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"It was really a great experience for me and for my students," Kutztown professor of archeology James Delle said. "We were happy to help the Christiana Historical Society."
In 1851, Christiana was at the center of national news when Southern slave owner Edward Gorsuch came north with slave hunters to try to reclaim a runaway slave.
On Sept. 11 of that year, they came to the Christiana home of William Parker, a former slave who was working as a tenant farmer and known to assist escaped slaves. An alarm was raised and neighbors of both races came to help defend the house.
In the ensuing conflict, Gorsuch was killed and others were injured.
Ultimately, government troops marched into the borough and 38 Christiana residents were charged with treason.
Outside the immediate area, few people have ever heard of the the "Resistance at Christiana of 1851," but in the 19th century it was very well-known.
"If this were 1870 or 1880, Christiana and Harper's Ferry were thought to be equally important," Delle said. "Now only a few local people and Civil War buffs know about it.
"We wonder how and why do certain historic events and places resonate with the public and others don't."One possibility is that the fame of the Christiana Resistance was its own undoing. According to some accounts, the property owner was so annoyed by people walking through his crops to scavenge souvenirs from the Parker house that he had it demolished in 1899.
Its remains eventually disappeared from sight.
Photographs of the Parker house survive, along with accounts of the general location, but the exact site was unknown. Several years ago, however, a radar scan discovered reference points, but much of that information has been lost. Working with the sources they had, pinpointing the exact location of the building foundation was Kutztown students' task last fall. Once the location was established, that set the stage for this year's excavations.
In May, the excavation by the students, with the help of Christiana Historical Society members revealed the Parker House foundation, yard features and household items.
"We found several thousand artifacts that relate to the house," Delle said, noting that most were broken pieces of ceramic and glass. Among the easily identifiable finds were a thimble, scissors, wood-working tools, a coin and a flint from an old flintlock gun.
There were other important findings as well.
"One of the things that we hoped to do was figure out how the building was built," Delle said. "It's a dream of the historical society to recreate the building someday. We found a lot of good clues about the constructions process. We found a beautiful stone stairway that led down into the cellar of the house and also sample of the original whitewash on the house and some original nails."
The Christiana Historical Society was instrumental in helping negotiate with the property owner so that the work could be done at the site. The exact location remains undisclosed to the general public, but it was a satisfying experience for society members to help with the excavations.
(49) (21) (8) (4) (2)"The historical society is composed largely of descendants of the Christiana Riot," Delle said.
One woman who came to help at the dig was 80-year-old Marie Congo, who has a personal connection to the site. Her grandfather was a former slave who settled in Christiana.
"It was a fun time but tough work for those students," said the historical society's Bud Rettew, who also got into the dig and took pictures. "If we ever go back in the future, we'll know where to start."
While the dig is completed for now, and the site backfilled with dirt, research on the Christiana Resistance continues.
Delle said that Kim Shivey, a cultural anthropologist from the university, is preparing to collect oral histories about the site.
"We want to try to understand why this place has meaning and why it has changed over time," Delle said.
Making the dig possible was a Pennsylvania System of Higher Education grant and funding from the Pennsylvania Archeological Research Center.
For the Kutztown students, the fieldwork is a required class.
"They learned quite a lot about how to do archeology and how archeologists interact with local people to do projects," Delle said.
"It's one of the gratifying things — to work with the public."
