Roads, Rails, and Trails - Secretary of the Commonwealth

Accompanying all this leather were nearly 200 metal
harness pieces such as buckles and rings. This is just what you
would expect to find in a place where working horses were
housed and outfitted. In the remains of a neighboring building,
the archaeologists found evidence of a blacksmith shop,
including horseshoes and other metal tack items. This may
have been part of the company’s complex; if not, it is likely
that the Metropolitan Railroad Company/West End Street
Railway was one of this business’s most important customers.
It seems entirely fitting that an archaeological research
project done in advance of a modern urban mass-transit
development should lead to greater knowledge about the birth
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of urban mass transit. But the archaeologists’ research at the
Metropolitan Railroad Site ultimately went well beyond simply
identifying the site and the activities that once went on there.
The finds from the excavations opened up new research
opportunities. The collection of leather harness pieces shed
light on nineteenth-century leatherworking and “tack-nology,”
and the paint chips collected from the site were analyzed to
better understand the paint chemistry of the period. In the end,
the archaeologists gained a greater understanding of the
industrial growth of what is now Roxbury Crossing—how its
various businesses grew, changed, moved, and competed with
or depended on one another.
Blinders (left) and horseshoes (right) were essential equipment for horses working in urban areas.