Fort Frederica's high school interns dig their jobs

Jul. 9—Ivan Barr stepped carefully one recent summer afternoon into a precisely carved shallow pit, descending 40 centimeters and 274 years.

Beside him stood the thick, stubby remains of a tabby wall that jutted from the earthen edge of the pit's sharp horizontal side. The oyster-shell encrusted ruins lie across the pit's smooth dirt floor, cutting a right angle at the other end and disappearing into the flat soil face on the other side.

Protected by a canopy, this carefully tended piece of ground at Fort Frederica National Monument, of Colonial-era St. Simons Island, is easily recognizable as a professional archaeological excavation.

So what is a Glynn Academy high school student like Barr doing standing in the middle of the ruins of an 18th century home? Working.

"Once we get down to the area of historical significance, we break out the trowels," the rising junior explained to a recent visitor. "After each level, we stop to sweep it off. We go down 10 centimeters at a time."

Barr is one of six Glynn Academy students spending June through the end of this month as archaeological interns at Fort Frederica. This is no mere summer camp, either. It is a paid gig. Barr and fellow interns Rachael Waters, Cash Roberson, Ashley Ramirez, Alex Peterlin and Aubrey Pockett earn close to minimum wage, putting in nearly 40 hours a week.

Georgia Southern graduate Sierra Sutton of Covington also is serving a summer internship there.

The internship program is funded by the Friends of Fort Frederica.

Their efforts could prove substantial.

Supervised by Fort Frederica archaeologist Michael Seibert and education coordinator Ellen Provenzano, these young men and women are searching for Archibald Sinclair.

An indentured servant turned innkeeper and family man, Sinclair's last known whereabouts was right here. But that was four centuries ago, in the 1740s. Yet these interns have already unearthed tantalizing clues about Sinclair and his family, including a gold ring, a dog skeleton, a key and dish shards.

The rest of Sinclair's story may well be waiting for them.

"We're not just digging in dirt," Barr said. "We're digging in a house where someone actually lived."

On this day, they were sifting through a section in the back corner of the Sinclair residence. About a foot of the tabby wall juts up from the smooth bottom of the perfectly-carved excavation pit. This area consists of two 3-meter-by-3-meter square sections, the knee-high depth achieved 1 painstaking centimeter at a time. (Excavations descend in 10-centimeter increments, within 3-by-3 squares.)

The interns were actually focused on the higher-elevated 3-by-3 section beside the deeper portion of the pit. There the excavation has just scratched the surface. The top of the tabby ruins still remain hidden under dirt. They have a good 6 or 7 centimeters of careful sifting to go on the first phase of this section.

"To think that I'm one of the first people to excavate this is so fascinating to me," said Ramirez, a rising junior at Glynn Academy. "We're the first people touching whatever we find next. We're bringing back a home from hundreds of years ago."

The interns' enthusiasm and knowledge are much appreciated by Seibert. They also serve as valuable ambassadors to Fort Frederica, sharing the excavation's historical magnitude and technical details with park visitors.

"It's a total professional atmosphere," Seibert said. "It's not a summer vacation by any means. They understand the importance of the work they're doing and they take it seriously. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much work done as we have. And the visitor contact and historical interpretation that they are able to provide are immensely important."

Seibert discovered Sinclair's homestead about two years ago by employing high-tech gizmos like penetrating radar. Seibert pinpointed it as the home of Sinclair by checking the site with maps and township records. It is located on a plot about two blocks south of the old township's main thoroughfare, where 20th century excavations have revealed detailed information about tavern owners, butchers, candlestick makers and a host of other tradespeople who once occupied the site where ruins greet visitors today.

Due in part to the work of the half a dozen young interns, future visitors will one day stop at Sinclair's homestead to learn about the space and the time he filled there.

What's known is that Sinclair arrived at Fort Frederica as an indentured servant around 1737, the year after the St. Simons Island settlement was established. He gained his freedom shortly afterward, became an innkeeper and built his home on this spot. He and wife Isabel had two children, Margaret and James. (James died in 1741.)

Sinclair also served as a township tithingman, which sounds better than tax collector. He built an addition to the home in 1743, likely to accommodate the inn. Sinclair shows up as a registrar for the courts at Frederica in 1747-48, records show.

That is it. No other trace of him has been found.

Did he stay? Did he go? Do his predecessors live among today's residents?

(Seibert sees no reason at present to believe he is connected to the island's Sinclair Plantation.)

"He was a pretty wealthy guy, but he wasn't historically significant," Barr said. "So there's all these unknowns. We don't know what happened here."

"There's just a lot of mysteries," added Roberson.

Their discoveries so far compel them to find more.

"We've found a lot of cool things," Roberson said. "One of my first days we found a gold ring."

The ring contained a latin inscription, Gorgeous Rexus — King George, the British ruler at the time Fort Frederica was founded.

Waters is intrigued by the dog skeleton they unearthed. A family pet, perhaps?

"I just really like history," said Waters, a recent GA graduate now bound for the University of Georgia. "We're extremely lucky to be involved in a real archaeology site while still in high school."

Seibert and the folks at Fort Frederica feel lucky to have them.

"They're a self-contained unit right now," Seibert said. "Do their own measurements, note taking, photographs. Totally professional, and they demonstrate an aptitude and a willingness to learn more.

"It's an honor to be able to share this passion for what we do with these kids, and to see how enthusiastically it is received."