The Lime Concern
The Basin Lime Concern, Phippsburg, Maine is a project in historical archaeology being researched and written by Peter Hutchinson as "The Lime Concern: Local Entrepreneurs in Early Maine Statehood".
The Basin Lime Concern is a circa 1830 lime kiln, ancillary structures, and adjacent lime rock quarry located in Phippsburg, Maine on the shore of Northeast Cove at the Basin, a tidal inlet off the New Meadows River. The enterprise was conducted by two entrepreneurial brothers, Samuel D. and Thomas M. Reed, in company with a local landowner, Captain Timothy Batchelder. Lime rock was quarried from a nearby outcropping, broken up into small pieces, and burned in three field stone kilns built into slopes near the shore. One of the kilns is largely intact, the other two collapsed. The burning process reduced the chemical composition of the calcite rock from calcium carbonate (CaCO3) to calcium oxide (CaO), called "quicklime." Addition of water to quicklime ("slaking") changes the composition to calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2), a powder form called hydrated or slaked lime. The product was used for plaster, and when combined with aggregate, mortar for bricklaying and construction. Lime was also used to "sweeten" acidic Maine soils.
While historians have ascribed relatively small kiln operations like this one as but supplementary adjuncts to local farm economies, the present investigation finds otherwise: that it was an entrepreneurial venture entailing considerable effort and investment, and is an example of proto-industrial enterprise aimed at exploiting a mineral resource for market. It was but one of several similar local ventures involving interrelated families of the town, and its participants are seen as true entrepreneurs during the first decades of Maine statehood.
Site Features:
Kilns: primary and two ancillary kilns, constructed of field stone against shoreline slope.
Log landing platform: constructed of oak logs arranged to provide a landing area supporting shallow-draft sail-driven barges (called gundalows) at low tide.
Quarry: in immediate vicinity, an outcropping ledge of lime rock.
History:
The enterprise took advantage of the lime rock resource, combined with plentiful firewood and water access for easy shipment to markets, long-established (since 1763) by operations at nearby Thomaston and Warren. Shortly after Maine statehood in 1820 there was increased interest in the new state's supposed mineral resources; by the 1830s numerous companies were both formally and informally organized to capitalize and exploit the potential. Local efforts were further instigated by mineral investigations and state geological surveys. Historical research has been to determine when the enterprise was begun, operated and terminated; what it involved in the way of land, construction, equipment, and labor; how the operation was conducted within the context of resources, markets, and governing laws; who was involved in its conception, ownership, and operation; and, with what consequence and outcomes to its participants in relation to the surrounding socio-economic community. Sources include land deeds, probate and other court records, state and local archives, local histories, newspapers and journals of the period, reports of mineral exploration and surveys, town vital records and genealogies.
Archaeology:
The archaeological effort has been to excavate the pit and other components of the primary kiln to determine dimensions, construction, and operation; to determine the structure of the log landing platform and other ancillary components; to recover any artifacts associated with the enterprise; to find and identify other material or physical evidences relating to the operation; and to record related data in detail before the site's features disintegrate with time. As historical archaeology, the object has been to recover meaning from the material remains and documents of record: to understand what it was, and meant, as a tangible fragment of local and state history.
The photo: interior of the lime kiln's "pit" in which lime rock was burned. The rod in foreground measures two meters.
The author: Peter Hutchinson is a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Maine, Orono. He has participated in several archaeological projects in Maine, including annual excavations of the 1607 Fort St. George colony at Popham.
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