HomeProgress-Index, 01/28/2006
Archaeologists unearth part of the city’s past on Pocahontas Island
By F.M. WIGGINS, Staff Writer
PETERSBURG - Since mid-December a group of professional archaeologists has been digging up the past of Pocahontas Island in a mission to paint a picture of one part of the city’s history.
“We first had to establish the potential that we would find artifacts and significant artifacts,” said Dulaney Ward, special projects consultant to the city manager. “I believe that this area probably has the richest untapped archaeological sites in the state.”
In the early days of railroad, the depot the archaeologists uncovered on Pocahontas Island was quite possibly one of the most important train stations in the state.
It’s just one of the finds that archaeologists with the James River Institute for Archaeology have made while working on Pocahontas Island.
After 1885, however, with the creation of the Atlantic Coast Line, the station on Pocahontas Island virtually disappeared as another station which was built across the Appomattox River in Petersburg city proper.
“This community has hardly been studied at all. Most of the major work has been done by Richard Stewart, but no one man can do all the work himself," said Ward. "Hopefully this project, the Pocahontas Research Project, will reveal the importance of this community.”
The group of professional archaeologists from Williamsburg has been working on the island since mid-December.
Ward said that the area has had a long history of settlement from the time it was an island in the middle of a mostly marshy area inhabited by Native Americans, to the free black community to the industrial era, all the way to the present.
Victoria Hauser, preservation planner for the city of Petersburg, said that the work being done by the archaeologists is in preparation for nominating the community to the National Register of Historic Places.
One of the major finds of the nearly month-long archaeological exploration of the island has been the discovery of a 300 foot by 30 foot building which was at one time part of the Petersburg-Richmond Railroad line.
Ward said that in 1860 it would have been the station Stephen Douglas would have come to when he was campaigning against Abraham Lincoln. It also would have been the same station that Jefferson Davis would have stopped at on his way to Richmond.
Over eight days in September 1863, the station saw the movement of thousands of troops from Northern Virginia to Georgia.
“Gen. [James] Longstreet requested to be sent to Georgia and over eight days he moved troops through Petersburg,” said Ward.
Project archaeologist Andrew Butts said that the station was just one of the sites excavated and examined during the Pocahontas Island project.
“We also looked at the Jarratt House, which we've dated to approximately the 1820s, and another house which has been associated with the Underground Railroad," said Butts. "We've found ceramics and architectural artifacts, mostly items associated with every day life that when broken were thrown out, things like tableware and pipe bowls.”
Most surprising was the depth at which the railroad associated building was located.
“It was really just below the grass, so we really haven't found any historical artifacts with this building, mostly modern items,” said Butts.
Because the foundation was found so close to the surface, it's been hard for the archaeologists to find more items from the period during which the building probably saw most of its use.
“This work is so important right now because the island has been under pressure from development and even as we can see from this dig, it has been under constant pressure from development," said Ward. "As the city moves forward to the point of getting the river dredged and a harbor reformed, it will be under even more increasing pressure.”
Ward said that at some point in the future the city may hire a historian to further study the island.
“There’s a lot of potential for finding more,” said Hauser about the archaeological project.
“We're hoping to bring the archaeologists back and that the excitement generated by these finds might make that possible,” said Ward.
* F.M. Wiggins may be reached at 732-3456, ext. 254.
