Plans are underway this winter to dig two or three narrow test trenches along the top of the river bank, in hopes of not finding a slot trench connecting the two trenches already uncovered out in the field during the winter of 2005. This negative evidence will, I hope,confirm what I already suspect: that the two trenches were built at different times and for totally different reasons.

The so-called slot trench (the one to the right on the map) is consistently V in shape and regularly 2.5 feet in depth, with clear evidence of squared-up posts seated in the bottom about every eight feet. Along with the back-filled dark loam and gravel, the original builders of the fence or wall threw plenty of turn-of-the-century trash into the mix, including half of an iron curbed bit, an iron shoe buckle (Artifact of the Month for Nov. 2009), and a GR seal to a Rhenish stoneware jug (found down in the slot trench near the shoe buckle).

The other trench is very different in character: somewhat wider than the slot trench, not as deep, and filled with water-worn gravel in a light brown sandy matrix. Not a single artifact has been found in this trench. Since this property belonged to the famous agrarian Edmund Ruffin and I had heard of his attempts to drain this lowland area to make it better for farming, I went to Ruffin's "Incidents of My Life: Edmund Ruffin's Autobiographical Essays" (edited by David F. Allmendinger, Jr.). Ruffin speaks in many places about his "best idea" for draining this alluvial area now known as Broaddus Flats, i.e. the Main Ditch. He describes this feature as being just below his house, Marbourne, and heading due north into the Pamunkey River. This feature has never been discovered in modern times, since it probably was filled in by floodwaters just after the Civil War. Ruffin says that this main ditch had to be dug out many times to maintain a depth of five to six feet throughout (reference
Dec. 1853).

He also describes the "wet land" in both directions from the Main Ditch: "Owing to the general level and low surface, and the very small rate of descent in any direction, and also the extreme stiffness (lack of drainability of the clay subsoil?) of most of the lowest land, much draining was required; and numerous ditches had been formally dug, but nearly every one was left too shallow, etc. etc."

Later in the same text, Ruffin says that he has labored for eight continuous years (since buying Marbourne) to keep these smaller ditches open and sloping properly so that they would be useful as "stream ditches" to transfer water to the river. Plowing teams would simply build a temporary wooden bridge over the ditches to get all parts of the lowlands tilled.

I believe that the ditch on the left side of our attached map is one of Edmund Ruffin's small "stream ditches" in this lower field, now called the River Field, of Broaddus Flats.