UA Museum Expedition Uncovers Post-Civil War History

Note: The expedition will be in the field wrapping up Thursday and Friday morning. Reporters are invited. For directions and specific times, contact Randy Mecredy at 205/394-4105.

BRIERFIELD, Ala. — Participants of the 32nd annual University of Alabama Museum Expedition are uncovering the remnants of the historic house site of Josiah and Amelia Gayle Gorgas in Brierfield.

Under the direction of archaeologists Dr. Jack Bergstresser of The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Brandon Thompson of The University of Alabama Office of Archaeological Research, expedition participants have spent the past two weeks mapping, plotting and digging to locate the foundation of a building that served as the home and overseers office of a post-Civil War era industrial site in present day Bibb County.  

A rolling iron mill at the site received iron from the restored Brierfield furnaces situated about three miles away. The furnaces were destroyed by Union troops in the spring of 1865 but were quickly reconstructed after the war during the industrial boom of the post war era.

Gorgas invested untold amounts of capital in the industrial site and spent several years attempting to generate a profit from the failing operation. To recover some of his losses, Gorgas sold the operation and accepted an offer to serve as the president of Sewanee University. He was later appointed as chancellor of the University of Alabama but became ill during his term, and much of the work was completed by his wife Amelia Gayle. The two lived in and raised their family in what is now known as the Gorgas House Museum on the UA campus, one of only four structures that were not destroyed by Union soldiers during the raid of 1865.

“This is an important discovery,” says Randy Mecredy, director of the University of Alabama Museum of Natural History and museum expedition leader.  “The Gorgases have contributed so much to the history of Alabama -and played a very important role at the University.”

In addition to the historic house site, participants have revealed large amounts of evidence of pre-historic occupation of the area. One unit revealed as many as 230 flakes from points and other worked tools dating to the Archaic Paleo- Indian culture.

“We found nails, flat glass, small pieces of decorative pottery and quartz flakes today,” says Hunter Rayfield of Montgomery, who is serving as an expedition team leader and is a recent graduate in the UA geography department. “This has been a growing experience for me, and I have been introduced to a new field of study and learned a lot about the historical significance of this area.”

The Museum Expedition is sponsored by UA’s Museum of Natural History and is now in its 32nd year of operation.  For more information about the museum or the expedition, visit the Web page at www.amnh.ua.edu.