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You are here: Home » Buildings » Village of Scotia » Flint House Archaeological Report » Abstract

Flint House Archaeological Report, 2002 — 2003:
Tales from the Glenville Woods

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[This information is from p. 1 of Flint House Archaeological Report, 2002 — 2003: Tales from the Glenville Woods by Stephen D. Jones, Ph.D., RPA, and others, and is reproduced here with his permission.]

I. Abstract

The Flint House in Scotia was the home of the 19th-century Reeses, who were major broomcorn producers and landowners in this part of the Town of Glenville. However, the house and/or property are said to predate the Reeses by a century or more. Our goal has been to discover, through archaeology and archive research, the origins and developments of European American settlement on the Flint property and in Glenville.

The first year and a half of archaeological study involved three major projects. The most intensive project focused on the area of the demolished front porch, to find the dates and sequence of building. We uncovered at least five stages of construction, three probably from the 1830s or '40s; we also found a number of architectural and household artifacts from the 18th century, though these were at least sometimes mixed with later artifacts. The second project involved shovel-testing in the broad lawn south of the house, with small testpits placed throughout. The purpose was to locate the Reese family cemetery and other structures; instead, the tests showed little evidence of activity except beside the road. The third project explored the former barnyard west of the house, where two small excavation units and several shovel-testpits produced numerous artifacts and several features that are probably barn foundations, although there is not enough information yet to draw conclusions.

Archival work has been hampered by imprecise boundary descriptions in the deeds, but it seems to have proven that the Flint House is not the Marcelis farmstead from 1715, as previously believed. We have constructed a likely sequence of ownership and use from the 1600s at the neighboring Hook Farm and islands, but we have not conclusively identified the Flint property in any document predating the Reeses. A recent working hypothesis makes it part of the Sanders estates to the east, rather than part of the Marcelis and/or DeGraff estates to the south.

At present, we can conclude that the house is from the 1840s or earlier, that the adjacent property to the south was not part of the broomcorn industrial complex except perhaps near the road, and that subsurface remains of the barnyard buildings are sufficiently preserved to warrant more extensive investigation. We can also conclude that archaeology has much to offer us here, while historic documents have left us little information for this part of Glenville.

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http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/buildings/scotia/flint_house/jones/abstract.html updated March 30, 2015

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