Pittsfield township hall3/15/2024 Beisaw, Archaeological Consultant, undertook archaeological excavation in cooperation with the Saline Area Historical Society and the Saline Area Schools Historic Preservation Committee in order to evaluate the potential for archaeological deposits at the site to contribute to the history of the Blaess School. The owners of the original school site plan to incorporate the school site into the existing farmland that surrounds the site. In its new location, the schoolhouse, known as the Blaess, Weber-Blaess, or Downer School, is slated serve as a museum and educational museum for Saline students. In June 2002, the Saline Area Historical Society was involved in the relocation of a historic one-room schoolhouse structure from its original site on Ellsworth Road (near Gensely) in Lodi Township. One excavation unit contained a segment of fieldstone foundation, directly beneath a layer of demolition debris, believed to be remnants of the eastern wall of the 1852 school. Most of these artifacts were recovered from a layer of demolition debris (brick and mortar) and a coal dumping area. The artifacts recovered from the site include slate pencils, a marble, buttons, machine cut and wire nails, window and vessel glass including portions of at least two late 19th to early 20th century medicine bottles, whiteware ceramics, nails and hardware and animal bone. Phase II testing included the excavation of three 5 by 5- ft excavation units, which were judgmentally placed based on the results of the Phase I survey. Phase I survey included surface survey and subsurface sampling in the form shovel test pits excavated on a 20-foot grid. What is known about the school is largely contained within the recently compiled history of the 1895 frame school (Wright 1996). No known photographs, drawings, or detailed descriptions of the 1852 school exist. The 1852 Town Hall School was demolished in 1895, after the construction of a new frame schoolhouse on the same property. The primary goals of this survey was to 1) locate architectural remains of the original 1852 brick school house and 2) determine if intact subsurface archaeological deposits existed on the property. In October 2002 and June 2003, archaeological survey and testing of the Town Hall School site was undertaken.
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