By John Halsey

This article first appeared in the March/April 1994 issue of Michigan History.

Located along the eastern shores of the Upper Peninsula's Big Bay de Noc, Fayette was established by the Jackson Iron Company as an iron-smelting facility for the ore mined on the Marquette Range near Negaunee. Fayette was named for company agent Fayette Brown, who selected the townsite after recognizing its potential for a smelting operation. The iron ore was shipped by rail from Negaunee, then carried by ship to Fayette, where blast, charcoal-fired furnaces reduced it to pig iron. This product was then shipped south to the major steel manufacturing centers.

After enjoying a boom period, the 1870s-80s, Fayette's furnaces closed and the Jackson Iron Company ended its operations there. In 1959 the site became a state park. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

The first formal effort at recovering the physical remains of Fayette's past was a 1965 under-water search-and-recovery project in Snail Shell Harbor by Michigan United Conservation Clubs divers. They recovered many artifacts illustrative of the maritime, industrial and domestic activities at Fayette, but plans for analysis and conservation of the specimens were never developed. Some of these artifacts, now in the collections of the Office of the State Archaeologist, illustrate this article.

"Dry-land" archaeology began in 1975, when the Michigan History Division (now the Bureau of Michigan History) contracted with Lyle Stone of Archaeological Research Services, a private consulting firm, to evaluate Fayette's archaeological potential. Stone developed a plan and several recommendations for long-term archaeological programs that would contribute to research and interpretive developments then contemplated for Fayette.

Stone's work at the site involved a surface survey, then various test excavations, which netted large quantities of stone-and earthenware, window and bottle glass, buttons, plaster, animal bone, slag, charcoal and scrap iron dating from 1860 to 1910. Stone was surprised that most of the artifacts were strictly utilitarian and did not reflect the presence of high-status individuals such as the resident company superintendent. This mystery was not clarified until 1986 by another archaeologist.

Most of the features Stone examined were in excellent condition and showed little evidence of relic collecting after the abandonment of the site. Existing photographic records were helpful, but site maps were frequently wrong.

Stone's recommendations for research priorities have guided archaeological work at Fayette to the present. But during Michigan's financially difficult years in the late 1970s and early 1980s additional work was delayed until the financial situation moderated in the mid-1980s.

In 1986 Assistant State Archaeologist Barbara Mead and I went to Fayette to perform limited test excavations. We were concerned that the proposed reconstruction of a porch at the superintendent's house posed a threat to yet undiscovered archaeological resources. We also looked for structural clues to guide the reconstruction.

Our excavations were confined to the former porch area on the southeastern side of the house. Visual inspection of the ground surface identified a line of limestone blocks running parallel to the house foundation about four and one-half feet away. The sod level, heavily laden with nails and broken window glass, contained a variety of metal, ceramic and glass artifacts directly attributable to the use and maintenance of the house. Removal of the sod level revealed that the line of limestone slabs was the surface of a massive limestone foundation, undoubtedly for the old porch. However, as we continued digging and sifting the soil, we noticed the presence of prehistoric Indian artifacts-flint tools, fragments of pottery vessels, a copper fishhook, a bone harpoon and many animal and fish bones.

The discovery of the prehistoric site at Fayette made its way into the state and local press. Headlines ranged from the accurate,, "Prehistoric Site Found at Fayette," to the completely unrestrained, "Lost Civilization Unearthed in U.P." The discovery created several questions. What was the surface extent of the site? How deep was it" What was its significance? Would planned reconstruction of the fence around the superintendent's house and outbuildings have a serious impact on the prehistoric site? In July 1986 Patrick Murphy, then director of education at the Michigan Historical Museum, and I returned to Fayette to answer these questions.

We excavated ten two-foot-square test pits alongside the house and down the hill leading to the harbor. Excavations revealed that the densest concentration of artifacts was in the immediate vicinity of the house but the site clearly extended down the hill to at least the sawmill foundation. Later excavations near the site of the tour-boat dock revealed that the prehistoric inhabitants lived right down to the water's edge.

No pits, hearths or burials were discovered at this site. Perhaps the prehistoric inhabitants were rebuffed by the nearly impenetrable substratum of limestone beach pebbles, cobbles and slabs, some of which measured one and one-half feet in diameter! Due to the small size, but relatively great depth of the test pits, Pat and I virtually stood on our heads, excavating at arm's length to reach the bottoms of the pits.

Few complete prehistoric artifacts were discovered, but the evidence provided by the ceramics suggest that occupation of the site occurred primarily between 1,,500 and 2,00 years ago. Other artifacts found around the site, though, suggest that occupation may have occurred 3,000 years ago. Whether it was 1,500 or 3,000 years ago, Fayette seemingly was used primarily as a warm-season campsite that was periodically reoccupied, perhaps by the same people who created rock paintings at Burnt Bluff a short distance to the south.

Our excavations yielded enough information for us to approve the proposed developments to proceed without any major adverse effects on the site. Pat and I also learned that visitors love the place, many returning year after year. People are fascinated by archaeology and want to see and talk to working archaeologists in their natural habitat. Families came and sat next to us, talking for hours. We answered questions that archaeologists internalize, but which are not intuitively obvious to laypeople. "Why do you dig in square holes?" "Why are you digging in this spot instead of over there?" "Have you found anything of 'value'?'" "Who are you looking for? And from a Michigan resident, "Where is Lansing?" 

Nineteen eighty-six was a banner year for archaeology at Fayette. After Murphy and I had left, Pat Martin from Michigan Technological University in Houghton fully excavated the site of a worker's log cabin. Since no log cabins survive from Fayette's smelting days. The Bureau of History and the Department of Natural Resources encouraged Martin's excavation so it could be reconstructed later. A poor-quality photograph of the cabin's exterior existed, but documentation of photographs of one such cabin's internal furnishings or structural arrangements did not. 

The location where Martin excavated looked unimposing from the surface. But that depression contained the remains of a small, simple structure with a ground-floor living area of less than four hundred square feet and a half-story loft above. The walls were built of rounded white-pine logs chinked on the outside with lime mortar. They were plastered and either painted or whitewashed on the inside. There was a small, shallow root cellar used for food storage. Massive quantities of charcoal were used as fill and probably banked up as insulation around the base. The wall sills, made of white pine and simply resting on grade, showed little evidence of a foundation or the preparation for one. There was some evidence of a pine flooring, but it probably did not cover the entire interior surface. Bare stone slabs may have made up much of the floor. Door hardware-latches, keys, locks, hinges-and window glass were minimal. Suggesting that the interior was probably a single undivided space with few windows. The arrangement of brick rubble and the lack of a major hearth or chimney base means the cabin probably had a suspended chimney.

The cabin's exposed location near the lakeshore, along with the diverse artifact assemblage found throughout and around the structure, suggest a family of low status. The majority of the ceramics were undecorated ironstone tableware, the cheapest. Analysis of the animal bones by Terry Martin of the Illinois State Museum showed mostly low-and medium-value cuts of meat. The pattern of consumption and the disposal of food remains and trash in the immediate vicinity of the house are typical of lower-class households. Martin's excavations demonstrated the truth of Lyle Stone's concerns about inadequate sampling at the testing stage. Once enough work was done, the suspected status differences were found.

In May 1987 I returned to Fayette to excavate where the south porch of the superintendent's house formerly stood. It once had been covered with thick concrete slab. Now there were no surviving porch foundations; excavations were quickly concluded.

I returned to Fayette again the next year to conduct some limited testing at a parking lot for handicapped visitors. Nothing of archaeological significance was found. During this visit I also cleared and exposed the limestone-flag driveway and sidewalks at the superintendent's house. The walkways appeared to be contemporaneous with the house, but the driveway did not. Before uncovering the driveway we had no idea of its full extent since extensive portions of it were overgrown. Upon full exposure, the driveway was eighty feet long and averaged eight and one-half feet wide. It was made of undressed, irregularly shaped slabs from nearby beaches. The driveway ends ten feet short of the west walkway. It was probably built by a later occupant and has not direct connection with the Jackson Iron Company.

In the summer of 1991 Pat Martin returned to excavate the sites of several more structures scheduled for reconstruction. One excavated site was the large stock barn at the townsite's south end. Draft animals were an important part of the work force at Fayette, drawing wagons, clearing the land and hauling hardwood logs to the charcoal kilns. This is one of the few stock barns to be excavated anywhere in the eastern United States. The report on it will form important comparative evidence for archaeologists doing similar work elsewhere.

Another excavation site is the two-story hotel privy. Although numerous historical photographs depict the privy, it was surprisingly difficult to locate on the ground. A modern privy had been built directly over the old one in Fayette's early years as a state park and had obscured the surface clues. Once it was found, the archaeologists had to break through a concrete slab to get into the privy vault, which contained hundreds of artifacts relating to the hotel's Jackson Iron Company period and later years.

In 1993 the doctor's house appeared threatened by rising damp in the brick walls. Site historian Scott Brooks-Miller thought it might be necessary to install drainage along the foundation. My limited test excavations showed that bedrock in this area came too close to the surface to allow effective drainage and that the prehistoric site extended into this area. Brooks-Miller later solved the moisture problem by clearing vegetation around the house, allowing for better air circulation. Pat Martin also returned that year to monitor excavations connected with the construction of the protective structures over the furnaces. He revealed and recorded numerous structural features.

What does the future hold for archaeology at Fayette? Every archaeologist who has ever worked here has been astonished and delighted by the richness, variety and abundance of research problems and potential opportunities. It was not until 1989 that the Bureau of Michigan History took a long-delayed step forward by publishing Fayette: A Visitor's Guide and revealing the broad scope of archaeology at the site for the first time. Few sites anywhere in this country can match Fayette's range. Any future development at the site will be preceded by excavations just like those for the stock barn and privy. We can look forward to a future filled with new surprises and discoveries from that important part of Fayette's past that lies just beneath our feet. 

John Halsey is the state archaeologist with the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries and the author of  Beneath the Inland Seas (1990). This paper was adapted from a presentation given by Dr. Halsey at Fayette Historic Townsite in 1991. Photos by Duane Brenner.

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