James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2017 Montpelier_WTP_Spring2017_FINAL-1-web | Page 15

SPRING 2017
An 1837 insurance plat provided the starting place.
It told us that six buildings stood in the South
Yard—two double slave quarters at the south end,
two smokehouses in the center, and a kitchen and
single-room quarter on the north end, closest
to the main House. Archaeology to locate them
began in 2011 with the excavation of the two
double quarters, part of a larger exploration of slave
dwellings across Montpelier funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
In 2012 we constructed “ghost-frame” outlines of
all six buildings, to begin the process of returning
them to the visible landscape. Following David
Rubenstein’s 2014 gift, the project to rebuild the
South Yard commenced in earnest with further
archaeology to investigate the remaining four
buildings.
To begin the reconstructions, we first assessed the
double quarters. Archaeology indicated that both
had brick chimneys, glazed windows, and raised
floors, one supported by brick piers and the other
by a stone foundation. This told us that the homes
of enslaved domestic servants in the South Yard
were very different from those of field slaves, who
lived in simpler log structures featuring stick-and-
mud chimneys, minimal windows, and clay floors.
Were the quarters in the South Yard really “nicer”
than the dwellings of enslaved agricultural workers?
“cottages” with their floors resting above the ground
on piers or foundations, these houses would have
been draftier and colder than the log homes of
enslaved field workers that rested on the ground.
That the South Yard buildings were constructed
with an eye for economy, despite their proximity
to the main House, was further confirmed with
the two smokehouses. Evidence revealed that
they rested not on foundations but on “sacrificial”
wooden sills— buried timbers that rotted in the
ground over time. This again suggested minimal
resources being invested in structures that would
nevertheless have needed an appropriately formal
overall style due to their association with and
proximity to the main House.
Archaeology could not tell us about the outward
appearance of the smokehouses, so we turned
to surviving local examples for guidance. A
smokehouse at Woodberry Forest School became
our model. Not only does it represent the
same geographic region and time period as the
Montpelier examples, but the school is built on the
former plantation of Madison’s brother, William.
Amazingly, the door there still hangs on its original
strap hinges, which almost perfectly match the
fragments found in the South Yard.
Architectural hardware fragments excavated at the
site helped us answer this question. It suggested
that the structures were not as architecturally
sophisticated as the main House, despite the
South Yard’s proximity to it. The “eureka” moment
came from a bin of excavated iron artifacts. Two
in particular jumped out: a pintle and strap hinge
fragment. Further examination revealed a second,
much smaller, set of pintles and hinge fragments.
The hardware told us that the South Yard
buildings were treated more like outbuildings, with
plantation-made iron strap hinges on board-and-
batten doors, as opposed to the panel doors with
imported cast-metal hardware in the main House.
Even the tiny pintle and hinge fragments told
us the double quarters had small gable openings
with shutters hung on strap hinges. Furthermore,
though they appear to modern eyes to be attractive
The pintle and strap hinge fragment that was excavated from the South Yard.
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