Archaeological Investigations of the T.R.R. Cobb House Site 9CA206, Clarke County, Georgia

This report documents the results of archeological field work conducted on the former site of the T.R.R. Cobb House in Clarke County, Georgia. The project was sponsored by the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., a non-profit corporation based in Thomson, Georgia, which owns and operates the T.R.R. Cobb House as a historic house museum. The field work was conducted by Southeastern Archeological Services, lnc. (SAS), at the request of Sam Thomas, curator of the T.R.R. Cobb House museum, to determine if intact archaeological deposits remained on the site. The project also provided the opportunity to introduce students from St. Joseph Catholic School to archaeology through exposure to fieldwork on site and at their school. Field work was conducted in late March and early April 2015 under the direction of the senior author.

The Cobb House project area (9CA206) is located in the northwestern portion of downtown Athens in the central part of Clarke County. The house site area was originally located on a tract of 18 acres on the outer edge of the town during the early nineteenth century and remained standing until 1985 when the old house was moved to Stone Mountain Park in Dekalb County, Georgia. During that period, St. Joseph's Catholic Church constructed their school around the Cobb House until it was moved. The surviving remnants of the house foundation were cleared and the remainder covered or graded during landscaping. At the time of the SAS investigations, no evidence of the house foundation remained visible on the surface.

The field work consisted primarily of systematic shovel testing, test unit excavation, and site mapping. A limited amount of surface collecting and metal detecting was also accomplished. The original plan called for remote sensing investigations (Ground Penetrating Radar and thermal imaging) but unfortunately that work could not be conducted.

The fieldwork indicated that much of the house site had been obliterated by late twentieth century construction and landscaping activities. However, subsoil-intruding features were found to remain on the site. These included a cellar that had been filled at the time the house was removed and a large feature tentatively thought to be a well. One possible privy was found in the northern part of the study area but that feature is probably not related to the Cobb House occupation. The site retains preserved cultural deposits that may contribute important information relating to the early history of Athens.

This study was conducted for the Watson-Brown Foundation, which is a private organization. Submission of this report to the organization fulfills the requirements of the investigations for the archaeological project.