Hamilton County’s Boxley Cabin is Site for IUPUI Archaeological Dig

The grounds of the recently restored home of Hamilton County, Adams Township's first white settler - a 19th century Virginia abolitionist with a $1,000 bounty on his head - will be the site of this summer's IUPUI archeological dig.

The Sheridan Historical Society and the Town of Sheridan, Ind., today (April 24, 2008) will celebrate the restoration of the "Boxley Cabin" with a 4 p.m. dedication ceremony of the Sheridan, Ind., site.

Next month, IUPUI students enrolled in Field Experience in Archaeology, a summer anthropology course running May 7 through June 18, will begin investigating the site's history. Under the supervision of IUPUI Lecturer Chris Glidden, director of the IUPUI archeological lab, the students will dig excavation pits around the restored log cabin and adjacent buildings on the property now owned by the Town of Sheridan.

Volunteers are invited to join the IUPUI class as they look for artifacts that can tell the story of life on the homestead of Adams Township's first white settler, George Boxley.

"This is going to be a public archaeology program," Glidden says. "We encourage the public to come and visit us and we take volunteers." The instructor and her students will provide tours of the site and teach volunteers the skills of excavation and artifact processing.

"They will get to do real archeology," Glidden says, including processing artifacts on site. "They will wash them, bag them, and tag them … real archaeology."

And given the site, "There is going to be a lot of history out there," the lecturer said.

Glidden, along with Anthropology Department Chair Paul Mullins, will join Sheridan residents for the dedication of the restored cabin, located in what is now Veterans Park. According to the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, the cabin dates to 1828, when George Boxley settled in Indiana after 12 years on the run from bounty hunters.

"George Boxley was wanted in Virginia for aiding and abetting a slave revolt," Glidden explained.

Boxley, an outspoken abolitionist who freed his own slaves, was jailed for starting a failed slave revolt - which took place in Spotsylvania, Va., about 43 years before the better known John Brown Raid on Harper's Ferry. Boxley escaped when his wife, Hannah, smuggled a saw into his jail cell. On the run, Boxley moved around the Midwest before he and his family, including 11 children, would settle in the Indiana wilderness.

According to folklore, the Boxley homestead became a station on the Underground Railroad, the network of people who used their homes and other resources to aid runaway African American slaves in route to freedom in either northern states or Canada.

Buildings once on the property include a 1878 Italianate mansion that one of Boxley's sons built adjacent to the cabin. The home was destroyed by a fire in the 1990s.

"IUPUI will be investigating this site with all three historical interests in mind - pioneer archaeology, researching rural activities at a time of great change in Indiana's history and scientifically documenting the occupation of the land by George Boxley and his family; African American archaeology, looking into the home of ( Boxley housekeeper) Nancy Revels ( a free African-American); and investigating a suspected station of the Underground Railroad," according to the course description.

The archeological field school is offered through the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. This year's dig is the first IUPUI archeological field school conducted in Hamilton county and the seventh to investigate African American life. The Sheridan Historical Society invited the IUPUI program to conduct the dig.

The public is invited to join the students on the dig from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each class day, rain or shine. Weekend excavations will also be held on Saturday, May 17, Armed Forces Day; Monday, May 26, Memorial Day; and Saturday, June 14, Flag Day.

Class registration for credit is open to 14 students. To learn more about the field school, or to sign up as a student or volunteer, interested individuals can visit the course Web site: http://www.iupui.edu/~kcganth/ .