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The Archeological Excavation
of Waiilatpu Mission
1947 Report, Part 2:
Excavation of the First House, Mission House, and Blacksmith Shop
THOMAS R. GARTH
Published in
Oregon Historical Quarterly June, 1948.
Volume XLIX, Number 2, pages 117-136.
Table of Contents 1947 Archeological Report
This building was a New England-type saltbox house,
the frame and lean-to part constructed in the fall of 1836 when
the Whitmans first arrived. The house was thirty-six feet long by
thirty feet wide and was a story and a half high, the front or main
section of adobe bricks made from the dirt excavated from the cellar,
and the lean-to at the rear of split logs set in grooved posts.
The lean-to, about twelve feet wide, ran the full length of the
house. It was divided into three sections by cross partitions, the
central section being the kitchen, with a bedroom on one side and
a pantry and a bedroom on the other. A large adobe fireplace and
chimney ran up the outer (west) wall of the kitchen. There seem
to have been two rooms in the front part of the house and a small
chamber in, the upper half story, which later served for storage.
The floors, doors, and possibly the partition walls were of hand-sawed
boards. The roof was five or six inches of mud over a layer of straw.
Our initial problem was to locate the structure,
as there was neither a noticeable mound nor a cellar depression
to indicate its whereabouts. Historical information was also inconclusive.
We tested the most likely areas with a soil auger and soon encountered
telltale reddish-orange earth at depths from eighteen inches to
two feet. This we ascertained to be some of the adobe burned by
the fire which destroyed the house. A trench run through the area
confirmed the fact that this was the ruin. Nevertheless, we had
yet to locate the walls. We were dubious at first as to whether
the adobe brick in the walls would preserve its identity. We feared
it would fuse with surrounding soil into an amorphous mass, making
recognition of the wall lines very difficult. By careful stripping,
however, the wall lines were revealed as well as many individual
bricks which had fallen to the side. In some cases we were aided
by the fact that orange colored particles of burned adobe had, when
the walls were yet standing, sloughed off the upper walls and fallen
so as to outline the lower walls which still remain.
The ground level during mission times was approximately
fourteen inches below the present surface of the ground. The walls
were somewhat higher than the adobe brick rubble in the cellar itself,
indicating that for some years after the upper walls fell in there
had been a mound with a depression in the center. Bones of cattle,
horses and other animals lay on this old mound surface along with
fragments of glass, kiln-fired brick, and coal belonging to a more
modern period-probably 1860 to 1870. The upper walls, of which only
a few inches remain, are fourteen inches wide and were constructed
by laying two seven by five by ten inch bricks side by side. Below
is a foundation wall twenty inches wide. Since the distance from
the center of the south wall to the center of the north wall is
thirty-six feet, the length given in mission letters for the frame,
the frame must have been buried within the walls. This was a common
method of adobe construction. 9
The excavation has not proceeded sufficiently to determine whether
or not posts went up through the adobe foundation from the cellar
floor, though this seems likely as a 3-inch-diameter post hole occurs
in the northeast corner of the foundation wall. Since from letters
we know that the house was thirty feet wide, the post supports at
the rear (west side) must have extended three feet beyond the cellar
opening. We found no trace of these posts, possibly because they
had rested on the ground surface and so left no holes to indicate
their former location.
South formation
wall of the First House
In June of 1947 we commenced to excavate the cellar,
having by this time a fairly large crew of workmen. The cellar was
found to extend under the whole house, though it was shallow under
the lean-to part. The adobe-brick foundation goes to the cellar
floor, giving the front and sides of the cellar the adobe-brick
lining mentioned by Dr. Whitman in his letter of March 12, 1838.10
This foundation wall is four and one-half feet high and is still
in fair condition though it has been damaged in two places by intrusive
pits. On the west side of the cellar, eight feet in from the north
wall, is a depression eighteen inches wide extending two and one-half
feet west of the cellar proper. This may be part of the outside
entranceway. Salt-box houses commonly had such outside entrances
to cellars.
By studying the various layers which made up the
cellar fill one can gain some insight into the history of the ruin.
Starting at the cellar floor, squash seeds (no doubt the remains
of food stored there before the massacre), a pitch pine log, several
badly rotted timbers (probably cottonwood), cut and handmade nails,
and a few other artifacts were found, most of them on the floor
itself. These things were probably in the house when it burned and
were covered when the heavy dirt roof fell. Surprisingly there was
no ash and charcoal layer on the cellar floor as one would expect
when the wooden interior of the house burned. It may be that the
wooden interior was only partly consumed, the fire having been smothered
by the falling dirt roof. Above the cellar floor is a nearly sterile
layer of dark brown soil containing only a few bits of burned adobe
and brick fragments, its surface considerably packed. This layer
is probably composed at least partially of dirt from the roof. The
packed surface represents an "occupation floor" resulting from the
walking back and forth of Indians who camped in the cellar. On it
were several hearths, the main hearth containing ashes over twelve
inches deep as well as numerous cultural remains. On this floor
were trade beads, bone fragments-of deer, cattle and other animals
with the long bones broken for the marrow-, a stone pestle, net
shuttles, a carved bone handle of a knife(?), stone scrapers and
knives as well as gun flints, china sherds and other items of European
manufacture which the Indians must have obtained from the missionaries
or the fur traders. The most common item by far, especially in the
ashes of the hearths, were handmade and cut nails. Evidently the
Indians had used half-burned boards containing nails from the house-the
flooring, etc.-for their campfires.
The adobe walls and chimney must have stood some
years after the house burned. During that time, no doubt, the cellar
made an excellent place to camp. Being on the bank of the river
it was convenient for fishing, drinking water, and sweat baths.
A sweat-house site found fifty-seven feet to the southwest could
well have been used during this period. 11
The cellar could have been camped in sporadically from 1849 or 1850
until Brooks, Bumford, and Noble (cattlemen) settled on the mission
grounds about 1852. All these walls and the chimney must have fallen
in or been pushed over within a year or two after the Indians stopped
using it for a camping place, for they lie directly over the Indian
floor and hearths. This could be an argument for the contention
that the walls were pushed over purposely, as by the Indians in
1855. The fallen walls created a layer of adobe brick rubble two
feet or so thick. Most of the bricks were unburned or blackened
only on one face. Others had been turned a. deep reddish orange
by the 1848 fire. Most were broken in halves or smaller probably
the result of the wall falling in while the bricks were damp. Although
having been in the sub-irrigated. ground for 100 years, the bricks
when taken out and dried turned quite hard, apparently becoming
as strong as ever.
Large fragments of the fallen adobe chimney lay
in the west half of the cellar. Though it was impossible to recognize
individual bricks in the chimney, it was made of yellow adobe earth
so that its fragments were quite distinct from the surrounding brownish
soil. Many of the fragments were two feet or more in diameter and
were deeply burned on one surface. One in particular was lying burned
side down and when turned over exhibited a soot-covered surface
and a half-inch deep groove along one edge. Apparently it had come
from the back of the fireplace or chimney flue. There was no sign
of the chimney foundation on the cellar floor or on the old ground
surface west of the cellar, though the latter position is the probable
one.
Fallen
chimney fragments in the cellar of the First House.
Hatchet and whisk broom are on the old ground level just west
of the cellar.
The cellar has yet to be completely excavated,
a task that should be finished in 1948. We are especially planning
to search for additional post holes in the adobe walls. Apparently
the post holes here. have become somewhat obliterated by cattle
and other traffic which tramped the ruin before it was covered over
by flood deposit. On finding these we will know much more about
the framing of the upper part of the house.
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The Mission House
Mission life was centered in this large "T" shaped
building, which served as a combination dwelling, school, and church.
Its construction was begun in 1838, after the first house was found
to be not only too small but hazardously near the river and subject
to flooding. By 1840 the new house was enough completed, for the
Whitmans to move into. Being very proud of her new home, which had
been nicely finished inside by an expert carpenter-Asahel Munger-Mrs.
Whitman sent a drawing of the groundplan made by Munger to her parents
in New York.12
Thus we have a more accurate knowledge of the construction of this
building than of any of the others at the Mission.
When searching for its walls we discovered a series
of packed levels-occupation floors-and thin ash layers in an area
that subsequently proved to be five to twenty feet south of the
actual ruin. The four packed occupation floors encountered correspond
rather closely to the four successive houses that have occupied
the site since 1838. Level 4 represents the ground level in mission
times. It is extremely compacted. Over it is a thin layer of grey
ash, probably from the burning of the mission house. Over this is
a fill layer of burned earth deposit which very likely came from
the Eells cellar which was dug through the ruin about 1859. On this
level (floor 3), which shows some packing, is a second ash layer
containing material from the Eells cabin which burned in 1872. There
are large quantities of melted window glass, some of it thick and
some thin. Apparently Cushing Eells used thin Hudson's Bay Company
type glass in his windows as well as some of the thicker, more modern
type glass. In the ashes, too, were several door locks, portions
of his stove, an ox shoe, powder horn, and numerous other items.
He used kiln-fired brick in his chimney, no doubt some of the first
made in the region. These vary from an inch to two inches in thickness
and are from three and one-half to four inches wide. Chinaware on
floor 3 should be for the most part that used by the Eells household,
though as yet not enough has been obtained to enable a thorough
analysis. Some of the sandstone footings which had supported the
Eells cabin were still in place though badly fractured by heat.
Above floor 3 was two to four inches of burned-earth
fill, doubtless spread about by Charles Moore after 1872 when he
redug the cellar and built a frame house on the site. The floor
2 level which topped this fill probably dates from about 1873 to
1912. Except for a preponderance of square "cut" nails and other
late nineteenth century artifacts the content on floor 2 was much
the same as that on floor 1. On both floors the prevalent types
of pottery was plain white Ironstone ware, which the Meakin Brothers
and others in England turned out in quantities during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Floor I resulted when Marion Swegle
enlarged the old cellar and moved most of the Moore house from the
site in 1912, building a sixteen-room house in its place. The importance
of these occupation floors is that they enable us to date the types
of artifacts found on each. For instance, we should be able, eventually,
to distinguish the pottery of the Eells period from that of the
mission period.
The rear walls of the mission house were first
to be uncovered. Having Munger's ground plan to work from, as soon
as we found a corner and determined the orientation of the walls,
location of remaining corners was fairly simple. Since the mission
house was on relatively high ground there was less flood deposition
over its walls, which were in places less than six inches below
the ground surface. The building had apparently been laid out with
a compass, for it was oriented approximately with magnetic north.
Except for length the dimensions check fairly well with those given
in Munger's sketch, though room "A" at the south end of the "T"
front was never constructed. The building was sixty feet ten inches
across the front, which was nineteen feet three inches wide. The
stem of the "T" was twenty-two feet wide, but apparently the Whitmans
had added more rooms than originally intended, for instead of being
seventy feet long the stem was eighty feet long. Counting a small
"T" at the rear (the privy), the total length of the building was
one hundred eight feet. With three exceptions the adobe walls were
eighteen inches thick. The twenty-inch thickness of the west wall
may be due to its being worn down to the foundation which was thicker
than the upper wall. The rear (east) wall was only nine inches thick
and that of the privy twelve inches. Corner posts had been located
in the extreme southwest and southeast corners, just inside the
walls. These probably gave added support to the floor sills. It
is likely that subsequent excavation will reveal such post holes
in all inside corners. Though there is some indication that a frame
was buried within the adobe walls, excavation is not far enough
advanced to allow a description at this time. In fact, the major
part of the excavation has yet to be carried on in this ruin-only
the tops of the walls having been exposed at various points. Work
so far done on this ruin indicates that it will be the richest in
cultural material.
MUNGER'S PLAN OF THE
WHITMAN MISSION
This plan of
the Mission House was drawn by Asahel Munger in 1840.
Larger
image of Munger's house plan
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Blacksmith Shop
(Web editor's note by C. Boehle - Garth likely
found the Blacksmith Shop corral, instead of the actual Blacksmith
Shop. In the 1960's, archaeologist Paul Schumaker again searched
for the site and found what is believed to be the correct location
of the Blacksmith Shop).
Historical information on the blacksmith shop
is extremely meager. Even the nature of the building material used
was doubtful, although the fact that it was built in December and
January, 1841-42, led us to surmise that it must have been of wood
rather than adobe. Most drawings of the mission site, as well as
most descriptions, put the shop between the mission house and the
mansion house. We concentrated our efforts in that area and soon
encountered a long ridge of burned earth deposit containing typical
artifacts such as sherds, thin window glass, and bone buttons. Though
at first we thought it might be an adobe wall, it turned out to
border both sides of an old irrigation ditch which we later learned
had carried water to stock corralled in this area. M. W. Swegle,
farmer and former owner of the land, had moved dirt from the mansion
house ruin (100 feet to the east) and used it to build up the banks
of the ditch. Near one end of the ditch, however, we located a large
bed of mixed charcoal and dirt that in places reached a thickness
of ten inches. Some of the charcoal fragments were three inches
across though most were smaller. In a few instances we encountered
sections of small logs, the largest being nineteen inches long by
five inches in diameter. Most, however, were three inches or less
in diameter, obviously the remains of burned poles or branches of
about this size. The charcoal bed assumed the shape of a large hexagon
about thirty-five feet across the front or west side and thirty-two
feet from east to west, which subsequently proved to be the shape
and dimensions of the shop, slightly enlarged and irregular in outline.
Three levels were recognized, disregarding the
overburden of mansion house fill which covered a small area at the
northwest corner of the blacksmith shop ruin. The artifact content
from floor 1 to 2 was essentially modern. In the charcoal bearing
stratum-from floor 2 to 3 - the artifact content was meager but
of more genuine antiquity. Floor 3 exhibited packing only along
the east quarter of the ruin. This was unexpected, for undoubtedly
the shop had a dirt floor which must have been subject to considerable
packing during the six years in which the shop was used. In most
of the shop the charcoal stratum rested on a soft and extremely
uneven layer. This with the dearth of artifacts led to the conclusion
that the soldiers who came in 1848 and stayed seven months must
have dug through the ruin in search of scrap iron, a very valuable
commodity in that day. It is almost certain that they took the anvil
and some other tools. 13
Their digging may account for the fact that more charred timbers
were not preserved nearly intact, but were broken up into small
pieces and scattered throughout a ten-inch layer of soil. Undoubtedly
the structure supported a dirt roof as did all the other mission
buildings except, perhaps, the grist mill. It was this dirt roof
which fell and smothered the fire so that much of the wood turned
to charcoal rather than ash.
At the floor 3 level and in some cases as much
as six inches above numerous post holes were found. The fire which
destroyed the structure had consumed the posts, even eating out
below the ground level, so that the post holes were filled with
a mixture of charcoal, ash and dirt which preserved the squared
outlines of the posts and made the holes easily recognized. A line
of squared posts placed five to eight feet apart ran around the
circumference of the building making it apparent that Whitman had
employed the fur-trade type of construction of grooved posts between
which were inserted horizontal poles and split logs tenoned at the
ends. These horizontal filling pieces were in this case three to
five inches in diameter, mostly cottonwood from along the nearby
stream. It will be noted that this was the same type of construction
as that employed in the lean-to of the first house, except that
the lean-to had a plank floor while the ground served as a floor
in the shop. Along the southeast side of the shop the post holes
were double. The poles which formed the sides of the building must
have been placed between the double posts, so that grooving the
posts was unnecessary. Rail fences built in this manner are often
seen even today. The inside post may have functioned for the attachment
of shelves or some similar purpose. Most of the posts were ten or
eleven inches wide and extended fifteen to eighteen inches below
floor 3 level.
On the west side hinging off the northwest corner
post there was probably a door, large enough to admit a wagon. Several
of the sketches of the mission show such a door. In the southwest
quarter of the ruin three eight-inch-square post holes are all that
remains of the forge. The posts which stood here were probably about
waist high and were boarded up between to make a triangular-shaped
box, six feet four inches long by two feet wide. This was filled
with dirt, forming a platform on which the forge fire was built.
The building was in the shape of a rough half
circle. The dimensions from east to west were approximately twenty-six
feet and from north to south thirty-two and one-half feet. The type
of construction used required few or no nails and, very few have
been found in the ruin. Also window glass is lacking except on floor
2 and above, making it unlikely that the buildIng possessed glassed
windows. If windows existed they were probably closed by solid shutters.
Window glass, a valuable item in mission times, was probably reserved
for dwellings. There was no sign of an adobe chimney, and the shop
may have lacked a chimney of any sort-the smoke being allowed to
escape. through a hole in the dirt roof.
Floor 3
of the blacksmith shop [corral], letters indicating post holes.
Post hole "a" has not been dug out, its location and size being
marked by the white paper.
Next: Part 3
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Endnotes
9 See T. R. Garth,
"Early Architecture in the Northwest," Pacific Northwest Quarterly
XXXVIII July, 1947), 231-232.
Back
10 Hulbert, op cit., VI, 294.
Back
11 Fourteen inches below the surface
there were indications of a shallow pit about eighteen inches in
diameter and containing ten rounded stones, all less than six inches
in length. Some were fractured as if by being cooled rapidly when
water was dashed over them to make steam. No doubt this is where
a Plains-type sweatlodge was located. The local type was dome shaped
and about six feet in diameter made of bent branches covered by
grass and earth or matting. The old river channel was about twenty
feet away.
Back
12 Letter of May 2, 1840 in collection
of the Oregon Historical Society.
Back
13 To encourage settlement of the Walla
Walla valley Captain Thompson of the Volunteers had an article placed
in the Oregon Spectator, July 13, 1848, to the effect that there
were then in the Walla Walla area gristmills and sawmills, blacksmith's
anvils and bellows, tools and irons, plows, harrows, hoes, etc.
See F. F. Victor, Early Indian Wars of Oregon (Salem, Ore., 1894),
226. No doubt most of the items mentioned belonged to the Whitman
mission.
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