ARCHAEOLOGY AT GUNSTON HALL

Seeking out clues in the ground to what George Mason's plantation landscape once looked like is the task of the Gunston Hall archaeology program. Uncovering colonial garden features, roads, fences, outbuildings, and slave quarters are some of the ongoing projects.

Gunston Hall’s Archaeology Program

The mansion at Gunston Hall has survived remarkably well over the years. Architectural and room use studies have permitted the house to be presented nearly the way it appeared when George Mason and his family lived here in the 18th century. Several lines of evidence suggest that Mason designed the house and the formal landscape as extensions of each other, a single entity that functioned as one continuous living space.

Unfortunately, little information has come down to us concerning what George Mason’s landscape may have looked like. Seeking out clues in the ground allow for the replication of what Mason saw when he stepped outside of his house. This vision is the task of the Gunston Hall archaeology program.

Sometime around 1840, one of George Mason’s sons, John, wrote down recollections of his childhood at Gunston Hall. Providing an account for his children and grandchildren, John Mason recalled what plantation life was like with his famous father over a half-century before. While it was not his intent to describe what the plantation looked like, he does mention a number of aspects of the landscape. Though the features are not described in detail or given specific locations, this is the only known eyewitness account of the 18th Century plantation and has provided a wealth of clues for further study.

Interpreting the 18th-century landscape is further complicated by the fact that Gunston Hall has been continuously occupied since the 1750s. The land has been used for many different purposes and numerous buildings have gone up and come down during that time. In spite of all these disturbances to the ground, clues to the appearance to George Mason’s landscape are being teased from various nooks and crannies by Gunston Hall’s archaeologists.

When the full-time archaeology program was established at Gunston Hall in 1998, its initial investigations focused on the “regular” garden on the riverside of the mansion. Archaeologists were given the task of collecting enough evidence to allow a reasonable approximation of the 18th-century garden to be reconstructed. In his Recollections, John Mason wrote, “My father was fond of his garden and took most of the exercise he did take during the times of close occupation in it.” He tells us that the garden was exactly one acre in size, “reduced to a perfect level” and laid out in rectangles and squares with gravel walks. Much of what John Mason mentioned concerning the garden has been confirmed through archaeology. The margins of the one-acre garden have been identified and the major gravel pathways have been located. Yet much remains to be done to fully understand the garden of George Mason.

Many mysteries remain in the ground at Gunston Hall. Virtually self-sustaining, the colonial plantation made or grew almost everything needed to support its operations and its inhabitants. Yet we do not know where on the plantation these things were done. John Mason mentioned something like 30 outbuildings in the area of the mansion. The locations of almost all of them remain unknown. Then there are the fences and gates, roadways, walkways and planting that helped define the landscape inhabited by George Mason and his family.

No less important are the clues that the earth may still hold concerning the lives of the enslaved people that lived at Gunston Hall. George Mason owned approximately 90 slaves, yet almost nothing is known about them. The places where they lived, where they worked and where, finally, they were buried have never been located. Clearly, much remains to be done in the years to come by archaeologists at Gunston Hall.

Archaeology at Gunston Hall is about more than digging. It is also about sharing. It is important to us that archaeology be part of our overall public presentation. We want to share with our visitors not only the findings of archaeology, but also the process of archaeology.

The archaeology program participates in most of the public events at Gunston Hall. Special programs and archaeology tours are arranged for groups of both adults and children. Families can spend an afternoon doing hands-on archaeology with archaeologists at Gunston Hall’s annual Archaeology Day. Groups of school children touring Gunston usually stop by the excavations to have a look at what is coming out of the ground and to have a chat with the excavators.

And, the next time you visit Gunston Hall, please do stop by our “digs.” The archaeologists will enjoy talking to you about what they are doing and listening to any insights that you may have about what they are finding.