Charlotte Ostenson 27′

It is week 10 and we are now more than halfway through the semester. This week is our last excavation week before we backfill the units and move our class to a more analytical and discussion based structure. It will be a shame to move class inside because spending all this time outside has made me understand why Philander Chase chose this plot of land for his college. As the weeks go by, we feel more and more at home on Kenyon’s campus, and at the same time, we still feel like Philander Chase’s life at the bishop’s cabin remains a mystery. 

When Chase first saw the hilltop, it was covered in trees and could not possibly seem like a proper college, but he saw something in the land. In an archival record called Bishop Chase’s Reminicences, Chase describes, “on the south end or promontory of this hill… grew some tall oak trees” and construction of the college was started “after the brush was with great difficulty cleared away”. The creation of Kenyon changed the landscape from unbridled forest to manicured campus. But this beautiful landscape is more than just a scenic destination. Just as Chase shaped the land, the land has shaped campus life since its founding in 1824. Our excavation efforts at the Bishop’s Cabin site help reveal the relationship between the inhabitants of Gambier and the natural land. Philander Chase’s first cabin was closer to where the Old Kenyon dormitory is today, but eventually, he moved to the spot that we are excavating now  because there was a well in that area and it would have provided better access to water. Kenyon’s campus was likely first built on today’s south campus because it is much closer to the Kokosing river, but soon enough irrigation technologies allowed for the north campus to be built. 

Through our excavation, I have been hoping to find some things that point towards a way of life in relation to the land. The closest thing we have found to that is a few animal bones that could potentially suggest a background in raising livestock, which would not have been unusual for the time period. Other than that, the nails, glass, and ceramic pieces that we continue to find tell us things about domestic life, but not necessarily the land. To quote our very own Professor Novotny, she said “We’re hoping that this will tell us a lot about what daily life was like, what student life was like, what people were eating”. While we have not found anything quite groundbreaking, it is still a valuable experience to learn about how everyday items of the past can tell us so much about Kenyon’s rich history.