17th-Century Minister’s Home Uncovered in Virginia

MAKEMIE PARK, VIRGINIA—Students and volunteers assisted with the excavation of the seventeenth-century home site of the Rev. Francis Makemie, known as the Father of American Presbyterianism. He died in 1708 and was buried on his property, now Makemie Memorial Park—a Virginia Historic Landmark that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Among the recovered artifacts are buttons, nails, cow bones and teeth, colonial-era glass, clay pipe fragments, ceramics, and green and yellow tiles that may have decorated a fireplace. The team has also uncovered the brick foundation to one of two home sites, and they may find outbuildings and slave quarters. “There’s a lot here. This is the whole basis of the history of this area,” David Wright of Eastern Shore Community College told Delmarva Now.