Glass at Fort St. Joseph

Hello, friends! I’m Hana, a senior Anthropology student here at Western Michigan University, and this field season I am excavating a unit at the very Southern end of Trench 2 to learn more about the boundaries of the site. I also have an interest in craft production with a focus in glass making, which makes the site a great place to find interesting glass artifacts!

Here at Fort Saint Joseph, we have a fairly extensive collection of excavated glass beads and shards of both curved and flat glass. In fact, we’ve uncovered a few in our units already this season!

Where did this glass come from? Glass working was not continually practiced in the United States until the mid-18th century. During the French colonization, when Fort Saint Joseph was established and occupied, almost all glass was imported from England and was made in either Italy (specifically the island of Murano off the coast of Italy which was the main producer of glass for several centuries) or in Amsterdam or France. These beads, small windows, and even vessels or tableware were transported with the French when they came to the Americas and were then used and traded with the Native populations.

Seed beads, and some of the larger beads that have been found at the site, were most often used by the Native Americans (in this case namely the Potawatomi) for embroidery onto clothing and for making into jewelry and other adornment. These beads would be traded for furs, bark, and fruits.

Some of this glass has also aged in interesting ways. One of the pieces found in our unit is patinated, which happens when a piece of glass has been buried for a long time and the soda or lime (which is added to silica to create stable glass) has started to leach out due to exposure to water. Our site here in the trench is fairly damp, so it’s no wonder this piece of glass is so highly deteriorated. Here’s a good comparison picture to see the difference between patinated (right) and unstained glass (left).

Thanks for reading!