The Peyton Randolph House restored.

A historic site that has been painstakingly restored to its early appearance and filled with well-documented furnishings is a wonderful window on the past. Few things are more useful for teaching history. However, historic buildings rarely retain the copious physical and documentary evidence required for a meticulous restoration. The eighteenth-century Peyton Randolph House in Williamsburg, Virginia, proved to be an exception (Pls. I, V). Detailed detective work by archaeologists, curators, conservators, historians, and architectural historians brought forth more information about the house, its setting, contents, and, by extension, its occupants than anyone had thought possible twenty years ago. As a result, a familiar landmark has dramatically changed, and the strong presence of the Randolph family is once again in evidence.

Peyton Randolph (Pl. III) and his wife, Elizabeth Harrison Randolph (Pl. II), known to family and friends as Betty, were among Williamsburg's leading citizens in the quarter century before the American Revolution. A second-generation Virginian and the younger son of Sir John Randolph (c. 1693-1737), Peyton Randolph studied law in London before becoming attorney general of Virginia in 1744. He was later named speaker of the colonial legislature, and on the eve of the Revolution he was unanimously elected president of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was voted president of the second congress as well but relinquished the post to John Hancock (1737-1793) in order to oversee the revolutionary activities of Virginia's General Assembly. Randolph returned to Philadelphia to rejoin the congress in the fall of 1775, but died of a stroke shortly after his arrival. He was fifty-three years old.

Betty Randolph was highly regarded as well. Like most women of the landed gentry in the colonial South, she spent much of her time managing household affairs and directing the slaves who maintained the property she shared with her husband. Yet Betty Randolph was not averse to physical labor. When supplies ran short during the Revolution, she organized the effort to render desperately needed salt from the saline river water. And while most residents fled Williamsburg when the occupying British army brought smallpox, Betty Randolph stayed behind to care for the infected child of an absent family. [1]

Following her husband's death Betty Randolph remained in the Williamsburg house until her demise in 1783. Most of the childless couple's possessions were auctioned, as was the house, which changed hands a number of times during the nineteenth century. Acquired by Colonial Williamsburg in 1938, it was partially restored and opened to the public in 1968. The house soon became one of the foundation's most visited sites, but questions about its original appearance arose almost immediately.

Colonial Williamsburg's archaeologists were among the first investigators to reexamine the site, beginning in 1979. Their explorations produced voluminous information about the Randolphs' gardening, dietary, and domestic practices. They also uncovered the massive foundations of a combination kitchen, laundry, and slave quarter, complete with its original vaulted brick cellar (see Pl. IV). Other foundations showed that the kitchen was attached to the house by a covered way--a structure whose existence was corroborated by the accounts of a brick mason who charged the widow Randolph for repairs in 1778. [2] A host of additional outbuildings were discovered as well, including two dairies, a smokehouse, a granary, and two storehouses, all adjacent to the house. Maps and other documents show that a huge stable and coach house stood at the opposite end of the lot, together with eight acres of pasture and perhaps a garden. [3]

As archaeologists mined the ground, architectural historians sought written and graphic clues to the missing buildings. Early photographs were particularly helpful, among them a picture of the main house of about 1880 that showed the south elevation of the still-standing kitchen (Fig. 1). By locating the exact spot occupied by the nineteenth-century photographer and superimposing the historical image on a large-format camera, the staff was able to determine the missing structure's height and roof pitch. Microanalysis of mortar samples from its intact foundations showed which parts of the kitchen complex were built at the same time as the house and which were later. These and other advanced research tools confirmed that the kitchen structure was the largest domestic outbuilding in early Williamsburg, encompassing two full stories and two thousand square feet of space. Today, thanks to the generosity of several donors, reconstructions of the kitchen building, the covered way, and two other outbuildings stand o n their original sites (see Pl. VI). All were built by hand using only eighteenth-century techniques. Plans call for completing the remaining buildings in the kitchen yard in the near future. These structures not only restore the historic landscape but also provide the opportunity to interpret the lives of the twenty-seven slaves who lived and worked there.

Like the grounds and outbuildings, the main house was carefully examined, and new research techniques led to important discoveries. It had long been clear that the house had been built in two Stages--a square western section and an equally large addition that filled the gap between the house and the structure next door. However, the exact dates of construction were unknown until a dendrochronological study was undertaken. Core samples from the wooden frame of the house were taken and their growth rings compared to those in a larger group of samples collected from living trees in the Chesapeake Bay region. This analysis showed that all the timbers in the old wing were cut between 1715 and 1718 and those in the center wing about 1755, giving the house its present form about twenty years before the Revolution. [4]