The midden was located 80 feet from the Mansion, typical for colonial garbage pits.

 

The midden was located in the South Grove.

In the spring of 1990, Mount Vernon’s archaeologists discovered dark soil and artifacts buried on the South Lawn while repairs were made to the underground sprinkler system. These artifacts were not the first to be found in the South Grove. In 1948 while relocating a mature holly tree, workers uncovered many artifacts and based on these two episodes the archaeologists hypothesized that the South Grove was a likely location for trash deposits from both the Kitchen and Mansion. In 1990, the archaeologists began exploration in the South Grove seeking a trash pile, or midden. Over the next five years, archaeologists uncovered a large trash midden at the site of the sprinkler repair, uncovering more than 75,000 artifacts. 

In 1948, planting a holly tree destroyed a trash pit.

 The first field season, excavations were conducted in a 20 x 40-foot area behind the kitchen where the large holly was planted in 1948. At that time, workmen saved over 35 bases of 18th-century wine bottles and other large artifacts, leading the professional archaeologists in 1990 to believe they had dug up a midden. The 1990 excavations located the very large hole, 20 feet wide and five-feet deep, dug to remove the holly, which had not survived in the South Grove very long. Unfortunately, no layers of 18th-century trash remained in this area.

At the end of the 1990 field season, the archaeologists moved 20-feet east to the location of the finds associated with the sprinkler repair. An initial 10-foot square was excavated and almost immediately the signs of a midden – dark, loamy soil and artifacts – were visible.

Excavation began in 1990.

During the course of the next two field seasons, a 30 x 30-foot area was excavated revealing an oval trash deposit, approximately 20-feet by 15-feet. There were also numerous modern utility lines running through this area and an 18th-cenutury brick drain. 

The excavation of the modern disturbances allowed archaeologists to see the complex stratigraphy and high degree of integrity within the midden. The brick drain was an important chronological marker and provided archaeologists with a terminus ante quem, or TAQ. This Latin phrase means “time before which” and is an important concept in the relative dating of archaeological remains.

The 1775 brick drain ran through the midden.

  Documentary sources suggested that the brick drain was built in ca. 1775 to direct water run-off from the southern wing of the Mansion. Therefore, layers of soil that were intruded by this feature were deposited before that date and layers of soil that were overlying this feature were deposited after 1775. 

The most artifact-rich layers of soil were those intruded by the brick drain, or deposited prior to 1775. These layers were excavated between 1992 and 1994. Because of the quantity and excellent preservation of artifacts, and floral and faunal remains, soil from the feature was processed through water screening and flotation.

The midden contained thousands of objects discarded from the Mansion and Kitchen.

  Water screening uses water to recover materials as small as 1/16” while flotation recovers even smaller seeds and other items lighter than water. These two recovery methods retained items like tiny beads, straight pins, lead gun shot, fish bones and microscopic seeds – all of which are important in understanding diet and daily life.

Excavation and the recovered artifacts provided details about the creation of the midden. Based upon historical and architectural evidence, the earliest possible terminus post quem (TPQ – Latin for “time after which” and the companion to TAQ) of the midden is ca. 1735, when George Washington’s father, Augustine Washington, built the Mansion. Analyzing TPQs for each layer in the pre-1775 deposit suggested the feature formed between ca. 1735 to 1765. Three layers up from the bottom, the midden contained a molded white salt glazed sherd, manufactured after 1740. This layer, and the one overlying it, also contained molded pipe bowls displaying the royal arms motif dating from the early 1740s.

Over 50 soil layers created the midden.

 A layer in the center of the midden contained pieces of a tin glazed ointment pot manufactured about 1750. The 1750 TPQ of this layer is supported by the presence of a molded pipe bowl with the maker’s mark “TD,” dated to 1748.

Above this, a layer the archaeologists referred to as the ‘plaster layer’ contained an extremely high concentration of plaster. We think this plaster was discarded during one of the renovations to the Mansion. The associated artifacts suggest it was a renovation that occurred between 1750 and 1765, and the only one known is the “Phase I” expansion of the Mount Vernon Mansion completed by George Washington in 1759.

Archaeologists learn about diet from animal bones like this deer antler and skull.

This remodeling campaign entailed raising the building from one and a half to two full stories and “puling Down the old plastering and [laths] out of the rooms.” The plaster is overlain by a layer containing debased scratch-blue stoneware, manufactured ca. 1765. These layers were intruded by the ca. 1775 brick drain.

The layers of soil deposited above the brick drain had fewer artifacts implying that after 1775 less trash was deposited in the South Grove. These layers contained creamware and pearlware ceramics, supporting the chronology. This also coincides with George Washington’s transformation of the plantation landscape and specifically the creation of this area into the formal South Grove where flowering trees were planted.

Today, all evidence of the large excavation in the South Grove is gone. The grassy lawn is restored and the brick drain covered over. Analysis of the artifacts is ongoing and the treasures discovered between 1990 and 1994 continue to provide details of the earliest years of George Washington. 

Archaeologist Dennis Pogue showed NBC weatherman Willard Scott the midden in 1990.