Report of the Archaeological Investigations of the New Castle Court ...

2.1 INTRODUCTION
NEW CASTLE COURT HOUSE PLAZA
NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE
2.0 FIELD INVESTIGATIONS
2.0 FIELD INVESTIGATIONS
Archaeological testing of the New Castle Court House plaza was necessitated by the proposed
renovation work that entailed the partial removal of the foundation material underlying the brick
paving. This excavation work was in effect the destruction of a portion of the site’s historic
fabric. Based on the results of the 1995 testing, the plaza area was expected to be archaeologically
complex. Anticipated remains included, but were not limited to, late seventeenth-century and
early eighteenth-century features related to the pre-1732 Court House, builder’s trenches, drip
lines, foundations of the nineteenth-century portico, other step and porch foundations/footers,
post holes, construction/renovation deposits, midden deposits, and buried landscape horizons that
were sealed under the paving foundation fill.
2.2 FIELD METHODS
The original work plan specified using a preexisting archeological grid established for
archeological fieldwork within the town block bounded by Delaware, Harmony, Second, and
Third Streets in downtown New Castle, Delaware. The advantages to using this system could not
overcome the problems inherent with its application. The pre-established site grid would have
precluded the alignment of the excavation transects with the Court House and plaza and would
have complicated the process of unit placement. Utilization of this ‘master’ grid would also have
made the process of feature identification more difficult, since the majority of features were
expected to relate to the construction of the Court House, it was logical to assume that overall
feature orientation would align to the Court House. With these problems in mind and after
consultation with the DSM it was decided to orientate the excavation grid with the Court House
and plaza (Figure 4). This was identical to the field methods employed during the 1995
archeological fieldwork; in fact the previously excavated units were incorporated into the current
excavation grid. Full units, measuring 5-x-5-ft., were emplaced adjacent to the exterior of the
central block and wing foundations while partial units flanked the plaza’s edge. Elevations were
recorded with an optical transit during the fieldwork and these measurements are relative to the
DSM site grid datum or brass cap, located west of the Court House. An arbitrary 0-ft. elevation
was assigned to the top of the datum since its exact elevation was unknown at the time of
excavation.
Prior to the removal of the paving foundation fill, test units were strategically placed to recover
sufficient stratigraphic profiles of the west and east plaza sections. Individual unit profiles were
compiled to form an aggregate profile or cross-section of the tested areas. The plaza section
adjacent to the center block were of primary concern because plaza restoration included the
installation of downspout drains, which extended below grade from the southwestern and
southeastern corners of the circa 1732 block toward Delaware Street. Two north-south orientated
transects were emplaced along the east and west sides of the circa 1732 block. Beginning at the
south face of the east and west additions, they extended to the face of the retaining wall that
parallels the south façade of the structure. The southeast corner units were placed over the 1995
excavation units, both excavated and unexcavated. This transect consisted of four full 5-x-5-ft.
units and one 2.25-x-5-ft. unit. The southwestern transect contained 3 full 5-x-5-ft. units and one
enlarged 5.7-x-5-ft. unit.
Two additional east-west orientated transects were excavated on either side of the central block.
Within the eastern plaza section, an initial series of units were placed in a checkerboard design,
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