1629 'GREAT HOUSE' STUDIED IN BOSTON

AP
Published: October 21, 1985

BOSTON, Oct. 20— Archaeologists working near Bunker Hill said today that they had uncovered hundreds of artifacts in the 350-year-old ruins of the first meetinghouse in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Gov. John Winthrop once lived and ruled.

The 800-square-foot foundation of the ''great house,'' as such meetinghouses were called, which was begun in 1629, was discovered beneath a small city park in the Charlestown section of Boston after archaeologists began digging at the site in February.

The excavating is being financed by the state and Federal governments because the ruins are in an area scheduled for destruction when work begins in two years on an underground highway project.

Charlestown was originally laid out by about 100 Puritans, headed by an engineer, Thomas Graves, who were hired by the Massachusetts Bay Company of England to move there from Salem.

Building Occupied in 1630

A combination of documentary and archaeological research was used to verify the authenticity of the discovery.

Archaeologists said the building was occupied by Winthrop from July to October 1630. It was the colony's first government building, as well as Winthrop's dwelling and court before he moved to Boston. Winthrop, the first Governor of the colony, served under King Charles I. "I think it's one of the most important archaeological finds in the country right now," Mike Roberts, the site's project manager, said today. "This is the heart of Massachusetts."

"What we're seeing in Charlestown today is probably the best reflection we'll ever have of the early Puritan settlements in Boston," said Steve Pendery, the city's chief archaeologist.

According to researchers, the great house was abandoned as the colony's seat of government and was quickly converted to the First Church of Charlestown. A tavernkeeper, Robert Long, bought it in 1635 and converted it into the Three Crane Tavern.

"For about a year, they had a tavern and a church running at the same time in the same building," said John Cheney, field supervisor at the site.

British Looted Tavern

On April 19, 1775, British troops returning from a battle in the Lexington-Concord area occupied the tavern and, while waiting to be ferried across the harbor to Boston, they looted it.

"We think they pretty much trashed the tavern," Mr. Cheney said. "It looks like the tavern was almost completely cleaned out."

The tavern was destroyed June 17, 1775, when British troops, angered by provincial snipers, set fire to most of Charlestown just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. The archaeologists have concluded that most of the artifacts discovered at the site date from 1775 or earlier.

After the fire the town decided not to rebuild. Townspeople dumped dirt over the ruined structures and later used the area as a parade ground.

"The whole thing is capped by a destruction layer from the fire and that was buried in 1780 with three feet of fill," said Mr. Cheney. "So what we have is everything just as it looked right after the fire."

The building was one of about 100 historic and prehistoric sites in Charlestown identified in 1981 by the Institute for Conservation Archaeology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. Nineteen of the sites were selected for additional study because of their importance.

Among the artifacts recovered in and around the great house were pottery, glasses, stoneware plates, silverware, clay pipes, gaming pieces, coins, roofing tiles, fence posts, a wine cellar and a copper spigot used to tap beer barrels.

Mr. Pendery said the remains of food are usually well preserved in "privy pits" so researchers can establish the dietary habits of the era. "We often think of outhouses as time capsules," he said.