Photo Record
Images
Additional Images [1]
Metadata
Collection |
Mouns Jones |
Title |
Archaeological dig outside southwest eaves wall |
Archive Number |
MJHPH57 |
Description |
Image #1: Black and white photographic print showing detail of amateur archaeological excavation outside the west eaves wall of the Mouns Jones House in 1969 or 1970. Image #2 shows text of notes written in blue pen & red pen on verso, which refer to "this wall against the south [sic: closer to southwest] wall of the House--we do not know if this would be the wall to his early house 1701{n} or to an out building [sic]." {n} The reference to an hypothesized 1701 dwelling is apparently based on the date of William Penn's grant ["warrant"] of approximately 10,000 acres in Manatawny to Swedish settlers, including Mouns Jones and his wife and six children{1}. It is unlikely that Mouns’ first dwelling was constructed much before 1704, when Reverend Sandel noted that he had taken up residence at Manatawny. Alternatively, some of the sub-grade stonework uncovered in the 1969-70 and 2011-2014 archaeological investigations southwest of the house might have been the disturbed remains of piers or footings ["sleepers"] supporting the porch shown in the photographs in records MJHPH1--1000.01.001, MJHPH62--1000.01.067, MJHPH65--1000.01.070, MJHPH96--1000.01.107, and MJHPH97--1000.01.108. Image # The two large stones under the plinth masonry in image #3 are probably the base stones [or a fractured single base stone] which originally supported the stone sill under the original doorway. The sill under the relocated doorway will be placed under the re-centered doorway on the premise that it is plausibly the original sill. Jones' parcel, surveyed or plotted according to the authority of the prime patentee [land title recipient] Andreas Rudman comprised slightly less than 500 acres, with frontage on the eastern banks of the Schuylkill River, which was then the primary artery of transportation and communication between Philadelphia and its expanding northwestern frontier. Jones house was, at the dawn of the 18th century, the outermost homestead settled by a European on the northwestern perimeter of Penn's Philadelphia County; see the history and analysis of the Manatawny "Swede's Tract," including Mouns Jones's parcel, by Philip Pendleton in the September 1988 issue of "The Historical Review of Berks County.". Rudman did not participate in the land grant motivated by personal avarice. He served for years without salary and often paid church debt out of his own funds. His relatively short tenure in "Molatton" and his hyphenated term as leader of the Swedish Lutherans in Philadelphia [Wicaco Church] is detailed in an essay entitled The Life and Influence of Andreas Rudman, First Minister in Berks, by Ronald W. Oudinot, published in The Historical Review of Berks County, Volume XLIV, Number 2, Spring, 1979, at page 59, et seq. According to one unpublished account, Jones built "his original log cabin" in 1701 adjacent to the White Horse Ford crossing the river. The same account asserts that Jones and his wife and children "moved in 1704 to Manatawny (Douglassville) in Amity Township, Berks County…." This assertion was probably based on a 1704 letter from a traveling minister [Andreas Sandel] stating that "Mans Jonson" had "taken up" residence there. In 1709 Mouns and neighboring owners petitioned the Provincial Council for a road from the outskirts of Philadelphia to their "plantations" at Manatawny. The road had not been laid out or physically opened by 1715, when another petition was initiated by Jones and other planters in the region. However, a 1719 Draught shows the proposed extensions of the "Oaley" road to the ford across from Millard’s mill [see record # MVFN01]. By 1712 the Jones family had been ensconced in their first dwelling in the Manatawny settlement, for at least eight years. Assuming river frontage of about a quarter of a mile, Jones's narrow tract extended about two miles northeastward from the river. In May 1712 a letter from Charles Gookin, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, cites a Mouns Jones letter dated May 4, 1712 to the Governor requesting that a meeting with four "Indian Kings" be convened "at the said house of Mouns Jones of Manatawny." Images #4 and 5 [#8916, 6/7/14] is a collection of pottery sherds found during the 1969-70 archaeological campaign; these fragments, mostly slip-decorated or incised redware, were returned to the site in 2011 by a participant in the 1970 "dig". A careful re-excavation and documentation of the sub-grade curtilage west of the existing stone house has been conducted from 2011 through 2014 to determine whether any further findings might shed light on the early construction sequence and purpose of this stonework. The 2014 excavations have unearthed early slip-decorated artifacts including redware sherds and additional sub-grade stone wall segments [Images 6 & 7]. FOOTNOTE {1} See the history and analysis of the Manatawny "Swede's Tract," including Mouns Jones's parcel, by Philip Pendleton in the Sept., 1988 issue of "The Historical Review of Berks County." Laurence Ward, April 2010 |
Search Terms |
MJPH MJHPH MJH Mouns Jones House Mouns Jones House Photo Perspective Photo Archaeological Dig Vintage Photo Shards Pottery Shards Pier Porch Porch Pier Road Petition Indian Kings Stoop Manatawny Mahanatawny Monotony |
People |
Jones, Mouns Rudman, Andreas Sandel, Andreas Gookin, Charles |
Object Name |
Print, Photographic |
Accession number |
1000.01 |
Date |
1969 |
Photographer |
Unknown |
Catalog Number |
1000.01.061 |