The Mansion (Emigrant) House - Garth, 1947 Archeological Report

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This dwelling, which was 400 feet east of the mission house, has in recent years come to be referred to as the "emigrant house" as it was where immigrants stopping at the mission were usually quartered. There are no contemporary statements as to the dimensions of the building or the number of rooms. Some information was obtained after 1880 from individuals who had been in the structure, but memories after so long a period are not entirely to be trusted.

As far as we can tell, the building was divided into four rooms on the main floor with a single room in the attic where grain was stored. The construction was no doubt similar to that in mansion-type houses in the East, with a rectangular groundplan and a central doorway flanked by windows on the facade, which in this case was probably on the north side. Estimates of its size vary considerably.

A combination of unfortunate circumstances has caused the ruin to be in exceptionally poor state of preservation. The mound is pock-marked with relic-hunters' holes; parts of it, especially on the north side, have been carried off with a slip scraper to build up the banks of a nearby ditch; and worst of all the adobe bricks in the walls seem to be of poorer quality than those in the other dwellings (possibly because of a greater alkalinity of the soil) so that they have lost their identity and fused with the soil surrounding, them, making it almost impossible to recognize individual bricks. Unfortunately, too, the building was on relatively high ground, so that there was little flood deposition over it to protect it from the tramping of cattle. The walls were only a few inches below the ground surface. In undisturbed areas the inside edge of the wall could be determined by where it interrupted the burned earth deposit (ash, orange-colored earth, etc.) inside the building. The outside edge, however, was more difficult to recognize as there was little ash and debris here to define the edge.

On the surface of the burned earth deposit (called floor 2) a soapstone elbow pipe of Indian manufacture was found along with numerous trade beads, indicating that the Indians must have camped here when nothing was left of the house but a mound. (14) Much of the remainder of the mound has been disturbed to some extent. The southeast corner was traceable, but not so definitely as in the case of the southwest corner. The outside edge of the north wall was defined by gravel along its border deposited by a severe flood when the wall was yet standing. The inside edge was also discernable, giving the wall a fourteen-inch thickness. Window glass was scattered along the north wall in two areas, indicating the presence of windows. Several sketches of the mission show windows so located in this building. What appears to be part of a brass window catch was found along with the glass near the east end of the north wall. At the west end the wall line does not show plainly and the occurrence of window glass along the edge is our best evidence of wall in this area. The east wall is in deplorable condition. The northeast corner is indefinite. Test pits show the burned earth deposit of the ruin to be very shallow both in this area and along the north border of the mound. At most only a few inches of wall remain in place. The adobe bricks seem to have been laid directly on the ground without there being a rock or log foundation of any kind.

Assuming that the south wall had a thickness the same as the north wall, the dimensions of the building are thirty-five feet six inches from north to south, and thirty-seven feet from east to west. W. H. Gray, who built the house in 1841, gives its dimensions as thirty-two feet by forty in a book written some years later. (15) Thus there is not too great a discrepancy between the dimensions as he remembered them and those found. The digging so far has' failed to indicate the presence of a cellar, and it seems doubtful that one existed.. There is no historical mention of a cellar, and, too, the large irrigation ditch only twentyfive feet away would have kept a cellar flooded most of the time.

 

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