Archaeologist at Springettsbury’s Camp Security: ‘If we knew it was here, we wouldn’t have to do this’
Digging to find evidence of Revolutionary War prisoner-of-war Camp Security began near the Schultz House in Springettsbury Township, Pa., and continued outward. (See additional photo by the York (Pa.) Daily Record/Sunday News below.) Also of interest: Camp Security memories tucked inside memoir and Story revives memories of oft-forgotten York County POW camp in World War II and York-area developer: ‘I think we have gone way above and beyond to preserve Camp Security’
Digging for Camp Security artifacts on the grounds of Springettsbury Township’s Schultz house will soon conclude.
The verdict thus far: No remnants of Camp Security.
But at least that dig apparently will allow dig overseers to rule out the acreage surrounding the Schultz House as part of Camp Security’s primary footprint… .
A volunteer checks a screen for pieces of artifacts from dirt dug outside the Schultz House. ‘If we knew it was here, we wouldn’t have to do this,’ archaeologist Steve Warfel, a York native, said. ‘This is very much an exploratory dig, in that regard.’
The efforts has also raised the public profile of the camp and involved the community in a campaign to preserve the land, reportedly the last undeveloped Revolutionary War POW site in the United States.
So far, volunteers have uncovered a clay pipe, a bottle from the 1870s and a prehistoric piece of a tool, a Historic York Inc. spokesman said last week.
The diggers are working around Historic York-owned property that is available to them.
A more promising dig site would be on private land – land owned by a developer who has proposed building luxury homes there.
So, what kinds of things would point to a prisoner-of-war camp site?
Earlier this summer, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission showed off some of the artifacts uncovered in a dig about 30 years ago.
Here is a partial list of artifacts, found in whole or in part:
– Lead shot
– Lead printers type
– Bone buttons
– kaoline (fine clay) pipe fragment
– thimble fragment
– pins
– silver brooch
– buckle
– cuff links
– tumbler glass
– stem ware
– daub, (primitive plaster or mud filler to fill in chinks).
– window glass
– stoneware, redware
– bird bones, deer bones.
