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The Ford Site, a Protohistoric Station in Norton, Massachusetts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Maurice Robbins
Maurice Robbins*
Affiliation:
Attleboro, Massachusetts
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Extract

Within the town of Norton, Massachusetts, close by the boundary between it and the city of Taunton, lies the beautiful little body of water known to this day by its Indian name of Winneconnet. This lake, fed by a system of streams from the north and west and draining southward through a complicated network of ponds, swamps, and streams into the Taunton River, seems to have been the center of a large area of Indian population in ancient times. Cultivation and other disturbances of the earth surfaces have demonstrated the existence of many sites of former Indian habitation, while numerous items in local tradition point to the fact that many Indians lived and died within the township. Hardly a garden plot that has not yielded its quota of stone implements to the collections of local “relic hunters” exists in this vicinity.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , October 1946 , pp. 80 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1946

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References

1 Maurice Robbins, The Faulkner Spring Site. Papers of the Attleboro Museum, Incorporated, Number 1, January, 1944.

The Warren King Moorehead Chapter of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, having completed and published a report on the Faulkner Spring site, continues its work by presenting this paper based on the results of two seasons of field work at the Ford site, on Winneconnet Lake, in Norton, Massachusetts.

We are indebted to Dr. Kirk Bryan, of the Department of Geology, Harvard University, who made several trips to the Ford site to assist us in solving perplexing problems.

To Dr. Carlton S. Ford, of Attleboro, we are especially indebted for allowing us to excavate upon his property. We have used one, and ofttimes two, of his cottages as living quarters; we have misused, dug up, and trespassed upon his land; and we have seized upon his name to designate the site. It is a great source of satisfaction to know that such friends have sufficient faith in our abilities to allow us thus to impose upon them. Were it not for this most generous cooperation the Ford site would not have been excavated.

As director of the excavation, I cannot omit an expression of my appreciation to the members of the Warren King Moorehead Chapter who labored on this site, overlooking my failings, enduring my errors of judgment, and moving prodigious amounts of earth, to the end that this paper

might be written. To them belongs the greater part of any credit that this accomplishment may attain.

2 It is interesting that William Fontneau, one of our members who dug at the Ford site, is a direct descendant of William Wetherell.

3 Bullen, R. P., “A Proposed Massachusetts Projectile Point Classification,” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. IV, No. 3, April, 1943Google Scholar.