trade in the area. People stayed a bit at ferry crossings because it took a long time. They were gathering places.â€
Among the biggest mysteries is how the site met its demise. No signs of a fire have been found in the rubble and the bricks are scattered with no evidence of being mortared together in
HOW WAS IT FOUND?
Perry says it was actually his wife, Mollie, and 3-year-old son, Freeman, who found the first artifacts and started bringing bits and pieces into the house.
He was instantly fascinated. The family moved into the home (in the Colerain community) just 18 months ago, but Perry says his family’s roots in Bertie County go back to the 1700s.
“I grew up farming and whenever we’d start disking land in Spring, I’d walk around and look for Indian artifacts, so I’ve always had a passion for stuff like this,†Perry told McClatchy News.
“But I’d never imagine we’d come across something like this right under our nose. We were finding stuff that we had no idea what it was. I figured it was Indian artifacts until we started finding china, clay pipes with English factory markings, keys and a sewing kit. The more we looked, the more we found. It finally got to where the family would spend the weekend looking.â€
He credits his wife and cousin, Tra, with finding “a mother load of stuff coming out of the ground.†That inspired Perry to create a sifting table, which more easily separated dirt from small artifacts like a ring and the “Wilkes and Liberty 45†jewel.
Perry suspects the high-end china and British-made pipes are somehow associated with John Campbell, a wealthy “legislator, political leader, and merchant†whose Lazy Hill farm was in the same area, according to NCpedia.org.
“I think we found a trash pile, not a homestead,†Perry says. “I think we can rule out it being a homestead because of all the smoking and drinking they were doing. So it is probably was a tavern. We’ve found dozens and dozens of (broken) wine bottles and smoking pipes. I think I have filled up 10 five-gallon buckets with oyster shells, so they were doing a lot of eating, too.â€
Perry says news coverage of a “Wilkes and Liberty 45†jewel being found at Brunswick Town is what prompted the family to contact archaeologists and offer the artifacts for study.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
A preliminary examination of Perry’s artifacts suggests they are mostly from the second half of the 18th Century, Ewen says.
The material (over a dozen boxes) is now in the hands of a graduate student at East Carolina University, who is cataloging the material and will incorporate it in a thesis comparing it to materials found at two other 18th Century tavern sites found in the state.
“The more we find, the fuller picture we get of what life was like then,†Ewen said. “The Colerain tavern was a little bit later than the others and, based on the amount of stuff, maybe it was larger.â€
Ewen says he intends to examine Perry’s yard with ground penetrating radar, to see if there are remnants of structures.
Once the research has been done, the hundreds of artifacts will be returned to Perry. He says he wants to see the best of them put on display somewhere in that region.
Perry says he is hoping Ewen’s research will answer some nagging questions, including if the site is connected to John Campbell.
“I think it’s fascinating people were throwing stuff over a hill a long time ago and we’re just now finding it,†Perry says.
“But why would they throw bricks down a hill? Why would they throw away a ring? Some of the things we are finding make one wonder: What is it doing in a trash pile? The bricks we keep finding tell me that something eroded down the hill, fell over it or they pushed it over.
Topic: Another Revolution Era Tavern Site Found in NC (Read 73 times)