Longtime readers of the faculty lounge may recall that I've been following Terry Meyers' research on the Bray School, which was an eighteenth century school for African American children in Williamsburg. Terry's been writing for some time about the pro-slavery and anti-slavery ideas in circulation in Williamsburg and at William and Mary. This summer William and Mary and Colonial Williamsburg are conducting an archeological dig to see if they can locate the school's location. Cribbinow now from a recent press reslease:
Work began on May 29 in the garden area to the south of Brown Hall, a William & Mary dormitory known to be the original site of the Digges House. The project began with shovel testing, excavating small holes every five meters.
“The idea is to get a little glimpse over a broad area of where there might be artifacts or features that potentially relate to the school and then based on that information, we’ll dig larger units,” Kostro explained.
The BSAP’s first day of shovel testing brought up a number of artifacts, including beads, ceramic fragments, the inner workings of a watch and parts of smoking pipes—but nothing dating to the time of the Bray School, Norman said.
Here's a picture of the building that housed the Bray School — it's now been relocated a few blocks away and current houses William and Mary's ROTC program.
