The loss of James City County records in Richmond at the close of the American Civil War has left relatively few county archaeological sites with useful documentary evidence predating 1865. By fortunate historical circumstance, however, the Drummond/Harris Site is associated with several important surviving records that relate directly to events during its long occupation. These documents offer exceptional opportunities to connect archaeological evidence with identifiable people, activities, and historical events. They will be incorporated into the final report.
One particularly valuable document concerns William Drummond’s involvement in Bacon’s Rebellion. Following his execution by Governor Berkeley, Berkeley’s forces took possession of the Drummond plantation. Sarah Drummond subsequently petitioned King Charles II for restitution of her family’s property. A May 1677 description of the estate, where William and Sarah had lived with their five children and nine servants, provides unusually detailed information about the plantation. It identifies servants, both Black and white, as well as crops, livestock, and personal possessions.
This document offers a rare opportunity to interpret excavated architecture, landscape features, enclosures, and portable material culture within a specific historical context. Archaeological evidence also indicates that the plantation served as a staging area for the Siege of Jamestown. Excavations recovered fragments of an exploded falcon cannon barrel and Drummond’s personal broadsword, both deliberately buried, apparently to conceal physical evidence of his participation in the rebellion.
More than a century later, the property became the setting for another significant military event: the Battle of Green Spring, fought on July 6, 1781, shortly before the Battle of Yorktown during the American Revolution. The engagement between the forces of the Marquis de Lafayette and Lord Cornwallis included some of its most intense fighting across the Harris Plantation. The battle is documented in a detailed French military map and numerous eyewitness accounts by American and British soldiers describing the landscape.
By correlating historical cartography and written accounts with archaeological evidence, researchers have been able to identify positions occupied by opposing forces and locations where ammunition was dropped or discharged. Excavations also recovered the remains of an unidentified Patriot soldier. Anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution used isotopic analysis to establish that the individual was American. His remains were subsequently reburied in a tabletop tomb at the nearby Church on the Main site, a landmark visible from the Drummond/Harris property in the eighteenth century.
Another important documentary resource is the rare surviving Ambler Family Papers, which span the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The Amblers owned adjoining properties, and examination of their land records, property boundaries, and transactions will contribute to a broader understanding of changing landownership and landscape development throughout the Governor’s Land.
