18th-century treasures recovered from Florissant church remains

FLORISSANT, Mo. (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered coins, dishes, bullets, Indian jewelry and other remains of an 18th-century Catholic church rectory in suburban St. Louis, said to be one of the oldest in the Midwest.

The remains were discovered recently below a half-foot of dirt at a Florissant park, the result of a three-year excavation project of the area surrounding the former St. Ferdinand Catholic Church.

The 18th-century church's remains were found at Spanish Land Grant Park in Florissant, a suburb of St. Louis which the French settled in the 1760s.

"This is very significant," said Joe Harl, vice president of the Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis, a privately owned center involved in the dig. "This is the first time anyone has intensely studied an area surrounding a church in the St. Louis area."

The city of Florissant sponsored the archaeological dig as part of the Lewis and Clark celebration. The $50,000 project, financed with public and private funds, is scheduled to end Oct. 1. Six archaeologists helped uncover about 10,000 items at the park, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

"This means a lot for the city," said Gretchen Crank, head of a committee of Florissant residents helping to oversee the project. "We are now finding facts instead of hearsay."

The artifacts likely will be stored at the Museum Support Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia and eventually be available for public display in Florissant and possibly throughout Missouri, Harl said.

Built in 1789, St. Ferdinand was one of the first churches in the area. Historians said French settlers used the log church until 1821, when they built the nearby St. Ferdinand Shrine. After the shrine was built, the old log church was used for rental property or was occupied by priests until it burned in 1836, officials said.

Archaeologists have had difficulty locating remains of the church. They have found impressions in the dirt from three posts belonging to the church, Harl said. The rectory, or priest residence, was built about the same time as the church.

The recovered remains include fish bones and fragments from plates, cups, bowls, pipes, wine bottles, bullets, silver coins, Indian jewelry items and coffins.

"The kinds of things they have been finding there are consistent with that time period," said Vergil Noble, archaeologist for National Park Services in Lincoln, Neb., and a French colonial settlement expert. "For anything of this era to survive in an urban setting is certainly unusual. Certainly, any physical remains would be quite important for improving our understanding of the settlement of St. Louis."

One 18th-century French plate was one foot in diameter, and has to be glued together by archaeologists. It contained green arches.

"There were a lot of different serving dishes found," said Mayor Robert Lowery, whose administration has been a backer of the project. "They are able to discover a lot about the types of foods that were served. There were a lot of soups and broths. ... We are able to now know a lot about our city. This is of great historical value."

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Information from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, www.stltoday.com.