By Aila Boyd aboyd@ourvalley.org
Members of Friends of Greenfield Preston Plantation and Keith Adams, an archeologist with Hurt & Proffitt, visited Greenfield Elementary School Friday morning to install a display case with artifacts that were discovered around the former Greenfield Plantation site.
Over 400 students will now be able to learn about local history when they walk past the display case to and from class.
“It’s a pretty interesting site,” Adams said of Greenfield.
All of the items that were placed in the display case came from the earlier small structure that is believed to have been present on the property when Col. William Preston acquired the land.
“The fact that the subfloor pit (slave storage pit) cut through a brick firebox indicates that the short-lived structure had at least two uses, ending its life a slave cabin,” Adams explained.
Most of the ceramics included in the display were imported, contrasting with hand wrought metals.
“There’s a lot to be said about the variety, quality, and expensive nature of many of these imports for life on the frontier in the 1750s and 1760s,” Adams said.
An English Soft-Paste Porcelain, which dates to around 1770, is one of the ceramics that’s included in the display. It is an imitation of Chinese export porcelain.
English White Salt-Glazed Stoneware dating from 1750 to 1775 is also included. The mold patterns of the stoneware include a basket and diaper, cartouch and diaper, barley and gadroon.
“We know William Preston was an early adopter. We might call him an influencer today,” Adams said. “The white salt-glazed stoneware was well out of style by 1780. Expensive, the ware was likely purchased by Col. Preston and discarded or handed down as he began to purchase the newest style Creamwares while in Williamsburg.”
Another type of stoneware, Westerwald, was also placed on display. The German stoneware, which was not used after 1740, has a manganese purple color decoration. It was most commonly used as a fancy chamber pot or as a drinking tankard/mug.
A soft paste tin-glazed ceramic that was a cheaper imitation of Chinese porcelains called Delft is also on display in the case. Delft, Adams explained, is named after the city in Holland. However, the ware was also made in Quimper, France and Italy and Spain where it is called Majolica.
Hand wrought metals included in the display include a latch plate from a door, part of a hinge, a hook and ring, and a clavos, which is a large headed door nail. Also, a cut “t-head nail” that was used for flooring, dating from 1800 through 1885, is on display. In the center of it is a blacksmith’s “peen” hammer head.
Adams noted that he made sure that the literature associated with the displayed items was written on an elementary school level.
Archeological excavation at Greenfield started back in May 2016, with the work that was done by Hurt & Proffitt only lasting three weeks.
“A lot was disturbed when the structure was moved,” Adams explained, referencing the relocation of the former slave quarters and kitchen house.
In order for the excavation to be completed, the layer of “disturbed soil” first had to be stripped off.
Beth Pappas of Friends of Greenfield Preston Plantation noted that there is also a display case at Ballast Point Brewing Company. She added that a display case might be added to the Greenfield Education and Training Center in the future.
When originally considering where the display cases should go, Pappas explained, Greenfield Elementary School seemed like a logical choice.
“I think the kids will learn a lot from it,” she said. She went on to say that even before any of the items had been placed on display, the students had the opportunity to learn something new. The students thought that the display case was an aquarium when it was first brought to the school, she said. When she explained to them that it was going to be used to display artifacts, they told her that they didn’t know what an artifact was. So, she promptly explained that an artifact is an item of historic and cultural value.
Pappas also noted that Friends of Greenfield Preston Plantation is considering changing its name in order to reflect the county-wide preservation efforts that it engages in.
