Archaeology team to update Shingle House findings on March 25 at the Buckbee Center

WARWICK — On Sunday, March 25, at 2 p.m., the Warwick Historical Society's archaeology team will present "ShingleDig Season 4: "Fragments From The Past."
The informative event will take place in the A.W. Buckbee Center, the former Albert Wisner Public Library building, at 2 Colonial Ave.
The presentation is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended, but not required.
It begins with fourth-gradersThe 1764 Shingle House on Forester Avenue is the oldest remaining building in the Village of Warwick.
In 2013, a group of fourth grade students from the Warwick Historical Society's Summer Camp were participating in an archeological dig behind the structure when they made an interesting discovery.
They had uncovered the remains of a cistern and that led George Knight, a volunteer at the Warwick Historical Society Archive, to do more research on the historic house, which is one of the buildings owned and maintained by the historical society.
He especially wanted to chase the legend, which the subsequent archeological dig proved true, that there was a stone building behind the Shingle House.
Old coins from several realmsIn 2015 a team of volunteers began a dig that unearthed numerous artifacts including a 1753 British half-penny, an 1818 U.S. cent and an 1864 Indian Head penny, along with beverage and medicine bottles (some that contained opium), buttons, pottery and dish shards, glass, clay pipes, doll heads, marbles, nails and animal bones.
In addition to displaying many of the nearly 15,000 artifacts unearthed during the 2017 digging season, the team will present information on the 1700's springhouse find, the chimney/hearth area of the buried stone house, and new data on the cisterns, along with a picture of daily life between 1770 and 1915 at Shingle House as painted by the very large excavated trash pile. They will also share their plans for the upcoming 2018-digging season.
Following the presentation itself, the team will be on hand to provide information on individual artifacts and to answer questions.
For additional information, or to become a member of the Warwick Historical Society, call 845-986-3236 or visit www.whsny.org.
- Roger Gavan