The Abingdon Glebe House

Science. History. Anthropology. Deductive reasoning. Archaeology demands a lot of its devotees, but the payoffs can be epic, ranging from life-changing discovery to a new appreciation for very old cultures. If your child roams your backyard with a shovel, combs riverbeds for arrowheads, or dreams of being the next Indiana Jones, then our archeology day-camp may be just the break that your child — and your lawn — needs!

Archeology Camp Registration Form

Artifact boxes failing as they soak up water covering the floor.

On Friday night a pipe leak flooded our lab, leaving an inch of water across the entire first floor of the building.  As many of you know, we were already crammed into a space far too small, unable to expand our public outreach activities, like lab nights (every Tuesday, 6-9 pm) or properly house our study collections and exhibits.  When we discovered the leak Saturday morning, we jumped into action.  By the end of the day, with the help of a handful of volunteers, we had addressed the immediate needs: getting things off the floor, removing the soaked books, cardboard boxes, and soaking up as much water as we could.  Now comes the tough part – fighting mold, repairing the damage, and keeping these treasures accessible to students, volunteers, and you!

An inch of water on the floor "whicks up" almost eight inches into the boxes.

The Fairfield Foundation is in crisis mode as we respond to the biggest threat we’ve ever faced – and we need your help. Water-soaked carpets and inadequate ventilation are forcing us to move much of our lab into temporary storage (unfortunately our future home at the Edge Hill Service Station is still far from completion).  This move will ensure we avoid potential mold and water damage to our remarkable library, artifact collections, and the records of over a decade of archaeological research at Fairfield Plantation, but it also keeps these learning tools out of reach; the loss of this space limits our connection with the community. We are asking for your help to ensure we keep that connection alive, continuing our lab nights, internships, and research while we recover from this crisis.

How Can You Help?

1. Click on the Donation button below and make a tax-deductable contribution to the Fairfield Foundation.

2. Press the “Like”, “Send” and/or “Tweet” buttons below to share this post with your friends, family, and followers, and ask them for their help.

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Volunteers help move parts of the lab to off-site storage.

Your support will help with the costs of this emergency and ensure we properly repair the damage to our collections.   Insurance may help, but will take precious time.  Your immediate assistance will help assure the safe recovery of our lab space and collections – and maintain our connection with the community.

If you can help, at no matter what level, please do.  This is a difficult time for us as we are raising funds for our annual payment, hosting our open house at the station (Today! April 26 from 5:30 to 7:30), and paying down the debt from the stabilization of our future home.

If you’ve ever wondered when your donation would make the biggest difference – that time is now.

Please make a donation today.

Sincerely – Dave and Thane

Documents, artifacts, and books awaiting transport to storage - temporarily out of reach of our volunteers.

Curious about what’s been happening at the Edge Hill Service Station? Come and take a look for yourself on Thursday, April 26th, from 5:30 to 7:30. Co-sponsored by the Gloucester Main Street Association, we are hosting tours of the station, with updates on the restoration progress and historic rehabilitation process, information on donation opportunities, and outlining our vision for the restored building. And we’ll have live music by Steamboat Road and tasty treats for everyone to enjoy. This is the perfect opportunity to come by and (re-) introduce yourself to this Main Street landmark.

Ample parking is available at the Edge Hill Shopping Center directly across the street.  We’ll have the garage doors open and plenty to see and learn about our future home, including photographs of the station from the 1930s and 1940s, information about our Restoration Workshop coming up in August, as well as our conceptual plans for the building and site.  You can also meet some of the artists who have covered our windows with paintings.  We’d love to hear your thoughts on the restoration and ideas for the making this historic building a contributing part of our Downtown- and we’d also like to hear about your old stories about the service station.  The Edge Hill Service Station was once a focal point of the Gloucester community, and it will be again. Afterwards, consider having dinner at one of our fine restaurants on Main Street, such as Rosemary and Wine or Bangkok Noi (just a few steps down the road).   What better way to learn about the past and the future of our community, enjoy great food and great music, and support local businesses and non-profits.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Jen Kostyniuk, External Affairs Manager, Dominion Virginia Power and Fairfield Foundation President Carl Fischer.

We are please to announce that a generous grant of $15,000 from Dominion Resources will support the design and installation of solar panels and infrastructure at our Edge Hill Service Station on Main Street in Gloucester.

“The Fairfield Foundation is thrilled that Dominion is playing such an important role in promoting energy efficiency and sustainable design in our area,” said Fairfield Foundation President Carl Fischer.

“We are pleased to help preserve this historic site and help make it energy-efficient,” said Virginia M. Board, president of The Dominion Foundation and managing director of community affairs for Dominion Resources. “Edge Hill offers a rare glimpse back in time to our nation’s automotive roots.”

The Dominion Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources, of which Dominion Virginia Power is a subsidiary. Foundation grants are funded by shareholder dollars and are not borne by customers. The grant helps fund the restoration’s second phase, estimated to cost about $100,000, including many ‘green’ and sustainable design efforts, such as materials reuse, geothermal heating and cooling and wastewater recycling to make the renovation qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 28,000 megawatts of generation. Dominion operates the nation’s largest natural gas storage system and serves retail energy customers in 15 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s website at www.dom.com.

We look forward to finalizing the design specifications for our rooftop solar system and installing it later this year.  This generous grant will help bring light and life back to the Edge Hill Service Station, shining a spotlight on the revitalization of Gloucester’s Main Street.

We’ve all heard the expression “You can’t take a step in Virginia without walking on an historic site!” We live in an amazingly historic area with wonderful resources, from the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, to the restored and reconstructed town of Williamsburg, the grand plantations along Route 5, and the battlegrounds at Yorktown and Gloucester Point.  But that history extends far beyond these well-known sites and counts just as much for our communities in Gloucester, Mathews, and the entire Middle Peninsula. Many of us know of historic sites in our own backyards where we’ve found broken pottery, an arrowhead, or a minie ball.  One of the goals of the Fairfield Foundation is to collaborate with the Middle Peninsula Chapter of the Archeological Society of Virginia (MPCASV) is to identify these sites and determine what they can tell us of our region’s history (Learn more about the ASV at www.asv-archeology.org).

The MPCASV consists of avocational and professional archaeologists dedicated to protecting, learning from, and sharing the knowledge gained from archaeological sites of all periods. The primary focus of the group is working with property owners and the public to identify, register, study, and encourage stewardship of archaeological sites on the Middle Peninsula. The chapter’s work often includes site visits, talking with property owners, properly identifying artifact collections, and sharing information about the type, date of manufacture, and cultural context of these objects. The chapter is also busy searching for sites of significant historical importance, such as the many undocumented shipyards of Mathews County. Members work closely with property owners, historic groups such as the Mathews Maritime Foundation and the Mathews Historical Society, as well as historians and other researchers who are similarly interested in the history of the Middle Peninsula. Archaeology is inherently collaborative.

Do you have a site you’d like to share with the MPCASV?  Whether it’s in your own backyard, at your family’s old homestead, or someplace you heard about through a friend, we’re interested in learning anything we can about the history and archaeology of the Middle Peninsula.  Email us at the Fairfield Foundation (Fairfield@inna.net) and we will be happy to schedule a visit or talk with you about your artifacts.  Interested in getting involved?  Fairfield and the MPCASV have a variety of activities throughout the year, on weekends and weekdays, that you can participate in – no prior experience necessary.  We look forward to meeting you and learning more about our shared heritage.

“Struggle, achievement, strife and reward are words that define the growth of African-American communities in late 19th-century Gloucester County Virginia.” This is the first sentence in our booklet “Fairfield Plantation and the Emergence of an African-American Community” (2009) (Fairfield Plantation and the Emergence of an African-American Community) and it barely scratches the surface of what these communities endured and accomplished after the Civil War and during the early 20th century. Many of us are familiar with the history of Gloucester’s magnificent brick manor homes and plantations, its essential part in the victory at Yorktown during the Revolutionary War, and its direct link with Pocahontas and Powhatan at Werowocomoco, but our shared heritage also includes the stories of the first generation of freedom – the African-American families that survived slavery and made a world for themselves after emancipation. At Fairfield, this history survives in the historic documents, the archaeological record, and the descendant community still living in the neighborhoods their ancestors created.

The final resident of the Fairfield manor house was an African-American woman, likely once a slave, who rented the building or served as a tenant farmer on the property, then known as Carter Creek Farm. It is her everyday goods that we recover during our excavations of the house and we have learned as much about her life as we have the better known Burwell and Thruston families who lived there before her.  Our booklet uses the study of these artifacts, and an in-depth analysis of the land ownership in this area, as a starting point for discussing the history of this unnamed woman and her neighbors from 1865 through the early decades of the 20th century.  Through hard work and determination, they built schools and churches, worked at the local mill at Haynes Mill Pond and the store at Clopton, and pulled together to purchase property and build a community.

The booklet, funded by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (link), is an early step in our research and outreach with the current residents and descendant community.  It is a small part of the much larger story of African-American life in Gloucester County, and we hope that it helps provoke discussion and encourages further collaboration with those interested in studying this period and people.  If you want to teach us about your family’s history, have memories or documents to share, and want to help encourage the better understanding of our community’s heritage, please contact us.  We are more than happy to work alongside you to preserve the stories, knowledge, and places of the past for future generations.

The image below is one example of the type of information we are starting to pull together to learn more about the community around Fairfield.  There were many communities like this across the county, but very few have been documented or studied.  We have much more to learn.  Please contact us and help connect the dots of history.

Artists Amy Castleberry, Ray Friend, Leslie Belvin, Skip Hollingsworth, and Carolyn Dudley (left to right) in front of their artwork on the Edge Hill Service Station.

Collaboration is at the heart of any preservation program.  Protecting a landscape, a landmark, or an archaeological site can often benefit other community efforts, like encouraging economic development, educational outreach, and exhibiting community pride.  At the Edge Hill Service Station, our window restoration dovetails nicely with our love of the arts.  “In what way?” you might ask.  The design of this 1930 Texaco “Denver-style” station was intended to convey a familiar and reliable business, recognizable across a region, but personalized to its time and community.  In many ways, public art, whether sculpture, murals, or the landscaping of our byways, are part of our community’s identity – a symbol of who we are and what we value.

Art and Preservation, working together.

Volunteer Tom Karow (left) and Fairfield Foundation Co-Director Dave Brown in front of Leslie Belvin's artwork.

Ray Friend's Artwork

Amy Castleberry's "The Brown Boys."

Carolyn Dudley's "May 21, 1936."

Leslie Belvin's Artwork.

Skip Hollingsworth's Artwork.

Walter Reed's Birthplace

Spend the day exploring four of Gloucester’s premier historic sites while enjoying tastings of delicious food from some of Gloucester’s finest eateries.  Join the Fairfield Foundation and the Joseph Bryan Branch of Preservation Virginia on October 29th from 2 to 6 p.m. for the second annual Gloucester Fall History Crawl.

Tickets on Sale Now! Email us at fairfield@inna.net

Participants in the Crawl will begin with tours, hands-on archaeology, and a colonial firearms demonstration at Fairfield Plantation – with crab cakes and specialty dips provided by Rosemary and Wine.  A selection of soups, zucchini bread, and Portuguese custard cupcakes from Olivia’s and The Wild Rabbit will follow at Rosewell Plantation where attendees can experience tours and hands-on archaeology while learning about the life of a Revolutionary War soldier beneath the majestic ruins of America’s most prominent manor house.  Preservation Virginia’s Walter Reed’s Birthplace serves as the third leg of this culinary progressive, offering historic presentations by Voices of Freedom, interpreting the African-American experience of the mid-nineteenth century.  You will also be able to tour the house and sample delicious delights from Short Lane Ice Cream, hot drinks from Mobjack Bay Coffee Roasters, and snack on peanuts from Whitley’s.  Finally, attendees will enjoy the delightful fall weather in the shadow of historic Abingdon Church with tours of the cemetery, organ music, and singing while enjoying dessert treats from Jessica’s Sweet Shop and hot apple cider from Ware Neck Produce.

Dr. Wes Wilson and Chauncey Herring of Voices of Freedom

“Gloucester has so much to offer – its historic sites, its fine restaurants – and October is Virginia Archaeology Month.  What a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon celebrating and enjoying all of these things,” says John Gillis, Chairman of the Board of the Joseph Bryan Branch of Preservation Virginia.  There will be hands-on excavations at two locations provided by Fairfield Foundation staff and volunteers where kids and adults can really experience archaeology.  Fairfield Foundation Co-Director Thane Harpole notes, “all of these sites are important resources for Gloucester County, and they have many stories to tell that only archaeology can uncover.  We hope you will join us on the 29th to share in the process of discovery.”

Historic Abingdon Church

“This event is perfect for families.  It’s food, fun, and education – you get a quick introduction to the county’s history and a bite to eat to boot!” said David Tate, Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Joseph Bryan Branch of Preservation Virginia.

Historic Fairfield Plantation

Tickets for the “Gloucester Fall History Crawl” are $20 each and include a tour booklet highlighting the history of each site.  Children under 12 are free with a paying adult and will receive their own kids “past-port”, with fun games, coloring, and room for stamps from each site.  Tickets are available at the Rosemary and Wine, The Wild Rabbit, Short Lane Ice Cream and at Rosewell, all in Gloucester.  You can also reserve your tickets by emailing us at fairfield@inna.net or calling 804.815.4467.   Proceeds from the event will benefit the Foundations and help support preservation efforts in the community.  Please join us on the 29th, and bring your friends!

Thank you to our wonderful Event Sponsors:

Construction is underway at the Edge Hill Service Station.  The hammering of nails, the whirl of drills and saws, and the beautiful noise of progress can be heard as our dream for this Gloucester landmark moves closer to reality.  In late September Courthouse Construction began the stabilization phase of our restoration project.  Removing just enough plaster to verify areas of rot, termite damage, and instability in the walls and roof, they scabbed and sistered the damaged studs while replacing much of the sill.  By the time you read this they will have started on the roof.  Before the end of the month, much of that flat roof will be repaired or replaced and before the end of the year the stabilization phase will be complete and we should have a building that no longer leaks.

Do you want to see the progress in person?  Email us (fairfield@inna.net) or give us a call (804-815-4467) to schedule a tour.

Architectural elements like these, including window frames and original lighting fixtures, will be conserved and reinstalled.

The devil (and the new discoveries) are in the details, though.  The “word of the week” for the first five days was “recycling.”  The metal ductwork, worn metal lath, the fuse box, fluorescent light fixtures, display shelves from the 1990s, and metal conduit from throughout the building avoided the landfill and went straight to the recycling center.  We moved donated exhibit cases, scrap lumber, bread racks (great for artifact drying shelves), and an old depth gauge for the long-gone underground gas tanks into our storage shed.  We flagged and saved all of the brackets, eye hooks, and early metal light fixtures in the ceiling which we will carefully conserve and replace.  We saved everything we could – even the kitchen sink (two, actually, including one donated to the cause by some friends).  All of this recycling will benefit our application for LEED Certification, and is just plain old good sense!

Consider a donation to help us fund the stabilization and restoration of the station.  Just click on Donate button (on the upper right) to make a contribution and join the Fairfield Foundation.

The sill is patched with treated lumber while the studs are scabbed and sistered, leaving much of the original wood which is still in good shape.

What of the other discoveries, you ask? We found intact portions of the building’s original rear (north) wall sealed within the mid-1930s expansion.  This included old stucco and the scuppers which drained the original roof structure.  We found evidence of more shelving (gone for years) in the west garage bay and the northwest corner room, and confirmed that the front door and the ladies room door are both 1970s replacements, despite the fact that they match the style of the 1930s building to a “T” (Texaco pun intended).  Most importantly, though, we found two really great guys in Robert and Jimmy – Courthouse Construction’s restoration team working on our project.  They’ve put in long days to move us forward and their hard work and attention to detail is a great benefit.

Want to help?  We’ll continue with our successful window workshops later this month and you can join us in re-glazing the gas station.

Once the roof and walls are repaired, we will return to complete the window restoration.  We are very close with the three large windows on the west side, and it should only take a few more dedicated days to get these windows to sparkle like they did in the 1930s.  If you’re driving through Gloucester, be sure to check out the station as you pass by and let us know what you think.

Fairfield Interns and Staff in 2009.

Minnesota – Yep.  North Carolina – Sure.  California – Yep, twice! Ohio – Definitely.  Interns come to Fairfield from across the United States and throughout Virginia to work with us and learn about archaeology and preservation.  This summer we celebrated our 80^th internship.  High School juniors and seniors, undergrads from community colleges and universities, graduate students, and some folks just looking to enhance their resumes and expand their horizons, spend between one and three weeks (sometimes longer) working alongside staff members learning the nuts and bolts of archaeology, non-profit management, and the day-to-day challenges of studying and preserving our past.  It is a wonderful learning experience for them and extremely rewarding for us.

“I recommend this internship to everyone because it is not only eye-opening, but it is also an experience you will never regret nor forget!” Kalli Mayton, 2009 Intern

Practical experience in directed research projects- interns learn and contribute.

Internships are scheduled throughout the year, although summer is our busiest season.  Whether for practical experience, or to try something they’ve always wanted to try, perhaps inspired by Indiana Jones or a lifelong fascination with history, the chance to “do” archaeology is what attracts most interns.  You can design your own research project, learn how to write grants, participate in hands-on preservation, or learn the basics of archaeology in the field and lab.  Interested?  Email us at fairfield@inna.net for a free brochure and application detailing our program.  Don’t hesitate to contact us if you, your teenager, or a friend might be interested in learning more about our internships.  Also, stay tuned for blog posts from former Fairfield interns- they all have something to share.

Nothing beats getting your hands dirty.