UMW student discovered the Masonic pipe bowl

Fredericksburg university student spots fascinating clue from the past

Date published: 7/4/2008

By CLINT SCHEMMER

It was another hot summer day on the water-screening detail at Ferry Farm.

Archaeological intern Rebekah Sargeant put a shovelful of dirt from the dig site in her screen and began washing it with a hose nozzle.

As the earth that had been excavated from an old cellar fell away through her wire-mesh screen, she spotted a bit of white ceramic.

It looked like part of a tobacco pipe. The intact bowl of a colonist's pipe, in fact, she realized.

"I started noticing, while spraying, it had a leaf motif. It was decorated and intact, and that was exciting," the Fredericksburg resident recalled of that day in 2006.

"I kept looking at it, and realized it had a symbol on the back," she said yesterday. "I recognized it right away as being Masonic. I couldn't believe it!"

She showed it to other washers, took it to the young woman who had excavated the soil and started shouting across the dig site: "Can you believe this? Can you believe what you've just found?"

What they had found, the Ferry Farm archaeologists revealed Wednesday, is one of the most tantalizing artifacts among more than 500,000 they've unearthed over seven years there.

Like everyone who sees it, they're intrigued by this broken-off pipe bowl, blackened inside from smoking.

Typical of the mid-18th century when George Washington lived at Ferry Farm, it was found in one of the cel-lars of the Washington family's home.

And on the side that faced the smoker, it bears a raised Masonic crest. Specifically, it appears, the symbol for a second-degree Mason.

Washington, then 20, was initiated into Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge No. 4 on Nov. 4, 1752. He was passed to "fellow craft," the second degree, on March 3, 1753, according to lodge records.

"While we can't say that this was George Washington's pipe, we can wonder about it," said Phil Levy, the archaeologist who oversees the University of South Flo-rida's field school at Ferry Farm.

Melanie Marquis, supervisor of Ferry Farm's archaeology lab, remembers clearly the moment the artifact was rushed there. "We looked at this one and said 'Wow, this is a Masonic emblem," she said. " It was terribly exciting. It was the realization of something that could be very, very significant."

Sargeant, now 21 and in her fourth season at Ferry Farm, is working in the lab these days, cataloguing artifacts as they come in from the field.

A rising senior majoring in historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington, she said her work at Ferry Farm has made her even more passionate about archaeology, which she's considering making a career.

"It's the greatest thing ever," she said. "I really love it."

Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 7/4/2008