Layer Three - Mixed occupation and fill layer

Here is what was found in layer 3 -  a piece of flow blue, transferware ceramic, which dates from around the mid 1830s.  Transferware was less expensive than imported, hand painted Chinese porcelain, and the affordability of flow blue items were attractive for many Victorian middle class families.

A flow blue, transfer printed ceramic plate.

Mason jars with glass lid liners and zinc collars date to post (after) 1869.The Mason jar was invented and patented in 1858 by Philadelphia tinsmith John Landis Mason.

A clear glass mason jar lid liner with a zinc collar.

Both of these pipe bowls are marked with the letters "TD". Plain TD pipes (such as those illustrated in T. Kenyon's Nineteenth Century Notes) date to the last half of the 19th century (1850's and later). Cigarette smoking did not become popular until after World War I. Until then, smokers - men and women alike - were using clay tobacco pipes such as these found in layer 3.


Earthenware marbles were very popular up until just before 1950. Almost anyone could afford to have clay marbles to play with because they were free. All you needed was a clay bottomed creek bed and a nice, sunny day. Any child could go to the local creek and get some clay, roll it into a marble shape, and let it sit in the sun to bake. If you were really lucky, your mother might let you bake your marbles in her oven. Clay marbles made this way usually have a small flat spot, the spot where the marble rested while it was drying in the sun. Around 1950, glass marbles became more popular for playing and trading.

A clay marble

Two white clay smoking pipe bowl fragments.

This gives us a date of post 1869 for layer 3. This means that, since the newest artifact in the collection - the Mason jar liner - has been dated to after 1869, it could not have possibly been there before 1869 (because it did not exist before this date).