Digging unearths structure related to 1760s well

Some of the materials unearthed Wednesday, such as pieces of oyster shells and slate, collect on top of the town well at Rowan Public Library. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

Bobcat operator Peter Vriesema watches as Kenneth Robinson, director of public archaeology at Wake Forest University, and student assistant Mary Kate Wagner excavate an area near the town well. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

By Mark Wineka

mwineka@salisburypost.com

Archaeologist Kenneth Robinson dug a little deeper Wednesday at the old town well off South Church Street.

It was worth getting dirty.

Robinson and student assistant Mary Kate Wagner found evidence underground of a brick support pad for a post and a line of stone and mortar running east-west that suggests some kind of boundary or wall.

"This is exciting," Robinson said late Wednesday morning. "This is part of some kind of structure associated with the well."

Robinson is director of public archaeology at Wake Forest University.

Rowan Public Library, with help from Historic Salisbury Foundation, called in Robinson to help determine what the dimensions might have been for the old well's original covering.

The well — the town had several public wells in its early history — dates to around 1760. Lord Cornwallis and his British troops camped next to it during the Revolutionary War, and it's close to where a young Andrew Jackson studied law under Judge Spruce Macay.

Research done by the library suggests the Nathaniel Alexander family as the most likely to have dug the well, not Adlai Osborne, who is given credit on the sign next to the well.

Rowan Public Library Director Jeff Hall thinks there could have been at least three different structures over the well through its long history.

On the site Wednesday afternoon, Hall and Robinson met Wednesday with John Larson, director of restoration for Old Salem.

Larson will design the type of structure that may have been present in the Colonial or Federal period.

An anonymous donor is making the project possible.

Last week, Robinson used ground-penetrating radar around the well (now closed off and encased in a brick wall with a granite top) to see if any anomalies would show up in the dirt, suggesting the location of original postholes.

Back at Wake Forest, data from the radar showed "so many things it was hard to tell" what exactly was underground, Robinson said.

He returned with Wagner Wednesday and, with the help of Peter Vriesema's Bobcat mini-excavator, dug up concentrations of brick, roots, gravel and rock near the well.

"The radar's making very good sense now," Robinson said.

As everyone dug, they unearthed a course of stone with mortar — the "old type of mortar" with a lot of sand, Robinson said. There seemed to be a mortar bed on top meant for another course of stone, he noted.

The digging also brought up pieces of oyster shells and slate. Shells are not an unusual find and could have been used as fill material. Some of the slate pieces had evidence of nail holes.

Robinson placed many of the artifacts in plastic bags.

By day's end, Larson and Robinson were still scratching their heads a bit at what the dimensions of the original structure might have been. Sanborn Maps from 1896 show a structure at least 14-feet square, and what digging has unearthed so far is about 3 feet short of that.

The 1896 map also shows a like-sized, enclosed building attached to the well structure.

Robinson planned to return today for more digging, more getting dirty.