4/13/2014

Dru Keyser                                                                                                                           April 13, 2014

New Berlin Evangelical Church

    Today we traveled to Lewisburg to aid the New Berlin Historical Society by digging test pits in a plot that once held the first Evangelical Church in the United States of America.  It was sunny, windy, and fairly warm out, therefore the ground was fairly dry, which made digging test pits much easier.  We began by walking the plot and locating the test pits from the previous day.  We used these locations to determine the location of our new test pits.  I was assigned to dig test pit number six.  I began by removing a eighteen inch by eighteen inch square of sod, which formed the walls of my test pit.  At approximately twelve inches, the soil became much more clay-filled, which made sifting the dirt much more difficult.  Also, while I was digging my test pit, I found two large slag stones at approximately seven inches that may have been a part of a stone walkway just in front of the wrought-iron fence that once stood in front of the church.

    While we were digging our test pits, members of the New Berlin Historical Society stopped by to speak with us and take a few pictures of us working in our test pits.  Shortly thereafter, a few members of the class and Robin Van Auken went with the members New Berlin Historical Society to see the location of the church after it had been moved in 1873.  While they were away, our tent blew over because it was not properly secured to the ground and it was very windy, and while the tent was airborne it knocked a wire off the neighbor's house.  So, the remaining members of the class and myself quickly retrieved the tent and lowered it to prevent it blowing over again.  Afterwards, I requested that we stop all digging until Robin Van Auken returned to remedy the situation.

    After about twenty minutes, Robin Van Auken and the other members of the class returned to the plot that we were working in and decided to move us away from the wire that fell from the neighbor's house.  I was assigned to dig a new test pit, number seven, in our new location, which was approximately thirty-eight feet from what we believed would have been the corner of the church.   In test pit seven, I found a large amount of bricks and pieces of iron, including nails and small iron cylindrical strips.  After about an hour, we decided to clean up our equipment, collect all the artifacts found in our test pits, and head home.