Life in New Leeds

This report is the result of archeological investigations in 1984 at the Battlefield Park site, 9Ch7O3 (FS), at the proposed Fahm Street Extension. The City of Savannah began making plans to provide added access into the Savannah Revolutionary Battlefield Park, part of the Central Railroad of Georgia facility complex, which lies within the National Historic Landmark District. It was decided that Fahm Street, which then ended at Hull Street (now Turner Boulevard) on the north edge of the complex, should be extended across Hull Street and into Battlefield Park. Because the City of Savannah would be using Federal funding (Urban Development Action Grant) to construct the Fahm Street Extension, the National Preservation Act required that the funding agency (Department of Housing and Urban Development), along with the City, take the necessary steps to protect and minimize harm to the National Historic Landmark District. The City contacted Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. in early February 1984 and a backhoe survey was conducted in late February and early March. A deep sandy fill was found covering a rock foundation and burned layer and a rich eighteenth/nineteenth centuries midden zone that represented the former ground surface. Document research revealed that a number of boot makers and tanners had lived in the site area. Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. returned in the summer of 1984. Excavations took place at the Fahm Street Ext. site revealing two hundred years of history from the Revolutionary period through the use of the site for light industry (tanning and shoe making) and occupation, through the growth and decline of the Central Railroad of Georgia. Research goals at the site concentrated on an examination of John Gardiner, the boot/shoemaker and tanner, who owned and lived on the site. The area where Gardiner lived was known as New Leeds and was an early community on the edge of Savannah during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. An examination of land use patterns over time at the site was also made and differences were noted between lot patterns in the core of Savannah and on the edge of town. Subsistence patterns were examined and compared to other contemporary urban sites along the Southeastern coast and were found to be quite similar with a heavy emphasis on domesticated mammal, particularly cow. A slightly higher incidence of caprines were noted than at most southern urban sites.