The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia: An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. DarterWatkins, C. Malcolm
History
The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia: An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. Darter
Watkins, C. Malcolm
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Virginia -- Marlborough; Marlborough (Va.) -- Antiquities; Mercer, John, 1704-1768; Plantation life -- Virginia
To the west of the driveway another wall (B-I), still in line with Wall
A-I, extended toward the "gutt." Of this only one brick course remained,
a brick and a half thick. About midway in its length were slight
indications that the wall footings had been expanded for a short
distance, as though for a gate; however, the crumbled condition of the
brick and mortar fragments made this inference uncertain.
Near the edge of the "gutt," 146 feet from the southwest corner of the
Structure B main foundation, Wall B-I terminated in an oblique-angled
corner, the other side of which was designated Wall B-II. This wall ran
384 feet in a southwesterly direction under trees and beneath a
boathouse along the "gutt," ending at the back of Potomac Creek. It was
constructed of rough blocks of the fossil-imbedded marl that underlies
Marlborough and crops out along the Potomac shore. Walls A, A-I, B-I,
and B-II, together with the creek bank, form an enclosure measuring a
little over two acres.
Returning to the point of beginning excavation, the brick wall which is
extended north from stone wall A (designated as Wall A-II) was followed
for a distance of 175 feet. Like Wall A-I, it was a brick and a half
thick (a row of headers lying beside a row of stretchers), and was
represented for a distance of 36 feet by two courses. Beyond this point
for another 30 feet, a shift in the contour of the land, allowing deeper
plowing in relation to the original height of the wall, had caused the
second course of bricks to be knocked off. From there on, only
occasional clusters of bricks remained, the evidence of the wall
consisting otherwise of a thin layer of mortar and brick.
Wall A-II terminated in a corner. The other side of the corner was of
the same construction and ran westerly at right angles for a total
distance of 264.5 feet, passing beneath the highway (north of the turn)
and stopping against the southeast corner of a structure designated E.
Extending south from Structure E was an 84-foot wall (Wall E) a brick
and a half thick, laid this time in Flemish bond (header-stretcher-header)
in several courses.
Another east-west wall, of which only remnants were found, joined Wall
E and its southern terminus. Six feet west of Wall E this fragmentary
wall widened from three to four bricks in thickness in what appeared to
be the foundation of a wide gate, with a heavy iron hinge-pintle _in
situ_; beyond this it disappeared in a jumble of brickbats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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