1690-1700.

3A. Sandy clay fill extending to within 6 inches of floor in Area B, against wall north of chimney. The same as Strata 3-5 but without the oystershell layer that divided them elsewhere. About 1690-1700.

3B. Sandy clay as above, but from areas where Stratum 4 was absent. About 1690-1700.

4. Oystershell deposit in Areas A, C and E, sealed by sandy clay Stratum 3. About 1690-1700.

5. Sandy clay under oystershell layer, reaching to cellar floor. About 1690-1700.

6. Ash and sand layer on remains of cellar floor; principal artifacts concentrated against south face of cellar hole in Areas D and E. About 1690-1700.

6A. Similar layer to Stratum 6, confined to Area B north of the chimney and underhearth foundation. About 1690-1700. (The same number is given to a chisel found behind a horizontal wall board at this level, but which may have been deposited when the cellar was built rather than at its date of abandonment. Fig. 14, no. 6.)

7. Objects lying in slots left by rotted-floor sleepers. About 1690-1700.

8. Late disturbance at southwest corner of excavation, Area E. 19th century.

9. 3-inch layer of light-grey soil beneath Stratum 2 extending down to top of oystershell layer (4) from southwest; confined to Areas E and F. About 1690-1700, possibly disturbed at upper west edge.

10. Unstratified material from all areas of the cellar-hole excavation, derived from frost disturbances and the results of removing the walnut tree.

11. Finds from oystershell and artifact layer beneath topsoil southeast of the existing house. About 1690-1700 with a few much later intrusions. (Area K, fig. 2.)

12. Surface finds recovered from field west of existing house.

The Artifacts

The collection of objects from the Clay Bank cellar hole is important for a small number of rare items and because the deposit provided accurate dating for a much larger group of less impressive artifacts. Unfortunately, neither category included pieces that were of much help in establishing anything of the history of the property.

A small cannonball of the 3-pound type used by light fieldpieces of the minion class was found in the top of the sand stratum (D3) against the south face of the cellar. Guns of this caliber may well have been used during Bacon's Rebellion, and there might be some who would care to use the excavated ball to support the legend that Bacon died at Clay Bank. The ball, it has been argued, could have been left behind by Bacon's forces when they vacated the site in the fall of 1676. However, such a conjecture, based on so little evidence, can hardly be taken seriously.

The single clue pointing to a Porteus family association, the latten spoon with its presumed Scottish mark, hardly merits any more serious consideration than the cannonball. Somewhat more tenable, however, may be the suggestion furnished by two artifacts, that the cellar hole was in the vicinity of a cooper's workshop. The objects in question were a "chisel" (fig. 14, no. 7) used specifically for driving down barrel hoops, and a race knife (fig. 12, no. 3), a tool frequently used by coopers to mark the barrels. No documentary evidence has been found to indicate the presence of a cooper in the Second Precinct of Petsworth Parish in the late 17th century though the Vestry Book does contain an entry for October 4th, 1699, ordering an orphan to be indentured to a cooper in King and Queen County.[20]

Other tools from the Clay Bank cellar included spade and hoe blades, a large wedge, and a carpenter's chisel, a range of items that did nothing to support a coopering association, but which did tend to indicate that the artifacts might have come from a variety of sources.

The pottery included a high percentage of coarse earthenwares, among which were fragments of two, or possibly three, lead-glazed tygs and a similarly glazed cup (fig. 15, nos. 7, 8, and 9), all objects that would have been best suited either to a yeoman's household or to a tavern. The large quantity of tobacco-pipe fragments present might support the latter construction but the dearth of wine-bottle pieces does not. Numerous fragments of English delftware were found scattered through the filling from top to bottom, most of them in very poor condition. While none of the pieces was of particularly good quality, a medium-sized basin with crude chinoiserie decoration in blue, is of some importance. The vessel (fig. 15, no. 1) is of a form that is extremely rare from the 17th century, but which clearly was the ornamental ancestor of the common washbasins of the 18th century.[21]

In marked, and even staggering contrast to the assemblage of cheap and utilitarian earthenware, was the presence of a massive lead-glass stem from a "ceremonial" drinking glass or candlestick, a form undoubtedly made in London in the period 1685-1695 (fig. 10). Although the double-quatrefoil stem units and central melon knop are paralleled by existing glasses, the heavily gadrooned foot is seemingly unknown. This last feature gives the foot such weight that it has led Mr. R. J. Charleston, Keeper of Ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to suggest that the stem may come from a candlestick (fig. 11) rather than from a large, covered glass. However, no parallels for such a candlestick are known.

One might be tempted to believe that a glass candlestick would be more likely to have been brought to 17th-century Virginia than would a seemingly pretentious, covered, "ceremonial" drinking-glass. But in 1732, Thomas Jones[22] of Williamsburg made a settlement upon his wife in case of his death, and among the possessions listed were "6 glass decanters, 6 glasses with covers...."[23] Covered glasses ceased to be popular after about 1720 when fashions in glass were turning from the icy sparkle of mass towards more delicate and lighter designs. It is possible, therefore, that the Jones' glass might have been of the general type indicated by the Clay Bank stem. But be this as it may, there is no doubt that the excavated stem is the finest piece of glass of its period yet discovered in America, and that it is sufficiently important to be able to add a paragraph to the history of English glass.

Other glass objects included the powdered remains of a small quatrefoil-stemmed wineglass, a form common in the period 1680-1700.[24] Like so many glasses of its type, the metal was singularly impermanent when buried in the ground, and little or nothing could be salvaged of it. Also present were fragments of at least seven wine bottles of the short-necked, squat-bodied forms of the late 17th century, as well as one fragment of a short-necked and everted-mouthed case bottle. A few fragments of cylindrical pharmaceutical bottles were also found as was a well-preserved bottle of similar metal but in wine-bottle shape (fig. 9 and fig. 15, no. 19). Such bottles are thought to have been used for oils and essences, and their manufacture seems to have been confined to the