Archeology in the Monumental Core: Part 2

by Charles LeeDecker

Recent construction projects along 17^th Street have revealed a few archeological sites associated with the landscapes that existed prior to creation of the Monumental Core park lands. The largest of these was the Potomac Park Levee. Archeological investigations focused on the 17^th Street area, where a levee closure structure extends across 17^th Street onto the adjacent areas of the Washington Monument Grounds and West Potomac Park. The archeological resource of primary interest here was the 17^th Street Wharf, an important element of the city’s historic infrastructure, built by slave labor and later a predominantly African American workplace. Archeological investigation of this site would not have been practical under normal conditions, as it was beneath the pavement of a busy city street and flanked by some of the most heavily visited park land in the capital city. Archeological fieldwork was carried out during construction, when effective measures for traffic control and public safety were in place and when heavy equipment was available for deep excavations (LeeDecker 2013).

Stoneware bottles from the 17th Street Wharf Site.

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One of the construction trenches in the 17^th Street roadway contained massive timbers that were possibly associated with the deck of the wharf. In the same trench, deeply buried, artifact-laden soil layers were also present with glass vessels, ceramic vessels, and food remains. These deposits are similar to those found at domestic sites in other areas of the city, but at 17^th Street, they seems to represent consumption of beverages, medicine and food in an industrial workplace setting, and some of the deposits may be associated with Henry Hill’s lunchroom. The most notable items are more than 100 sherds representing 19^th-century style stoneware bottles. Other vessels include a master ink bottle made of stoneware, and various glass beer or mineral water bottles, a wine or liquor bottle, fruit jar fragments and lamp globe sherds.

Glass bottles from 17th Street Wharf Site: left: “Salvation Oil” medicine bottle; right: unmarked patent/prescription medicine bottles

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Test pits in other areas of the levee construction zone site contained highly varied fill deposits. Some areas contained late 19^th-century domestic refuse and architectural debris, including whole beverage and medicine bottles. Ceramic vessel fragments were widespread throughout the construction area, giving the deposits the appearance of a domestic character. The highly variable soil columns reflect that a variety of sources were sought and used for fill in the late 19^th century, not simply the sediments removed from the nearby shipping channels. The Chief of Engineers’ annual reports from the 1870s indicated that great quantities of street sweepings, household refuse, and construction debris were deposited in the public lands by local citizens and cartmen, along with material obtained by the grading of Pennsylvania Avenue and the excavations for major public buildings. Contractors supplied quantities on the order of tens of thousands of cubic yards, and anonymous citizens dumped individual cartloads of refuse from cellar excavations, furnace ash, and backyard trash dumps.

Headwall from sewer canal outlet that emptied into the Potomac River; the “grave error in sewage disposal” described by Hains. Lockhouse B is in the background of photo.

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The most impressive feature at 17^th Street was the headwall of the infamous sewer canal outlet, the outfall where the B Street sewer emptied into the Potomac, the embodiment of what Hains referred to as “a grave error in sewage disposal.” Partially exposed and dismantled during construction for the levee structure, the Tiber Creek Sewer Outlet was a massive structure in the form of brick shaft that was five courses thick. The headwall measured some 40 feet in length with two smaller flanking shorter wingwalls.

detail of keystone from sewer canal outlet that emptied into the Potomac River; the “grave error in sewage disposal” described by Hains.

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The portal to the sewer featured an arched, semi-elliptical opening that was formed by a series of voussoirs culminating in a keystone that bore a date of 1880. The shaft had an interior width of 23.5 feet, closely conforming to the notation of Lusk’s 1892 plan of the city sewer system (Lusk 1892). The interior height of the shaft was estimated to be approximately 13 feet. A small feeder line to the same sewer network was documented along 17^th Street during construction for the Southside Barrier project in President’s Park (Bedell 2003)

Archeological documentation of the lock keeper’s house foundation during sewer manhole replacement along 17th Street. The base of the original foundation is more than 12 feet below grade.

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A short sewer replacement project along 17^th Street allowed documentation of two archeological resources associated with the 1832 C&O Canal Extension. The land reclamation program for Potomac Flats required the deposition of millions of cubic yards of fill, a process that engulfed the wharf, the lock, and the lower portion of the lockkeeper’s house. When 17^th Street was extended across the newly reclaimed land in 1902, it followed the alignment of the 17^th Street Wharf and partially intruded on the footprint of the lockkeeper’s house, which by then had been abandoned. Lockhouse B was moved out of the street right-of-way to its present location in 1915. During the 2012 sewer replacement project, the original foundation of Lockhouse B was documented in an access shaft at a depth of more than 12 feet below grade. As the sewer replacement project continued, remains of Lock B were also documented, at a location beneath the pavement of present-day Constitution Avenue. Both sites illustrate the challenges and opportunities for archeology in modern urban environments, where resources from the city’s earliest history still survive but in settings where the logistical challenges of field documentation might sometimes seem overwhelming.

References

Bedell, John. 2003. Archeological Investigations, Southside Barrier Project, President’s Park, Washington, D.C. Prepared for the National Park Service, National Capital Region by The Louis Berger Group, Inc., Washington, D.C.

LeeDecker, Charles H. 2013. Archeological Monitoring of Construction Potomac Park Levee, National Mall and Memorial Parks, District of Columbia. Prepared for the Government of the District of Columbia, Department Of Transportation, Washington, D.C., by The Louis Berger Group, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Lusk, J.L. 1892. Statistical Map No. 5 Showing the Location of Sewers, City of Washington. On file, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.