CRM: Vogtle-Scherer Transmission Line, Wallace Dam - Plant Scherer Section, GP-JO-05: Data Recovery

Data recovery excavations were conducted at cultural property GP-JO-05, Jones County, Georgia, between August 19 and September 30, 1985 and between April 1 and May 23, 1986. Cultural property GP-JO-05 was owned, and sometimes occupied, by the Freeman family between cat 1817 to 1876. During this period, the Freemans consolidated several large tracts of land and slaves that became the Freeman Home Place plantation. Three structures and numerous features that date to this period were excavated. Artifacts recovered from around these structures suggest commercial and domestic activities in the study area. Faunal remains from features in the study area revealed a diet in which domestic animals, particularly pork, beef, sheep/goat, and chicken, donated the highest percentage of edible meat. This diet was supplemented fairly consistently with small wild mammals, aquatic turtles, fish, and plant foods. Historical documentation suggests that this was the location of a crossroads community cat 1818-1832, and it may have continued as such throughout the antebellum period. During November of 1864, Sherman's 14th Army Corps camped in or near GP-JO-05, and historical and archaeological documentation indicates that the earlier structures may have fallen into disrepair or been destroyed prior to this time. There is some evidence of commercial blacksmithing at one of the old fireplaces shortly after the Civil War. Later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the study area was used by tenant farmers for the commercial milling and cooking of sorghum cane molasses or syrup.