Looking into the Lives of the Enslaved at the Nathaniel Russell House

Posted: June 4, 2018

When Nathaniel Russell constructed his house in 1808, the property contained an enormous three-story Federal mansion, kitchen house, carriage house, work yard, and garden. Russell moved in to the house in the spring of 1808 with his wife and two daughters (aged 19 and 17) and eighteen enslaved men and women. Until recently, the areas inhabited by the enslaved people were used for offices or storage; however, last year we began an intensive study of the kitchen house to learn more about the lives of those living and working in the kitchen, laundry, and living quarters between 1808-1865.

Since very little about the daily lives of the enslaved survives in written record, it is often only through forensic evidence and archaeology that we are able to piece together what life was like. Even microscopic traces of paint can tell us volumes about a room from 200 years ago. Ed Chappell (architectural historian), Susan Buck (paint analyst), and David Hoffman (historic contractor) worked together to carry out forensic investigation in the kitchen building.

We began our study of the kitchen house by assessing the structure, and realized that the upstairs living quarters were drywalled in the early 20th century, and we could hear voids behind it when we tapped along the walls. David used a very small reciprocating saw to cut a hole in the drywall, and we were astounded by what we found underneath: behind the drywall, perfectly encapsulated, was the original plaster walls of the first period slave quarter, complete with original limewash. We were amazed, since features like this don’t often survive 200 years of renovation – but as we removed drywall we realized that practically everything in the room was original to the period of enslavement: plaster, woodwork, paint finishes, window sashes, doors, everything. As the drywall came down the room transformed, and we were looking at the same walls from the early 1800s.

It was an incredibly emotional day, thinking about how everything we could see was built by the enslaved, from the bricks and mortar to the plaster and paint, and these surfaces hadn’t been seen for at least 100 years. This was a living space for enslaved people, and probably the only place in the house they could have a moment of peace, if any. It felt like a sacred place, to say the least.

As we rounded the corner and continued to remove drywall, we discovered TONS of debris packed in between the studs and baseboards. Well, all that debris ended up being the remains of several undisturbed rat’s nests. Before you are grossed out: finding a rat’s nest is like Christmas morning for preservationists. We were literally jumping for joy. Rats tend to gather items from a 50-foot radius and pack it in there. Thankfully, rat urine is a preservative, so even if the nest is hundreds of years old, the things in it tend to stay intact over many years and are like tiny time capsules.

We wasted no time pulling everything out of the walls, carefully packing it, and labelling where it came from. We spent several days painstakingly combing through the debris and removing artifacts. We found buttons, stockings, marbles, straight pins, a portion of a waist coat, a veil from a bonnet, tons of bones from butchered animals (they were likely stealing these from the kitchen one floor down). We found a small lidded paper box containing a cake of makeup.

The most exciting finds, however, were two fragments of paper. One was a miniscule bit of newspaper with the name ‘Cruikshank’ on it – my colleague was quickly able to search the historic newspaper database and match it with the digitized original, which dated to November 1833. It was incredible to know that everything we were looking at was from such an early period. The most intriguing artifact retrieved from the nest was a tiny fragment of a reading primer. This one made us all tear up when we realized what it was. Perhaps someone living above the kitchen at the Russell House got their hands on a reading primer and were possibly learning to read and write? A compelling thought when you consider that reading and writing was illegal for enslaved people in South Carolina at the time.

Work in the kitchen house is still ongoing, and the newly discovered spaces are incorporated into the house tour. Please visit, and watch this space for updates!

Pictured above: Ed Chappell and Susan Buck examine the south wall of the kitchen house.