FORT PAYNE, Ala. - A group of historians and volunteers in Northeast Alabama is digging up a 180-year-old foundation, a well and an outhouse this weekend, hoping for more clues about the fort that gave this town its name.
On Friday morning, the group began unearthing the foundation stones of a cabin thought to have been owned by a Cherokee who went by the names John Huss and Spirit the Preacher before he was relocated to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears.
Historians believe 1,090 people left the original Fort Payne in October 1838 on the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of many American Indian tribes from the Southeast. An estimated 4,000 died on the trek.
Huss' cabin, built along the since-abandoned Ross's Landing-Willstown Road that led to Chattanooga, remained upright until the 1940s when it was torn down. The chimney still stands at the site, and a few of the foundation stones were visible before the volunteers started digging.
"Privies and wells are great sources for artifacts. People drop things there," said Sharon Freeman, an archaeologist from Northport, Ala., who is coordinating the dig.
Freeman said she and others began planning the excavation 2 1/2 years ago when someone discovered a 20-foot-deep stone-lined well on the property.
Digging started Thursday, and through Friday the diggers had found a metal fire poker, chips of ceramic and a spoon that may date back to the time when the cabin was built.
"We're trying to identify everything we can before it is destroyed," Freeman said.
Olivia Cox, a board member for the Landmarks of DeKalb County historical society, said she hoped the site, which is only a few yards off heavily traveled Gault Avenue, would eventually be excavated to the point where school groups and Scout troops could visit it to learn about the trail, the cabin and the fort.
Cox said she has been in several classrooms and was disappointed that the few students who know there used to be a fort nearby are confused about its origins.
"You say what kind of fort was it?" she said. "Every little hand goes up: Civil War."
Cox said the site is important to adults, too, since it marks one of the final groups of Cherokee to head west.
"This was the last of the Cherokee Nation," she said.
Contact Andy Johns at ajohns@timesfreepress.com or call 423-757-6324.