Volume 4

The Morris Birkbeck Estate: Archaeology at the “English Settlement”

in Southeastern Illinois

Robert Mazrim, Curtis Mann, Valary Carraro and William Weedman​

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This journal serves as the historical context for the Morris Birkbeck Estate (and associated village of Wanborough), as well as the technical report for the 2005 research-based archaeological investigations the site of Birkbeck's 1817 home. That testing encountered a large, subsurface feature that appears to be a subfloor cellar, measuring as large as 15 by 20 feet. Based on the temporally sensitive artifacts recovered from the feature, the cellar was abandoned and filled prior to 1840, producing materials dating circa 1815 to 1835, appropriate to the tenure of the Birkbeck family.​​​