Findings unearthed at historical society meeting

By Carleen Schmidt

Archeologists have unearthed a possible tavern on one lot in Belleville and findings at another lot suggest that the family living there may have been in mourning.

“We opened up as many questions as we answered,” said Nick Gromoff, founder of Ground Truth Archaeology.

These findings were from an archeological dig conducted at the new courthouse location on James Street and Bridge Street in Belleville.

Gromoff presented the findings at the Hastings County Historical Society’s general meeting at the Quinte Living Centre on Feb. 21.

“The excavation started in fall 2009 and ended in summer 2010,” said Gromoff.

The presence of the colour black was found in beads, ceramics and hair combs. “Blackness is intriguing. It is not a typical colour,” said Gromoff, who added that they believe some of the family living there may have been in mourning, which would explain the presence of the colour black.

There was also evidence showing the presence of children – marbles, a little doll and 30-40 slate pencil ends and slate boards were found, which is a high number meaning there may have been a little school there at some point.

Gromoff spoke to a large audience of about 100 people. There was obviously a lot of interest in the topic. Usually only about 60 people attend the meeting, but all the chairs were full and people were standing.

To construct a dig, archeologists mostly use toothbrushes and water and sometimes alcohol for certain items. According to Gromoff, though there isn’t any one item that is most significant. The artifacts that help identify time periods, or what was going there, are the most interesting.

There were a lot of findings including ash, brick, coins, and buttons of all sorts, plates and smoking pipes. The archeologists also found bones from white-tailed deer, ducks, geese, turkey, passenger pigeons and local fish.

There were a couple different lots that they excavated on the property. Lot eight is the first Gromoff discussed. He talked about the history of the property owners, which was used to try to find out what was there previously and talked about people who had come by when the dig was going on and shared their memories of the property.

At the second lot on the site, Gromoff did the same, showed historical records of people who lived there previously and showed photographs of the excavation. The archeologists found a brick furnace with charcoals and ash, possibly from a smoke house, and found meat hooks as well. Numerous foot bones from cows were also found.

Later in the excavation, it became apparent that one of the deep pits dug by the archeologists was a root cellar with barrel scraps, sand and even a trap door with a hinge and bolt.

Lot one had to have gravel removed for excavation. Gromoff showed the history of home owners starting with James McNabb and found cutlery, pipes, coins, buttons from hunting jackets and military buttons from this site. Stoneware jugs were found from local Belleville merchants. They believe this site may have been a tavern.

Gromoff showed a slideshow at the meeting on the archeological assessment process in Ontario. There are four stages. The first stage has a background study conducted and tries to assess the property. Stage two is the assessment of the property to find archaeological sites by going out and looking for evidence on the property.

Stage three is when Gromoff came in. During stage three, archeologists find the limits of the site and create a grid and do the preliminary conclusions on the nature and date of the site. Finally, in stage four is called the mitigation of development impacts, which determines the best approach for conserving the site.

In this case, the best way to conserve the site was to remove the artifacts for preservation. This is referred to as preservation though excavation.