Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7273-2739
Document Type
Research Report
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
In spring and summer of 2022, students and staff from the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at UMass Boston completed a geophysical survey and test excavations at the Jeremiah Lee property at 157 and 161 Washington Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts. These were the first known archaeological investigations of the property. Work in 2022 focused on the area between the house and the Brick Kitchen and the eastern part of the yard behind the house. The Lee property, now owned by the Marblehead Museum, is a large, complex urban lot. Our work in 2022 showed that the archaeological preservation of deposits from the 18th century on this part of the property is exceptional. Many of these deposits are associated with the Jackson family who owned this part of the property from the 1690s until ca. 1760, and some are associated with the Lee period (1760s to 1780). Jackson period deposits are deeply buried and very well preserved. Several units contained dense artifact and faunal (animal bone) deposits from ca. 1690 to 1730, described in detail in the report, and we found evidence of the Jackson house, a privy, and an early 18th-century blacksmithing area. Deposits from the Lee period are shallow and primarily consisted of preserved cobble surfaces in multiple areas. There were limited deposits associated with the 19th-century use of the Mansion as the Marblehead Bank and no preserved deposits relating to the 19th-century use of the Brick Kitchen as a dry goods store. Additional survey and excavation took place in 2023.
Recommended Citation
Christa M. Beranek, John M. Steinberg, and Carolyn P. Mikowski 2024 Geophysical Survey and Archaeological Investigations at the Jeremiah Lee Mansion and Brick Kitchen, 2022, Marblehead, Massachusetts. Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Cultural Resource Management Study No. 91, University of Massachusetts Boston.
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