Signs of the University of Alabama’s role in the Civil War are everywhere on campus. The President’s mansion is among the few buildings that survived being burned to the ground during Croxton’s Raid on April 4th in 1865. Washington Hall was a student dormitory that was lost to history—until recently.
Sometimes even the greatest scientific discoveries have modest beginnings.
“The contractor was hydro excavating whole locations for new utilities and the pole basis to go in,” said Jeremy Wood the construction portfolio manager for UA. When the university needs something built, he’s the man to call.
“It was early August, we received a call that the contractor had found something,” Wood said.
And that something sent one group of students digging into a forgotten past.
“The university was putting in a new light pole on the corner,” said Dr. Matthew Gage, the director of archeological research at UA.
He had explored many construction sites in the past. Sometimes crews dig stuff up that’s a few decades old. Not this time.
“The head of facilities construction called me up and said, Hey, we think we found a portion of one of the old campus buildings, walls,” Gage said.
And old might be underselling it. Washington Hall was one of the original student dormitories on the UA campus in the 1800’s. Then, then the U.S. Civil War got started. As the conflict wound down, Union troops came to Tuscaloosa for what was called Croxton’s Raid. Most of the campus was burned to the ground and forgotten. And now a small army of students is bringing it back.
“Right here, there’s more rubble than flat stones,” said Michele Hoferitza, a third year PhD student studying historical anthropology.
“And so, we’re just kind of sweeping with this little broom, sweeping the dirt away,” Hoferitza said.
And this discovery isn’t miles away at a dig site. For these students, it’s right in their backyard.
“They can finish their morning class and stroll over and start digging,” said Dr. Elliot Blair associate professor of anthropology at UA.
All Archaeology students have to do a field school before they graduate. This usually means a trip to a site off campus. Blair said the Washington Hall excavation is a short walk from Gorgas Library.
“This is a sort of unusual and rare opportunity for the student to actually get to do their field school right here on campus,” Blair said.
13 students joined this historical dig. There were no whips or fedora hats like you’d see in an Indiana Jones movie. This is the grunt work in archeology, like brushes and tiny picks. Every Tuesday and Thursday these students showed up, tools in hand. An opportunity like this hadn’t been seen since 2007. And they didn’t just find a wall.
“We found some pretty old pottery, like, pre–Civil War, pre probably the university existing. So, it's a piece, I want to say it's about an inch across, inch squared, and it's just really nice intact pottery,” said Donovan Fraizer, an archeology major.
Fraizer focused on pickaxe digging and took on a bit of a leadership role. He helped discover the artifact he likes to call his own.
“The pottery was found, if I remember correctly, here in unit one, which so it's split in half, unit one and unit two, and we kind of found it before we actually reached the wall,” Fraizer said.
The large size of the pottery also made it a perfect fit for further analysis. The idea at the time was to compare pottery from previous digs to look for similarities. Right now, that idea is becoming a reality.
Three months later students, including Donovan, gathered for laboratory methods class. This time, these archeology majors trade shovels and picks for clipboards. The job now is to analyze the materials found from the excavation. Led by Dr. Blair, students try to make sense of the pieces they’ve found.
“We had what looks like this glass stopper from some kind of medicine bottle. There looks like what we think might be part of a lightning rod from the building,” Blair said.
These aren’t just random trinkets. They’re pieces of a larger puzzle.
“With the new excavated material the previous work, we can sort of identify where the cellar was, where the corner of the buildings were, and of course, look at a lot of the artifacts that came from the from the structure. And so, sort of put it all together into one story about this, this dormitory that burned,” Blair said.
An excavation gives you the larger story, but the analysis gives you the sentences, the paragraphs, the finer details. Like that large piece of pottery they discovered.
“We know that it's it was white, it was partially melted, which is really interesting, because upon finding it, you couldn't see that.”
Remember Donovan Frazier? We met him at the dig. He’s not taking this analysis class. But he had to come by to check on his pottery shard.
The original thought was that the pottery might be part of a set. Turns out, it was far more “original” than they were expecting.
“Upon analysis, you know, they've determined that those weren't connected. So, it's interesting to see that, like okay, this piece is, it's on its own, and it's, you know, it actually probably withstood the fire by itself,” Fraizer said.
Despite the raid, despite the fire, despite the time, that one piece of pottery survived all on its own. A small reminder that the past is never truly lost, it’s just waiting to be discovered. The analysis will continue throughout the rest of the semester. Closing out another chapter in the greater story of Washington Hall. As for these young archeologists, their adventure is just getting started.
