Archeologists dig for cultural treasures in Pittsford

By Victoria Gaither

In Pittsford, road and bridge repair work is underway along Route 7 over Furnace Brook at the intersection of Route 7 and Route 3.

Not too far from construction workers in hard hats are workers with high-visibility vests, digging tools, shovels, measuring tape, notebooks, and a dirt sifter.

The workers are archeologists digging for cultural or historical remains beneath the road.

Last year, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) hired the Northeast Archaeology Research Center, Inc., from Farmington, Maine, to work on the project.

Megan Bryson, the onsite project manager with Northeast Archaeology Research Center, said, “One of our employees came out last year and did a foot survey and checked the area out and also went over historic maps to see which buildings still exist from the 1800s, and maybe the 1700s.”

The team will survey Route 7 from Furnace Brook up to Plains Road in different areas considered sensitive for anything that could be historic or prehistoric.

The idea is to look for any artifact that might be disturbed and deemed important to the community.

“We found a stoneware jug almost intact; all the pieces were there. It was just cracked in place and made by Julius Norton of Bennington, Vermont. It’s dated between 1846 and 1850,” explained Bryson.

Julius Norton’s pottery pieces fetch between $175 to $100,000.

Bryson says her team also found a tube of lipstick from the 1940s with lipstick still inside, an 1873 dime, and pieces from a water pipe.

She admits that the stoneware jug find was amazing because “you usually never find pieces of ceramic intact” like the Norton jug.

Her team will wrap up their dig in mid-August, take all the artifacts back to her lab, clean them, figure out the story behind them, and eventually return them to the landowner.