As trees are felled and earth begins to be moved in a week or so for the development of phase I of the Stonehurst Arms housing units, a team of National Park Service archeologists from Tallahassee, Fla., will be monitoring the site and recovering any significant artifacts that are unearthed from the location of the former Elam stand at the Forks of the Road slave market.

This is by no means the preferred manner of conducting archeological assessments or explorations, but it will bring to the activity the best resources that are available.

Due to Chartre’s insurance company requirements, only individuals authorized by the National Park Service will be able to enter the construction site and remove artifacts.

Any historic materials that are recovered will be donated to the NPS for use in future exhibits.

In the best of all cases, the ground disturbance for construction would not be so deep as to disturb any archeological artifacts — so they would remain protected underground for scholarly discovery by future generations.

In the unlikely event that human remains are unearthed, Mississippi’s burial laws will automatically require work stoppage at that location and review at the site by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

It seems that for the past several years, forces of development and preservation have been at cross-purposes here because of a lack of good communication in the community.

The developers have been working to finalize their tax credit applications and architectural plans for this location at the same time that the Friends of the Forks of the Road and the National Park Service have been working to bring an increased level of attention and protection to the general Forks of the Road area — each without an awareness of the other.

I have now met with representatives of Chartre Companies, and I appreciate their cooperation in this endeavor.

Now that they have learned more about the significance of this location, they welcome the placement of historic signage at the site and future historic programming in the community center at the new facility.

The 24 townhouse units that constitute the first construction phase will be concentrated on the four acres in the northwest corner of the site, behind the Farmer’s Market.

The next phase of development will take houses further east along St. Catherine Street/Devereux Drive, past the First Natchez radio station and Southwest Mental Health building down to Concord Avenue.

We will have a window of time of a few months for a better archeological assessment of these acres, including the old brick bridge over Spanish Bayou just west of Concord Avenue that is now buried under kudzu.

Since other sites associated with the Forks of the Road slave market have undergone more extensive 20th-century development that has greatly reduced their potential for yielding archeological information, hopefully real knowledge about the historic use of this particular property may literally be “unearthed” through this process.

 

Kathleen Jenkins is the superintendent of the Natchez National Historical Park.