LEADing Off a Remarkable Field Season at Fort St. Joseph

Trying to identify the lead seal. 

How do you do, my name is Samantha Brown and I am currently a ‘super’ senior at Western Michigan University.  I am currently partaking in the archaeology field school at Fort St. Joseph in Niles, Michigan as a student. I am working towards a double major in biomedical sciences and archaeology with a minor in chemistry.  I wanted to take a bit of time to explain the importance of one of the artifacts that we have found repetitively over the years at Fort St. Joseph called a lead seal, also known as a bale seal.

These lead pieces are stamped with a unique seal that can be identified to a specific manufacturer, designer, merchant, and even to a place or date of origin.  By examining and identifying the seal stamped into the lead, archaeologists can then make claims as to what country, merchant, or types of goods these seals would have been placed onto, as each design is associated to one specific location.

Lead seals can be categorized into three different and very distinguishable types.  Type A lead seals have a lead disk at one end, a lead doughnut shaped loop at the other end, and these are connected by a narrow lead piece.  On the reverse, or back side, of the disk is a protruding knob or post.  This knob would have been passed through a packaged good, like wool or silk, and then sealed by passing it through the loop in the doughnut.  The two pieces, the disk and loop, would then be pressed very tightly together, sealing the lead.  Type B lead seals are the rarest of the three types, especially to locations like Fort St. Joseph.  Type B seals are composed of a single lead disk with a narrow lead band.  The narrow band would have been bent over a packaged good and then clamped tightly.  This would result in the seal appearing on both sides, obverse and reverse, of the lead disk.  The last type of lead seal is called type C.  Type C lead seals are composed of a single lead disk that has two holes in it.  A wire would have been wrapped around the trade good, and then sent through the lead seal, ultimately sealing it shut.  It is very common to find a hand etching of a date or merchants initials on the reverse side of a pressed seal.

Obverse of the lead seal. 

I am sure your wondering why any of this is important, or why I choose to explain all of this to you.  Well, that is because I recently found a lead seal while troweling between two rocks in my unit, north 9 east 2.  When we can associate a lead seal to a specific merchant or manufacturer, we can further deduce exactly what materials were being sent from France to be traded with local peoples or fur traders during the 18^th century.  Upon referencing both Cathrine Davis’ thesis on lead seals and Lyle M. Stones book titled, Fort Michimackinac 1715-1781 along with some internet searching, and viewing roughly 85 different seals, we could not deduce a definite merchant.  We encourage you to both assist us in sealing the mystery of what merchant or trade good this seal came from as well as giving us your own personal thoughts on our most recent, exciting, and promising discovery here at Fort St. Joseph.