Eighteenth-Century Life Along Delaware’s Cart Roads: The Noxon Tenancy

Summary

On behalf of the Delaware Department of Transportation, The Louis Berger Group completed an archaeological data recovery at the Noxon Tenancy, a circa 1740 to 1770 domestic site in St. Georges Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware. The site was part of the Noxon’s Adventure parcel, patented in 1734 and owned by two generations of the Noxon family. However, the Noxons did not reside on the property, and site was likely a tenant-occupied farm. Phase III test unit and feature excavations yielded a large assemblage of over 7,000 artifacts, the analysis of which allows for the interpretation of site chronology, domestic economy, trade, and foodways in the Delaware coastal plain region. Comparative analysis of the Noxon Tenancy site with other sites in the region allows for a discussion of how the unique social space occupied by mid-eighteenth-century tenants farming along the cart roads of Delaware lived within a larger historical context.

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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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 321