Construction site rewriting history in the First State

MILTON, Del. – In Sussex County, one construction site has transformed into an area that’s rewriting history in the First State.

DelDOT has uncovered dozens of artifacts from a plot of land in Milton that archaeologists believe could have the location of a home where slaves once lived.

Archaeologists are uncovering what they believe to be slave quarters that dates back to the late 1700s early 1800s at the Clark Tenant site in Milton.

“These sites are kind of rare we don’t have a ton of them documented in Delaware so we determined that this site was significant because of it’s potential to give us new information about these classes of people in Delaware,” explains Kyle Edwards, an archaeologist with DelDOT.

It’s an area that also just so happens to be a part of DelDOT’s plans for a new interchange to raise Route 1 over Route 16. That’s why archaeologists from DelDOT and Dovetail Cultural Resource Group are out on site learning as much as they can about the history that lies under the soil.

“They are excavating all of what we call cultural features so oil stains that we believe are associated with the architecture or the building that was once here and they’re going to do 100 percent recovery of these soils, hopefully get all the artifacts and be able to teach us a little bit more about this property,” adds Edwards.

Artifacts like broken ceramics, bricks, nails and household items that are already starting to change Delaware’s history.

“We are already seeing stuff that’s really changing that impression of what people think slavery was all about. I mean it was a horrible institution no doubt about it, but from what we’re seeing on some of the slave sites in Delaware they also had weapons,” explains Bill Liebeknecht, Regional Manager for Dovetail Cultural Resource Group.

Important discoveries that help everyone get a better understanding of what life was like for slaves in the First State.

“So it gives the public an opportunity to learn about the sites that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to learn about,” says Edwards.

Liebeknecht adds, “It’s important to give a voice to these people who have no voice in our history.”

Archaeologists will continue excavating the site for the next week or so and then they will start working on a full report on all the artifacts they’ve uncovered here.

We’re told it will take about nine months to a year before that full report is available to the public, but archaeologists are inviting the public to come check out the site and learn more about what they’re uncovering this week.

As far as the plans for a new interchange, DelDOT tells us those haven’t changed and this area will still be used but only after they’ve thoroughly excavated the site for all it’s historical findings.