Household Goods

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Furniture castors

Spoons

Cup handle

Yellowware bowl

Ginger beer bottle neck

Whiteware with maker's mark

Medicine bottles

“There is no article of household–furniture or wearing apparel, used by persons of moderate means among us, which they will not purchase, when they are allowed the opportunity of labor and earning wages."
Edward L. Pierce, The Freedmen at Port Royal, 1863

While historic photographs can give us hints about how the houses at Mitchelville were constructed, they cannot take us inside the homes to see how people lived. Archaeologists use household, furniture, and clothing-related artifacts to understand daily life. By looking at the types bowls, plates, and cups, cooking pots and utensils, animals bones, and glass bottles and food containers they recovered during the excavations, archaeologists can learn about the goods people purchased, their economic and social status, the kinds of foods they ate, how they cooked food, how they stored food, and even their taste in dish patterns and colors. At Mitchelville archaeologists recovered 4,162 artifacts that helped them learn about the kinds of consumer goods available to the town's residents.

Excavation Finds

Here are some of the kitchen-related artifacts archaeologists found at two houses during the 2013 excavations at 38BU2301: