"An Ever Widening Circle": The Lighthouse Site State Archaeological Preserve

Summary

When John Elwell died in the late nineteenth century, newspapers characterized him as the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." When Sol Webster died in 1900, newspapers said he was the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." Before Mary Matilda Elwell died in 1928, she called herself the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." In fact, however, hundreds of descendants of the founding couple, the Narragansett Indian James Chaugham and his white wife Molly Barber, survive and, as historian Lewis Mills phrased it, have spread across the U.S. "in an ever widening circle." As a result of archaeological and genealogical research, many people in that ever widening circle are now aware of the place where their ancestors sought sanctuary in northwestern Connecticut in the mid-eighteenth century. Their village has been the subject of an archaeological excavation and honored as a State Archaeological Preserve (SAP). That designation led to the publication of a booklet and the erection of signage. Inspired in part by the SAP program, more than sixty descendants of James and Molly made a pilgrimage in the summer of 2015, visiting the place that is much more than an archaeological site; it is their ancestral home.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18769