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In 1997, on behalf of the Delaware Department of Transportation, The Louis Berger Group, Inc. carried out archaeological excavations at the Augustine Creek North and South Sites. Two multiple occupation sites, on opposite banks of a small, swampy stream, were in the path of a new, limited access highway called State Route 1.
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| Excavating animal bones from a pit at Augustine Creek |
Both sites included eighteenth-century farms and prehistoric camp sites. The farm on the north side of the stream was very small and was situated on low ground next to a swamp, a location eighteenth-century people regarded as very unhealthy. The occupants were probably poor tenants. The farm on the south side belonged to Samuel and Henrietta Mahoe, who farmed about 100 acres and seem to have been ordinary, middle-class Delawareans. Samuel Mahoe identified himself in one document as a weaver, a trade carried on by poor and ordinary folks. These two sites were studied together under the theme of "The Ordinary and the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Delaware." The archaeology was supplemented by an extensive program of documentary research.
The only features identified at the Augustine Creek North Site were fence post holes and a cellar measuring 5 by 10 feet. The house and other structures were probably built on such flimsy foundations that no trace of them survived. On the south side a complete farm was uncovered, including a house cellar measuring 15 by 25 feet, an adjacent post building that may have been a kitchen, and a second post building, 75 feet away, that has been identified as Samuel Mahoe’s weaving shed.
The prehistoric sites at Augustine Creek included stone tools, pottery, and several pit features dating to the Early Woodland (ca. 900 BC) and Late Woodland (AD 1000 to 1600) periods.
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