Pieces of history Bridge-building spurs scientific dig in 'Litt

WAVERLY, Mo. -- If the Galbraith family members who lived here during the 19th century are reading this from beyond the grave, there's good news and bad news:

The bad news is that the state of Missouri wants to build a bridge through your old farmstead.

The good news is that archaeologists, hired by the state, are digging up the land and keeping your personal stuff. When they're done, the throwaway pieces of your lives they unearth -- buttons, beads, bits of china -- will be preserved in the historical record.

The archaeologists' work on the Galbraith property, when finished, will provide one of the most complete pictures of antebellum life in the slice of central Missouri known as "Little Dixie."

"This will be important across Missouri," said Joe Harl, one of two principal investigators. "There have been quite a bit of studies on day-to-day life on plantations in the South, but in border states there has been very little work."

Few detailed examinations

The Missouri Department of Transportation is funding the research under a law that requires agencies receiving federal funds to preserve or document sites of historic or cultural significance. The department annually does such research on about a dozen sites, officials said.

Crews came upon the farmstead while making plans to replace Waverly's narrow, century-old bridge over the Missouri River. The spot the department chose for a new, $18 million bridge runs right through the property.

"Our preference, whenever possible, is to avoid disturbing historical sites," department archaeologist James Harcourt said. "If we can't avoid it, we do some sort of mitigation."

The department hired a St. Louis company, the Archaeological Research Center, to excavate the site. Investigators said it is one of few Little Dixie plantations to get such detailed examination.

In about six months of work, the archaeologists have pieced together much of the Galbraith family's history in Waverly, a community about 60 miles east of Kansas City that was called Petite Saw before the Civil War.

The first settlers arrived in 1818, and Alexander and Nancy Galbraith, with six slaves, followed in 1829. Like many in Little Dixie, they came from Kentucky and set about almost immediately farming hemp in the river bottoms.

"This was a pretty typical Little Dixie family," Harl said. "They were average, yeoman farmers with a handful of slaves -- not these huge plantations you always hear about."

Alexander Galbraith paid about $400 for 120 acres of land, which the family later expanded to more than 400 acres, including a two-story frame house with a cellar. The archaeologists have found what they believe are remnants of a log cabin, smokehouse, ice house, cistern and privy.

Clues about economy

Besides uncovering artifacts -- a thimble, a marble, a pocket knife, a bucket handle, fragments of ceramic plates and more -- the team has studied the farm and county records for clues about the Little Dixie economy.

Galbraith's son Henry, who took over the plantation in 1850 after a court battle stemming from his father's death, continued harvesting hemp. But by the mid-1850s, overproduction caused the price of hemp to drop, and farmers in Lafayette County -- Missouri's hemp leader at the time -- had to diversify. The Galbraiths opened a mercantile store in town, sold 180 acres in 1856 and began raising more cattle.

"The family was at the lower end of the scale of hemp production, but they could see the writing on the wall," said Dennis Naglich, the other principal investigator. "People's attitudes about the frontier is they were all so self-sufficient. But really, they were very dependent on the international economy."