By Michelle Switzer
Maine Historic Preservation Commission staff members, students, and volunteers work on excavating the site of Fort Richmond in May 2013. (D. Lobkowicz photo, LCN file) |
The results of the recent excavation of an 18th century fort site in the path of the new Dresden-Richmond bridge will eventually appear in an exhibit at the Old Fort Western Museum in Augusta.
Old Fort Western Museum curator, director, and historical archaeologist Linda Novak is currently in the process of sorting and cleaning 35 to 40 boxes of artifacts from the site of one of Maine’s earliest trading posts and forts in Richmond.
The artifacts were recovered during a 2012-2013 archaeological dig by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission prior to the construction of the new bridge.
The Maine Department of Transportation asked the commission to perform an archaeological survey of the area prior to construction. The survey brought to light the history of the area, which led to the excavation.
According to Novak, the initial process of washing, sorting, and logging the artifacts is extensive. There is an average of 1,000 items of various sizes in the 35 to 40 boxes.
“I’d estimate a total of 50,000 items total,” Novak said.
The group that sorts the artifacts meets weekly to clean, examine, and take notes about the artifacts.
“We separate all the objects by material,” Novak said. “Right now we’re quantifying the objects, counting the numbers of different materials.”
The second part of the analysis will be qualitative – finding out what the artifacts mean, Novak said.
Once the boxes of artifacts are washed and sorted, they are sent from Old Fort Western Museum in Augusta to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission to be analyzed and logged. They will then be returned to Old Fort Western Museum for stewardship, Novak said. There will eventually be an exhibit of both Fort Richmond artifacts and Old Fort Western artifacts.
“We are not sure when the entirety of the 35 to 40 boxes will be ready for viewing,” she said, adding she still has 20 more boxes to clean and sort.
According to Maine Historic Preservation Commission historical archaeologist Leith Smith, most of the artifacts found were from when the fairly aristocratic Parks family built on and lived at the former location of Fort Richmond in the 1800s. The family used the fort’s abandoned cellars as a convenient place to dump their trash.
The Parks family established the first ferry across the Kennebec River from Richmond to Dresden.
Ceramics and pipes were found in the cellars from the Parks family, Smith said during a 2013 presentation in Brunswick. Some older Native American pottery, flakes of ceramic, projectile points – objects like arrowheads, darts, spearheads, and knives – and glass jewelry were found as well. Artifacts found on the Fort Richmond site date as far back as the late 1600s.
According to Smith, the earliest historic occupation of the land was by Alexander Thwait, who ran a trading post in the location of the fort from 1649 to 1668.
A military garrison was built on the site in 1721 to protect the Pejepscot Proprietors, a group of Boston businessmen, who were similar to real estate developers. The garrison house was subsequently built into Fort Richmond in 1723 as the result of attacks from Native Americans, Smith said.
By 1740, the first Fort Richmond was torn down and a second fort was built due to the threat of war with Spain, Smith said. All of Massachusetts’ coastal defenses were expanded. Maine was a part of Massachusetts until 1820.
According to Smith, historians know practically nothing of what either of the forts at the Fort Richmond site actually looked like. The first fort’s primary function was as a trading post.
Archaeologists have determined that the 1723 fort was a 70-by-70 square building of hewed timber with bastions – projections arranged to give a wider firing range.
The 1740 fort was 96 feet long by 86 feet wide. The fort housed a truck house, or trading post, which was 30 feet long by 24 feet wide.
“The 1740 fort was much larger than previous historical estimations,” Smith said. “It was taken down and decommissioned in 1755.”
Historians know a blockhouse, a trading post, a chapel, and sleeping quarters were all included in the fort, surrounded by palisades, or large, pointed stakes set in the ground to form a fence.
Outside the palisades around both of the forts on the site of Fort Richmond stood lodging for the Native Americans, according to Novak.
“The Native Americans weren’t allowed to stay within the fort walls, though they traded with the men in Fort Richmond at the trading post,” she said.
Even with this information gathered from the archaeological study and dig, the Maine Department of Transportation recommended that the approach road on the Richmond side of the Maine Kennebec Bridge pass directly over the site of the fort, Smith said.
“It was the only thing they could do,” Smith said. “It would be way too expensive for them for them to put it elsewhere.”
The Maine Kennebec Bridge opened Dec. 5, 2014 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by politicians and state officials. The new bridge is 1,474 feet long, has a 100-year lifespan, and was built at a total cost of $14.5 million.
The southern portion of Fort Richmond (south of Route 197) will remain unexcavated for this particular project because it is not impacted by the bridge project, Smith said.
View Smith’s report on the dig here.
