Excavation of the Mission House - Garth, 1947 Archeological Report
NPS photo This plan of the Mission House was drawn by Asahel Munger in 1840. 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. |
Did You Know?
The mission at Waiilatpu had a sawmill supplying it with needed cut lumber. It was located in the Mill Creek drainage. Lumber was needed for the split rail fences and finishing the houses built at the mission.