Students dig into Bath’s history

Published 3:02 am Tuesday, July 6, 2010

By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor

BATH — A group of high school students are winding up a summer history project this week in North Carolina’s oldest town.
The 15 students are part of a Summer Ventures program under the direction of Charles R. Ewen, professor in the Department of Anthropology at East Carolina University.
Ewen likened the four-week program to Governor’s School.
“Every campus has its own Summer Ventures program,” he said. “It’s state funded so these groups don’t pay for anything. It’s a really good experience. They get to do things that they haven’t done in high school.”
The program is open to students from across the state, with one catch — a student cannot attend the Summer Ventures program at the campus closest to his or her home. As a result, Ewen’s students hail from such widespread places as Camden, Lincolnton, Walnut Cove, Raleigh, Wilmington and Greensboro.
The group has excavated a site in the back yard of Bath’s historic Bonner House, unearthing such finds as pieces of ceramics and pottery, pipe stems, an iron knife handle, wine bottle glass and a fragment of a locally-made red clay tobacco pipe.
“We’re finding a lot of 18th century debris,” said Lauren McMillan, an ECU graduate assistant working under Ewen. “We thought there might be a brick foundation here, but it turns out there isn’t. But we are finding a lot of good artifacts from the Colonial period and the Bonner period. And we have a piece of what is possibly historic Indian pottery.”
The findings reflect that not only was Bath a port, bringing in goods from England, there was also a thriving community of people who made many of the things they used on a daily basis, according to McMillan.
The group has also worked on two vacant lots along Bath’s Main Street in hopes of learning more about how the properties were used generations ago.
“We’re using ground penetrating radar and the students are dropping flags when they see something interesting,” Ewen said. “Despite this heat and humidity, they’ve been in good spirits and asking good questions. I’m impressed.”
Stuart Rhea, a 15-year-old student from Lincolnton, is in the envious position of being the only male in the group.
“You just kind of get relied on to carry the heavy stuff, and you get to dig a lot if you’re the only guy,” Rhea said with a laugh.
“He’s lying,” chimed in Rene Kronlage, 16, of Camden. “But he does dig good holes.”