A Yeoman’s House in Marshfield: the c. 1638 Robert Waterman House

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

As Plimoth Plantation became crowded for ever-increasing numbers of newcomers, colonists spread into neighboring areas within the Old Colony. One of these areas was Greene’s Harbor, or Marshfield. In the 1630s Robert Waterman and his wife Elizabeth, a daughter of prominent colonist Thomas Bourne, settled along the Green Harbor River. The Watermans’ neighbors included Edward Winslow’s brother Josiah, who also married a Bourne daughter. The identification and complete excavation of the Watermans’ post-in-ground/palisaded home, discovered in the path of an airport runway, provides a clear picture of the lifeways of a yeoman family, including the house construction and exactly how the interior house space was used. This single-occupation house, which burned down, provides a blueprint for reconstructing a First Period Old Colony house.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 515