Nomini (44WM12)
Site History
Nomini is a multi-component colonial site along Nomini Bay in Westmoreland County, Vriginia, dating from the mid 17th century to the late 18th century. The site consists of two different dwelling structures – one occupied from around 1650 to 1720 and another dating from approximately 1730 to 1770.
The site was first occupied by Thomas Speak/Speake around 1650. Speak had relocated to the site from Maryland around 1650 following his involvement with the quashed rebellion against the Maryland government known as Ingle's Rebellion (a local manifestation of the English Civil War), which took place from 1644 to 1646. Thomas died in 1660 and the land was inherited by his wife, Frances. Frances remarried William Hardidge in 1679, the son of another prominent participant in Ingles Rebellion.
The daughter of Frances and William Hardidge, Elizabeth, and her husband Col. Henry Ashton were the last to reside at the first of the two dwelling structures. The dwelling with a brick foundation was erected to the east of the original dwelling around 1730. A cemetery located nearby includes early 18th century headstones of the Ashton family, including Col. Henry Ashton who died in 1731, Elizabeth Hardidge Ashton who died in 1722, and their first daughter Frances who died in 1720. It is believed that the cemetery includes the graves of Thomas Speak and his wife Frances as well.
Archaeological Investigations
Excavations at the Nomini Plantation site were conducted by Vivienne Mitchell and volunteers with the Archeological Society of Virginia (ASV) from 1970 to 1982. No formal report was ever written on these investigations. Studies of the material recovered in more recent years have focused on the analysis of a midden associated with the earliest phase of the site.
Excavations by ASV focused primarily on the later occupation of the site around the remains of a cross-shaped brick manor house an associated outbuilding, which included a brick lined cellar or cooling pit. This manor house dated to a later phase of occupation of the site which dated from about 1730 to 1770. Notes taken by Mitchell indicate that the foundation walls were exposed and numbered/lettered as they were exposed. Areas of rubble around each wall section were labeled according to the nearest wall section. Interior sections of the manor house were given room designations and excavated in trenches.
A midden located west of the house at the edge of a ravine yielded artifacts dating to the earlier occupation of the site from around 1650 to 1720. A brick chimney base between the midden and the 18th-century manor house was identified. This chimney likely represented an end chimney to the earliest dwelling structure at the site and the source of the material within the midden.
A pre-contact indigenous component to the site included a thin Middle and Late Woodland midden below the 17th/18th century midden feature. Beneath the roughly 50 × 50 foot midden were three features; two post holes and a burned feature. The midden contained diagnostic ceramics such as Townsend fabric impressed, Mockley cord-marked, and "Albemarle" cord-marked sherds (possibly Potomac Creek). Two triangular and two unidentified projectile points were also recovered.
References
2015 An Historical Archaeology of Early Modern Manhood in the Potomac River Valley of Virginia, 1645-1730. Dissertation. University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
1983 The History of Nominy Plantation with Emphasis on the Clay Tobacco Pipes. In Historic Clay Tobacco Pipe Studies, Vol. 2, Byron Sudbury, editor, pp. 1-38.
