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Ingleside Plantation

Ground penetrating radar supported by electrical resistivity tomography and gradiometer surveys were used to map buildings and infrastructure documenting sequential property use by three generations of the Jacob Forney family who began as farmers in the backcountry of North Carolina and rose to prominence in government and industry within the Southeastern United States. At Ingleside, the antebellum plantation house has been preserved and the adjacent property remains relatively undisturbed. Context for the geophysical surveys was provided by archival photographs, written accounts including monographs and newspaper articles, and an archaeological excavation of the fallen stone chimney and hearth within the plantation’s summer kitchen. The location of an early log home with its stone-lined cellar with ties to the Piedmont Campaign of the American Revolution (in 1781) was newly discovered. In addition, a historic road, kitchen garden, and the postholes from an early post-in-the-ground building were imaged within the subsurface. The external summer kitchen and privy are associated with the plantation house constructed in 1817. Modernization and occupation of the brick mansion to the present day has resulted in disruption of the subsurface by the installation of a septic tank and underground utilities. Several cesspool vaults of potential privies are ingrown with trees. The results of the geophysical surveys document the evolving land use within one family during a critical period of change in the American South and can be connected to specific events in history, a goal of historical archaeology.

Diverse and high-quality geophysical data coupled with archaeological excavation extends our knowledge of sequential property use by three generations of the Forney family who began as farmers in the backcountry of North Carolina and rose to prominence in government and industry within the Southeastern United States. GPR surveys located the site of the earliest dwelling, the original site of the Jacob Forney house, a kitchen garden and road in use around the time of the Revolutionary War. Contrasting soil disturbance preserved footprints of these features on the landscape. Gradiometer ss and ERT profiles provided additional compositional information. ERT transects clearly image the stone-lined, dirt-floored cellar and the rubble mixed with soil that fills it. The gradiometer detected a buried iron spike affixed to bedrock and metal objects within the cellar. The connection of Jacob Forney’s son, Peter to the early iron furnaces of Lincoln County, NC is of interest with regard to artifacts that may be buried within the cellar. Elevated magnetic anomalies around the post-in-the-ground building suggest that the structure was burned.

Our study identifies the specific location of the original house with a cellar that fits the description of the dwelling that Cornwallis could have occupied while at Ingleside in 1781, thus tying this site to a specific event in history, one of the goals of historical archaeology (i.e. South, 1966).

Our surveys also detected a privy and the footprint of the kitchen that supported the plantation house constructed in 1817.  The geophysical record of the kitchen is obscured by modern utilities and is better known from archival photographs and excavation of the hearth. Our geophysical surveys have identified new targets for future excavations, including the cellar and the privy.

Historical photograph of the Ingleside Plantation.
Historical photograph of the Ingleside Plantation.
Topographic map showing the site location and surrounding features.
A. Undated photograph described as the Jacob Forney house (Abernathy, 1944). The red circle shows the chimney belonging to the manor house. B. The outline of the Forney house superimposed on a photograph of the back of the manor house taken in 2018 at the approximate location of Structure 3 identified by geophysical surveying. The modern chimney as it would appear behind the house is circled.
Spring house for the Ingleside Plantation.
View of the kitchen and hearth area excavations looking to the North. (Left) Edward Little, (Right) Robert Carpenter.
Artifacts recovered in 2010 excavation including,  A. bone toothbrush, bone knife handles, slate pencils, clay marble, porcelain doll arm, and brass buckles. B. A variety of stoneware sherds including Catawba Valley alkaline glaze, gray salt glaze, Bristol/Albany slip, English Brown salt glazed, and Blue Cobalt salt glazed. C. tea cup rim sherd, Chinese export porcelain (1720-1800) in the "Famille Rose" pattern. D. depression glass in the "Hobnail" pattern.
Collecting electrical resistivity data.
Collecting electrical resistivity data
Collecting electrical resistivity data
3D resistivity.
A. GPR depth slice from surface to 0.2 m in G-7 and G-8. Outlines of 4 anomalies (A-1 to A-4) representing post holes are shown. B. Gradiometer data from G-14 showing bi-polar anomalies at A-2, A-3 and A-4. C. ERT-1 with corresponding GPR profiles from T-2 and T-3. The number of electrodes in the ERT transect is shown by the black squares at the top of the plot.
A. GPR depth slice from 0.7 to 0.8 m showing outline of debris in cellar. B. Depth slice from 0.2 to 0.3 m showing likely outline of Structure 3. C. Hill shade map of gradiometer data in G-13 showing magnetic anomalies that coincide with the high amplitude GPR reflections in the cellar. An iron spike buried approximately 10 cm (shown in inset) beneath the surface is recorded by a point source magnetic anomaly.
ERT-4 (A.) and ERT-5 (B.) paired with corresponding GPR profiles. ERT-5 crosses through the center of the depression and shows an excavation into higher resistivity weathered rock. ERT-4 crosses the north edge of the depression. GPR anomalies indicate that the excavation fill includes metal objects (see also Figure 7C) as well as lower resistivity soil and rocks with a slightly higher resistivity. The number of electrodes in each ERT transect is shown by the black squares at the top of the plot.
GPR profiles, 3-D isosurface rendering, and depth slice from 0.3-0.5 m in G-5 showing the historic road bed.
Plan view of the grounds of the original farmstead (A) and the Antebellum planation (B) as identified in this study.

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