8/4/03  Chris Coen and I traveled to the Rich site to orient with the three ladies from Cameron, Missy and Dessa from Gallatin and later, Mrs. Wochner and daughters, Johanna and Jessica from Kansas. Mike Riggs and I gave the tour. We listened to the log. (As with most artifacts and old timers, it has a lot to say). We hiked Far West north of the temple site and Mr. Coen found several pieces of glass and ceramic. We briefly visited the site south of the burial plot and made it to Haun's Mill by shortly after one p.m.
I had soaked the square next to the teardrop on Friday. By this afternoon, it was baked again. Three of our crew scraped it in frustration most of the afternoon. A few ferrous fragments and some undecorated whitepaste earthenware were the rewards. The square is located convenient to every visiting tourist. It will be imperative to provide ourselves with interpreters as the projects develop. Our last hour on the site was spent explaining to guests;
A. Why we chose to dig where we are.
B. What artifacts are we finding.
C. Why not screen all the soil.
D. Who is funding.
E. Who owns the property.
F. Who are the workers.
G. What are local attitudes toward "the church."
H. What non-invasive strategies have you used.
I. What theories are there to help coordinate discovery once a benchmark is found.
J. How long do you project the investigation to last.
And those are merely the questions I remember now.
During the discussion, the ladies digging in the field closed their part of the project and brought their artifacts to show. One was a tiny earthenware fragment with a few stipples of red transfer print on one edge. It was an excellent demonstration of the merits of trowelling in preference to scooping dirt through screens where provenience of artifacts is lost or at best disassociated from their orientation with structures and features.
Nonetheless, as we work our way through the Mormon period in these exploratory squares, it would be nice to have both dry and water screens available so we could evaluate those processes in our investigation and possibly draft tourists into active participation in their special interests.
It was clear to me in the teardrop square that we do have distinct soil types east and west in the square. An additional rodent hole mid square has appeared, attesting to the probable basement cavity on the east side. Still no clear foundation stones but the difference in soils demarks a feature forthcoming. Perhaps a benchmark will yet be evident this week.

8/1/03  Mr. Coen and Mr. Hipps finished out the week with urgency to address the densely packed zone beside the teardrop. Not only had artifact density increased, the idea that we might reveal the cause of the road slump pushed us to work quickly. It rained. That softened the soil but delayed us an hour. We discovered a two inch hole on the south side of the square nearly two feet deep. Another of comparable size appeared in the northeast corner of the square. Rodents appear to be responsible for the road slumping! (We may revise that interpretation later but it has appeal on the basis of the holes). Charcoal appears in the east half of the trowelled square along with burned limestone, sandstone, and ferrous material. On the west side of the square, the lavender and red transfer prints materialized. That portion appears to be in the Mormon period materials at 14 inches below surface.
Terry Montoya helped this afternoon and took the test south of the pool down to 2ft. below surface without finding any change of flood deposits. He also worked between showers in the field and found a nice piece of stoneware with a possible excised mark fragment.
Our crew has been most diligent and effective. Sharon Harris trowelled the whole surface of the 0e square for a photo. I was busy in the field and delayed. The rain came and obscured her work. The photo above of the scatter was taken as she began the process so you can picture what the whole square looked like when she was done.
The red hand painted piece is from the field near where we expect the foundation wall. It certainly is the type of artifact we would expect at Haun's Mill.
An exciting week ahead! Join us if you can!

Hipps & Coen	Montoya
red hand painted stoneware	Harris
teardrop floor scatter

7/30/03  We spent the morning struggling through the baked clay bonded with gravel and finally have the square next to the teardrop below the worst compacting. It was hot!  Our blisters were well earned. We moved to the shade for the afternoon and opened the square 360-370 south, 60-70 west to test for Mormon period grade on the north side of the pool. Our team in the field found the blue shell edged painted in the four-camel-hair brush pattern typical of the early nineteenth century. They also found our first pontil scarred bottle base. Our crew is earning the privilege of later discovery. The hard work of removing overburden anticipates the delight of discovery which we hope will begin in the next two days. If we accomplish the early objectives this week, Shoal Creek is low enough for us to walk across and we may be able to test one of the sites south of the stream next week. That is a particularly pleasant prospect because those sites may not have been disturbed since the Mormon period and should give us a pristine package of artifacts and features of the two year lens in this 10,000 year occupation.

pontil

transfer print

7/29/03  Chris Coen joined our team today as we began the Haun's Mill focus of this two week project. We laid out a ten foot square 160-170 ft. south of the chained post. It extends east into the teardrop drive and provides a painful challenge for digging. Not only has traffic churned the soil when wet so it has baked into a close cousin of adobe, the gravel mix acts like grit in pottery making the surface extraordinarily durable. A slump in the soil has led us to this test. A rectangular depression about four inches deep was noted last week extending most of the way across the drive. This week, the differential drying has produced a deeper slump, now one foot deep with the new gravel scraped by the bottoms of vehicles. I anticipate a basement to a Mormon period house, however, Sharon raised the prospect of a well. We are digging through veritable brick to find out, so please be patient. We extended the base line to 370 ft. south, turned 90 degrees west and laid out two more squares to test our theories on the pool.  At 60-70 ft west, 370-380 south and 60-70 west, 440-450 south we have placed squares to seek the Mormon grade north and south of the pool. We have theorized that the pool served the lumber mill so the mill should be close at hand. The compact Mormon period grade should be evident even if we are not fortunate enough to hit a structure. On the other hand, the backhoe test has challenged the theory by demonstrating 15 ft. of soil on top of 50 year old drums south and east of the Setzer marker. No Mormon period grade was evident in that sector. What will we find south of the pool? Where was Shoal Creek in 1838?
Sharon found burned bone, window glass and undecorated earthenware in the midfield square, but she only worked there an hour after assisting with the other projects. Mr. Coen and Mr. Hipps learned to use the transit and stadia today. The practical application of the Pythagorean theorem used in creating our ten foot squares may have been the most rewarding educational benefit for our students because they used geometry and gained appreciation not offered through a textbook. Some laughter is recorded on the camera at their "square challenged" expense, but, they learned to fine tune the ten foot parallelogram into a square.

7/28/03  Mr. Robt. Hipps accompanied me to the log house and we returned the log to which he had listened in world history class. Rich house visitors will now be able to see the dendrochronological record portrayed in that remarkable specimen and listen to the voices whispering from it. Mary Sprouse and Mr. Wallace joined us for the Riggs special tour. We visited the Winchester home site where Major Patton died after the Crooked River Battle. Far West gave us opportunity to find a line of limestones north of the temple site and near those, Miss Sprouse found a redware lid fragment.  The burial site gave Mike the chance to explain about the historical shift from commons burial to cemeteries on the edge of town as seen here. The still open excavation south of the cemetery shows little wear except the baulk that hid the brownware jar has been reduced and the jar no longer is evident. We then cleaned the squares in and near the log house, finding artifacts which were left en situ for the tourists to appreciate. A clay marble amidst the stones of the fireplace base offers a nice touch and the cut deer bone and bottle glass inside the house reinforce that the remaining artifacts in the remaining house are authentic.  Mr. Hipps noted on the way home that he had learned substantially on this day and looks forward to learning from the facts in the dirt.

rich fireplace marble

7/22/03  The cesium magnetometer worked! With it projecting a face plate at the confluence of Shoal Creek and the Mormon dug ditch, we excitedly awaited this day in which the back hoe could reveal to us what ferrous object the magnetometer had sensed more than ten feet below surface. This was the day. Charlie and the backhoe arrived and started work under the supervision of, Riggs, Romig, Sherer, Hawley and DeBarthe. The new artifact director, Sharon Harris and Bethany also kept close eye but became distracted by the slow trowel and error process which keeps producing artifacts in the field, especially after the machine broke a hose at noon. Contingency plans were made and scrapped after repairs and the machine took us to 15 feet below the spot David Hawley had marked. It proved to be a couple of ferrous barrels, 55 gallon drums  cut to function as feeders for cattle. Similar feeding arrangements were used on our Iowa farm through the mid twentieth century. We also found a dirty diaper and a Zarda cottage cheese lid.The hoe cut from the stream to the high point of the terrace southeast of the parking teardrop. The clay in which the barrels was found continues at about ten feet below surface as far as the backhoe permitted us to see. Flood deposits account for that full vertical profile. Therefore, our fine theory has suffered a setback because we now have no evidence of Mormon period occupation south of the ditch. The ditch therefore must be reconsidered as an earlier channel and sense we have Mormon grade and artifacts 18 inches below surface north of the ditch, we will test south of it, perhaps in the next two weeks.
We did meet the very pleasant neighbor to the west who shared some of his experiences with us.
The ladies digging in the square 50S, 160-170W found a kaolin pipe stem, hand painted stoneware, red transfer print, olive soda lime container glass, square nails, and numerous bone fragments. Two pieces of blue spongeware of the type frequently identified with child labor in the early 19th century have also been uncovered.
It would have been nice, perhaps if the hoe had found something to confirm our earlier hypotheses. On the other hand, we now revise and refine and proceed with the challenging task of using tiny bits of information to assemble new theories to test and disprove. The question, "Where was Haun's Mill?" is providing an engaging saga of possibilities and none of us can look at the spongeware, the pipe stem and the other artifacts of today and be discouraged.

6/10/03   Our new season was scheduled to begin Monday, but, due to lack of crew, We deferred until today. One person, Sharon Harris from Cameron was all that showed up. She has daughters interested who may join us later. We began with a survey of the site to see the effects of winter, north of the stream. the line of stakes at 80 ft. south remained in place so we used them to reestablish our grid on the squares open in the field. We will need weed whips to clear enough to restring the grid.
We set up the transit on the southwest corner of the Setzer marker and shot a line south toward the cesium magnetometer hot spot. That line ran us into a thicket of stinging nettles, reeds canary grass, and even a tangle of grape vines. We cut through and tromped down to 200 ft. south of Setzer.
In the afternoon, we cleared vegetation and soil from the squares  in the field. the north square had 33 pieces of limestone exposed, 9 of them burned.
The end of the day examination on camera shows a hand painted earthenware, one brown glazed stoneware, an earthenware which may have been burned or may not have been glazed at all. Sharon found a thin piece of soda lime window glass (less than 2 mm.) of the type used by Mormons. She also found a chert chip and a bone fragment in the east square.
The soil is moist and beautiful for digging. I wish we had more crew members. Will go again Thursday and expect the back hoe and substantial crew next Monday and Tuesday.