But the bulldozers can’t come in and dig a basement until we do an archaeological survey of the area to be excavated so that we don’t lose any of the historical treasures that may be buried there. That gives us a wonderful opportunity for a “community archaeological dig,” which is why we are inviting you to “dig in” in both senses of the word. On Valley Gives Day, we’re asking the public to “dig in” to their pockets and raise $5000 for this exciting project, an amount which we are aiming to match with a grant from Mass Humanities. Your contribution will give local school children—and grown-ups too—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to discover history through hands-on archaeology. To make this possible, we need donors who will underwrite materials costs for outreach to local schools, equipment costs for the excavation and processing of artifacts, archival materials for artifact storage and personnel costs for the entire project.

Please go to www.razoo.com/story/Historic-Northampton and make a donation toward this project!

Then, next May and June, we will be asking you (and your children) to get down on your knees in the Parsons House back yard and help us dig, literally, for buried historical treasures: broken ceramics and glass, animal bones, perhaps parts of a shoe, which together will tell an important story about the early Parsons and Wright families who lived on the site. And for those of you whose knees are not kneeling knees, there will be plenty of indoor processing work sitting at tables indoors.

A Midden: From Trash to Treasure

What archaeologists hope to find in situations like this is a "midden," an old garbage heap turned treasure trove by the passage of time.   Before the days of modern garbage collection, people very often just threw their trash out a back door or window.  In the Parsons House, there are at least two areas to be investigated.  The first lies "just out the back window" of the hall of the original 1719 house.  This area is now actually INDOORS under the floor of the lean-to kitchen that was built in the late 18th century, and any artifacts discovered would almost certainly have belonged to the family of Nathaniel Parsons which owned the house from 1719 to 1808.  The second area is just "out the back window (or door)" of the lean-to kitchen - an area now outdoors and partially under the back porch. Artifacts found here could have belonged to either the Parsons family or the Wright family, who lived in the house in the 19th century.

The Parsons House, 1719

Earliest section, 1719

The Parsons House was framed around 1719 with construction continuing on for a year or two.  The earliest section of the Parsons House is a two-and-a-half story wood frame house with a center chimney. This original house survives within later additions and remodelings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  An in-depth investigation of the architecture was conducted in the early 1990s.  Pitch-pine dendrochronology research was conducted to date the house to 1719. The late Gerald Parsons and other historians at the Parsons Family Association have extensively researched the early Parsons Family in Northampton.  Now funding is needed to see what history lies buried in the ground.

Linda Ziegenbein, PhD, will oversee the community archaeological dig in 2015

Funding is essential because we want to do this job right. Archaeology is not just haphazard treasure-hunting. It is a disciplined investigation with high standards for documentation. Therefore we have engaged professional archaeologist Linda Ziegenbein (PhD in Archaeology from U Mass) to oversee the project. Linda has extensive archaeological experience and is already well-known among area historians for her research on David Ruggles and Northampton area history. She will be responsible for organizing the project, ensuring that we meet the legal requirements for this excavation, overseeing excavation, presenting workshops for children in local schools, and conducting orientations at the beginning of each day of public digging so that volunteers understand essential principles and skills before they take trowel in hand.