Project Description
During the summer of 2025 Professor Gaylord will continue his research at Liberty Hall, the location of the iconic 18th-century campus of our predecessor institution, Liberty Hall Academy. In the 1970s, Professor John McDaniel and roughly a decade of W&L students excavated here, focusing largely on the academic period of the site’s occupation (1782-1803). Professor Gaylord’s research has shown that after the Liberty Hall Academy House burned down in January 1803, the two subsequent land owners held roughly one hundred African Americans in bondage at Liberty Hall as the labor force for agriculture and light industry over the years between 1803 and the American Civil War. Our work this summer will focus on excavation in the yard spaces around the Foundation at Liberty Hall—Liberty Hall Structure 9—the academy’s Steward’s House/Dining Hall, which later served as the center of enslaved life at Liberty Hall Plantation. Enslaved people lived here, but they also likely operated a forge, cooked and ate, performed washerwoman and seamstress work, and operated one of the earliest African American schoolhouses in the Valley of Virginia. Additionally, we will concentrate on artifact processing and analysis in trying to understand what life was like for the people held in bondage at Liberty Hall. We will excavate while the weather allows, we will process and analyze the sediments and artifacts when the weather keeps us indoors, and we will visit archives in Rockbridge and Augusta County that hold many of the documents related to Liberty Hall.
Prerequisites
It would be best if they have taken an archaeology class with me, especially Field Methods in Archaeology, but I can get them up to speed in the week of preparation before the AIM Program in Archaeology starts.
Special Comments
They will be better off to take my Field Methods in Archaeology class during spring term, or an individual study with me during winter term, but they will not be required.
Project Information (subject to change)
Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025
Estimated End Date: 7/18/2025
Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks
Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2
Research Location: On campus
Contact Information: Donald Gaylord (email: gaylordd@wlu.edu)