Textiles from the seventeenth-century privy at the Cross Street Back Lot site

Margaret T Ordoñez,Linda Welters

doi:10.1007/bf03374262

Abstract

A variety of textiles came from the excavation of a 17th-century privy behind the Nanny House site on Cross Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The largest group of fragments is silk fabrics and ribbons, valuable since cloths of this fine fiber have not survived in other 17th-century New England archaeological sites. Comparison of the fine wool textiles from Boston with coarse wool fabrics used by the Mashantucket Pequot Indians in Connecticut and Narragansett Indians in Rhode Island reveal distinct differences in quality. Fabrics made from a combination of silk and wool, cotton, or linen show the variety of mixtures that were available for those who could afford them. Negative pseudomorphs of cotton and bast fibers preserved evidence of cellulosic products in a mineralized form previously unreported in New England. The family that lived at this site used high quality fabrics with expensive weaves, mixtures, and fancy trims representing fashionable 17th-century dress.

Highlights

The textiles from the Boston Central Artery/ Tunnel Project Cross Street Backlot site (BOS HA-13) are the first 17th-century archaeological textiles from a Colonial New England city to be available for study (Ordonez and Welters 1995)
Representing a wide variety of 17th century textiles, fragments came from 82 differ ent fabrics and 20 yarns
Some of the most in teresting fabrics are mixtures of silk with wool, silk mixed with another fiber which has de graded, and mineralized cotton fabrics and bast yarns

Summary

Introduction

The textiles from the Boston Central Artery/ Tunnel Project Cross Street Backlot site (BOS HA-13) are the first 17th-century archaeological textiles from a Colonial New England city to be available for study (Ordonez and Welters 1995). Most of this large group of silk fragments are plain weaves; three contain satin-woven stripes which provided variety to fabrics. Another type of silk fabric from the privy is a leno weave fragment, which is characterized by lace made of 2-ply silk yarns, fragment

Results

Conclusion