Highlighting Hoosier Archaeological Sites: Southeast

Traveling the stretch of I-65 just north of the Ohio River bridges, a quick glance west around mile-marker 0.7 provides a glimpse of one of the largest clocks in the world. In 1924, Colgate-Palmolive relocated the 40-foot diameter timepiece to Clarksville from New Jersey and placed it above a state penitentiary-turned-soap factory. Inmates at Indiana Reformatory South provided some of the labor needed to transform the aging prison into a modern manufacturing facility. Nearly eight decades prior, a similar group of convict laborers erected the first walls of the prison in Clarksville. While laying the foundations of their future home, these inmates remained housed in nearby Jeffersonville, where Indiana had opened its first state penitentiary in 1822. By the 1830s, that prison was overcrowded and confined to a single acre of land within a rapidly expanding urban center. In 1847, after only 25 years of operation, the Jeffersonville prison was abandoned for the relatively spacious accommodations in Clarksville. The old prison was subsequently demolished, and by the late nineteenth century the space was fully incorporated into the urban landscape of southern Clark County (Cupka Head 2015, 2019).

The Colston Park Site (12CL762) in downtown Jeffersonville was initially recorded by archaeologists looking for burials associated with a nearby historic cemetery (Schwarz 2006). While they did not find graves at the site, they did uncover a dump dating from the late nineteenth through early twentieth century. The site was investigated further ahead of the construction of the new I-65 Ohio River Bridge. In addition to the historic dump, archaeologists encountered the remnants of several residential and commercial lots that had been demolished before the construction of I-65 during the mid-twentieth century (Cupka Head 2015). During a visit to the site, Clark County historian Jeanne Burke mentioned that a prison had been in the vicinity during the early-to-mid-nineteenth century, and archival research subsequently confirmed this (Figure 1). Given the dump, later houses, utilities, demolition, and interstate construction, the archaeologists were not optimistic that much would remain of the prison.

Representing two centuries of urban land use, the stratigraphy at the site was complex. However, after opening several trenches, a general pattern was observed. At the bottom of their trenches, around 5 feet below the grassy lawn of the park, archaeologists encountered ancient B- and C-horizon sediments that likely predated even the earliest human occupations in the Ohio Valley. These old soils were intermittently capped by a thin buried A-horizon remnant, representing the ground surface of the pre-contact and early historic periods. Above this was a nearly 2-foot-thick layer of pulverized brick and limestone upon which rested two additional layers of alternating historic living surfaces and historic fill. While subsequent episodes of ground disturbance had truncated the earlier archaeological deposits below, for the most part, the site was well-stratified with architectural features especially well-preserved.

During fieldwork in 2012 and 2013, archaeologists with Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., working on behalf of the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), documented 63 individual features and 27 postholes, while also systematically sampling the dump fill and stratified cultural horizons at the site. In all, some 1,700 cubic yards of earth were mechanically excavated. Over 6,000 artifacts were recovered. Much of the work focused on the early-to-mid-nineteenth century prison component. However, intact archaeological deposits and features associated with historic residential lots along Market Street and Ohio Avenue, as well as a commercial lot at 240 Ohio Avenue, yielded substantial information as well. The archaeological research at the Colston Park Site was designed to address six themes of historical archaeological interest: consumerism, urban settlement and social space, foodways, municipal services, identity, and institutional confinement. The information obtained from the site, in conjunction with extensive archival research provided valuable information pertaining to each of these themes, facilitating the synthesis of a more complete narrative history of the site, its occupants, and the urban landscape of Jeffersonville and beyond.

In 1822, Indiana's first state prison was situated on the then-outskirts of Jeffersonville (Haffner 1985; L.A. Williams and Co. 1882). Initially, the prison consisted of a two-story cell house of square hewn beech logs surrounded by a log stockade, which was later replaced by a large brick wall. During excavation, a line of post holes and in-filled wall trench appeared to be remnants of these two phases of perimeter wall construction. The log cell house was later replaced by a larger cell house of stone and brick, the foundations of which were some of the first prison features to be relocated during mechanical excavation (Figure 2). In 1838, the General Assembly approved a measure to expand and improve the prison grounds. Proposed improvements consisted of expanding the boundary of the prison to the north and constructing an addition to the brick cell house (Douglas and Noel 1838). Brick foundations associated with at least one addition to the northern elevation of the cell house likely represent the product of these proposed changes. 

Unfortunately, the architectural features encountered at the site were often truncated, fragmentary, and lacked associated primary deposits that would provide information concerning the function of individual structures or rooms. Nevertheless, a patchy network of cellars, wall foundations, piers, postholes, builder’s trenches, and other landscape features were uncovered. These features clearly demonstrate that the architectural landscape of the prison was substantial and dynamic. The repressive power of prisons is often reflected in their architecture (Casella 2007). This phenomenon is certainly evident in the architectural features encountered at the Colston Park Site. The walls of the prison landscape were constructed by prisoners using bricks made by prisoners. Through this obvious exercise of institutional power, the prisoners were made complicit in reinforcing their captivity.

Archival records provided valuable demographic information on the inmate population. In general, inmates were young, working-class men with little to no formal education. Prisoners were as young as 15, and while exceedingly rare, the prison did occasionally house women convicts. It is significant that at a time when less than 1% of Hoosiers were African American or other persons of color, non-white inmates accounted for 13% of the prison population (Indiana State Library 2014). This discrepancy points to the troubling entanglement of racism and punitive justice so deeply embedded in the generative substrate of our institutions. 

Following the mid-nineteenth century demolition of the Jeffersonville prison, the property was subdivided into several residential and commercial. The rear boundaries of these lots abutted an alleyway and vacant lot (now Colston Park) used as a community dump during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Features associated with these residential and commercial lots included piers, footers, and foundation remnants; brick-lined cesspools, drainage wells, and/or privies; utility pipes and pipe trenches; an asphalt surface; concrete sidewalk; a brick pad; and a brick drain (Cupka Head 2015). During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the neighborhood surrounding present-day Colston Park included a mixture of lower and middle-income tenants and owners. Irish and German immigrants, as well as European Americans from the Midwest and Upland South, accounted for most of the site occupants. Several working class African American tenants, such as Jordan C. Ellis and Anthony Langford, resided along Market Street during the late nineteenth century.

Emil Wahl, a German immigrant, operated a successful butcher shop, slaughterhouse, and sausage factory at the corner of Ohio Avenue and Maple Street. A dense midden associated with Wahl’s operation yielded a substantial amount of pig and cow bones. Faunal remains were also recovered from the community dump, and further demonstrated that commercially butchered cuts of pork and beef were frequently consumed. Chicken bones were less common. Container glass comprised most of the materials recovered from the dump, which appeared to have been active from about 1880 into the 1930s. The abundance and variety of locally and non-locally produced consumer goods (e.g., medicine, liquor/beer, perfume, ink, condiments) conforms to the well-documented trend towards mass-marketed, pre-packaged merchandise during this period. However, the prevalence of canning jars among the container glass assemblage reminds us that the practice of home canning – perhaps more often associated with rural households – remained popular among urban households well into the twentieth century (Cupka Head 2015).

Many of the dwellings that once stood at the Colston Park Site were one- or two-story frame shotgun houses. While these lots initially relied on cisterns, cesspools, and privies for water supply and waste disposal, by the turn of the twentieth century, municipal services were providing safer, often mandatory alternatives. A network of abandoned water supply pipes and ceramic sewer pipes were superimposed across the site, connecting features from one lot to the next, somehow keeping the old neighborhood together after all those years. Site 12CL762 exemplifies the potential of archaeology to add to our appreciation and understanding of the complex histories of urban spaces, reminding us that a site ought not be reduced to a single moment, but is best understood as an ongoing process of human interaction with and within their environs.

References

Barnum, H.L. (1837). Map of Jeffersonville Enlarged. H.L. Barnum, Civil Engineer. Indiana State Library, Indianapolis. 

Casella, Eleanor Conlin (2007). The Archaeology of Institutional Confinement. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Cupka Head, Kevin (2015). Archaeological Investigations for the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges-Downtown Jeffersonville Phase 3 (DES 0300798), Clark County, Indiana. Volume II: Results of the Phase II National Register of Historic Places Evaluations and Phase III Data Recovery at Sites 12CL762, 12CL975, and 12CL976. Contract Publication Series 12-289. Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., Evansville, Indiana.

Cupka Head, Kevin (2019). The Old Prison South: Exploring Antebellum Institutional Confinement in Southern Indiana. Indiana Archaeology Journal 14(1):24-33. 

Douglas and Noel (1838). The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana. Douglas and Noel, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Haffner, Gerald O. (1985). An Informal History of Clark County, Indiana. Whipporwill Publications, Evansville, Indiana.

Indiana State Library (2014). Descriptive Books of the State Prison South. Electronic Document. http://www.in.gov/library/indiana.htm, accessed March, 2014.

Schwarz, Kevin R. (2006). Report of Archaeological Investigations to Delineate the Western Boundary of the “Old Civil War Cemetery,” Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana. ASC Group, Inc., Columbus, Ohio.

Williams, L.A. and Co. (1882). History of the Ohio Falls Cities and Their Counties, Volume II. L.A. Williams and Co., Cleveland, Ohio.

The State Line site (12D18, 33HA58, and others) is one of the most intensively occupied Fort Ancient villages known, yet its archaeology is still poorly understood. As the name implies, it is located on the boundary line between Indiana and Ohio, and, in fact, one of four late eighteenth-century stone markers of this boundary is reputedly buried on-site.

Over the years a number of people have examined the precontact archaeology of the site. The State Line site includes six Woodland period mounds in addition to the precontact village. After describing the previous investigations, it can be seen that more needs to be known about the village site and its relation to the earlier Woodland period mound building cultures (800 B.C.-A.D. 500), such as the Adena and Hopewell. At this point, archaeologists will truly understand developments in Fort Ancient society, the last native culture in this portion of the Ohio Valley prior to colonization.

The State Line site is located on a glacial terrace near a major tributary stream and the Ohio River. It is directly adjacent to a creek with several salt springs. This region also would have had a wealth of waterfowl, fish, and plants to feed the native inhabitants (Vickery et al. 2000). But, it is the presence of salt which probably explains the draw of this specific place. More information is needed to assess the importance of the location next to this creek and salt springs, as a supply of salt, but some documentary information suggests that it was. For example, it is well-known that other Late Precontact peoples in what is now the Eastern United States, such as the Mississippians, exploited salt with evaporative salt pans, which were ceramic vessels (Muller 1984). Currently though, how Fort Ancient peoples obtained salt is unknown, although an early historian of Dearborn County, Archibald Shaw (1915), in his History of Dearborn County, Indiana, stated that the salt springs drew historic Native Americans to the area. Below is a description of the various investigations of the State Line site, which informs archaeologists about what is known about the site and what still needs to be understood.

As early as 1854, it was known that Native American burials were present in a local mound at the State Line site, when Abiah Hayes removed more than a dozen skeletons while digging a basement for his house. This house, a fine two-story Italianate, still stands today on the Ohio side. Remains of the mound can be seen as a sloping hillock.

The State Line site was first professionally investigated in the nineteenth century by Indiana State Geologist Sylvester S. Gorby (1886). He conducted a surface collection and excavated into the mounds. Gorby (1886:291) noted that “in the vicinity of the State line, skeletons are found all over the sandy, alluvial terrace at depths varying from one foot to five feet,” and there was a great abundance of pottery and implements.

Later, burials were again found, this time on the Indiana side, when a barn foundation was excavated. Shaw (1915:75), stated that “…graves were found at regular intervals of about 30 inches, with their heads to the west, facing east.” Shaw (1915) provides other details, including that there was a double burial found. A local physician examined the skeletons and identified one male and one female interred together. Also, critical for archaeology, Shaw (1915:75) describes that the pottery grave goods with the double burial were made of “shell and clay.” It is now known that shell-tempered pottery is characteristic of Fort Ancient period societies, particularly the Middle and Late Fort Ancient periods, A.D. 1050-1650. Despite the finding of burials, Shaw (1915) was skeptical that Native Americans lived in Dearborn County or had villages there until very late, due to the lack of many accounts of them by early visitors, such as explorers or settlers. Rather, he thought of Dearborn County as a hunting ground, again owing to the presence of salt, which would have drawn game to the salt licks. This statement aligns with common notions then of the moundbuilders as separate and unrelated to the Native Americans the settlers encountered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In the 1930s, Glenn Black visited the State Line site and wrote that the site was a village belonging to the Fort Ancient culture, which by then was recognized as the last native archaeological culture prior to contact with European Americans. He also described the mounds present at the site, particularly on the Ohio side, and that many of them had already been excavated. Black (1934) provided detailed descriptions of the artifacts he found during his examination of the site. Many of these artifacts fit comfortably within any description of Fort Ancient culture. Black also related that Shaw told him burials had been found while digging a post near the road, and Black himself found a human mandible on one of the mounds (Black 1934).

Frederick Starr (1960) remarked that the State Line site had been heavily damaged by artifact collectors, and urbanization was beginning to take its toll as well. But in the 1970s, two significant salvage archaeological projects provided the first substantial investigations of the village site. The first was in 1974-1975 by the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, led by Charles Oehler. The focus was on a borrow area used for construction of I-275, that impacted the northern portion of the site. Very little information is available about this investigation.

In 1979, an investigation, led by Tom Cinadr, Robert Genheimer, Rodney Riggs, and Kent Vickery was needed due to land clearance for a warehouse and access road. The exposed road cut and building area were rich in artifacts and cultural features. Excavations revealed 1,023 culture features. Particularly there was much evidence of ancient houses, including post molds and wall trenches. Remains of at least five wall trench houses, a distinctive form of Fort Ancient architecture, had been found. Additionally, deep bell-shaped pits, earth ovens, fire hearths, middens, and clay basins were present, as well as trash pits. An earth oven is a pit feature in which large cobbles were used to retain heat from a wood fire. The heated stone and earth surrounding the pit would be used to cook meat, nuts, or other food items. Multiple kinds of burials were excavated, including limestone box graves, flexed and extended burials, double and multiple burials, and burials with grave goods. A rich assemblage of artifacts was recovered, including lithics, ceramics and faunal and floral remains, as well as less common items, such as chunkey stones, which were used in a Native American game (Vickery et al. 2000). The faunal remains were dominated by deer bones and bird bones, including wild turkey and various waterfowl. The diet of the inhabitants of the site was quite varied and maize, sunflower, and wild plant foods, such as nuts, complemented the meat that they obtained.

The ceramics, which were primarily jars and bowls, are of great interest. First of all, the inhabitants of the State Line site lived at a time when Fort Ancient ceramics were transitioning from being tempered with mostly rock grit to be tempered mostly with mussel shell. Mussel shell tempering is thought to have buffered the heat stress of cooking better than rock grit, leading to more durable vessels. Additionally, decorative motifs, such as the curvilinear guilloche were common on Fort Ancient jars, and most ceramics were at least incised or cordmarked, or had other surface treatments. Most interesting though, among the ceramics analyzed by Vickery et al. (2000:308), was the evidence they saw of ceramic types related to Mississippian cultures from further west. For example, Ramey Incised and other Ramey-like ceramics, originally from Cahokia in southern Illinois, were found at the State Line site. Other ceramics resembled Oliver-phase and Angel-phase materials from different regions of Indiana, as well as types indicating “lower Mississippi Valley origin(s),” with similarities to sites such as Etowah, Georgia and Moundville, Alabama (Vickery et al. 2000:308).

This realization led Vickery et al. (2000) and subsequent researchers (e.g., Cook 2017) to infer connections between Mississippian peoples living further west and Fort Ancient peoples. In fact, one current line of thought is that people from Cahokia, Illinois and surrounding regions migrated eastward, perhaps due to climatic changes in the early second millennium and brought with them shell-tempered ceramics and certain exotic ceramics such as Ramey pots, both as imports and as locally-produced wares reflective of external influences. Other Mississippian traits were present too, such as planting of corn and use of chunkey stones in gaming (Cook 2017). This hypothesis has gained traction recently in archaeological thinking and suggests that Mississippian peoples may have replaced or augmented the earlier Woodland period moundbuilding peoples, e.g., those people who built the mounds prevalent in the Ohio Valley.

In 2015, ASC Group, Inc. (ASC) conducted an evaluation on a small portion of the State Line site in advance of an intersection improvement project. The work consisted of geophysical survey, including ground penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic gradient survey, and follow-up manual excavations (Schwarz et al. 2015). The geophysical survey identified 26 magnetic anomalies as possible cultural features, and many more GPR anomalies. A sample of these anomalies was tested, and six cultural features were identified. There was a trash pit and fire hearth with food remains, and four other features whose functions could not be identified. In 2020, ASC returned for Phase III archaeological investigations in a portion of the site.

A high density of artifacts was documented in a 75-centimeter thick midden. Ceramics included cordmarked and incised wares (Figure 1A-IB). A small fragment was identified that appears to be a curvilinear guilloche decoration. It is similar to curvilinear guilloche on vessels recovered from other parts of the site (Figure 1C-D). Faunal bone was found as well, including deer, fish, and bird bone. Additional features such as bell-shaped pits, earth ovens, hearths and storage and trash pits have been discovered at the site (Figure 2). Multiple lithic tools were present, including both chipped stone and groundstone. Abundant debitage was recovered, indicating extensive making of stone tools and re-sharpening of them was occurring on-site. A Turkeytail projectile point base was recovered, and it was made of Wyandotte (Harrison County) chert (Figure 1E). This point style dates to the terminal Late Archaic-Early Woodland period (1500-500 B.C.), immediately before or during the early period of moundbuilding in this portion of the Ohio Valley. Finally, a small crudely-chipped leaf-shaped projectile point was recovered. It was typed as a Nodena Banks projectile point and dates to A.D. 1400-1700 (Figure 1F). Nodena Banks points are more common in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and its presence may indicate contact between southeast Indiana-southwest Ohio and the Mississippi Valley.

Further investigation of the State Line site may be able to better explore the kind of relationship that existed between the Woodland period moundbuilders and later Fort Ancient period villagers, who resided at the site after A.D. 1050. One factor stands out: the location of the site is exquisite in relation to riverine transportation routes and local resources. Additional archaeological work may be able to determine if Fort Ancient peoples were utilizing salt from local sources, which is a vital resource for early peoples. This would be determined through examination of their ceramics (i.e., are salt pans present). Such data, if determined to be true, could factor into examinations of trade routes and reasons for migration. The examination of styles of ceramics and lithic tools is another area of research interest. Each is a facet of material culture which may provide important information archaeologists are seeking about cultural relationships. The goal of further investigation of the site is to infer if a replacement or augmentation of earlier populations is evidenced, or it may be that local peoples adapted to influences emanating from Mississippian societies. 

References

Black, Glenn A. (1934). Archaeological Survey of Dearborn and Ohio Counties. Indiana History Bulletin 11:7.

Cook, Robert A. (2017). Continuity and Change in the Native American Village: Multicultural Origins and Descendants of the Fort Ancient Culture. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Gorby, Sylvester S. (1886). Pre-Historic Race in Indiana. In The 15th Annual Report of the Department of Geology and Natural History, edited by W. B. Burford, Indianapolis.

Muller, Jon (1984). Mississippian Specialization and Salt. American Antiquity 49(3):489-507.

Schwarz, Kevin R., Alan C. Tonetti, and Catharine Carson (2015). Archaeological Testing of the State Line Site (12D18 and 33HA58) for US 50 and State Line Road Intersection Improvements (INDOT Des. No. 1297183) in Greendale, Lawrenceburg Township, Dearborn County, Indiana and Whitewater Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. ASC Group, Inc., Columbus, Ohio. 

Shaw, Archibald (1915). History of Dearborn County, Indiana: Its History, Heritage and Industry. Reprint, Unigraphic, New York.

Starr, Frederick (1960). The Archaeology of Hamilton County, Ohio. Journal of the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History 13(1):1-129.

Vickery, Kent D., Ted S. Sunderhaus, and Robert A. Genheimer (2000). Preliminary Report on Excavations at the Fort Ancient State Line Site, 33Ha58, in the Central Ohio Valley. In Cultures Before Contact: The Late Prehistory of Ohio and Surrounding Regions, edited by Robert A. Genheimer, pp. 272-328. Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.

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Franklin County has the dual distinction of having the largest number of recorded Native American mounds of any county in Indiana (McCord and Cochran 2015) coupled with a long history of mound investigations (Homsher 1884; Setzler 1930). The mounds were constructed and used over a period of 2,000 years and represent several Native American archaeological cultures (Cochran 2009). However, despite the numbers of mounds that exemplify aspects of Native American religious and ceremonial systems, domestic sites for the people who constructed and used the mounds have been unrecorded, both within the county and throughout the Whitewater River basin (Cochran 2009; McCord and Cochran 2014). Site 12FR310 provides evidence of the domestic lives of those people (Niemel 2009, 2010).

The site was discovered in 2006 during a surface reconnaissance for the Rockies Express-East pipeline (Chadderdon, Schoen and Butler 2008). The site was situated on a high terrace in the Whitewater Valley about 1 kilometer from the Whitewater River. A small creek borders the eastern side of the site and a low, intermittently wet area is just north of the terrace. The surface survey found chipped stone artifacts and a fragment of an Early Archaic point. Test excavations uncovered three cultural features, precontact ceramics and diagnostic point types ranging from the Early Archaic through the Middle Woodland periods. The features included two post molds and a truncated pit containing debitage, ceramics, burned nutshell and charcoal. A radiocarbon date from the feature was of Middle Woodland age. Since the site could not be avoided by the pipeline, mitigation of the pipeline damage through excavation of a 25% sample of the site was required (Niemel 2009, 2010).

Mitigation was carried out by Gray & Pape, Inc. Field work was conducted in July and August 2008 with laboratory processing, analyses and report preparation culminating in a final report in 2009 (Niemel 2009). Hand excavation and machine stripping of the plow zone were used to sample and expose features at the base of the plow zone. Sixty-four cultural features were found including a hearth, eight storage pits, 54 post molds and a trash pit.

Eight radiocarbon dates from features included six Middle Woodland, one Late Archaic and one Late Precontact in age. The post molds represented portions of two structures (identified as Structure 1 and Structure 2) with interrupted lines of post molds apparently removed by cultivation. Structure 1, the most complete, consisted of 33 post molds spaced about 90 cm apart outlining an area approximately 8 x 9 meters. Associated features included a hearth and three pits (Figure 1). Structure 2 consisted of only eight post molds similar to Structure 1 but only outlining part of the southern and eastern walls. Associated cultural features were absent. Both structures were oriented the same. No evidence of rebuilding was recorded. Radiocarbon dates from two posts and associated features from Structure 1 established a date range from 10 B.C. to A.D. 390 documenting a Middle Woodland age for the structure and associated features (Niemel 2009, 2010). 

Eight radiocarbon dates from features included six Middle Woodland, one Late Archaic and one Late Precontact in age. The post molds represented portions of two structures (identified as Structure 1 and Structure 2) with interrupted lines of post molds apparently removed by cultivation. Structure 1, the most complete, consisted of 33 post molds spaced about 90 cm apart outlining an area approximately 8 x 9 meters. Associated features included a hearth and three pits (Figure 1). Structure 2 consisted of only eight post molds similar to Structure 1 but only outlining part of the southern and eastern walls. Associated cultural features were absent. Both structures were oriented the same. No evidence of rebuilding was recorded. Radiocarbon dates from two posts and associated features from Structure 1 established a date range from 10 B.C. to A.D. 390 documenting a Middle Woodland age for the structure and associated features (Niemel 2009, 2010). 

Middle Woodland structures are uncommon in the archaeological record of the Ohio Valley. Circular Middle Woodland structures are reported from Harrison County and other sites to the west of Indiana (Mocas 2006). Rectangular structures most similar to those at 12FR310 are recorded in Ohio and duplicate forms are reported from the Stubbs Earthwork site complex in Warren County (Cowan 2006:46). 

 Over 25,000 artifacts consisting of chipped and ground stone, ceramics, floral and faunal materials were recovered during excavation. Diagnostic artifacts ranged in age from Early Archaic through Late Precontact, although Middle Woodland artifacts were dominant. Most notable were Middle Woodland ceramics (Niemel 2009, 2010).

 Over 3,300 sherds were recovered but most were too small for analysis and could not be directly associated with a specific Woodland culture or phase. A total of 1,087 sherds were fully analyzed with the majority from two pits directly associated with Structure 1. The sherds, classified as Middle Woodland McGraw Plain and Cordmarked, included both grit and limestone tempers with cordmarked and plain surfaces. Absent were the decorated types commonly associated with Middle Woodland mortuary and ceremonial sites. A basal sherd with a tetrapod, or foot, was recovered from the hearth inside Structure 1. Tetrapods were associated with Middle Woodland vessels from the Ohio Valley (McCord 2009; Prufer 1965), and an example was illustrated by Lewis (1996:106).

Diagnostic chipped stone artifacts included 11 points and a bladelet. The points represented Early Archaic (1), Late Archaic (7) and Late Woodland (3) types. An additional Early Archaic point and a Middle Woodland point were recovered during earlier phases of work at the site. The bladelet, manufactured of Flint Ridge chert from Ohio, was diagnostic of Middle Woodland and was recovered from a feature with a Middle Woodland radiocarbon date and ceramics. Ground stone artifacts were sparse, not found in features and were not of particularly diagnostic forms. Limestone was notable as materials brought to the site and deposited in Middle Woodland features (Niemel 2009, 2010).

Faunal remains from the site were fragmented and poorly preserved, resulting in a small sample of only 301 specimens for analysis. Deer remains were dispersed across site components and were hunted in fall and winter based on unshed antler. Small animals and large birds were also hunted. Warm weather aquatic species were absent, but may reflect sampling rather than hunting patterns. Butchering and bone tool manufacturing occurred on site although evidence was minimal (Brietburg 2009).  

Botanical analysis of floral remains from a sample of post molds and all other features resulted in the identification of a variety of cultivated and wild plant species. Cultivated species typical of the Eastern Agricultural Complex included squash, knotweed, maygrass, chenopodium, little barley, sunflower and sumpweed. The cultivated crops were split between spring and fall harvests. Wild woody species were dominated by hickory and included black walnut, acorn and hazelnut. Wood charcoal reflects species of the forest surrounding the site, but with some selection for oak and hickory. Wild seeds were generally in poor condition and included fruits such as sumac, elderberry and plum/cherry. A tuber fragment represents either ground nut or an aquatic tuber. In general, the botanical remains from 12FR310 represent the complete range of agricultural products known for Middle Woodland (Bush 2009).

The analysis of features, artifacts and ecofacts from site 12FR310 revealed that the site is dominated by domestic Middle Woodland components. The range of radiocarbon dates and lack of rebuilding of the two structures indicates that site occupation was repeated rather than a single long-term occupation. The domestic nature of the site is further reflected in the utilitarian nature of the lithic and ceramic artifacts and the absence of evidence for craft specialization or ceremonialism. Floral and faunal remains show both spring and fall species suggesting seasonal scheduling for use of the structures as well as cultivation of a typical range of Middle Woodland crops.

Harvesting of nuts and wood use reflect the forest types surrounding the site. The floral remains are typical of the domesticated and wild plants documented in Middle Woodland sites across the Midwest. The site is connected to two mounds in the county by contemporary radiocarbon dating with Glidewell Mound and duplication of a vessel with tetrapod supports in Mound Camp. The excavation of site 12FR310 has produced important new data on Middle Woodland subsistence and settlement in Franklin County and throughout the Whitewater River basin and will serve as a catalyst to stimulate additional research (Niemel 2009, 2010).

References

Brietburg, Emmanuel (2009). Faunal Remains. In Phase III Archaeological Evaluation of Site 12Fr310 for the Rockies Express Pipeline- East (REXEAST) Project, Franklin County, Indiana, by Karen Niemel, pp. 62-64. Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bush, Leslie (2009). Floral Remains. In Phase III Archaeological Evaluation of Site 12Fr310 for the Rockies Express Pipeline- East (REXEAST) Project, Franklin County, Indiana, by Karen Niemel, pp. 64-68. Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Chadderdon, Thomas, Christopher Schoen, and Todd Butler (2008). Phase I Archaeological Investigations, Rockies Express Pipeline Project, Spread 5 and 6, Indiana, Forth and Fifth Mobilizations. The Louis Berger Group, Inc., Marion, Iowa.

Cochran, Donald R. (2009). Natural and Cultural Setting of the Whitewater River Basin. In Phase III Archaeological Evaluation of Site 12Fr310 for the Rockies Express Pipeline-East (REXEAST) Project, Franklin County, Indiana, by Karen Niemel, pp. 5-32. Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.                       

Cowan, Frank L. (2006). A Mobile Middle Woodland? In Recreating Hopewell edited by Douglas K. Charles and Jane E. Buikstra, pp. 26-49. University Press of Florida, Tallahassee.

Homsher, G.W. (1884). Glidewell Mound, Franklin County, Indiana. In Papers Relating to Anthropology: Annual Report of  the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Showing Operations, Expenditures and Conditions of the Institution for the Year 1882, pp. 721-728. Washington, D.C.

Lewis, R. Barry (1996). Kentucky Archaeology. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.

McCord, Beth K. (2009). Ceramic Artifacts. In Phase III Archaeological Evaluation of Site 12Fr310 for the Rockies Express Pipeline-East (REXEAST) Project, Franklin County, Indiana, by Karen Niemel, pp. 54-61. Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

McCord, Beth K. and Donald R. Cochran (2014). Redefining the New Castle Phase. Indiana Archaeology 9(1):137-156.

McCord, Beth K. and Donald R. Cochran (2015). Native American Mounds and Earthworks of Indiana: A Statewide Inventory. Gray & Pape Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.

Mocas, Stephen T. (2006). Early Woodland and Middle Woodland Occupations at the Knob Creek Site (12HR484), Caesars Archaeological Project, Harrison County, Indiana. Indiana State University Anthropology Laboratory Technical Report 36, Terre Haute.

Niemel, Karen (2009). Phase III Archaeological Evaluation of Site 12Fr310 for the Rockies Express Pipeline-East (REXEAST) Project, Franklin County, Indiana. Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Niemel, Karen (2010). Middle Woodland Community Organization in the Whitewater River Basin. Indiana Archaeology 5(2):109-126.

Prufer, Olaf (1965). The McGraw Site: A Study in Hopewellian Dynamics. Cleveland Museum of History, Scientific Publi-cations 4(1). Cleveland, Ohio.

Setzler, Frank (1930). The Archaeology of the Whitewater Valley. Indiana History Bulletin 7(12):351-549. 

The Ben Schroeder Saddletree Factory and Residence in Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana has been described as an industrial Pompeii, without the lava. Almost untouched since the day it closed in 1972, this time capsule of American industry has been reborn as a unique, award-winning restoration. The museum tells the story of the frugal Schroeder family, the obscure craft they pursued, and the life they fashioned with single-minded devotion for nearly than 100 years.

In the 1990s, archaeological study and intensive photo documentation of the Schroeder factory interiors combined with architectural investigation and historical research to yield two stunning conclusions (Brady 1994; Rotman 1999; Rotman et al. 1998). First, this was the last intact saddletree factory in the United States dating to the nineteenth century. (Saddletrees are the internal wooden frames or skeletons for saddles; Figure 1). Second, the site was only occupied by two generations of the Ben Schroeder family from 1878 to 1972. The Schroeder Saddletree factory and site therefore is a rare, virtually undisturbed slice of American industrial and social history during that 94-year period.

Studies of American industries usually look at large factories, not small ones like the Schroeder property (Scranton 1997). Its three main buildings occupy a triangular sliver of property squeezed between a creek and a cliff (Figure 2). About 200 hundred feet deep by 75 feet wide at its widest, the site includes the brick Schroeder family home, a 2 1/2 story frame woodworking shop, and a two-story frame assembly and blacksmith shop. The front yard is dominated by two massive Sycamore trees, while the backyard was used for storage of logs and lumber used to make saddletrees, hames (two curved pieces of wood forming or attached to the collar of a draft horse), clothespins, and wooden products. Research at the Schroeder Saddletree Factory deepened the understanding of the role of small specialty manufacturing plants in American industrial development (Brady 1994; Rotman and Staicer 2002).

The Schroeder family and a small group of workers made saddletrees in relatively small batches depending upon demand from the large saddle factories and the individual saddle makers they supplied throughout the U.S. and the western hemisphere. Sometimes the Schroeders processed orders for dozens or hundreds of a certain style of saddle frame. Occasionally they made custom trees for one-of-a-kind saddles. Many small manufacturers made their products this way in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – and some still do today. Most of the older firms have gone out of business, their properties demolished, and their records destroyed. That the Schroeder site remains largely intact, including an important collection of business records, makes it one of the few places of its kind in the country (Rotman and Staicer 2002).

Saddletree making was not a widespread nor well-known trade even though it was a critical one during the 1800s and early 1900s when riding horses were critical to trans-portation. Madison was one of four important centers for saddletree manufacturing in the country. By some measures, it was the leading industry in the city during the late nineteenth century. When Ben Schroeder built his original factory in 1878, he joined 11 other such firms in the community. By 1880, Madison saddle frame makers shipped over 150,000 trees to saddle makers in the U.S. and internationally (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880).

In 1882, Ben married Elizabeth Backus and remodeled his brick saddletree shop into a home. He built a new wood-frame building in the backyard for his business. Ben and Lizzie had eight children over the next 15 years requiring additions to the house. While his family grew, his business changed, from using hand tools to carve the four main wooden saddletree parts, to using steam powered, belt driven machinery. Ben built a new shop with a boiler room and steam engine in the backyard to house that equipment (Rotman and Staicer 2002).

The Schroeder family lived and worked on the same piece of land. For them, family and business life were tightly woven. Workspaces and living areas existed side by side. The family’s vegetable garden was reportedly between the lumber piles and the blacksmith shop. Saddletrees dried in a heated room called a kiln on the north end of the house. Oral histories describe that the Schroeder dining room doubled as the company’s business office, complete with a rolltop desk and safe (Staicer 1998).

Ben also operated the saddletree factory under his own name so there was no distinction between the man and the business. After his death in 1909, Ben’s widow and children ran the business in much the same fashion. Shortly after the death of their mother ten years later, the six surviving children – Pauline (Krumpelbeck), Leo, John, Gertrude, Joseph, and Charles – incorporated the firm as the Ben Schroeder Saddletree Company. It was a closely held company, keeping in family tradition. The children comprised the Board of Directors, stockholders, and officers of the corporation (Figure 3) (Staicer 1994).

The Schroeder Saddletree Company, Inc. went through economic downturns. There were many years when payroll expenses exceeded company sales. Between 1920 and 1940, records indicated a net loss, yet the number of workers remained fairly constant. The Schroeders may have chosen to continue production and retain employees as long as possible. The company diversified its product lines to include canvas and leather work gloves (1916-1919), lawn furniture (late 1920s-early 1930s), stirrups and hames (1925-early 1940s), and clothespins (1935-1940). Business records also show there were times when the Schroeders could not pay themselves. In December 1932, Gertrude Schroeder noted in the payroll ledger “32 weeks of this year we received no pay” (Brady 1994:4).

The Schroeders were very frugal. It would be difficult to be otherwise when one is not receiving pay for one’s work. The study of the site, both in the buildings and in the ground, illustrates the family’s ability to reuse all sorts of things. The buildings give the appearance of a patchwork quilt, made of a variety of materials included recycled brick, wood siding of different ages and patterns, and even corrugated metal siding when it was inexpensive and easily found locally. The Schroeders repairs to structural parts of the wood framed factory buildings are done as cheaply as possible. The restoration saved several examples where rotted studs were sawn off at the foundation and replaced with cement repairs held in place by old tin coffee cans! Bed frame parts were used to prop up sagging floorboards. A transom above one of the doors in the family home is even framed from scrap saddletree pieces (Staicer 1994).

Inside the factory, evidence of frugality is seen everywhere. Patterns for saddletrees and machine parts are made of cardboard cartons from Blue Ribbon Malt Syrup, Cap’ n Crunch cereal, and Ritz Crackers. Parts from antiquated or obsolete machinery were scavenged for use in other factory equipment. A damaged joint in a saw dust collection pipe in the woodworking factory was mended with a pair of men’s cotton briefs. Machinery restoration revealed the Schroeders use of recycled cardboard, rulers, and wire to maintain equipment. The Schroeders also saved anything that had potential for re-use in the home or factory, including hundreds of aluminum TV dinner trays. The dismantling of a badly deteriorated shed in the 1990s revealed that the structure was literally held up by its contents.

The continued use and reuse of so many items by the Schroeder family affected the archaeological record. For example, an undecorated pearlware sherd (dated 1779-1840) was found during excavation near an amber-colored glass beer bottle fragment (with a maker’s mark from the Owens/Illinois Glass Company, dated 1956-1972). Items uncovered during excavation could not be used for dating individual deposits. Rather, researchers combined information from items found in the ground with architectural and historical evidence in order to interpret the sequence and timing of cultural deposits (Rotman 1999; Rotman et al. 1998).

Archaeological exploration included shovel testing and excavation. The artifacts recovered showed the intensive reuse and recycling of all sorts of items until they were used up, illustrating how extensively the Schroeder family saved objects. The ceramics recovered during the excavation were an eclectic mix of mismatched wares, including undecorated and embossed ironstones, hand-painted whitewares, semi-porcelain decalcomania sherds, and annular decorated yellowwares. No matched set of dishes or expensive vessels were present in the assemblage. Additionally, no fragments of elaborate household furnishings such as chandelier shards or fancy furniture hardware were observed. The Schroeders lived and worked within a tight knit, predominately German community. Significant investments in material displays of the family’s social position were unnecessary. The Schroeders owned a factory that employed many of their neighbors, were actively engaged in community affairs, and well-known to be good, kind-hearted people (Rotman 1999; Rotman et al. 1998).

The Schroeders were not simply frugal and conservative; they were creative and resourceful. The family generated their own electricity on site to run their machinery. They developed a mechanized system whereby sawdust that collected around the bases of machines was vacuumed up and transported to a hopper near the boiler. Joe Schroeder experimented with a synthetic rawhide covering process, applying for a patent in 1946. The family even built their own specialty machines to meet production needs when existing equipment was inadequate. Clearly, business acumen, tenacity, and creativity played a significant role in the factory’s longevity (Rotman and Staicer 2002).

The Schroeder Factory is not the first, largest, nor most sophisticated of saddletree manufactories. It is, however, extraordinary in that it outlasted all of its predecessors. It is the only local manufactory to survive of an industry that was once so important to the vitality of Madison. It tells the compelling story of an unusual American industry and sheds light on how one family kept their antiquated business operating long after the age of horse-powered transportation in the United States.

References

Brady, Carolyn (1994).  “Schroeder Saddletree Factory Workers.” Ms. Schroeder Saddletree Factory, Historic Madison, Inc./ Historic Madison Foundation, Inc., Madison, IN.

Rotman, Deborah L. (1999).  Continued Evaluation of Cultural Resources at the Ben Schroeder Saddletree Factory and Residence: Examining Additional Archaeological and Historical Evidence. Report of Investigations 52. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Rotman, Deborah L., with Rachel Mancini and Mark Boatwright (1998). Archaeology and Preservation at the Ben Schroeder Saddletree Factory and Residence: Deciphering Nearly a Century of Domestic and Industrial Activity. Report of Investigations 49. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Rotman, Deborah L. and John Staicer (2002). Curiosities and Conundrums: Deciphering Social Relations and the Material World at the Ben Schroeder Saddletree Factory and Residence, Madison, Indiana. Historical Archaeology 36(2):92-110.

Scranton, Philip (1997). Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865-1925. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Staicer, John M. (1994). A History of the Ben Schroeder Saddle Tree Company, Madison, Indiana, 1878-1972. Graduate research paper for the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies, State University of New York, College at Oneota, Oneota.

Staicer, John M. (1998). An American Pompei: The Ben Schroeder Saddletree Factory. Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. Spring 10(2):40-46.

United States Bureau of the Census (1880). Population Schedules of the Tenth Census of the United States. United States Bureau of the Census, Washington D.C.

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The Laughery Creek site (12O18) is an incredibly significant but poorly understood middle Fort Ancient (ca. A.D. 1200 to 1400) mound and village site first investigated by prominent nineteenth century archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead and subsequently surveyed by Glenn A. Black. Moorehead (1906) reported six mounds at the site in 1897, but Black (1934) could find evidence of only two, possibly due to 30 additional years of intensive agriculture. According to Black (1934:215), the Laughery Creek site was “by far the largest site encountered” during his survey of Ohio and Dearborn counties. Black reported heavy concentrations of village debris littering the site’s surface.

Early maps of the region indicate that Laughery Creek was strategically located near a buffalo trace, one of the reasons for its importance and large size (Black 1934). Archaeological investigations at other Fort Ancient sites in the region indicate that bison hunting was more significant during the late Fort Ancient Madisonville Horizon than in the preceding middle Fort Ancient Anderson phase (Drooker 1997), suggesting that Laughery Creek could be a multicomponent site consisting of multiple adjacent or overlapping village occupations. Archaeologists have documented a similar pattern of overlapping villages at the nearby Madisonville (Drooker 1997), State Line (Cook 2017) and Hardin Village sites (Davidson 2016).

Moorehead’s (1906) investigations at Laughery Creek included excavation of burials from three of the six mounds, and Black reported that landowners had plowed up burials at the site over the intervening years. The presence of burials is a common characteristic of Fort Ancient villages and supports the interpretation of Laughery Creek as a village site.

 Moorehead (1906) reported finding two bowls with the burials he excavated, and Black (1934) collected several hundred sherds from the site. Black sent these sherds to the Ceramic Repository at the University of Michigan and James B. Griffin (1966) included them in his monumental study defining the Fort Ancient culture. Notably, Griffin identified crushed mussel shell temper in all but three of the sherds collected by Black, confirming their middle to late Fort Ancient age. 

 Diagnostic traits of Fort Ancient ceramics include the shapes of vessels, the kinds of decorations found on them, and the treatment and modification of rimsherds. Of the 58 rims from Laughery Creek included in Griffin’s (1966:187-188) study, 38 were undecorated and most were thickened. Decorations on rims and bodies included both curvilinear and rectilinear trailed lines, incised oblique lines, rectilinear guilloche (diagnostic of Fort Ancient), line filled triangles, a trailed spiral design, and punctations. On the whole, the reported ceramic assemblage is consistent with a middle to late Fort Ancient affiliation (Griffin 1966:187-188; Moore and Raymer 2014). 

Black (1934) also collected numerous stone tools from the site. Triangular projectile points (true arrowheads) were used by Late Woodland and Fort Ancient peoples in the region beginning around A.D. 700 (Seeman 1992). Included in the assemblage from Laughery Creek are coarsely serrated Type 3 Triangular points, considered diagnostic of the middle Fort Ancient period (Railey 1992). Other artifacts found at the site include typical Fort Ancient tools such as celts, shell hoes or scrapers, perforated sandstone netsinkers or pendants, a small sandstone elbow pipe, chipped stone adzes or hoes, discoidals, cupstones, anvils, hammerstones, bone awls and beamer fragments, and many banded slate gorgets and amulets. The variety of artifacts recovered indicates that the site’s inhabitants performed a wide range of activities, including hunting, hide-working, fishing, smoking, woodworking, and food processing, among others. This supports the hypothesis that Laughery Creek represents at least one (and perhaps multiple) village sites in that it indicates a larger group of people were present at the site for a longer period than would be expected for a small camp or single-family habitation. The lack of reported Euro-American trade goods in Black’s (1934) sample may indicate the village had been abandoned prior to the sixteenth century.

References

Black, Glenn A. (1934). Archaeological Survey of Dearborn and Ohio Counties. Indiana History Bulletin 11(7):173-260.

Cook, Robert A. (2017). Continuity and Change in the Native American Village: Multicultural Origins and Descendants of the Fort Ancient Culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Davidson, Matthew J. (2016).  Interaction on the Frontier of the 16th-17th Century World Economy: Late Fort Ancient Hide Production and Exchange at the Hardin Site, Greenup County, Kentucky, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington.

Drooker, Penelope Ballard (1997).  The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology No. 31, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Griffin, James, B. (1966).  The Fort Ancient Aspect: Its Cultural and Chronological Position in Mississippi Valley Archaeology. University of Michigan Musuem of Anthropology Anthropological Papers No. 28, Ann Arbor. 

Moore, Christopher R., and C. Martin Raymer (2014).  A Survey of Fort Ancient Sites in Southeastern Indiana. Indiana Archaeology 9(1):184-208.

Moorehead, Warren K. (1906). Excavations at the Mouth of the Wabash. Phillips Academy Department of Archaeology Bulletin 3:54-86.

Railey, Jimmy A. (1992). Chipped Stone Artifacts. In Fort Ancient Cultural Dynamics in the Middle Ohio Valley, edited by A. Gwynn Henderson, pp. 137-169. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.

Seeman, Mark F. (1992).  Woodland Traditions in the Midcontinent: A Comparison of Three Regional Sequences. Research in Economic Anthropology Supplement 6:3-46

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In 1796, Jean-Jacques Dufour (1763-1827), a native of Canton Vaud in Switzerland, emigrated to the United States with the goal of establishing a winemaking industry in his adopted homeland. While visiting vineyards in the areas around New York and Philadelphia, Dufour (1826:18) was disappointed to find very little success among those attempting to grow European grape varieties. Undaunted, he set off for the West, determined to find a locale where winemaking might be undertaken successfully. He eventually settled in an area southwest of Lexington, Kentucky, which was, at that time, the largest city west of the Appalachians (Butler and Butler 2001:15). Choosing a spot with “convenient situations and the best soil for cultivation,” Dufour began his operation, which he called First Vineyard. He hoped that within thirty years, the industry would grow to such an extent that Kentucky wine could be shipped outside the region to New Orleans and beyond (Dufour 1798). 

In 1800, a number of Dufour’s friends and relatives resolved to come to the United States upon his urging. Burdened with the leadership of this incipient Swiss colony, Dufour began to search for a spot amenable to larger-scale viniculture, with an eye toward lands in the Northwest Territory, north of the Ohio River, which had recently been opened for settlement. After repeated petitions to President Jefferson and Congress, Dufour was granted special terms to purchase land in what would become Indiana. With grand aspirations, Dufour noted in his letter to Jefferson that the land in question, located in present-day Switzerland County, was unsuitable for other purposes besides viniculture, but with vision, the area could soon “rival the Rhine or the Rhone in quantity of vineyards and quality of wine” (Butler and Butler 2001; Dufour 1802).

Upon the arrival of the original seventeen settlers in 1801, Dufour made his final arrangements for his land purchase, eventually acquiring about three miles of Ohio River frontage where the town of Vevay is located today. The first immigrants arrived in summer 1802, quickly taking up the task of land clearing for crops, homes, and vineyards. Additional settlers arrived soon after. Back in Kentucky, things were not going well at First Vineyard. Many of the European grape varieties that had been planted were showing signs of the diseases that had doomed previous attempts at viniculture in North America. Despite these setbacks, Dufour (1826:24) was able to identify two varieties that showed some promise, both of which were likely hybrids between European and American varieties and therefore had some resistance to the local pests and diseases. The first grapes from the new settlement were harvested in 1806 or 1807, with production reaching 2,700 gallons by 1811 (Baas 2004:11; Brown 1916:155; Butler and Butler 2001:39, 47).

Arrival of the Thieband Family

By 1817, the year the Thiebaud family joined the burgeoning community of Switzerland County vinedressers, the residents had “greatly augmented the quantity of their vineyard grounds” and the enterprise was thriving, producing up to 12,000 gallons per year (Brown 1916:155; Butler and Butler 2001:80). Frederick Thiebaud (1767-1846), his wife Harriet (1777-1844), and their eight children, emigrated to the United States, traveling overland from New York to the Ohio River, with the last leg of their trip by flatboat to their new home. The family had a cabin constructed prior to their arrival, temporarily living with two other families until more permanent arrangements could be made (Knox 1948:326).

The Thiebaud property, located about two miles west of Vevay, is similar to many of the farms occupied by early Swiss immigrants to the area. Parcels typically consisted of a rectangular plot possessing a section of river frontage and a narrow terrace/floodplain – the only portion of the property suited for traditional row crops like corn and wheat. The majority of each tract typically consisted of heavily dissected uplands, generally unsuitable for “ordinary” farming, but thought to be ideal for viniculture due to its south-facing slope sheltered from winds, dry, sandy/gravelly soil, and the presence of the Ohio River, which served to temper vine-damaging frosts (Dufour 1826:112-113). In the case of the Thiebaud farmstead, the property extends along the Ohio River for 2,400 feet, with the distance from the river’s edge to the base of the bluffs measuring only 400 feet wide. By far, the largest portion of the 165-acre tract is uplands (i.e., over 90%), which rise precipitously about 350 feet from the base of the bluff to its summit. 

Unfortunately, there are no data as to whether the Thiebaud family came to the United States with winemaking in mind; this is certainly a possibility, however, since a number of the early Swiss immigrants in Vevay were known to have been involved in trades other than winemaking (Butler and Butler 2001:76). An attempt at viniculture certainly seems likely, however, given the presence of terraces on the slopes above the barn and house. Archaeological survey identified at least four, running from just above the bluff base, to a point about one-third of the way up. LIDAR data from the adjoining properties indicates that terracing these steep slopes was practiced by their neighbors as well, suggesting that it was a common practice by the locals (Butler and Butler 2001:71; Strezewski 2004). Soon after the Thiebaud family arrived, however, the wine industry suffered a setback. The Panic of 1819 resulted in deflation and bank crises, putting the Switzerland County’s winemakers into a precarious financial situation from which they never recovered. By 1830, winemaking was in decline in Vevay, as descendants of the original settlers were attracted less and less to its production since more lucrative prospects could be found in other agricultural crops, such as corn or potatoes (Butler and Butler 2001:96-97).

In 2004, an archaeological survey of the Thiebaud property was undertaken to provide a thorough description of the resources present. In that same year, the farmstead was entered into the National Register of Historic Places (Baas 2004; Strezewski 2004). The best-preserved element of the Thiebaud farmstead is the Greek Revival house, oriented toward the river (Figure 1). The house, which is one-and-a-half stories in height, was constructed to replace the previous residence (or residences) built when the family first arrived in 1817. The house is of frame construction, with a small stone kitchen attached in the back. There is a possibility that the attached kitchen may be the original Thiebaud house, though this has not been conclusively demonstrated (Baas 2004). Recent tree-ring analysis indicates that the frame house was built in 1856 (Rubino and Baas 2019:228).

A second structure of note on the Thiebaud property is a large hay press barn, which was devoted to the production of hay bales for export (Figure 2). In the nineteenth century, increasing numbers of urban horses in the United States led to a demand for hay. Since compact bales of hay are less bulky and easier to move and store, a number of techniques were developed to compress it for shipment. One of the most successful of these was the “Mormon Beater Hay Press,” developed in 1843 by Samuel Hewitt of Allensville in Switzerland County. Hewitt’s device consisted of a wooden box into which hay was placed. To compress the hay, an animal-powered system raised a massive wooden block, which was dropped into the box a number of times, producing a 2’ x 3’ x 4’ bale weighing about 400 pounds. Hewitt’s device allowed shippers to load twice as much hay onto a boat than was possible with other hay pressing processes (Baas and Rubino 2004). The Thiebaud hay press barn, located west of the farmhouse, was built in 1850, a date recently confirmed using tree-ring dating. It consists of a two-story timber frame structure, built atop a one-story stone cellar (Rubino and Baas 2019:222).

The construction and use of hay presses continued in Indiana and northern Kentucky through ca. 1870, after which the bottom dropped out of the market. The substantial drop in hay prices was due to oversupply and the improvement of overland travel routes, which replaced riverine shipment as the main means of delivering hay to its destination. Documentary sources indicate that the Thiebaud family produced increasing amounts of baled hay from 1850 through 1870, after which production dropped off dramatically (Baas and Rubino 2012:37; Rubino and Baas 2019:222).

A number of other structures have been identified on the property, indicating a range of activities. These include a circa 1840 stone smokehouse, situated just northeast of the farmhouse. Hand-forged hooks for hanging meat are embedded in the joints and rafters, providing definitive evidence for its former use (Baas 2004). The archaeological remains of two other structures were identified in the upland portion of the property, both of which likely date to the nineteenth century. One was located near the top of the bluff, the other on a small flat spot within a deep ravine. The precise dates and purpose of these two structures have not been determined (Strezewski 2004).

Other features associated with the Thiebaud farmstead include large sections of dry-laid “plantation fences,” most of which were found in upland sections of the property (Figure 3). Plantation-type fences were built by a skilled mason and were constructed by digging a trench onto which foundation rocks were placed. Double walls of stone were lain upon the foundation, comprising the two sides of the fence, leaving a space that was filled with smaller stones. The final step in constructing the fence was the placement of large, triangular coping rocks on top of the wall, each of which was angled slightly to support the adjacent rock (Murray-Wooley and Raitz 1992:24-35). Most fences of this type were built during the first half of the nineteenth century. Portions of the walls on the Thiebaud property have collapsed over the years, though large intact sections still remain. These sections stand about 1.4 meters high. The precise purpose of the Thiebaud walls is not known, though their locations on the property suggest that some may have been used to fence in livestock. Notably, one of the dry-laid walls runs along one of the slope terraces, providing additional support to the notion that the terraces date to the first half of the nineteenth century, and therefore may be related to grape production (Strezewski 2004). Overall, the Thiebaud property remains an important source of information on the agricultural history of southeastern Indiana, from early experiments in winemaking, to a focus on hay export, to the modern agricultural economy of today.

References

Baas, Christopher (2004). Thiebaud Farmstead National Register Application. Submitted to the U.S. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

Baas, Christopher, and Darrin Rubino (2004). Pressing Hay in the Commonwealth: Using Tree-ring Growth Patterns to Date the Construction of Two Kentucky Beater Hay Press Barns. Journal of Kentucky Archaeology 3(1-2):2-31.

Baas, Christopher, and Darrin Rubino (2012). Using Tree-Ring Growth Patterns to Date the Construction of a Beater Hay Press Barn in Allensville, Switzerland County, Indiana. Indiana Archaeology 7(1):35-57.

Brown, Samuel R. (1916). The Western Gazetteer, or Emigrant’s Directory, 1817. In Indiana as Seen by Early Travelers, edited by Harlow Lindley, pp. 136-170. Indiana Historical Commission, Indianapolis.

Butler, James L., and John J. Butler (2001). Indiana Wine, a History. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Dufour, John James (1798). To the Citizens of Kentucky. The Kentucky Gazette 17 January. Lexington.

Dufour, John James (1802). Letter from John James Dufour to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. United States National Archives,  https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0227 . Accessed March 17, 2021.

Dufour, John James (1826). The American Vine-Dresser’s Guide. S.J. Browne, Cincinnati.

Knox, Julie Le Clerc (1948). The Thiebaud Genealogy. Indiana Magazine of History 44(3):326-334.

Murray-Wooley, Carolyn, and Karl B. Raitz (1992). Rock Fences of the Bluegrass. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.

Rubino, Darrin L., and Christopher Baas (2019). Dating Buildings and Landscapes with Tree-Ring Analysis. Routledge, London.

Strezewski, Michael (2004). An Archaeological Survey of the Thiebaud Property, Switzerland County, Indiana. Reports of Investigations 305. Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Archaeological Survey, Fort Wayne.

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