Excavation of the First House - Garth, 1947 Archeological Report

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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.

 

NPS photo

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.

 

NPS photo

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.

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.

 

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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