Analysis of the 19th Century Historic Archaeological Material Culture Remains from the Browning Site in Smith County, Texas

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K. and Walters, Mark (2011) "Analysis of the 19th Century Historic Archaeological Material Culture Remains from the Browning Site in Smith County, Texas," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2011, Article 34. https://doi.org/ 10.21112/.ita.2011.1.34 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2011/iss1/34


Analysis of the 19th Century Historic Archaeological
Material Culture Remains from the Browning Site in Smith County, Texas

SITE SETTING AND EXCAVATIONS
The Browning site (41 SM 195A) is located on a 3800 m 2 alluvial terrace that overlooks the Auburn Creek floodplain in eastern Smith County, Texas. This selling is near the headwaters of a stream system in the Harris Creek drainage; Harris Creek meets the Sabine River ca. 34 km to the north. In the vicinity of the Browning site, the valley, being narrow with steep valley walls, o1Icrs few locations suitable for either prehistoric or historic occupations. Soils here arc Entisols; they vary in depth from 30-70 em across the landform, terminating at a sandstone C-horizon. These arc soils that formed mostly under forest vegetation and are dominantly sandy or loamy (Hatherly 1993). The Browning site falls within the Pineywuods vegetation area and represents the western extent of the pine and deciduous forests of the Southeastern U.S. coastal plain (Diggs et al. 2006).
Archaeological investigations at the Browning site have been carried out intermittingly for several years by the junior author ( Figure 1 ). That work has led to the recognition that it is a stratified site with two very distinct occupations, an early to mid-19th century assemblage of historic artifacts primarily in an upper zone (0-20 em bs) overlying a buried (20-50 em bs) Late Woodland period occupation (Walters 2004a(Walters , 2004b(Walters , 2009Shafer and Walters 20 10). The historic occupation is in the center of the terrace, covering approximately 500m 2 • The historic artifacts arc found primarily in the upper sediments, but due probably to pedoturhations, they have been found as deep as 50 em in the underlying prehistoric archaeological deposits.
Excavations at the Browning site have consisted of 4 I I x I m units (with a total excavated volume of20.4 m 3 ) and 22 shovel tests (sec Figure 1 ). Surface collections were obtained from the site in 1996 and 2002.
The 22 shovel tests excavated at the site were conducted first to better ascertain the limits of the site and identify areas of concentrated cultural activity; ST 4,[8][9]12,and 19 contained 19th century historic artifacts (see Figure 1). Once a buried prehistoric occupation zone was identified, units were placed primarily in cardinal directions to better define the occupation zone 's boundaries and levels of occupational intensity, and also sample the overlying 19th century component. The I x I m units were excavated in arbitrary l 0 em levels and the soil was dry-st:reened for artifacts through 1/4-inch hardware cloth except for a fine screen sample from Unit I that was water-screened through I /32-inch mesh. A level sheet was completed at the end of each level. Profiles were drawn of one wall of each unit or a common wall when several units were joined. The shovel tests followed the same procedures, except they were excavated in arbitrary 20 em levels.
One feature (Feature 2) had four relined earthenware sherds (as well as two prehistoric artifacts) and 15 smalJ pieces of animal bone. This was a shallow pit with a very dark grayish-brown sandy loam fill (with charcoal flecks) and a rounded buttom that was 63 em in diameter and extended from 22-29 em bs.

19TH CENTURY HISTORIC ARTIFACTS FROM THE BROWNING SITE
The excavations at the Browning site have recovered a total of 360 19th ~:entury artifacts from surface collections (n= 17), shovel testing (n=7, 1.4 artifacts per positive shovel test, or ca. II .2 artifacts per m 2 ), and the I x I m unit excavations (n=336, or 8.2 artifacts per m 2 ) (Tahle 1 ). Most of the recovered historic artifacts are sherds from refined earthenware (i.e., whitewarc and port:elain) plates and ~:ups (81.3%), followed hy artifacts of iron (mainly cut nails) (11.4%), stoneware, stoneware pipes and yellowwarc sherds (3.9%), and bottle glass (3.6%).  The spatial density of 19th century artifacts from the site indicates that there are three small clusters of units that have higher densities or artifacts in the excavation area ( Figure 2). The first is at the western edge of the terrace, in Units 6, 13-15, and 24 (12-18 artifacts per m 2 ); the second cluster is in the central part of the terrace (Units I 7,21,22,(28)(29)(30)(31)40, and 42, with 9-13 artifacts per m 2 ); and a third cluster at the southern edge of the terrace (Units 33-34, 14-21 artifacts per m 2 ). At the present time, it is not known if these higher density spatial clusters of artifacts correspond to functionally different parts of the 19th century occupation, or if they simply represent dis<.:rcte trash disposal area~.
Refined earthenwares-including whiteware and porcelain-are abundant in the Browning site 19th century artifact assemblage ( Table 2). The whitewarcs, both plain and decorated sherds (about 22% of the whiteware sherds have a decorative element) from vessels that were likely made by English potteries heginning in the 1830s (Majewski and O'Brien 1987), account for about 98~ of the refined carthenwares, and the remaining 2% arc sherds from porcelain or bone-china vessels.
In general, the decorated whiteware from the Browning site would seem to have been made and used between the I 830s and I 860 ( ef. Price 1979; Majewski and o· Brien 1984Brien . 1987. All of these de<:orated t:crami~.: sherds are from vessels probably of English manufacture, and they likely were obtained through shipments or goods from New Orleans hrought up the Red River and Caddo Lake to Jefferson, and then carried overland to distribu· tors and stores. Annular wares (Figure 3) at the site have earthy <:olor tone!>. These indude brown, black, ami yellow bands of varying widths as well as gray. yellow, white. and blue zones. as well as eat's eye dots (Majewski and 0' Brien 1987: 163), suggesting these sherds are from early (t:a. 1840s) annular ware.
The hand-painted sherds from the site are from cups primarily decorated with fine line polychrome and mono<:hrome llor...tl motifs (induding petals and      relined 10arthcnware from the site is notable because green shell-edged plates began to diminish in frequency after 1 ~00 relative to blue shell-edged plates (Sussman 2000:51 ).
The rim form of shell-edged ceramics is chronologically sensitive (cf. Hunter andMiller 1994. 2009). Plates and platter!) with unscallopcd rims and impressed lines, like all the blue shell-edged whitcware from the Browning site, were being made by the 1840s, while the earlier symmetrical scalloped shell-edged ware continued to be made into the I ~BOs (Hunter and Miller 2009: 13); this earlier form is absent in the Browning site artifact sample. There are five plain rims with unscalloped edges and impressed lines (see Table  2) that were likely made at the same time.
All three of the transfer-printed sherds have medium blue colors, and either floral (Figure 6, right) or oriental (Figure 6, left) motifs. The date ranges of production of medium blue ( 1784-1859) transferprinted refined earthenware (Samford 2000: Table 5), and the fact that these transfer-printed sherds from the Browning site arc whitewares, would seem to indicate that the occupation could have ranged from ca. 1830-1859. Central designs on transfer-printed refined earthcnwares that featured Chinese clements were popular primarily hefore 1840, while floral central designs (as well as harder e lements on plates) were popular ''throughout the course of the 19th century (Samford 2000:73 and Figure 17). Peak periods of production of transfer-printed wares with floral designs was in the late 1840s.
Flown blue vessels became popular in the United States in the l840s-l850s. especially those with landscape motifs (Samford 2000:79 and Table  7). There arc two sherds with hlue sponged (or spattered. see Majewski and O'Brien 1987: 161) decorations. This type of decorated whitewarc was "produced in great quantities by British potteries throughout the nineteenth century. primarily for export, and in the United States after about 1850" (Majewski and O'Brien 1987:161).
Other ceramic sherds from the Browning site include several stoneware jug or crock sherds (n=4), yellowware sherds from bowls and crocks (n=8), and sherds from glazed stoneware elbow pipes ( Table 4). The stoneware sherds, from a minimum of two vessels. are from excavations only in the central part of the site, while the yellowware sherds (also from n minimum of two vessels, Figure 7, right) are distributed principally in the western part of the Browning site. The pipe shcrds arc also from excavations in the western part of the site (see Figure 1).
The stoneware sherds found in the archaeological deposits at the Browning site include salt-glazed shcrds (n=3). a brown-glazed ink boule (n=l) sherd, and yellowware (n=8) (see Table 4). These particular kinds of stoneware would have been manufactured and used between the 1830s and ca. 1875. Salt glazing was one of the more commonly employed glazes in the manufacture of utilitarian stoneware (Greer 19~H : 180). The absence of salt-glazed stoneware sherds with a natural clay slipped interior surface suggests that these particular sherds are from stoneware vessels that were made before ca. 1870 (Lebo 1987: 140).
The ink bottle basal sherd (see Figure 7, left) has a reddish-brown exterior glaze that extends ncar the base of the bottle, and it has a pinkish-paste. This particulnr stoneware vessel was probably mnde in England in the mid-19th century (ca. 1850s), would have had a paper lahel, and heen stoppered with a cork (see Switzer 1974).
Yellowwarc began to produced in the 1820s in England, but by the 1840s it was also being manufactured in the United States, especially in the Midwest (Leibowitz 1985:4). The peak production of yellow ware vessels was in the I X 60s and 1870s,    although it was still being made in the early 1900s (Leibowitz 1985: 14). The pipe sherds from the Browning site are from early to mid-19th century stoneware forms. The elbow-shaped stoneware pipe is a reed stem pipe with a replaceable reed stem, and is moldmade, with a ribbed bowl. These sorts of pipes were made at several pollery kilns in the region, including the J. S. Nash factory in operation in Marion County, Texas. between 1850-1880. Similar styles of molded elbow pipes have been recovered from 1837-1846 and 1852-1857 Anglo-American farmsteads in northeastern Texas as well as the 1840s-l g60s porL of Monterey  (Nelson and Pcrllula 2003;Perttula 1989:99;Perttula and Nelson 20 I 0). All of the bottle glass from the Browning site is aqua-colored (Table 5). One is from a smal1 medicinal vial (Figure ~. right) with an iron-tipped pontil mark on its base (cf. Jones 2000:158-159), marking a method of holding the bottle during the finishing process that was used from the early 19th century until the 1870s. These bottles appear to have been hand-blown and likely held medicines and liquor. The principal metal artifacts (Table 6) from the Browning site an.: cut nails ( 1820-1 R91, see Wells 2000). Although they are not common, their occurrence suggests that the area of excavations at the site was in the vicinity of a wood-framcll building, or a log structure (or in the vicinity of an area where structural/architectural artifacts were discarlled), that may have had a mud cat chimney (see Jordan 197~). The~e nails occur in three small clusters in the western. central, and southern parts of the site (see Figure 1 ).
Horse and stable artifacts include two horseshoe nails and an iron buckle (Figure 9, hottom row. left). There are also kitchen/domestic artifacts. such as an iron spoon handle (Figure 9, left), and a possihle iron shaft/handle pull to a piece of wood furniture or a cabinet (Figure 9, bottom row, right). One plain 2-holed iron button is indicative of clothing/adornment ( Figure 9, top row, left).
The two small and thin pieces of tin (see Figure  9, top row, right) may he from a cup, or various sorts of pans. Finally, there are several pieces of unillentifiahle strips and fragments of iron that may he evidence of working/fabricating iron tools.

CONCLOSIONS
The Browning site has well-preserved archaeological evidence of a 19th century occupation along a tributary to the Sabine River. in northern Smith County, Texas. Although no habitation features have been identified in the excavations conducted to date at the site, and the recovery of cut nails and an assortment of kitchen/domestic artifacts (retined earthenware plates and cups, stoneware vessel sherds, and bottle glass sherds) personal items (an iron button). and horse gear (horseshoe nails and an iron buckle), it seems dear that there was a slrudure built on the site that was lived in by at least one family, probably a farming family. The low density of artifacts across Lhe site, as well as the relatively ephemeral nature of the archaeological deposits (ca. 20 em thick, covering only ca. 500 m, and little evidence of features such as foundations, pier stones, wells, or privies), suggest this probable farmstead may have heen occupied for no more than a generation (ca. 20 years). The best available evidence that speaks to the. chronological age of the Browning site occupation is the decorated refined earthenware. The preponderance of the evidence (see Table 3) is consistent with a ca. I 840-1860 occupation, one that postdated the Cherokee occupation of East Texas. The historic occupation of the Browning site is most likely the product of an Anglo-American settlement in the Sahine River basin.