Back Home Next

In the laboratory at the Marshall House, samples taken at the sites are sifted, washed, identified and catalogued.

MONT BLANC ARTIFACTS
A partial listing of architectural artifacts found by Fauquier County students at Mont Blanc

736 identifiable nails as evidence of circa 1820 house construction
33 wrought nails used largely in board and batten doors
154 handmade brick fragments
174 mortar fragments
246 window glass fragments
2 slate pencils
Ceramics: Pearlware made from 1780 to 1830
Whiteware, 1810 to present
Creamware, 1775 to 1820
Yellowware, 1830 to 1930
Coarse earthenware, some Redware and 33 stoneware sherds recovered, local wares difficult to date
Porcelain sherds with blue Canton design popular during first thirty years of the nineteenth century
Chinese Export Porcelain 1660-1840
Transfer wares from 1830's, Bemrose
Blue Willow 1795-1840
Annular Pearlware 1790-1820

The Dig

Hurricane lamp globe fragments
A small milk glass button
Aluminum foil fragments (invented in 1891)
White ball clay tobacco pipe bowl fragment
Three pipe stem fragments
One natural quartz crystal, (documented at other historic sites as gaming pieces used by slaves) - quartz is a common outcrop in the Virginia Piedmont
Heat-damaged ceramic sherds, melted window glass fragments, fire-reddened nails: evidence of the 1894 fire which destroyed Mont Blanc
Prehistoric Native American occupation of the Mont Blanc Site:
Six secondary flakes (five quartz, one jasper)
Ten tertiary flakes (eight quartz, one quartzite, one chert)
one jasper biface scraper
one quartz chunk
one quartz, side-notched projectile point base, possible dating to Archaic Period (8,000-1,200 B.C.)

Items determined to be unstable are dry-brushed and not washed - such as wood, leather, fabric, or soft-bodied ceramics - and then placed in individual plastic bags, perforated to allow air exchange.

The Final Exam