Friday, March 19, 1999
Maplewood offers mystery
Slave of 'Beloved' likely worked there
BY KRISTINA GOETZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FLORENCE — Parts of an ornate whiskey flask, burned nails and an 1845 one-cent piece. All are part of an incomplete historical puzzle at Maplewood, the old Archibald Gaines farm in Boone County where slave Margaret Garner is thought to have worked some 150 years ago.
Slides of these artifacts and archaeologist's techniques on how to piece together the past were part of a program sponsored by the Boone County Historical Society Thursday night.
The site is part of an old 19th century plantation that was not unlike the setting Toni Morrison used in her book Beloved, which is a fictionalized account of Ms. Garner's story.
Archaeologists and students from Kentucky State University and Georgetown College plotted out what they thought to be the plantation and analyzed artifacts they unearthed last November.
Bill Macintire, an architectural historian who was part of the survey, shared with audience members how he thinks some of those puzzle pieces fit together.
He believes Ms. Garner did not likely live in the house that still stands on Richwood Road because it doesn't have the characteristics of a slave home.
Ceilings are 12- to 14-feet high; walls are plastered.
“It was originally built as a dwelling for somebody who had a little bit of money and privilege,” he said.
Mr. Macintire dates the building to 1840-1860 because of the house's frame and tool marks made on some of the wood:
“You can tell a lot from the technology involved. Also from the types of nails used.”
But there was also likely more to it than what now stands, a missing piece of that puzzle. Mr. Macintire believes one of the exterior walls used to be an interior wall, but doesn't know exactly what happened to the other portion.
Jay Stottman, staff archaeologist with the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, said the standing house is all the team had to work with.
“Reconstruction of the plantation is what we wanted to do,” he said. “Certainly there were more buildings out there and that's what we wanted to find out.”
While digging, the group found post holes and flecks of plaster and stones that might have been parts of foundations.
“We're trying to take that thousand-piece puzzle and put it back together,” he said.
“With more excavation we can learn more about this plantation, Margaret Garner and the whole slave system.”
Anne Butler, director of Kentucky State University's Center of Excellence for the Study of Kentucky African Americans, said many have asked questions about the next step, about how the next piece of the puzzle willfit.
“That's up to Boone County,” she said. “To really understand that site would require at least 30 days and $30,000 to $32,000.”
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