LAKE?PLACID — Deep in the woods in the town of North Elba, archeology students from SUNY Potsdam are digging into the past on a plot of land once owned and inhabited by Lyman Epps, an African-American from Troy.
Situated about a mile back in the woods adjacent to state land, a 40-acre parcel now owned by David and Judy Szablak is being excavated by 18 students under the direction of Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, an assistant professor of anthropology at SUNY Potsdam and a resident of Saranac Lake.
The story begins in the mid-19th century with Gerrit Smith, an abolitionist in the North Country who gave away 120,000 acres of his land to African-American males who could not vote without owning $250 worth of real estate. The land mass became known as Timbuctoo, and Lyman Epps was the settlement’s most prominent resident. Epps and his family inhabited the lot near what is now the Cornell-Uihlein fields for 25 years — about 20 years longer than most of the other families who also received parcels from Smith.
The deed records can be traced back from the transaction between Smith and Epps. The parcel, still referred to as the Epps lot on state Department of Environmental Conservation maps, was sold by Lyman Epps Jr. in 1902. Maps from 1900 to present show no evidence of a structure on this property. The goal of the archeologists is to find the homestead of Lyman Epps and his family.
The students began their exploration on July 6 and since then have found various artifacts dating back to the 19th century, as well as a dump site that so far has only turned up artifacts primarily from the 1940s.
“The students are getting a real eye-opening experience in terms of how hard this can be, that it’s not always easy and not always where you think it’s going to be perfectly, so it’s a challenge,” Kruczek-Aaron said.
Kruczek-Aaron knew about the settlement after completing her dissertation on Gerrit Smith’s estate in central New York. There were few written records about Timbuctoo, and the ones available were written by commentators who would only offer racist explanations on why the settlement failed. Nothing really spoke of what the people who came up here experienced, Kruczek-Aaron explained.
“This is the reason why we do archeology in the historic period,” Kruczek-Aaron said. Once artifacts are unearthed, they are taken to a field lab, set up on the property, to be cleaned; they will go back to SUNY Potsdam’s lab at the end of the four weeks. In the spring, a course will be offered to allow students to continue working with the material they find as well as interpret and learn about the artifacts.
“It’s kind of a work in progress,” Kruczek-Aaron said.
Technically, the objects are all property of the landowner. Kruczek-Aaron has made an agreement to have time with them to determine what they are, and then the Szabalks will get them back to keep or loan to a museum.
The dump site yielded the most objects so far; however, these were all 20th-century artifacts: pottery, a metal bed frame and a pair of leather shoes.
“What we’re seeing out here is primarily 1940s-and-after material,” Kruczek-Aaron said. “The hope is that, if this trash represents trash from the house built in the 1940s, and they were reusing a dump that was already used — so we’re going to excavate this to get down to the lower levels to see if we can get any 19th-century stuff. We did find a cut nail in this place already, but it’s in with all this 20th-century stuff.”
Some 19th-century artifacts they found include cut nails, which are determined by their irregularity, signaling that they were hand wrought; a metal piece from a harness that appears to be part of farming equipment; and a horseshoe.
“We know that we’re close,” Kruczek-Aaron explained. “We’re just trying to find the exact location of the house.”
The trail that leads from the open field, where the current landowner’s cabin is located, to the dump site is on the 1900 map. The trail extends past the Epps lot and into state land. A forester for the DEC inspected trees on the parcel and assessed their growth to be near 100 years old, corresponding with the time Lyman Epps Jr. sold the property.
“I really have a lot of hopes for this property,” Kruczek-Aaron said. “I thought this project would be an ideal project to let the archeology speak to the experience.”
The dig is part of the university’s field school requirement. The fieldwork is four weeks long and earns each student six credits.
Epps eventually left his 40-acre parcel and moved to a home closer to the village of Lake Placid. He was a friend of abolitionist John Brown, who led the 1859 raid on the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry, W. Va. in order to start a slave revolt, was hanged and is buried on his farm in North Elba, which is now a state historic site. Epps actually wrote his name on the ceiling of John Brown’s farmhouse, and the inscription is still visible today.
Kruczek-Aaron said Epps went on to be the highway superintendent of the town of North Elba and also held a position at Lake Placid’s library.
“That just shows how progressive many people were here at that time,” she said.
