The Windsor Historical Society has completed Phase 1 and 2 in refurbishing and restoring its circa 1758 Strong Howard House (reference FOSA Newsletter fall 2013). In late November of 2014, Phase 3 (the final phase of restoration) began with the removal of the chimney and fireplace in the keeping room. Windsor Historical Society (WHS) purchased the house in 1925 and erected this fireplace and chimney in 1954. It is now going to be replaced with one that will be accurate to the likeness of the original one that stood on this same spot from about 1800 until 1888, when it was torn down by the owners of the house. Much of the keeping room lies within a part of the house that was added on around 1800 and has only a crawl space below it. Both the WHS campus and this adjoining house are located within the former historic palisade constructed in 1637.

Much to everyone's surprise, upon removal of the 1950's fireplace and the slate base it was erected on, an unusual formation of stone and brick was revealed. It wasn't what most thought to be a normal foundation for a fireplace. Photo #1 shows this formation or feature just after the fireplace was removed. Prominent in the photo is a large flat brownstone slab spanning and perpendicular to what ap-pears to be two rows of large stones, 12 inches apart. You can see in the photo that between the two rows of stone is a trench containing loose construction debris and rubble, mostly bricks.. Although there is no doubt that these re-mains served as the chimney's foundation, to WHS curator Christina Vida and the restoration workers, this unusual feature of the trench and debris didn't look like a normal foundation for a fireplace. Why is this large trench in the middle of the chimney's foundation?

The first thought was that the trench design may have served as an ash pit, but no trace of ash or residue was evident. The trench stretches 53 inches in length from the front of where the hearthstone once stood (bottom of Photo #1) to the house's west exterior wall's wooden sill plate (top of Photo #1). The large flat brownstone slab mentioned above measures approximately 36 in. long, 22 in. wide at its wid-est point and a varied thickness of 3 in. to 3¾ in. Missing from the bottom of Photo #1 is some brick work at the hearthstone end of the trench. It runs between the two rows of stone that line both sides of the trench and demarcates the hearthstone end of the trench and debris.

With the help of my curious and helpful neighbor, Jerry Cavanaugh, the objective of our first visit on December 22 was to find the surface limits of the feature and to determine the extent of the brick work. We began excavation of the trench to determine the depth of the debris and to specifically determine the three dimensional extent of the mortared brick work. On this day we exposed ten layers of the brick wall, measuring 22 inches in depth. To our surprise, upon using a steel wire to probe deeper along the unexcavated portion of the wall, the brick wall continued much farther than the ten layers thus far exposed. In the process of excavating the trench's rubble, numerous bricks were removed and because they weren't modern molded bricks, I assumed at that point that they were deposited in the trench when the original chimney was torn down in 1888. If this is the case, the trench was probably empty before 1888 and then filled with construction debris at that time. Further, the soil was screened and many artifacts were found, the most interesting was plaster with wallpaper patterns. Christina researched the patterns and dated them to the 1830s. There were also a few nails and small glass shards, along with many animal bones. These bones were most likely brought in by rodents due to the rodent nests found around the crawl space.

As we dug deeper to find the depth of the brick wall, the two rows of stone bordering each side of the trench were shaping up to be two opposing walls, perpendicular to the brick wall. We were now seeing a three sided feature being exposed with some depth to it. .

During our second visit on December 30th, Connecticut State Archaeologist Brian Jones was on hand. He felt from his experience the feature was put in place as a base for the fireplace. Therefore, with his advice and help we removed the large brownstone that spanned the stone lined trench along with the upper levels of stone. This allowed us more room to easily remove the trench's debris and get to the bottom of the trench and the depth of the brick and stone walls. Before the day was over, we removed much debris from the trench (mostly old bricks), exposed the bottom depth of the brick wall, and screened the soil as we dug. It ended up being 26 layers of brick, and 57 inches in depth.

Also the two opposing walls of the trench get wider apart to as much as 37 inches as we dug deeper, revealing the stone work was stacked closer together as they were laid near the top (Photo #2). After closer examination, the 26 course brick wall was finished only on one side. By this I mean the mortar on the west facing side was dressed, but not on the opposite side. Photo #5 shows the undressed east side of the brick wall that terminates this end of the two stone walls. Therefore, the bricklayer had to have constructed this wall from the west side to face off the mortar.

The bricks' dimensions, that we have been encountering in the trench's rubble and the 26 layers mentioned above, are 8 in. long by 2 in. high and 4 in wide. This brick dimension and manufactured appearance matches up to the circa late 1760's bricks of the Chaffee House across the street.

At this point, this extraordinary depth for a foundation and the symmetrical curving and closing together of the top stones, adds fuel to our belief that is an odd construction for a chimney foundation. Again going back to Photo #2, you see the two stone walls are not vertically straight. They are symmetrically wider apart at the bottom and middle depths and come closer as they reach the top. This creates a honeycomb or dome design. Figure 1 is a drawing with scaled measurements of the two parallel stone walls, view looking east at the finished side of the brick wall. It appears to me that this honey comb design could have been made so its top opening would be smaller and could be capped with flat brownstones, such as the large one noted above. The 57 inch depth is far deeper than a standard footing. The mason who is re-building the new chimney agreed. It evidently served as the chimney's base but appears from its construction to have had an earlier purpose, possibly before the keeping room addition of 1800 and perhaps even before the house was built. Therefore, its construction, depth and shape seems too odd to many of us to have been originally designed as a chimney base.

One very interesting artifact found in the trench during our second visit was the shoe buckle shown in Photo #7. It has a silvered frame and its steel tines have rusted away. It would have come from a dress shoe not a work boot. Buckles like this date back to the late 18th century (Hume 1991:p85). It is very elegant and rather out of place with all the other debris. It makes you wonder how it ended to be deposited here. Unfortunately we'll probably never know. AHS (Archaeological and Historical Services Inc.) volunteered to conserve the buckle for the Society.

Following the brick wall's lateral extremes (Photo #3), where it intersects the two opposing stone walls, it is further observed that the brick is mortared to the two stone walls and was built to conform with the outline of the stone walls. This construction indicates that the stone walls were constructed first and the brick wall was built sometime after. Also, it looks as though the brick wall was built to seal or terminate what appears to be a subterranean cavern. Note in Figure 1, that for some unexplained reason, the brick wall is 5 inches deeper in the ground than the adjacent stone walls. This raises another question, why did the bricklayer go deeper than needed to close off this end of the trench or enclosure? In Photo #2, notice the quality of the stone and brick work. The bricks were laid in an American Bond fashion (Hume 1969:p123) and were done by a skilled crafts person. Comparing it to the stone work of the foundation in the center of Photo #4, it is far superior.

On January 10th, excavation continued along the west side of the trench, where the two opposing walls meet the house's foundation. To our surprise. this revealed a clear demarcation of the house's exterior foundation in the center of Photo #4 and both of the trench walls, pointers A and B. They are indeed two distinct features with the two opposing trench stone walls extending under the house's sill plate and possi-bly going beyond the house and into the yard. This was confirmed by troweling through the seam at every point between these two features without meeting any obstruction. Thus, the laying of the feature's stonework and the house's foundation stonework are two separate events. When the soil thaws, excavation in the yard can begin. This could prove very exciting and help determine what other purpose this feature might have served, other than a chimney foundation.

Finally on January 17th, Photo #6 shows the final excavation of our feature. Arrows B, C, D, and E give you the overhead view and limits of this feature uncovered so far. You can see many more old bricks have been dumped between the two walls on the west end and haven't been removed because it may weaken the foundation. Exposing this side will not offer any new information to justify potentially compromising the integrity of the foundation. In the center of the photo, at the bottom of the trench, is a mass of mortared bricks that are most likely more of the 1800 fireplace and chimney.

At this point, I am thinking and feeling that this structure was used for underground storage, such as a root cellar. Other people have additionally suggested that it may have been used for dairy or ice storage. In the spring when we continue our excavation outside the house, we hope this feature continues and has more information to offer.

In summary, questions we hope to answer this coming spring and summer are: was this feature undoubtedly more than just a chimney foundation and if so what was its original purpose? Additionally, if it had another purpose other than a chimney foundation, does it predate the house's addition or even the house? This area dates back to the 1630s and there are some exciting possibilities. Hopefully the archaeological evidence will have something to offer. We have more Phase 3 work to do that will require FOSA involvement in this project along with the investigation of the rest of the crawl space under the keeping room, when the floor boards are removed in the spring.

Bibliography:

Hume, Ivor Noel 1969 Historical Archaeology. Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Hume, Ivor Noel 1991 A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc. New York

Webmaster's Note: The Strong Howard excavation was originally described in the Fall 2013 FOSA Newsletter, a reprint of which can be accessed by clicking 2013 Strong Howard.