mansion, slave quarters, and grounds. today, the 100th anniversary of the national park service live from arlington house at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on cspan3. the 1600 acre monocacy national battlefield is about 45 miles northwest of the u.s. capital. the national park service property includes the best family farm, built in the 1790s by a family of french caribbean immigrants who owned about 90 slaves. c-span met joy beasley, the cultural resources program manager at the national park to learn how remnants of the 200-year-old slave quarters were discovered in 2003 and partially excavated in the summer of 2010. we are at the best farm, which is named the best farm after the tenant that occupied this farm during the civil war.

but what we know today as the best farm forms the 274 acres of what was originally a 748 acre plantation. that plantation was known as laramie todge. it was established by a family of french planters who came to maryland in 1793 from the colony known today as haiti. the family was called the vincent deere family. they came to maryland to escape civil unrest associated with the slave uprising that begin in 1791 and also with the french revolution. the best farm was acquired by the national park service in 1993. it's a fairly recent acquisition. beginning in 1998-1999 is when we started doing a substantial amount of historical architectural and archaeological research here at the farm.

we were aware there had been at one time a substantial enslaved population. we knew a little bit about the vincent deere family and their origins and their relocation here to maryland, but what we didn't know was very much more than that about the family. we had very little information about the enslaved population and certainly one of the key research questions with regard to the archaeological research was where were these 90 enslaved people living. i had a graduate student working with me. part of her research focused on the family occupation trying to understand their origins and the context of their relocation here to maryland. and she managed to uncover a pretty obscure account that was written by a polish expatriate who was traveling around the eastern seaboard at the end of the 18th century. and he was a diarist and so he kept sort of a travel memoir of all of his travels, and he happened to be traveling on the

georgetown road which we know today as maryland route 355, although at that time it was quite a bit further to the west, so much closer than where it is today. he was traveling from georgetown to frederick on the georgetown road in june of 1798, and he happened to pass by this plantation and he gave an account of it. and one of the things that he talks about is one stone house with upper stories painted white, which is a building that still stands on the farm. and he also referred to a row of wooden houses, which we took as a reference to slave quarters. one of the things that we uncovered and one of the things that was actually referenced in the polish traveler's account were that there were several court cases brought against the family alleging mistreatment of their slaves, and that was something that was very surprising to us. i don't know of very many instances in which that actually happened, where charges were brought against people for

mistreating their slaves in maryland and elsewhere, presumably. there were laws on the books that governed the treatment of enslaved people, but they really weren't enforced. but one of the things we found between 1796 and about 1806 there were at least eight instances in which the family or members of their household were accused of mistreating their slaves in different ways. because of the way he describes the row of wooden houses relative to the stone house with the upper stories painted white, it sounded like this row of wooden houses was actually out in front of the primary building cluster, which is a pattern that's not typically seen in this area. it's much more common in the deep south or even in the caribbean and it happened to be out in an agricultural field of 40 plus acres and under active

consultation of that time and was not investigated arc logically. so, that was in 2003, and we were coming to the end of the multiyear archaeological study and we were also coming to the end of our funding for archaeology here at best farm, l logically. so, that was in 2003, and we were coming to the end of the multiyear archaeological study and we were also coming to the end of our funding for archaeology here at best farm, so what we did was a systematic metal detector survey of the 40-plus acre agricultural field. amazingly what we did end up uncovering was a large, dense, kind of linear deposit of late 18th, early 19th century domestic artifacts. hand wrought nails, hardware, buttons, coins, and actually the deposit of artifacts out there was so dense that even though we were metal detecting, in the metal detector targets we were also finding glassware and ceramics and all kinds of domestic materials. so, based on the kinds of artifacts we were uncovering and the date range of them, i was fairly certain at that time that we had identified the site of the slave quarters associated with the area.

but we didn't have funding for additional archaeological research. and that funding actually came in in fiscal year 2010. what we're looking at is what we call structure "b" or the second of the six structures that are laid out in a row. and the way that these buildings manifest themselves is what you see here is a foundation for an external stone chimney. very similar to the external stone chimney that you see on the secondary house there, so it's kind of a c-shaped mortared stone foundation that formed the foundation for the chimney, and then you can see here two smaller stone piers which would have formed the corners of the building, and so there would have been piers like this, probably at all the corners and actually probably some intermediary piers as well, and that's what they would have laid the logs on to form the wooden

structures. so they probably were one story, story and a half, buildings. they measured about 20 x 34 feet in dimensions with this external stone chimney actually on the south elevation, so very simple, very expedient structures that could have been constructed very quickly and with pretty simple easily affordable materials. they are all about the same dimensions, and they are equidistant from one another. each one of these hearth foundations are exactly 66 feet apart. they are on the exact same orientation or axis as the extant structures on the farm. literally within a couple of inches, so it's a very ordered landscape. these buildings were laid out in a very precise fashion. it's not haphazard at all, and they actually do form quite literally the row of wooden

houses that is mentioned in the traveler's account. sort of our first starting point was actually what's called a shuttle test pit survey or stp survey and a shuttle test pit is exactly what it sounds like. it's a hole about the width of a shovel blade that's excavated on an interval over a site. so in our case we excavated a hole about every 20 feet over the entire sort of, you know, two-thirds of an acre that make up this area. and you know, in a shovel test pit obviously all of that soil is screened. and what you're looking for are artifact concentrations, soil changes, concentrations of stone or brick or mortar. anything that might suggest some kind of cultural event going on below the ground surface. another thing that we did is we were fortunate enough to be able to do some remote sensing.

we were able to have access to surface-penetrating radar device which is able to see or identify archaeological features below grade and is particularly adept at identifying foundations or similar-type features. so during the course of the surface-penetrating radar survey we identified two additional hearth features. where you see the cluster of blue flags over there is where one of those hearth features was, and that appears to be the southernmost structure. in this particular instance the hearth foundation was the first thing that was fully exposed, and then we sort of started expanding out. once we knew we weren't dealing with a continuous stone foundation but rather a chimney feature, the question was, well, how did they construct these buildings? and you know, we ended up uncovering these two stone piers that as i said formed the corners of the building. that's the point at which, you know, you start to be able to to some degree understand and

interpret how these buildings were constructed, and then it's really just a question of investing the time and energy to kind of chase it and to try to uncover the whole thing. all of the funding for this project came from a program that's called the cultural resource preservation program. we also were fortunate. the secretary of the interior has created a new funding source that's called the youth intake program, and that's a competitive funding source that's aimed at getting young people interested and connected with their national parks and providing them with on-the-job training that might help them consider a career in the national parks service, so i was able to apply for and was awarded some of the yip funding which allowed me to hire some of the several student interns involved in the project. this is jordan riccio of amercan university, graduate student. at american university.

and this is alex brueggeman, a senior of howard university. >> i'm of haitian descent which is really why i wanted to do this project. it's an extremely unique place. you don't really think of a french emigre, a family from san dominge coming here and bringing haitian slaves with them, so i was incredibly moved by the story, and it turned out to be really great. >> well, i got involved with the project through american university. i had heard about the project and applied and met with joy and was able to -- to come here. i found it to be a very fantastic program, especially to learn more about the trade of archaeology and the methodologies involved. i learned a lot about many, many things, especially shovel test pits. >> this was a crash course in archaeology. you learn priceless information.

you learn the trade, learn how it's done, but not only that, you learn how to really look at the world and history in a completely different light. >> personally i found a lot of brick and mortar. there was a lot of interesting artifacts found on-site. i was mainly the person digging in the units. >> like jordan said, a lot of it was bricks and mortar, but we also found the coins and we found a horse bit which was over there in the midden. a lot of animal bones which kind of led us to realize what they were eating. we found a lot of glassware and a lot of -- one bead, one tiny bead, which is a already really tiny, tiny bead, but it's very beautiful. >> this is the basement of the

circa 1830 gambrel mill. one of the historic structures here at the park. and this is where we do a lot of our on-site laboratory work. the acid-free boxes that you see there, the artifacts from this year's field season, all boxed up and washed and rebagged and ready to be cataloged and analyzed, and we've pulled out just kind of a handful of artifacts that are somewhat representative of the kinds of objects that we've been uncovering out there at the site, everything from things like different kinds of coins, this is a u.s. large cent. these res actually spanish reals so those are silver spanish coins. a lot of different kinds of buttons. this is actually really finely made shell button, and probably the most common kind of button that we find are these one-piece flat buttons with a wire shank. these are very common in the

18th and early part of the 19th century. also more two-piece buttons. that one still has a bit of the silver gilt visible on it. other kinds of items. personal items. this is a clay marble so that was probably a toy, and -- and also a lot of architectural debris. obviously this is a complete handmade brick. also nails and hand-wrought nails mostly. we find a lot of nails. other kinds of architectural hardware, mortar, brick fragments, architectural-type debris. glassware and ceramics, a nice olive wine bottle neck. this is the finished part and the lip. a wide variety of different kinds of ceramics. everything from the more utilitarian probably locally produced redwares or stonewares to more refined english-made porcelains and hand painted

pearlwares produced in england and elsewhere. and then also tobacco pipe fragments in large quantities and then food remains and bones. this is a tooth probably from a cow. a lot of food remains, oyster shell and even freshwater mussel shells, those kinds of things. this is all the provenance information. obviously it's critical for us to be able to know where all these objects came from, their context. so everything is kept separate by provenance, either by excavation unit, by strata, all those kinds of details. and that's part of the sort of the internal recordkeeping. and that's part of our analysis and understanding of the data. that's a big part of archaeology. people always think of

archaeology as strictly focusing on the field work and the act of going out and digging and that's only a very small piece of it. the really important work happens in the analysis of the data and the interpretation. there's a lot of information, obviously everything from information about construction details or the architecture of the site. a lot of these objects are highly dateable. obviously the coins, being the most obvious ones, but things like buttons, even glasswares and ceramics, all of these things were popular at specific moments in history. technological changes that happened over time help provide occupational dates for a site, so that's very important information. access to consumer goods. i mean, we're certainly interested in the kinds of things that these people had and use for their daily life. one question might be these english tablewares.

where do those come from? were these hand-me-downs that the family gave them for their own use? did these people have ways to make a little bit of money on their own and be able to actually acquire and purchase these kinds of consumer goods on their own? these are all the kinds of questions and things that we're interested in and all of that kind of helps us get more at what the day-to-day lives of these people were like. all of these artifacts would be cataloged which is kind of a system of recording attributes, dates, manufacture, material type, all of that individual information about all of these individual artifacts. all of that information is data entered into a database and then we'll start analyzing that data. we'll start looking at patterns within that data trying to say something about what these artifacts mean within the larger context of the site history. and that's all the information that we'll be working on over the course of the wintertime.

there are a lot of established and known reference material out there that historical archaeologists in general use for dating objects, and that goes not just for ceramics but for glasswares and other kinds of objects. just like nowadays. technology changes over time and oftentimes technology changed down to a certain date, like a modern-day example would be not too long ago sony stopped making the walkman. and, you know, they first started making walkmans like in 1979, and, you know, first you had the -- the big clunky walkman and then they got smaller over time and then you had the ones that you could put a cd in and so on and so forth. that's technology that changed over time, and you can -- you can identify and research how that technology changed over time. they stopped making the walkman in the u.s. in 2010 so they have sort of a 1979 to 2010 period of

use. that doesn't mean that nobody out there is using their walkman anymore but you'll sort of have a period of time in which the popularity of the walkman perhaps peaked. it's really a similar thing with other kinds of objects. all of the artifacts from the national capital region of the national parks service go to a central curatorial facility which is called the museum resource center. that's just down the road in landover, maryland. actually two days a week we're doing some of our cataloguing and lab work in that facility which is a little bit closer to washington which allows some of the students to be involved in that part of the process on a volunteer basis. so that was -- that's where all the artifacts will go into permanent curatorial storage. we would like to eventually be able to develop permanent exhibits that will focus on the this aspect of the park's history. and obviously we would probably select some of these artifacts

to be incorporated into those exhibit displays as well. and we can access them. usually sometimes for black history month we'll do a little temporary exhibit at the visitors center that will focus on some aspect of african-american history here at the park. so this year we'll probably develop a temporary exhibit that will probably feature some of these artifacts that we'll have at the visitors center for a period of time. >> how did you get involved in this work? >> i wanted to be an archaeologist for as long as i can remember since i was a little kid. my family has a second home out in new mexico and i spent a lot of time over the summer at different points in my life out there. we used to always go out and pick up artifacts. there's archeological sites everywhere out there. that's what sort of got me interested. and i was fortunate that my parents were supportive of my archaeology habit, and i went to archaeology camp as a kid and

it's just something that always stayed with me. a lot of people will say when they find out i'm an archaeologist, oh, i wanted to be an archaeologist when i was a kid. and i guess i never outgrew that. you know, when i got to college, i chose to major in anthropology and pursue a career in archaeology. and i've been fortunate that i've been able to do that. here in the park service, even though my training is in archaeology, i'm the cultural resource manager for the park so archaeology is a small part of what i do. i'm also responsible for all the historic preservation work that goes on in the park as well. so all the historic buildings and cultural landscapes are part of what i focus on as well. >> what are some of the myths about archaeology that -- that are out there? >> people always ask me if i've been to egypt. the question -- probably the question that i get the most -- sometimes people mix up archaeology and paleontology and

they will ask me if i dig up dinosaurs and obviously that's a completely different field of study, but i -- people always ask what's the most interesting thing that you've ever found, and it's really difficult to really distill it down to one object because at the end of the day it's not really about the objects themselves. it's about the story and the interpretation of those objects, so for me it doesn't just come down to what's the most interesting thing that you found. i mean, i've had the opportunity to work on a number of very interesting projects, and certainly the story of the laramie slave village site is the most important and interesting project that i've had opportunity to be involved with in my career. >> if a young person out there thinks they want to be an archaeologist, what advice would you give them? >> i would advise them to stick with it, hang in there. you can get a job doing this. it's not the easiest thing.

i would advise them to -- to make sure that they go to a good college. they are going to want to pursue an advanced degree, probably not just stop with an undergraduate degree and -- and, you know, just hang in there and -- and give it a shot. you know, the national parks service is a great agency. there's a lot of opportunities in the national park service to do this kind of work and other historic preservation work, so i certainly always encourage folks to consider the national park service. >> somebody is out there working, and they find one of these fragments or a coin. typically describe the scene. is it sifting, or is it digging at the actual location? how do they find these things? >> a little bit of both. all of the dirt that comes out of the ground goes through a screen, at least a quarter-inch hardware cloth screen. we screen everything we dig up. sometimes as you're sort of excavating, you know, using a trowel or whatever, you'll uncover objects sort of in situ.

other times you'll simply find them in the screen, but, you know, it's something that's very exciting for people. we work with a lot of volunteers obviously over the summer we'll have history camps or student groups come out. and sometimes we'll have them help us out and maybe help with some of the screening. you know, there's really that sort of excitement and moment of discovery, and a lot of the interns, i think that's, you know, that thrill of discovery is part of what keeps you going during the course of yet another 110-degree day out there, and, you know, a lot of people tell me that the part of what connects them with archaeology is knowing that they are the -- they are the first person to touch this object in, you know, the past 200 years or whatever the case may be, and, that you know, i think it's really part of that tangible connection to the past that people get excited about. we're hoping -- at this point we

don't have funding for any additional field work which is unfortunate because obviously i feel like -- you know, we've really just sort of scratched the surface out here, and there's a lot more information potential with this site. it's very unique, particularly for this area, the mid-atlantic region. you don't typically see slavery being practiced on the scale that it was being practiced here at leramie taj. i think i mentioned that 90 slaves is roughly 10 times the number of enslaved individuals you would have expected to be living here. so that's an extremely unusual circumstance for this area. you know, like i said, they are about 20 x 34 feet. that's just under 700 square feet of living space. if, in fact, there were only six structures total, one can assume there were somewhere between maybe as many as 12 or 15 people living in each these dwelling houses which probably sounds

like a lot, so i -- i would -- i would guess or assume that these may have been extended family units, for example, living together. multiple generations of families. like i say, these are pretty utilitarian, simple, expediently constructed buildings, and they probably were constructed about the same time as the secondary house, and it was probably the family's first order of business to get these buildings constructed and get these people housed so that they can then start working the land and being productive and ultimately generating income for the vincent deere family. there are not a lot of instances out there where you have a complete collection of multiple dwelling houses preserved in an archaeological context so there's a great deal of research potential here in terms of

understanding more about the context and the study of slavery in general. there are not that many national park service units that have this kind of resource preserved so we're just really fortunate that as a result of this land being set aside and preserved, as a result of the battle of monocacy, we also have these other stories and other resources that are preserved as well. and even though the laramie taj plantation was long gone by 1864 when the battle of monocacy was fought, the story of the family and the enslaved people and the vincent deere family is still a great platform from which to talk about slavery as a causative aspect of the civil war. at the park level we're going to be working on developing some new interpretive programs and other interpretive products that will talk about the history of this site and this project and sort of start to look at

african-american experiences here at the monocacy battlefield in general. we'll also be working on the development of some web-based resources, again, that will sort of help tell the story and help present this information to the public. and in the longer term what we would like to have are actually separate permanent exhibits that will focus on kind of the broader historic context of the battle of monocacy and the civil war. obviously slavery and plantation life would be a big part of that discussion. so down the road, again, funding dependant, that's something we would like to have so should we be fortunate enough to get additional funding to do more field work, that's certainly the goal, and if not, we'll do the best we can with the resources that we have, and obviously, you know, almost 400 units of the national park service out there, everybody has research needs and compliance needs and so there's never enough money to go around so we were -- just like in any

sort of federal funding process, we had to wait our turn. and i think alex had mentioned to me, you know, living in washington, d.c., you think of the national park service and you sort of think monuments or maybe you think, you know, mountains or geysers or something. and i think one of the things that was helpful with this project was it kind of helped some of these students get a sense of the diversity of resources that the national park service preserves. and i think maybe get them just a little bit interested, maybe in a career in the national park service or a career in archaeology. or if not, you know, hopefully these guys go on to, you know, do something else for a career or to work for a different agency, hopefully they will always look back on that experience and they will sort of think about the national parks in a different way and maybe be more engaged in and interested in kind of that stewardship aspect of what the national parks do. >> this american artifacts program was recorded in november

of 2010. to learn more about the best farm slave village, logon to nps.gov/mono. you'll find a dropdown menu for history and culture. follow link to best farm slave village. 100 years ago today. join american history tv when we are live from arlington house. the robert e. lee memorial in arlington national cemetery. it's the park's services most visited historic home. this is american history tv only on c-span 3. next american history tv visits chatham manner. built in 1771 by virginia continental congress delegate