LEFT: Trained volunteers at the Dorsey site excavate test units, sift through layers of soil, and keep meticulous records. BELOW: Sugarland president Suzanne Johnson( left) and archaeologist Tara Tetrault scrutinize one of hundreds of unearthed artifacts
sticking out of the ground,” she recalls.“ We later realized it was the leg of a wood stove.”
Reese also noticed hand-cut stones that she feared were untended graves. Invited to bring his expert eye to the site, cemetery preservationist Glenn Wallace examined the shape, size, and arrangement of the stones and came to a startling conclusion: She had actually discovered the foundations of a house.
Right away, Reese and Johnson knew whose home they had found. In the 1970s, historian George Mc- Daniel collected stories from elders while studying African American communities in the western upcounty. The 1979 book that compiled his research included a map drawn from the recollections of Johnson’ s grandfather, lifelong Sugarland resident Tilghman Lee. The placement of the stones lined up on the map with the farmstead of Basil and Nancy Dorsey, who bought four acres of land here in 1874, just three years after the oldest known Sugarland property deeds.
Johnson isn’ t surprised that an archaeologist came along right when Sugarland needed one.“ When you do the right thing,” she insists,“ good things happen.”
Tetrault’ s team spent much of the 2021 season turning nearly impassable woods into a small, workable clearing. Throughout March and April, her volunteers— joined by friends, neighbors, and chainsaw-wielding teachers from the MCPS Outdoor Education Program— hacked at the overgrowth with hand tools and felled a few obstructive trees. By early summer, the team laid a grid over the testing area using stakes and string. After carefully walking the grounds to collect surface artifacts, they began exploring the site with small shovel-dug test pits. Once they found evidence of the Dorsey home, they put in the first of several 2’ x 2’ test units.
Work began around the foundation stones. Nails, window glass, and chunks of bluish-white mortar all confirmed that a log house once stood at that exact location. The team was excited, but they proceeded cautiously. Volunteers documented every square of earth and
every layer of soil in that square, keeping records of the elevation, soil type, and the artifacts and features in each test unit— a process sometimes slowed down by the need to cut and remove thick, intertwined tree roots.
When a volunteer uncovered a flat stone with grooved channels carved into its top surface, visitors to the site speculated that it may have served as a boot-scraper or that its grooves kept it from becoming slippery. Either way, it was evidence of a doorway. As more artifacts were uncovered, Tetrault began to see the layout of the Dorsey home more clearly.
“ According to the recollections of neighbor Tilghman Lee, the wood stove was usually in the middle of the house,” she says.“ We put in a test unit, and there they
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