The Basin Lime Concern:

Historical Archaeology and Reconstruction of a Proto-Industrial Past

Peter A. Hutchinson

(July 17, 2002)

The Basin Lime Concern, as it is historically identified, is an example of what might be termed a Maine pre-industrial or proto-industrial site of the decade(s) following 1820 statehood. How far, to what extent, with what credibility and toward what meaning may we reconstruct the historical past from its archaeological remains?

What we have in the vicinity of the tidal "Northeast Cove" of the Basin in Phippsburg are the remains of an operating lime kiln, and the adjacent possible remains of two other kilns, perhaps earlier, perhaps abandoned "non-starters" and perhaps at least one of them something different, such as the foundation support for a boom crane. The hillside positioning of rocks from these "secondary" kiln remains indicates their gradual collapse and subsidence downward on the slope, presumably from erosion and frost upheavals. At the top of the slope some of the rock remains could be construed as effort to stabilize an apparent roadbed against similar subsidence.

We have the extensive remains of a tidal landing platform, obviously built in front of the main kiln. The remains are heavy logs, laid out in perpendicular in two directions on two sides of the cove head. The principal log layout forms an apron in front of the main kiln as if to rest a barge for loading (or offloading) of some kind of material.

In the immediate vicinity to the rear of the primary kiln there is a worked-out limestone quarry, with drill marks, and other small quarry pits from which rock has obviously been removed.

And there is a small, apparently shallow, midden composed of clam shells on the shore below the remains of one of the secondary kilns.

Within the pit of the primary kiln, we find refuse from dumping episodes which appear to be between the second half of the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century: bottle glass, household and hardware fragments, tin can remains, shoe and boot leather. There are a few iron barrel hoops, probably from a single unit. There are metal lantern or burner fragments, but nothing in the way of tool or implement parts that can be confirmed as associated with kiln operation.

Excavating from within the kiln, we find a few brick fragments, and evidences of high heat from burnt rock and molten slag. At the bottom opening of the kiln there is evidence of product in the form of lime, crumbled and granular in composition.

On the shore at the bottom of one of the secondary kiln features there are a few whole as well as broken bricks.

On a much-higher ridge overlooking the Basin in the same vicinity, we have quarry pits presumed (from composition and ground material) to have been a source of feldspar and/or mica, and presumably of later vintage, probably early 20^th century. Their product, if any, was taken downhill (by the evidence of old roadbeds), to a point on the deep water of the Basin, where there are still extant iron eyes imbedded in the rock for mooring of water craft.

And still further away, on a southern cove of the Basin, there are the remains of a tidal dam, the extant remnants of an early tidal mill.

These are our material clues to past construction, past activity, past enterprise. This is what we have to work with, absent discovery of additional remains.

From such material remains we attempt to reconstruct what went on at this site, why and when it occurred, how the site functioned and the kiln operated, and to what effect as to product, with what consequence as to continuity and conclusion: how long the activity, and why its end.

There are obvious limits to historical reconstruction from the archaeological remains of pre-industrial sites. We are absent the personal identifiers of apparel fragments- buttons, buckles and such- associated with residential settlement, and have not yet found tools or other appurtenances that might be associated with the enterprise; the assumption being that these would not have been left behind, or have long since been scavenged. No evidence has been found of any wooden outbuildings, such as sheds. The half-acre or so of field covering land adjacent to the site has been mown or tilled or planted with orchard during the past century or longer.

There is a distinct problem of time and placement at such a site: was the log landing platform constructed concurrently with, or after the lime kiln itself? Were the two "secondary" or partial kiln structures built before or after the primary kiln- were they earlier attempts, or added to the first effort? Can we find evidence that these other kilns were actually put into operation, and if so, before or after the primary kiln? The question becomes more complex: was the local lime rock first quarried for export, or first used in one or more of the kilns? Or was the landing platform used later, to bring additional lime rock into the kiln site when the local source was depleted? How can the archaeology of the material remains date these occurrences or put them into their proper chronology?

The dating of remains at the site is problematic, and relies on the historical record to explain the archaeological findings. Drill marks observed at the quarry site(s) may be identified as hand- or power-drilled, and the rock cleavage as being accomplished manually or by equipment. The "design" of the log landing platform might have historical precedents of custom and usage, as would whatever boat types involved in transport of raw material or product. The operational design of the kiln structure itself is the result of precedent, of technology learned and imported from other- and presumably effective- examples in Maine or elsewhere, probably from the long-established lime-burning enterprises of Rockland and Thomaston only a few miles up the coast from Phippsburg.

The raw material and product themselves are crucial to understanding and explaining the site. Was the local limestone sufficient in quality and quantity to sustain the enterprise? Was the fired lime product of sufficient quality for whatever use intended? And what was that use: for agricultural purposes, for mortar, plaster, or quicklime? Can modern analysis of lime product found at the site make any such determinations after 170 years of weathering, decomposition and environmental intermixing of material?

Reconstruction of events at this site from its material remains thus requires more than the archaeological record itself, and that is the point of historical archaeology: we must go to the historical record if we want to know who was involved, who worked at the site and why and when. In our reconstruction of this particular past, toward what has been called "the recovery of meaning"⁽¹⁾, we want to know the motivation of individual participants, the role of "the Lime Concern" in their lives and livelihoods, whether the enterprise was for local use and product consumption, or for export and profit; if and how long it succeeded, when and why it came to its conclusion. We want to know how it fit into the economy and even the sociology of the area known as Phippsburg and the "Basin District" of that town, and how the enterprise figured in the larger entrepreneurial history of the region, even as a microcosmic system of pre-industrial development and incipient proto-capitalism on the Maine coast.

1. Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr., The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988.