Megan Byrne18th Century Store Discovered
October 24th 2006 15:52
About 40 miles up river from Albany, NY, archeologists are uncovering an 18th century convenience store. Buried only a foot or two underground, the store is located in a wooded area along the east bank of the Hudson River, south of where Fort Edward once stood.
The 250-year-old store was set up near the gates of Fort Edward to sell alcohol, tobacco and ‘other goods‘ to the soldiers who passed through the Hudson River Valley during the French and Indian War. Merchants or 'sutlers' (derived from the Dutch to mean ‘someone who performs dirty work’) enjoyed a brisk trade with off-duty soldiers and officers of the Fort. According to archaeologist David Starbuck, “For your merchants of the day, this is your big captive audience. Booze and tobacco were the big things. I guess things don't change with the years."
Starbuck, a New Hampshire college professor, started the dig in 2001 with a team of students, volunteers and professional archaeologists. Since then, they’ve found fireplace bricks and a charred staircase and beams in what was the dirt-floor basement of one of the sutler’s stores. Judging from the fragments of wine and rum bottles found there, the store is thought to have doubled as a tavern. Starbuck said "huge numbers" of artifacts have been found at the sutler site, including various coins as well as broken and intact clay pipes. This stretch of the upper Hudson has long been a source of artifacts dating back to the 1700s and earlier.
In the early 1730s, John Henry Lydius, a Dutch trader from Albany, established the first white settlement in the region when he opened a trading post there. Because this post was destroyed during a French and Indian raid in the 1740s, Starbuck feels the Fort Edward sutler site currently under excavation isn’t the original Lydius trading post. Most likely, this discovery is the sutler store appearing on maps from the late 1750s, possibly the property that belonged to a Mr. Best as listed in contemporary records. The building is said to have burned down around 1760,
Starbuck said the Fort Edward sutler site could wind up being second in significance only to Michigan's Fort Michilimackinac, another 18th-century outpost where archaeologists have found numerous artifacts over the past 45 years.
The 250-year-old store was set up near the gates of Fort Edward to sell alcohol, tobacco and ‘other goods‘ to the soldiers who passed through the Hudson River Valley during the French and Indian War. Merchants or 'sutlers' (derived from the Dutch to mean ‘someone who performs dirty work’) enjoyed a brisk trade with off-duty soldiers and officers of the Fort. According to archaeologist David Starbuck, “For your merchants of the day, this is your big captive audience. Booze and tobacco were the big things. I guess things don't change with the years."
Starbuck, a New Hampshire college professor, started the dig in 2001 with a team of students, volunteers and professional archaeologists. Since then, they’ve found fireplace bricks and a charred staircase and beams in what was the dirt-floor basement of one of the sutler’s stores. Judging from the fragments of wine and rum bottles found there, the store is thought to have doubled as a tavern. Starbuck said "huge numbers" of artifacts have been found at the sutler site, including various coins as well as broken and intact clay pipes. This stretch of the upper Hudson has long been a source of artifacts dating back to the 1700s and earlier.
In the early 1730s, John Henry Lydius, a Dutch trader from Albany, established the first white settlement in the region when he opened a trading post there. Because this post was destroyed during a French and Indian raid in the 1740s, Starbuck feels the Fort Edward sutler site currently under excavation isn’t the original Lydius trading post. Most likely, this discovery is the sutler store appearing on maps from the late 1750s, possibly the property that belonged to a Mr. Best as listed in contemporary records. The building is said to have burned down around 1760,
Starbuck said the Fort Edward sutler site could wind up being second in significance only to Michigan's Fort Michilimackinac, another 18th-century outpost where archaeologists have found numerous artifacts over the past 45 years.
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