Pettus Littletown (44JC33)
Site History
The Pettus Littletown site (44JC33) is the 17th-century homesite (c. 1641-1700) of Colonel Thomas Pettus and later his son Thomas. It is located along the James River southeast of Williamsburg on Kingsmill Plantation land. Pettus, a council member for Governor William Berkeley, arrived in the Virginia colony sometime between 1638 and 1641. Not long after his arrival, Pettus built a residence he named Littletown. His original landholdings were 200 acres, but marriage to a wealthy widow allowed him to acquire additional land in James City County. He also had landholdings in Westmoreland, Northumberland and Stafford counties.
At his death in 1669, the property passed to his son Thomas Pettus and before his death in 1691, he had also acquired the Utopia and Littletown tracts (1280 acres). The land passed into the Bray family around the turn of the 18th century.
Archaeological Investigations
The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Research Center for Archaeology conducted excavations at the Pettus site in the1970s in advance of a residential development and the construction of the Anheuser-Busch brewery. The excavation of the Littletown site revealed a sizeable earthfast home and several outbuildings. The main house consisted of a 50-foot-long by 18-foot house to whose eastern end Pettus soon added 32 by 18.5-foot structure with a brick-lined half cellar. A two-bay earthfast kitchen with an exterior end brick chimney was added to the north side of the house, running at a 90-degree angle to the main house. To the west side of this kitchen was added a shed addition with a brick sump; this addition was interpreted as a buttery. By the time all of the additions were complete, the house encompassed 4500 square feet. Leaded window cames and window glass provided evidence of glass windows in the house. Traces of burned wood, ash and scorched clay in the cellar indicated that the house was destroyed by fire, probably in the last two decades of the 17th century.
The archaeological investigations also revealed several trash pits, a smokehouse, a well, a possible quarter, and a henhouse, all asymmetrically arranged around a work-oriented rear yard. Additional features found at the site included a brick-lined sump or drain, filled between c. 1680 and 1700, a ditch possibly connected with a fenced enclosure, and a marl yard.
Artifacts from this site are curated at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Richmond.
References
1974 An Interim Report on the Excavation at Kingsmill Plantation: The 1973 Season.
1984 Kingsmill Plantations, 1619-1800; Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial Virginia. Academic Press, New York.
