THE SOMERSETT SITE

An archaeological portrait of an Ulster-Scots habitation on the Maine frontier

PAMELA CRANE

The following pages are reproduced from: “1718-2018, Reflections on 300 years of the Scots- Irish in Maine”
printed following the academic conference held at Bowdoin College, Maine in August 2018.
© 2019 Maine Ulster-Scots Project and the Ulster-Scots Agency

PART 2

Introduction

In 2006, John Mann and Bill McKeen launched the Maine Ulster-Scots Project in 2006, with the goal of identifying, documenting, and sharing the history, culture, and contribution of the Ulster-Scots, to the State of Maine. Some years later, I was asked to serve as project archaeologist: my task was to identify and characterize a first-generation Ulster-Scots site Maine. The excavation would serve as link from the tangible customs of Ulster in 1718, to those that developed Maine, from 1718 to the present. This work has been supported by the St. Andrews Society of Maine and the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, as well as through the labor of numerous volunteers.

The field of historical archaeology was eloquently defined by James Deetz, as “the archaeology of the spread of European culture throughout the world since the fifteenth century and its impact on indigenous peoples.”(4) Certainly, English, Scot, Huguenot settlers had a profound effect on the native Irish, as did the English and French settlers on the Wabanaki Indians of Maine. This field of study is reliant of written records, the objects people have left behind, and the environment of where they lived. One of the discipline’s value is that it offers an avenue to study the common who were illiterate or did not record in detail the activities of their daily lives. Jane was illiterate. She signed land deeds and a deposition and attested to the veracity of her statements with an “x”. From the archaeological record, we know she grew medicinal plants and made herbal medicines.(5)

In 1989, David Fischer published Albion’s Seed. This ambitious volume details four, mostly-Protestant, waves of migration from Britain to America, from 1629 to 1775. These included Puritans from East Anglia; wealthy Royalists and their minions from the West Country to Virginia; a group from the North Midlands and Wales to the Delaware Valley; and “English speaking people from the borders of North Britain and Northern Ireland to the Appalachian backcountry mostly during the half-century between 1718 to 1775.”(6) Fischer’s characterization of “backcountry folkways” has become the de facto model for Ulster folkways in Maine.

Fischer’s work is an important contribution to the understanding of the historic background for the regional character of America. It remains as a first step, to be verified and refined by subsequent scholars. One problem for the student of the Ulster-Scots lies in his definition of their geographical background. Fisher defines the origins of the backcountry as borderers of England, Lowland Scots, and Northern Ireland. Yet, due to the establishment the English Plantation of Ulster in 1606, the 1718, immigrants from Northern Ireland were culturally akin to both East Anglia and the Puritans and borderers and lowlanders of the backcountry.

This paper outlines the current historical and archaeological knowledge gained at the Somersett Site. It begins with discussion of the architectural features and artifacts found at the site. It closes with a summary of the current results of investigation.

I am indebted to the stalwart group of volunteers, who lent their backbone–and knees–to the excavations, participated in lively discussions of the architectural remains, and shared the tedium and discovery in the artifact analysis.

The pages above are reproduced from: “1718-2018, Reflections on 300 years of the Scots- Irish in Maine”
printed following the academic conference held at Bowdoin College, Maine in August 2018.
© 2019 Maine Ulster-Scots Project and the Ulster-Scots Agency

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright holder.

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