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Lawne's Point is located outside of Smithfield, Virginia, home of the famous Smithfield Ham. Lawne's Point actually has a history older Smithfield. Located across the James from Jamestown, Captain Lawne established Lawne's Point in 1619 on behalf of himself and his English associates. His was the first plantation in the Isle of Wight County. Most of the inhabitants succumbed to malaria within six months. In November of 1619 Lawne moved back to Charles City, where he died. The first grist mill was also established here in 1646. It was powered by a huge overshot water wheel. |
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The first day I was there, we finished delineating a site next to the James River. Most sites, colonial or prehistoric, are located somewhat near water as it was a good place for trade and fishing. This site had a large probably historic shell midden which extended out to the edge of the bluff. Aaron climbed over the side to get a better look. |
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The James River: They were loud and there was a persistent bell that reminded me of being in an elevator. It was a nice view but I'm sure if I lived there the noise pollution would drive me crazy. |
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During the project, there were many times when the crew sat down to discuss the areas we were working in and the best way to tackle them. Since we had a known structure we were looking for, the Mill, we also looked at our maps to figure out where the Mill might be located so we could be extra careful in looking over the landforms and the edges of drainages etc. |
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The first deposit of bricks I found was near the edge of a bluff. Aaron and I weren't sure if we had found remains of the Mill or not, so we took a look around to find more evidence of bricks or mill and tavern trash or artifacts. |
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Examining the bricks in the area. |
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Aaron working on another outcrop of material |
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While delineating the site, Aaron had two tests that came up as highly positive. The first contained a good amount of brick and this clay pipe stem. |
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The second test was nearby and contained brick and this claypipe bowl fragment. Most likely the two were not related, but the fact that these were there suggested colonial habitation or trade points. |
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Here are two more views of the pipe bowl. |
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Nearby, my boss, Dawn, dug this test. It's mostly bricks, and most likely a brick floor of a cellar or other structure. When we find something intact like this and can pinpoint exactly where it is, we say we found it "in situ". |
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The Mill |
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This road was most likely the cart path we kept reading about. It lead all through the land we were surveying and right out to the river. There was a nice site there and it is most likely the famed Mill we spent so much time searching for. It was the last site we found. You always find the thing you're looking for in the last place you look! |
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Aaron noticed a group of flowers poking through the leaves nearby a depression in the ground. Flowers like these can be an indicator of habitation because they aren't wild flowers. Same thing for oak trees. Oak was planted by people in many areas because they grew very large and created large areas of shade. Finding an oak in the woods is a good indicator of habitation by historical peoples. |
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This tire was a bit mushy and looked to be at least five or ten years old. It had been pushed up by the tree it sat on but the tree was rotted by now and the tire almost as well. |
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Muddy Road. The weather was cold and had just finished snowing so the roads were mushy and hard to even walk through. |
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salt marsh |
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A marle is a collection of shell and other mineral deposits over time on the edge of a bank or area of water. There were two marles we encountered. Angus found the first and took us to see it. The shells there looked to be fossilized and were very old and many were very large. It was pretty interesting because it was a natural deposit unlike going to the beach and finding shell there. |
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Any fans of Stephen King movies can appreciate this scene. I didn't want to get a close shot of this guy because frankly he scared me, so I have no true evidence of his scariness. But he was rather robust, with big dirty ripped overalls and a hard hat covering his greasy white-grey hair. The two days we saw him, he had chew tobacco dripping down his chin. He walked up to us during lunch one day and stared for a few minutes before talking in a slow drawl, making comments about living in the middle of nowhere so he doesn't bother his neighbors. I'd hate to meet this guy out in the woods somewhere, possibly spitting tobacco and carrying a hatchet. |
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I have named this "The Gauntlet". It's self explanatory. The surveying engineers set up road cuts to lay out where the road will be. Upon doing so, they left a path of deadly pointy things. I am rather clumsy. I fell a few times. This is why a lot of projects have hazard pay. Yay for scary job hazards. |
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The terrain in any woods-ish place can be nice. Then again, it can be the worst situation you can imagine. I'd give much of L's P a rating of 8. Especially areas like the one shown here, even though the photo is fuzzy. The little vines they call Devil's Walking Stick are sort of like small skinny trees with many pokey thorns. There were many DWSs there, some almost as big around as my arm. Ouch. |
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Here's a good idea of what the majority of the nasty areas look like. Even the so-so areas were pretty bad. One area we trekked through was so awful I stopped in front of a grouping of thorns and vines and realized I was surrounded. It takes a bit to walk out of these and makes my job a lot harder. My only option was to pull out the machete and start swinging. It also helps to place your shovel on top of the mess and step through. |
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More vines. Prickers and thorns. Lovelyness. Sometimes I wonder if we can't take a torch to the whole place but that'd be risking setting a wildfire. It does make things interesting. |
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big tree fall |
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Woods |
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One of our sites near the James River. |
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Area Maps
Web Resources
Isle of Wight County
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