...the key to the Hospital of Death...
Fort Edward, May 31st 1757-
I
was ordered To Go with 20 Men & Build a Hospital on
the Lower End of the Island To Put those that Had the Small Pox Into--
accordingly went & was Directed by Mr. Best--in the afternoon the Doctor
went Down with Us & Found some Fault with What was Done, etc.
June 1st, 1757-
I went to work with a Party of 20 men on the Hospital where I was Yesterday...Toward night the Doctor Came to See Us, Contrived Something More to Be Done--Then I Came Home & Heard Considerable Fiddling in the Evening, etc.
June 2nd-
In the Morning Early I Went into the Fort For
-
July 4th, 1757-
...2
men Died with Camp Distemper, one Lyman's man, the other of the Boston forces-
the -number of men that have the small pox In the hospital about 50 Rods from
the fort is 101.
"Montressor
(the chief engineer) ...mentions a smallpox hospital, but its location is a mystery."
-William
Hill, Old Fort Edward, 1929
The
job of uncovering the past begins with knowing and understanding the people who
lived it. To begin to search for the physical remains of the past, the
archaeologist tries to immerse himself in the time period. He has to think like
his subject, and view each new discovery from that point of view. What we began
with were these two journal entries and an undated map with a rectangular
building placed at the southern end of the island . Pacing fifty
rods from where the fort was on the river placed us on a slight rise of land
that seemed to correspond with what we were looking at on the map. 
To use our time more usefully, we employed a bulldozer to gently scrape away a few inches of topsoil across a 25 by 40 square meter area, hoping to reveal discolorations in the subsoil that would indicate where a building may have stood. On the last day of the 1992 field season the crew began excavating what appeared to be a trash pit when time ran out on them.
Perhaps more than anything
else, archaeologists get excited about trash pits. Eighteenth century man's
garbage is our gold. From the diversity, quantity, and "quality" of
trash we learn a great deal about how life was lived (if you ever have the
opportunity to sort through your neighbor's trash, you'll instantly know what I
mean).
John Kosek and I returned to the site early one Saturday morning in September 1992 to begin investigating the "trash pit". Not so easy. First, we had to locate these areas that had been backfilled (to protect them from the elements and the ever present threat of looting) a month earlier.
Before any
Once
we located the pit, we carefully dug out the fill. Over the next few weekends
John and I returned to excavate a 2 by 2 square meter area to a depth of over
three feet. The 
They included food waste (plenty of animal
bone fragments), "rosehead" handwrought nails, wine bottle glass
fragments, and musketballs. We also found one musketball flattened on top and
bottom, probably lost before the person modifying it could
October the 12th 1757-
In the Morning we were Relieved as Usual, then I went to Writing
orders for Niles the Rest of the Day, etc.
October 13th-
In the Morning there was a Great
White Frost which was the First that I have Seen This Fall although the weather
Has Been Very Cold for SomeTime-- This Day we went to work to Settle our tent
into the Ground...
