I was just starting my first full time professional field job in archaeology. After six months examining right-of-way limits of new bridges and culvert projects for archaeological resources that might be disturbed by them, I had been given twenty-five miles of roadway to survey on my own. The Department of Transportation was going to widen a two-lane road to four-lanes, and none too soon, according to the people who lived along its route. Too much truck traffic to be safe anymore crossing the highway with your tractor, is what they told me. I was truly excited about the prospect of six months in the field, and then another six in the laboratory, analyzing and writing up--well who knew what kind of archaeological sites I might find? Small hunting camps, long term camps, villages, maybe a lost cemetery, maybe a really old site. Who knew what excitement lay around the corner?
Landowner Contacts
I spent two weeks doing background research, then packed my bags and a handful of field crew and headed out. First stop the county courthouse for a list of landowners. (Always talk to the landowner before you walk on his field. Always.) So, I spent days on a telephone, days banging on doors, days hanging around the cafe seeking the right landowners along the project or ones who might know where I might find the right one. By the end of the first week, my crew and I established the rule of thumb that still applies; the harder it is to find a landowner, the more likely it is he'll turn you down. Once I had to call outside of the country once; she hung up on me before I could get the whole message out.Anyway, I kept missing this one farmer, a Mr. Smithson let's call him, and so we began our survey in someone else's fields where we had permission to survey. The field was next door to Smithson's and we were about halfway through the field, mid-afternoon, when I spotted a pickup truck pull into Mr. Smithson's yard.
Just an Average Guy with a Century Farm
I ran to the field truck and sped down the street to a large tidy farmstead. Next to the neat gravel drive was a small sign from the historical society that read "Century Farm." Those signs are given to farms which have been 100 years or more in a single family. A youngish man in overalls climbed out of his truck as I pulled into his driveway. I took off my sunglasses (makes you less sinister), and stuck out my hand. "Nice day." He was probably about 28 or so, about my age at the time; balding a little on top. He looked... friendly is the only way to phrase it. Harmless. And I introduced myself, and explained what I was there for, and he looked a little confused, so I said, "I have the plans in my truck, if you'd like to see them."He nodded, and headed for the kitchen door. I went to my truck and pulled out the plans, a great long roll of aerial photographs, with the proposed roadway drawn in ink over the images. "They're preliminary plans," I said as he let me into his kitchen. "The construction work is several years off yet, they always send us out long before anybody else."
So, Where's My Farm?
He nodded again, and reached next to the phone for his reading glasses. I flopped the ungainly roll on his kitchen table and began to roll it out. Its length dropped over the edge of the table. "Smithson, now let's see here, where are you?" I muttered to myself. "Ah, here."And the pages rolled back on Mr. Smithson's century farm. A beautiful aerial shot. His old barn, his farmstead with a gambrel roof, his farmpond; you could even see the sheep, little white blobs dotting the hillslope. The only thing marring the shot was the neatly inked plans for an intersection covering 95% of the farm.
"So, now, where's my farm?"
I stuttered, my face red, my heart pounding. I swear, I'd studied that map in detail. I knew every inch of it, where the archaeological sites might be; we'd even talked about the likelihood of there being an early cabin site near this man's farm. But not once had it struck me that someone might lose--was almost certain to lose--his farm, the farm that had been in his family for generations, the farm he was raised on and where he was raising his own set of kids. "It's, it's here."
"I don't understand. What's this marking here?"
For the next five minutes I explained and watched as the reality of the situation struck home.
And that day, in his kitchen, in front of some young, not very bright stranger from the city, Mr. Smithson wept.
