Possible 18th-Century Tavern Uncovered in Eastern Virginia

After three years of searching, archaeologists think they may have found the remnants of an 18th-century tavern.

“We found a substantial rubble deposit of handmade brick and oyster shell mortar with some evidence of burning [that may be chimney soot],” said Fairfield Foundation lead archaeologist Dan Brown. “We think it might be the Quarles Tavern.”

Although not much is known about the tavern other than what is recorded in historical documents, the tavern was owned at one time by a man named John Quarles.

Now that archaeologists have identified what they think is the tavern, Brown said they will conduct additional tests to “find the edge of the deposit, hoping it will confirm the width of the building’s foundation … and delineate the building’s outline and dimensions” to verify it is the tavern.

The King William Historical Society sponsored the project after Alonso Dill’s map of the historic courthouse area, based on old records, piqued the society’s interest. It soon joined forces with the Fairfield Foundation, an archaeological preservation organization based in Gloucester.

According to Brown, Dill’s map provided approximate locations of several buildings that no longer exist, including Hill’s H๏τel (located across Courthouse Road in the green triangle lot), the Quarles Tavern (located east of the short brick wall area) and the brick stables (located in the asphalt overflow parking lot on Horse Landing Road).

Using Dill’s map and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) performed by Bob Chartrand, of Chartrand Geoarchaeological Solutions, LLC, in Williamsburg, they were able to search the entire courthouse area. GPR uses subsurface mapping of the earth using radio waves that create a picture.

“It saves us a lot of time and tells us where exactly to dig,” Brown said.

With GPR, Chartrand located many of the buildings’ foundations and even one not on Dill’s map, including a large brick building with a full cellar within the short-bricked wall area of the courthouse, just south of the King William Historical Society Museum, Brown said.

“That area was privately owned up until the early 20th century, and the building was destroyed around the time the county bought the property but, what was the building?” he asked. “We’re still trying to find that out.”

Although his team is at the preliminary stages of understanding what exactly the archaeology says about King William’s society in the 18th century, Brown said that he can confirm that “the tavern hosted a very high-class clientele, [as] seen in the variety of relatively rare and expensive ceramic fragments, personal items and other artefacts found to date.”

Brown has also deduced that the courthouse area was busy at that time. In fact, busier relative to today. Also, Brown said every part of society, from enslaved Africans and Indigenous people to wealthy individuals and families came to the courthouse area.

Although he has learned a lot about King William County through artefacts, Brown keeps digging up more questions.

“Did Indigenous people live here? When they built the courthouse, what other buildings were built alongside it and when and where? Over the 18th and 19th centuries, what government buildings came and went?”

Brown has a theory as to why business eventually slowed down in the King William courthouse area: urban development.

“There was an increase in state governments, development in West Point and more stores to choose from,” he said. “People had less of a need to go to the courthouse for things.”

Since the project is ongoing, the King William Society and Fairfield Foundation will continue to use GPR and dig around the courthouse area in hopes of finding new buildings and answering more questions.

According to Brown, the group also aims to “preserve the county’s precious cultural resources” by making them available for viewing in the King William Historical Society Museum and “sharing this process with the public.”

“Plans are in the works for us to host all 273 fourth and fifth graders in the county and that is a remarkable honour,” said Brown. “They would get to see the remarkable museum exhibits put together by the museum council, the architectural complexities and mysteries of our courthouse buildings, and get to dig too.”

Brown said he is also looking forward to hosting the public a few days every month to visit and participate in a dig.