Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Blog

Lucy intently wet-screening. Photo by

Hannah Rucinski

Hello all! My name is Lucy and I wrote the blog on our dewatering system at the Fort St. Joseph archaeological project! Today, I am back with another blog on a lecture we had at the Berrien Springs courthouse. This lecture came from our very own principal investigator at Fort St. Joseph, Dr. Michael Nassaney. His lecture, Fort St. Joseph Revealed, was a comprehensive overview of the last 20 years of archaeology at Fort St. Joseph.

Dr. Michael Nassaney giving his lecture at

the Berrien Springs Courthouse Museum. Photo

by Alex Michnik.

          Obviously, an hour lecture can not cover all of the detailed and important work that has been done at Fort St. Joseph, but it was a great overview of the last 20 years. Dr. Nassaney began by discussing the history of the fort's inception and how its location was chosen. Originally, the French were in America on a search for a route to China, which they did not find in Michigan. Instead, they found many fur-bearing animals, such as deer, beaver, and muskrat, which were extremely valuable at the time. Namely, the fur trade was an important means of maintaining alliances with the native peoples of the area. The Fort was located on the St. Joseph river, which provided access to an important transportation route. This water route attracted large groups of native peoples, who then occupied the surrounding area. Thus, the location of the Fort made a lot of sense to the French.

          After discussing the fort's location and a bit of its history, Dr. Nassaney began discussing the archaeology at Fort St. Joseph and how it did not come easily. Before there could be any archaeological work done, they first had to find the Fort. Many universities tried and failed. With the help of historical documents and Dr. Joseph Peyser's research, WMU archaeologists were able to locate the Fort.  After locating the Fort, and partnering with Niles, Dr. Nassaney and colleagues were finally able to do some archaeology! There is an endless number of things to be said about the archaeology done at Fort St. Joseph, including all of the survey, testing, and dewatering, but one thing that I took away from Dr. Nassaney’s lecture was that our archaeology helps to recreate daily life. Our goal is to recreate that life with as much accuracy as possible, and to tell the narrative as it was and not as we assume it to be. Upon excavating at the site, we have been able to paint a partial picture and begin to understand what some daily activities looked like. From the copper alloy kettles that they used for cooking, to the thousands of glass beads they used for embroidery, we can get a glimpse into what daily life was like at Fort St. Joseph. Dr. Nassaney stressed the importance of fully understanding what we were finding and not to assume that everything was being used for what it was intended for. 

When is a thimble not a thimble? When it's used as a tinkling cone! Photo from Katelyn Hillmeyer

          A great example and riddle that Dr. Nassaney used was, "when is a thimble not a thimble?" At the Fort, a thimble is not a thimble when it has a hole intentionally punched through the top to become a tinkling cone, which is used for adornment. In any case, it would have been easy to say that this particular thimble was a regular thimble; to recreate actual life, you have to make sure you aren’t presuming what the picture looked like. After the lecture, our field school students and staff got together and discussed how every single one of us had learned something new about the Fort, even staff who have worked here for years! This just goes to show that there is always something new to be learned, and the history of Fort St. Joseph is still being revealed. If you want to see some of the amazing archaeological work we do at Fort St. Joseph, you can see it in person at our Annual Open House on August 3^rd and 4^th from 10am to 4pm! This season,we are exploring new areas of the Fort where we are making some exciting discoveries!