I recently realized that this blog has older posts, from 2015, about the archaeological work on Yarrow's lot in Georgetown, but nothing about the results. So this and the next post will get into that subject.
The archaeological work lasted about five months. Almost the entire lot was excavated. Part was done by hand and the dirt filtered through screens. The rest was done with a backhoe. In addition, the entire lot was examined with ground-penetrating radar.
Nothing earth-shaking was found. The 19th century frame house that had stood there was not the house Yarrow lived in. Worse, it was in such disrepair that the city razed it, apparently leaving the debris in what had been the basement and then simply covering it with dirt. Thus, the ground-penetrating radar was of no aide for the street part of the lot, and no hand excavation was done there. The previous owner had put a swimming pool behind the house and on the west side of the lot. No archaeology was done in that area either. All the hand digging was in the back of the lot. This was complicated by the fact that when the pool was dug, the spoil was dumped on the back half of the lot. So most of the effort was put into digging through the spoil in order to get down to the ground level of when Yarrow lived there.
The artifacts that were recovered were bagged and reviewed later. Although the artifacts included fragments of plates and cups, a doorknob, buttons, clay smoking pipes, and such, none could be definitely attributed to Yarrow. For example, a fragment of a dish might be dated to between 1770 and 1850 based on when that particular design was manufactured, but there is no way to know if it was Yarrow's or a later owner's. Indeed, even something dated to 1810, when Yarrow owned the lot, might not have been Yarrow's because a later owner might have brought it on the land.
Later, however, someone who was not involved in the archaeology was able to tell me more about the lot. This individual was a map expert. He carefully examined the so-called Boschke map of Washington, which appears in an earlier post, and reached several interesting conclusions. First, he said that the buildings shown on that map vary in their dimensions, and he, therefore, believes the shapes of the building on Yarrow's lot, a square, represents the shape of his house. Since log cabins are square, he concluded Yarrow's house was made of logs. Second, he noted the house is shown precisely on the street (now Dent Place) and not set back from the street as houses in Georgetown are today. He suggested that even as late as 1859, when the map was drawn, the road by Yarrow's probably wasn't a "street" as we think of it. Finally, he opined that Yarrow's lot sloped downward towards the river. His house, therefore, sat on relatively level ground right on the street, but the back of the 35' X 150' lot was rather steep. The slope of the land was apparent from the dig.
I also learned, after the book was published, that Yarrow had a "log house." This fact comes from an 1836 newspaper announcement that his lot, the eastern half of Lot 217, would be sold for taxes. The announcement said a log house was on the land. It also said the land belonged to "Yarrow's heirs." Since Yarrow died in 1823 and his son Aquilla died in 1832, it seems likely that Aquilla had been paying taxes on the land, but that stopped at his death. I found no other facts to fill in the narrative. However, my guess is that Yarrow's heirs at least included his niece Nancy Hillman who sued in 1840 to recover on his loan. But perhaps the term Yarrow's heirs also meant his sister and a wife, but we don't know.
This is a picture I took of a reproduction of a circa 1770 log house in McLean, Virginia. It is simply a log cabin with siding covered with pitch to keep out rain and wind.
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