A Troublesome Tenant in the Gore by the Road: The Cardon/Holton Farmstead Site 7NC-F-128

Summary

In 1743 Boaz Boyce, guardian of the son of William Cardon, deceased, accused tenant Robert Whiteside of cutting valuable timber, and evidently of obstructing the planting of an orchard. The Cardon/Holton site is identified with Whiteside’s tenant homestead.  Artifact analysis suggests an occupation date range of circa 1720 to the 1760s.  Dendrochronological dates from well timbers indicate construction in c.1737 and rebuild or repair c.1753. The core of the farmstead was fully excavated, exposing a two-room house, a smokehouse and probable kitchen, a well, fencelines and pits.  This paper will focus on the spatial and locational aspects of the site: an orderly homestead in a cramped location by a cart road.  The farmstead is also set into a wider context through an approach based on consumer choice theory, considering all aspects of the archaeological data as expressions of decisions related to the acquisition, use, display and perpetuation of wealth.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016   •
• New Highway Uncovers New Histories: Archaeology Mitigations From the U.S. Route 301 Mega Project in Delaware

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 216