Roads, Rails, and Trails - Secretary of the Commonwealth

The oldest bowling ball in North America. This wooden (oak)
ball dates between 1660 and 1716. It had a socket into which
a metal weight would have been set, to make it trickier to roll.
It was called a "lawn bowle" and was used in a game similar
to bocce. The Puritan establishment of Boston disapproved of
bowling and other pastimes that often involved betting, and
even outlawed bowling for a time, but archaeology provides
hard evidence that such condemnation did not stop the people
of Boston from having a little fun now and then.
One of the most poignant stories came from a humble
privy (a pit toilet) in the North End. This was where the lawn
bowle illustrated above was found. The privy was associated
with the home of Katherine Nanny Naylor, who lived in the
North End from 1630 to about 1715. Court records document
her divorce from her abusive second husband, after which
53
Katherine continued to live here as a single parent. Artifacts
found in her privy add fascinating details of her struggle to
survive independently. Archaeologists found more than
250,000 seeds and pits from several types of fruit and over 158
fragments of silk, ribbon, and lace. These finds suggested that
she may have cooked (possibly baking pies for sale) and sewed
to make ends meet.
The Privy from the Katherine Nanny Naylor Site
Left: some of the many seeds and fruit pits preserved in the
privy. Right: fragments of lace and silk from the privy.