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Archeologists scour Charlestown for Revolution-era artifacts, seeking stories of the forgotten

Boston 250 seeks to learn more about the ordinary Bostonians in 1775 whose lives have been historically ignored, such as women and children, and Black and Indigenous people. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The folks that get talked about in the 250th are the older men who were in the battle,' Bagley said, 'but there's thousands of people impacted by this day. And we really want to tell those other stories.' Advertisement Archeologists and volunteers sift for artifacts in a backyard in Charlestown as part of the city's Boston 250 Archaeology project. Lane Turner/Globe Staff In a private Charlestown backyard this month — a property that belonged to the The Trumbull property had a house, a barn, a leather tannery, and a distillery, which was probably converting molasses into rum, Bagley said. Advertisement 'That distillery is going to have direct connections to the slave industry,' he said, because it was 'bringing molasses up from the Caribbean. All of that is produced by enslaved people.' He has no evidence that the Trumbull family were enslavers. As Bagley and his crew dug and sifted, other team members conducted Volunteer Tim Riordan inspects an excavated artifact in a backyard in Charlestown as Boston 250 archeologists conduct a dig. Lane Turner/Globe Staff The City Archaeology Program, part of Boston's 'To be honest, a lot of our work is self-created,' Bagley said. 'We decided amongst ourselves that Boston history is very well covered, but there's a lot that hasn't been told — so we're going to focus on underrepresented histories.' They reached out over social media and in public meetings, and Charlestown residents offered up possible excavation sites. The team has forthcoming digs at A trench is measured so any found artifacts can be identified by depth in a backyard in Charlestown in one of Boston 250 Archaeology's excavations. Lane Turner/Globe Staff 'Charles Bulfinch is a huge architect, and we don't often get to see the buildings that are gone now,' Bagley said. 'It's not going to be much of it. Maybe the basement. But still.' Advertisement Before excavating, the team found a treasure trove in their documentary research. Charlestown leaders had called on residents to submit 'They were going to submit to the new country and say, basically, 'Hey, it would be great if we could get refunded for all these losses,'' Bagley said. 'It took them forever to recover. It devastated the town.' 'It's an amazing set of documents. It's also a tragic set of documents,' he added. 'They never got a restitution for anything that they lost.' A trench is excavated inch by inch in a backyard in Charlestown as City of Boston archeologists research ordinary life at the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Lane Turner/Globe Staff Boston City Archaeology, with offices and an exhibition space in West Roxbury, has a roster of volunteers. Jennifer Reed, a retired elementary school library teacher from the North Shore, dove into the documentary research. 'When you look at these The researchers discovered a claim from Margaret Thomas, a Black woman who had bought a house in Charlestown from 'Given the time period, she likely was manumitted at some point in her life, or born to someone that was freed,' Bagley said. It's unclear how she came to own the property, but Thomas's life after the battle is better documented: She married William Lee, George Washington's enslaved butler, and Advertisement The stopper from a 20th-century bottle of perfume held by a team member after it was excavated in a dig in Charlestown. Lane Turner/Globe Staff As the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution unfolds, Bagley said the team will spread over Boston to dig up more untold history. Next year, they'll be at a fort in Roxbury, 'and we know there's Black soldiers there,' he said. They're looking at Boston Common, where British soldiers encamped with their families. He's interested in those women and children. What was their life like? 'It's a totally different story than I think people associate with the siege of Boston,' Bagley said.