A Word from the Faculty — John Bradford

History Lost and Found

     The practice of Historical Archaeology allows us to communicate with the past in a logical manner.  By combining related written and visual documentation with excavation and analysis of (1) man-made items identified as artifacts, and (2) natural materials forming structures of all kinds known as features, many old questions are answered and new ones raised. For example:

     In April 1606 England established two New World colonies: Jamestown in today’s Virginia, and the Popham Colony’s Fort St. George at the mouth of Maine’s Kennebec River.  Jamestown survived, but after running out of money and losing their leadership, the Popham Colonists returned to England just 14 months after arrival.

     By the end of the 19th century all traces of the colony had disappeared from sight and memory.  But in 1888 a scaled and detailed plan of Fort St. George was found in the Spanish Simancas archives.  Prepared on site by one John Hunt, it had been sent back to England in October 1607.  No other original copy of this plan has ever been found.  Spain’s Ambassador to England sent it to his King in 1608, but upon learning the colony had been shut down, the plan was filed away.  This exciting and totally unexpected piece of information matched the topography of Popham’s Sabino Head.  But, there was nothing there to see.

     And then Fort Baldwin was built on Sabino in 1906, removed in the 1920s, and ownership of the land transferred to the State of Maine.  In the 1920s and 30s the land was leased and farmed by families never realizing they were on top of a 1607 settlement.  In the 1960s the State initiated two archaeological digs, but aside from a few period artifacts, no recognizable features of the fort were found.  By the mid-1980s some experts believed that erosion plus the construction and removal of Fort Baldwin had destroyed any remains of Fort St. George.

     In 1994, archaeologist, Jeffrey Phipps Brain, opened a seven week dig on Sabino Head, determined to finally find an answer.  Using a journal compiled by colonist Robert Davies (first published in 1614), Dr. Brain was sure the plan was just that, but also part propaganda and promotion. The first six weeks were discouraging, but during the last week two timber-frame post holes with post moulds were found; the larger one almost certainly a construction feature of the storehouse, the plan’s largest building.

     Dr. Brain returned in 1997 with a one-week field school, and using the plan’s scale, the east and west side of the storehouse and the site of Fort St. George itself were confirmed without question.  Eleven digs over the next thirteen years have continued to use Hunt’s plan with remarkable success…the latest, last June, locating the Blacksmith shop remains.

     The Popham Colony’s excavation is, indeed, a time-capsule that talks to us.   By demonstrating the colony’s priorities, assortment of skills, and adjustment to its environment, it expands our knowledge of that period and increases our respect for those involved.